Title: Reflections on the underlying environment of contemporary informal, insurrectional, international anarchy
Subtitle: (For a new anarchic manifesto)
Author: Anonymous
Date: April, 2020

Note to the reader

The reflections that we present below are the result of a long dialogue with many voices, which began almost a year ago, between comrades from different parts of the planet with whom we have been maturing the conviction of the need for a frank, honest and authentic debate on different aspects of the anarchic universe of the informal and insurrectional tendency, as the time has come to make it concrete.

In the course of this frank debate, a diversity of opinions emerged on a series of specific themes and points of view, which prompted us to seek their possible solution; which stimulated us to fathom these discrepancies that, at first, seemed insurmountable or almost insurmountable.

It was precisely in the course of these fathomings that unexpected difficulties were revealed, but that undoubtedly has considerable importance in the context of these reflections, which is why our intention is to circulate them in all languages and in all places of the globe, so that the compañeras and compañeros can know them.

We have thoroughly examined the arguments presented and the difficulties that have arisen each time respond to two closely intertwined sets of problems:

  1. the mismatch in the meanings of the words when translating them from one language to another, because in many cases, the specificity of the expression is lost, which is of utmost importance for our reflections;

  2. the various changes in meaning assumed, over time and in a certain language, by words that could be easily translated into another language, but that in some cases are deformed within translation;

  3. The particular use that each variant of the movement has made of certain terms and concepts, especially the younger generations in different parts of the planet — even in the course of a relatively short period of time — so it has been necessary to conceptually adapt these terms so that they do not deviate much from their original meaning, and the underlying thought was not misinterpreted.

We invite our comrades to take into account the efforts made to achieve a document that is as close to the original as possible allowing it to be understood in different languages, and we ask the editors of the different translations to consider all possible mitigating factors so that they achieve this purpose.

Obviously, it will be the understanding, the joy and the confidence of the brothers and sisters that will make the most of all the tensions of the anarchic universe of the informal, insurrectional and international tendency.

Introduction

A spectre looms over the Earth: the spectre of Anarchy.

Against this spectre all the states of the world have conspired in a holy pack; Capital and religions; Democrats and Fascists; globalizers and nationalists; social democrats; populists; and Marxists of all denominations.

Two consequences follow from this fact:

  1. the first is that anarchism is already recognized as a power by the techno-post-industrial-hetero-patriarchal domination that today subdues the world.

  2. the second, that it is time for the anarchists to express themselves in daylight (as well as in the darkness of the night) and before the entire world, their ideas, their tendencies, their desires and, reaffirm their ancestral fight against all Authority, thus updating the black legend of the anarchic spectre with a set of reflections for the 21st Century.

These pages want to be a very modest contribution in this sense and an intransigent exercise of anarchic reaffirmation, building an agenda of dialogues within the motley constellation of groups (and individuals) that make up the informal and insurrectional tendency, for which we put to the consideration of each and every anarchist from different regions of the world, the following framework of analysis, written by various hands from different parts of the planet, gathering the concerns, thoughts and practices of a whole galaxy of tensions beyond language barriers.

Hopefully, this effort will facilitate the necessary theoretical-practical renewal and the updated redefinition of our (fundamental) features, with a special emphasis on radical criticism of power and the ethics of freedom, erecting a new common anarchic paradigm, capable of tempering the current dispersion and attenuating internal discrepancies, recognizing irreducible but always welcome diversities, channeling all the tensions in support of our common substratum and the founding of an international “place / space” that provides the immediate appropriation of all forms of confrontation to the established powers and those to be established.

Faced with the disgusting paralysis of the fractions of the so-called “movement,” which today applaud Power and comply without question to the State’s councils — promoting isolation and “healthy distancing” “social distancing,” — we have to promote more than ever, the anarchic tension and motivate the insurrection to the four winds before the advance of the new system of domination that is brewing (which is much more authoritarian and predatory).

We live in times of pandemics: it is up to us to viralize anarchic sedition to all the corners of the Earth, until there is no trace of what exists!

Let’s keep a healthy distance from Power and start the flame that will spread throughout the meadows!

The necessary destruction of “work”

The right to work, the right to bread has been demanded for a long time, and frankly, at work we are being brutalized […] We, anarchists, feel the humiliation of this fight to flee from hunger and we suffered the offense of begging for a piece of bread that is given to us from time to time, as alms and on the condition of denying or putting our anarchism in the attic of useless agitation (if you do not want to use illegal means to defend your right to life, for you only the cemetery will remain as a resting place).”

Severino Di Giovanni.

The last two decades of the past century and the first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed the seditious awakening of Anarchy, in particular the informal and insurrectionary trend, mainly in Europe and in some countries in Latin America. This anarchic “awakening,” in essence, responds to two factors that over time have been consolidated and intertwined in various ways, beyond the economic situation — partly favorable — that sponsored the ecstatic phenomenon of 1968 and the incomparable experience from Italy in 1977.

The first factor manifested entirely within the anarchist movement, beginning to develop from the criticism of part of the movement itself — in some “territorial” areas — towards the majority of anarchism organized in synthesis structures (generally in federations) and, collaterally, to the organic unions (revolutionary unionists or anarcho-syndicalists).

The second factor — which has a specific impact on the “awakening” — is the definitive collapse of any “truly existing socialism” (since 1989), causing the irrecoverable crisis of Marxist illusions (in all its versions and at the international level) and the most resounding bankruptcy of its ideology. Both factors are complemented as a result of the consummation of a cycle of capitalism, in particular, its predominantly industrial version, and its other political face: the nation-state.

Capitalism and the modern State are two complementary aspects of the socio-economic and political reality that emerged in the Middle Ages, establishing WORK as the dominant element of human life; that is, as one of the constitutive moments of life, artificially dividing this activity into “sectors.” The fact is that since the birth of economic discipline (that is, the study, analysis and interpretation of the various components that contribute to the operation and development of Capital), it has been concluded that only human WORK, coordinated with the production process, is capable of generating profits. Without the use of the human labor force (“productive force”), neither land, nor raw materials, nor all the tools of production (sickle, hammer, loom or industry) would increase the invested capital, making it much more lucrative for the capitalist at the end of the work cycle. Obviously, in the capitalist regime, “work” is a concept that goes far beyond the strict meaning it has (energy and time consumption of proletarian workers; that is, of those who are forced to sell themselves to Capital in exchange for what is necessary for their survival), indiscriminately encompassing a set of activities and moments that are mobilized around the production of profits: the energy of workers in the strict sense, the time that the capitalist spends to better exploit the coordination of the work forces, as well as the time and capital necessary for the financial structures, indispensable in the various production processes. It is precisely the concept of WORK, hand-in-hand with the different ideological interpretations of the different disciplines (positivism, progressivism, historicism and all the other isms), which has sustained the State-Capital to this day. It is not by chance that the slogan accompanying this system was invented with the original accumulation of Capital — “Work ennobles man”; — in a certain way, this motto has marked the passage from the primacy of trade as a source of wealth, to the preponderance of “work” as a source of accumulation, of the “wealth of nations.”

All versions of “socialism,” including anarchism, have never substantially questioned the ideology of work; so that, with the exception of sharp criticisms of capitalism for its harmful and inhuman effects, the historicist version always prevailed — with a strong Marxist influence but indisputably preceded by Proudhon and other predecessors, — according to which capitalism (in its industrial version) represented the upper stage of the development of the productive capacities of the human being, thus determining the macroscopic contradiction of capitalism itself, that is, the socialization of work — for the indispensable collective industrial production — and, the private appropriation — of the capitalists — of a part of the collective work (profit). The advent of the contradiction — the socialization of profits after the expropriation of the means of production by the workers (the proletariat), — meant the realization of social justice in the future; that is to say, the concretion of the egalitarian society in which exploitation, oppression and, the domination of man by man, would be banished forever from the face of the Earth (the ideological representation of the future earthly paradise consummated by one’s own forces of the human species, destined to mature in the course of history the decisive elements in a liberating sense).

It was from this “ideological-cultural” logic and the material dominion of the State-Capital that anarchism, even in its full maturity, developed its paradigm during the decades between the 19th and 20th centuries, to tell the truth, in a very similar way to the socialist and communist parties and movements of their time. The specific anarchist organization and the anarcho-syndicalist organization reflect the preconceived vision of anarchism, focused on bringing together the proletarian forces on a front capable of taking possession of the great means of production to finally socialize them by force and this will give way to the new “libertarian society.” In this “material” moment, everything is related to the production of commodities, therefore, concerning “work” and profit. The essence that dominates capitalist society was never questioned by any of the variants of socialism and it therefore became the central hypothesis of the alleged liberated society of tomorrow.

From this perspective, it is consistent to found the centrality of life — even in the anarchist sphere — in the world of work, in particular in the proletariat and the mechanisms of exploitation (the extraction of profits), and to position itself on these bases in order to materialize the inversion of social relations: the realization of the Social Revolution through the inevitable generalized insurrection that would allow workers to expropriate the great means of production. It is obvious, according to this conception, that the means of production in operation under the dominant capitalist regime are considered indispensable even in liberated society; hence the focus on safeguarding it during the revolutionary insurrectional process for future use. Thus, the revolutionary union organizations, inspired by the foundations of anarchism, become a pivot of transition to Anarchy.

If the Russian revolution of 1917 seemed to have somehow confirmed the anarchist ideas, strengthening the anarcho-syndicalist project, the Leninist-Bolshevik counter-revolution caused a first setback which allowed the best “Russian” anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism to survive communist extermination, being forced into exile, in a way, dazzled by the Bolshevik methods, which led them to pose the hypothesis of a specific organization — rigid and extremely disciplined — that supposedly would compete with the Leninist party: the “Archinov Platform.” In reality, it was an efficient pantomime with partisan pretensions, which could never overcome the critical analysis of the most prominent anarchists of the 1920s (Errico Malatesta, Camilo Berneri, Sebastián Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, among others).

The truth is that the prevailing vision of the vast majority of anarchism of the time never put the foundations of capitalist society under the scrutiny of criticism, with work remaining as the backbone of the revolutionary anarchist project and as the axis of anarcho-syndicalism. In the context of the Spanish revolution of 1936–1939, some of the macroscopic limits of this particular conception emerged — in all their gravity — that have always privileged a specific moment in human experience instead of favoring its symbiosis with all other moments of life.

“Work,” however it is understood, like any other moment of life and of the same struggle against any system of domination, cannot represent — in an experience free of any type of coercion — a privileged moment from which the rest of the moments of life must “adjust.” It is in the framework of the State-Capital — where the extraction of the surplus (profit) is absolutely essential to satisfy the needs of Capital and the gigantic bureaucratic, military, political and ideological machine (the State), — that the “material base,” that is, — work and the organization of production, — represents the fundamental pillar around which all the other moments that make up the whole of human life fit together, when coerced. In the fabric of the State-Capital, the “reason for being” of human life is fragmented into “work time,” “free time,” “rest time,” etc., as long as these are the needs of the Capital and the State — and this applies for our time, — demanding, not “overcoming” the fragmentation of life, but the interchangeability of the different moments, reducing the totality of life to a single (variable) function dependent on the “production” flows themselves: life is always and only “work” time, that is, time for goods and therefore for profit.

The conceptual horizon that western modernity (Nation-State and Capital) has determined on a planetary level in the course of its stormy history — in which “work” prevails — has penetrated both the collective unconscious and the conception of life of the people who have managed to structure our way of thinking and behaving, imposing a “universal” cognitive device at the service of human domestication that prevents the emphasis and power of the insurrection from being deployed, leaving more and more room for excesses of positivity. So much so that, over the last decades — after capitalist restructuring, — the traditional revolutionary criticism has not been able to make the slightest dent in the system of domination: all attempts at “change” have been trapped in its machinery of repression.

Focusing now on the anarchist sphere, it should be noted that within our stores, only the insurrectionary and informal tendency — carried to the last theoretical-practical consequences — has been able to open the doors to a powerful seditious gesture against all authority, making the anti-capitalist and anti-state struggle in our days feasible, managing to question and confront the existing social-politics, thus adapting the anarchic struggle to the reality of contemporary exploitation and oppression, with a pronounced emphasis on the necessary destruction of work.

And it is precisely because of the new version of “work” born by the application of new technologies, that the new production model has been achieved, minimizing the contributions of human force in the work cycle and in manufacturing commodities. In this way, the adaptation of minds to the needs of the commodity has increased inordinately, taking away the ability to distinguish between real and induced needs, which has determined the exchange between real and virtual goods, thus strengthening the new version with the beloved capitalist slogan: “work mobilizes people” , instead of the old-fashioned motto: “work ennobles man.”

Since the middle of the industrial era, unprecedented commodities have been “invented” (we think of plastic, for example), along with a large range of objects of wide consumption that, however, only satisfy induced needs. Advertising is not only the promotional advertisement of some basic product, but it is also a product in itself, whose consumption produces profits for those who do not participate in any production chain of real goods! The unemployed — the eternal “unemployed” — in addition to representing a real dam for the demands of those who still retain their jobs in various sectors of production, are producers of real profits from the moment they consume “advertising.” This reality has been overvalued as the system has spread disproportionately, through the daily introduction of new technologies on a global scale, increasingly systematized in a fully interconnected complex.

The manipulation of natural resources is modifying all living organisms, transforming them into goods prevented from their autonomous reproduction: people themselves, along with other non-human animals, gradually adapt to the needs of total expropriation by monopolies and the competition between the giants of the techno-sciences constantly causes new adaptations that devastate the few remaining spaces of autonomy and wild nature, both for living beings and for ecosystems. The competitive strategy — being the first to invent and/or add something new, in order to dominate the market and be a leader in post-industrialism — has become a daily struggle where people from all corners of the planet are dragged into the bottomless whirlpool of innovation, reproducing the system of destruction, causing the depletion of all resources, the irreversible contamination of different environments, activating increasingly bitter and bloody conflicts, and driving unpunished genocides.

In such a context, where the machinery of production itself is objectively predisposed to transience and immediate convertibility according to the rhythms of fleeting consumption and the equally fleeting temporality of the goods — virtually subject to the changes that make the perennial advertising campaign in favor of “innovation,” — traditional work, once carried out by the

proletariat, has lost all functionality. The specialist, the professional laborer, and the skill of the worker are no longer necessary: all this has been superseded by standardization and the supersonic speed of the new rhythms dictated by the technological excess of the entire production cycle. What is required today is full availability, day and night, 365 days a year, with flexible hours, depending on the immediate and urgent order that must be provided before the competitor can do the same at a much lower cost.

What once seemed to be (and was believed to be) the most powerful weapon of the workers — the organizing tool and the union struggle — in this context, not only represents a forceful weapon at the service of this amazing system, but even assumes the role of one of its main pillars along with other, no less important, supports.

But let’s try to go deeper into this topic, to make it clear once and for all.

The use of the steam engine and later of the internal combustion engine and electricity, allowed the replacement of human and animal power, as well as the other natural forces (water and wind) exploited as driving forces, generating the gigantic industrial development of the last two centuries. The goods produced on a large scale, although commercialized in the state capitalist system, generally satisfied the real needs of its consumers. From the point of view that the revolutionary forces conceived the overcoming of society — without questioning capitalism itself, — assigning an unquestionable value to the production of goods necessary for human existence, the continuous production of goods, new energy sources applied to industry and the forging of new tools for work and production (tractors to work the land, the train for human and mercantile transport, etc. come to mind), it seemed essential to prolong all this paraphernalia even for a post-revolutionary society The union organization of workers in industry and land, understood in its revolutionary terms, was consistent with the sum of the demands of the proletariat demanding decent wages, working hours consistent with a tolerable existence, healthful jobs and, the conquest of increasingly advanced social conditions (pension, guaranteed medical care for all, etc.), but, when a legion of conscious exploited people sets out to assault and expropriate the historical expropriators of the means of production with the intention of consummating the socialized self-management, not only of the instruments of work, but of the work itself and its integral fruit, this powerful weapon (union organization) becomes obsolete.

Of course, not even the anarchists themselves were able to glimpse — except for honorable exceptions sporadically and very superficially — the enormous contradiction inherent in any form of unionism. Limited to bargaining with the class enemy, in search of improvements in conditions and workers’ immediate reactions during partial struggles — the ultimate goal, in fact, was to announce the future revolution, ignoring the underlying issue. In the same way that we overlook so many issues that, today, we cannot ignore, much less postpone due to the seriousness of the threats — think, for example, of the poisoning of the land, water and atmosphere or in the depletion of resources or the extermination of species, just to have a brief idea of what we mean.

The conception of the final objective, fruit of the conditions of the domination of industrial capitalism, matured in the working class what we could define as a true “culture,” that is, a “world order” where everything revolved around “work” — as an instrument and place of production of everything essential for human life, as the centrality of life, of knowledge, of interpersonal relationships and of people’s relationship with Nature, understood as an inexhaustible space / object, available to satisfy the needs of humankind.

Currently, in the midst of the structural mutation of capitalism, with systems of production that, in most cases, satisfy induced and/or false needs, simply useful for the total and totalitarian manipulation of what exists, where the superfluous disguises itself as indispensable and the instruments of production are exclusively functional to these commodities, what inheritance could we receive if it is not everything that is becoming garbage today?

What “work” would we inherit that is not assisting “machines” that navigate alone — both with respect to rhythms and forms, objects, and commodities that overwhelm our existence and destroy life as we knew it until recently?

What kind of consciousness can we inherit if not the misery derived from the dispossession perpetrated during the last decades by this integrated system of technologies specifically developed to reduce to zero, our personality, our capacity and our inventiveness, from the hand of the manipulation of all living organisms?

What “culture” can we inherit? Could this jumble of attitudes, behaviors and satisfactions — dependent on the alienation of desperate people who cling to the goods they consume or aspire to consume in an increasingly impetuous maelstrom that makes them producers and reproducers of a system that has reduced them to appendices integrated into the mechanisms of production of real and virtual goods — offer another dream that is not to replicate models specifically designed for depersonalized entities?

Or, perhaps, will we inherit this disintegration of relationships — burnt with the demolition of traditional industry and its conversion into robotic factories and computer media — where precariousness, absolute servitude and the interchangeability of parts, makes workers equally miserable and therefore substantially useless?

Of course, both here and there — in the First and in the other dependent worlds — there are still concentrations of culture, knowledge, relationships, language, people’s attitudes, in more or less small towns and communities, places of work and social spaces that still remain outside the system. But these are scenarios that, in all cases, hardly count in the general context: their survival responds more to the current lack of interest and to the failings of the contemporary State-Capital than to their own vitality. The ones that really count, and impose their law, are the dominant structures that have incorporated all breath of life into their devices.

But if we have nothing to inherit from the structures of domination — unless we deceive ourselves and persuade ourselves that the contemporary model of “civilization” (with its material and spiritual elements) can really be useful in creating habitable environments for all living beings, without rulers or ruled, without servitude or masters, without genders and anthropocentric privileges — consequently it follows that EVERYTHING has to be necessarily destroyed. And if we also recognize that the “proletariat,” in its meaning of “working class” — that is, as a “truly revolutionary monolithic class” that matures its consciousness (from “class in itself, to class for itself”), transforming itself into a “subject of history “and therefore, in the force opposed to the State-Capital, destined to destroy private property and build communist society — disappeared from the face of the Earth with the restructuring of the capitalist system, we will have to accept then that it turns out illusory to deposit our insurrectional desires into something non-existent.

Consequently, we will also have to admit that the union — the workers’ organization, or what the current simulation of the organization of workers conscious of its own role in the class struggle means — can only perform tasks in complicity today with the accommodation, stability and rationalization of the new structures of exploitation, oppression and extraction of profits, establishing itself as one of the fundamental pillars of the prevailing system. All the more so if all the hypotheses about a future earthly paradise beyond the empire of State-Capital structures have disappeared from the mental horizon!

Once the fog that prevented the reflective reading of the current capitalist structure has been dispelled, we only have to draw a first conclusion: from the entire historical present as a whole and, specifically, from the sphere of “work,” there is NOTHING we can use in a hypothetical liberated future, EVERYTHING has to be demolished to its foundations — a single stone that remains will be the immediate pedestal on which the new forms of centralized power will be erected and, therefore, of domination over all living things. Awareness of the gravity of current conditions calls for the urgency of destruction.

The speed with which the current mechanisms of exploitation are imposed, irretrievably destroying the little that remains of life and untamed habitat, determines the immediacy of the destruction:

  1. to prevent the completion of the project of death and modification, the destruction of all the wild, the depletion of residual resources, the catastrophe of ecosystems, the robotization of humans and other non-human animals;

  2. to interrupt the centripetal force of the definitive planetary centralization of domination, otherwise we will witness in the immediate future the total and irreversible collapse of all hypotheses of autonomous life and coexistence in freedom, today severely compromised by uprooting and dispossession of the historical-cultural features themselves and their dispersion in the maze of consumerism and the grossest addiction.

At the beginning of this document, we point out the energetic rebirth of anarchism in our days, in particular, of its informal and insurrectionary tendency, widely spread in some regions of the planet, highlighting how the multiple contemporary tensions have not only managed to overcome the fossilization of the movement — suggested by nineteenth-century theses and stagnant theories around the organization and methods of attacking the system of domination — but also how they have managed to identify the different weaknesses of the system as a whole.

And, it is precisely from this reflection, that it becomes necessary to rotate 360 degrees if we truly want to be much more incisive in our attack. But that will only be possible if we manage to articulate all the available tensions, embodying a theoretical-practical power capable of concentrating the attack in a destructive sense against the strategic points of domination.

It is evident, in fact, that no individual or group action, no matter how forceful, has the ability to stab the dagger into the enemy with the depth required to cause its collapse. In the best of cases, we have caused injuries, but they are immediately mitigated, recovering ipso facto. That has been the scenario that we have faced in recent decades.

However, we can and must forge much more, overcoming limits and deficiencies, breaking the conceptual framework that constrains everything that happens in our day, eradicating — from today — any possibility of restructuring the control mechanisms and maximizing all the revealed energy so far, both in terms of analysis and destructive action, preventing at all costs being immobilized by fear.

Only by overcoming the ideological-moralistic contradiction “illegality” / “legality” and with permanent individual and group self-determination, can work and the society that produces it be destroyed!

Towards permanent insurrection: For the radical destruction of what exists

“Face to face with the enemy, without mediation or management: this is the currency and the emblem of a practice of intervention, orientation and anarchist potentiality”

Rafael Spósito

Let us put it this way: perhaps it is nothing more than a simple matter of “faith,” but we note that there is no deaf person who does not want to hear or who is blind who refuses to see. Therefore, we know that it is a battle lost beforehand — and energies diverted from the attack — trying to persuade the eternal guardians of “holy scripture” around the urgency of renewing our theory and practice with an updated redefinition of our strokes. Those who do not hear or want to see the need for a new anarchic course in the contemporary context — in the face of the restructuring of capitalism and the State, under the kingdom of new technologies — are those who today thicken the set of obstacles facing the present development of anarchism.

Those who still remain anchored to the traditional model of “classical anarchism,” in their organizations of synthesis and/or in specific parties — rigidly structured in true bureaucratic apparatuses where, inevitably, they delegate studies of “conjuncture” and draw conclusions, instructing from the pulpit of what to do to thwart the advance of domination — they no longer contribute anything to us with their ideological vision and their mediated version of the struggle. Until they end up as confessed informants and/or minions of the social-historical present, they should be completely indifferent to us, except for the role they play in terms of propaganda (completely opposite to our reflections).

The ideological prejudice of those “deaf” and “blind” against the insurrectionary tendency is increasingly evident, with special pedantry against the informal organization, making capricious distinctions between a so-called “do-gooder informalism” — much more tolerable — than it invites the community to spread mutual aid and other, extremely unacceptable and consequently insurrectional, which constantly encourages an attack on domination and “endangers the movement” in general and “organized anarchism” specifically.

Contrary to the prejudices of rigid organizations and their outdated ideology, we focus our interest on all these negations in motion. We focus our gaze on the set of emerging anarchic tensions — from lone anarcho-nihilist wolves to queer insurrectionalism, to name a couple of concrete examples — that study the enemy to immediately know where to hit with all their might. Tensions that, using the current language that seems to have taken root in this portion of the anarchic galaxy, are identified with the so-called “anarchism of praxis,” that is, with organizational informality and permanent insurrectional practice.

However, within our own universe, concepts are frequently used that — either as an affirmation of identity or, with the intention of distinguishing ourselves from other struggles and/or distancing ourselves from the prevailing immobility — sometimes create more confusion on the scene, involving a thick fog over the clarity that is indispensable for the advance of anarchic warfare and the forging of a common substrate.

In this sense, it is possible to locate, based on this sort of “worldview,” conceptual displacements and relocations that, taken together, imply a turn that perhaps fits to qualify as “radical” and, in fact, tries to reorganize the field of understandings and meanings.

However, sometimes we encounter true distortions that, without intending to, cease to accompany their insurrectional encouragement with the uncompromising reaffirmation of our principles. Thus, we continually find how the very concept of “anarchism of praxis” is sometimes reduced to its minimum expression.

Definitely, the anarchic action cannot be dissected as if it were a carrot that we try to cut into slices, each of which is digestible or not in isolation. Any anarchist action, from the perspective of practical anarchism, involves a set of factors — analysis and identification of the enemy, general evaluation of the project (of which one can be a part), attack and; then, systematization and elaboration of theory from practical experience, etc. The opposite would be to restrict our struggle to the limited performance of a group of specialists. For this reason, we consider it appropriate that the concept of “anarchism of praxis” includes this set of factors, and not only “destructive action itself.”

It is evident that anarchism of action is that which does not remain just an “idea,” that is to say, that is it not limited to intellectual elaboration, but is translated into actions of concrete attack on the prevailing system of domination, giving life to Anarchy. However, it should be added that sometimes not everything that is designed as a possible “concrete action” turns into an “effective” attack, since conditions may arise that impede its development.

Definitely, the concept in question should not be limited to those who carry out the destructive action, but must involve all the accomplices who carry out an endless number of parallel tasks, facilitating the final action: from expropriation — first providing the necessary inputs for the attack and, later, facilitating the editing / printing of theoretical materials elaborated from practical experience — up to the analysis based on the action carried out. In this way, the old concept of “direct action” is framed in the same reasoning and is complemented by the idea of “action anarchism,” no longer reduced to the classic schemes of action of the (almost) extinct labor movement, from the strike — industrial sabotage and boycott — nor as an expression solely applicable to our destructive actions but as a basic characteristic of this profile and anarchic position.

Similarly, there are other concepts that are used as an “identity” that are used with some confusion. In this sense, we consider that it is very presumptuous to assume ourselves as the sole bearers of certain talents in order to differentiate ourselves from the “others.” For example, with the improper use of the definition of “individualist anarchist,” perhaps we intend to monopolize a trait that, as anarchists, is indisputable and that applies to everyone; that is to say, that all the anarchists agree that no human group, large or small, should force the integration of people, but on the contrary, we consider it vital to increase individuality, their power and their capacities.

As anarchists, we are aware that any “union,” however well intentioned, always requires the renunciation of individuals to full availability of themselves. Being unique — we are not equal! — each one seeks to associate by what they have in common with each other, not what distinguishes us and separates us from the others, otherwise coordination would be impossible. However, we consider that coordination is feasible in specific moments and situations and, with previously agreed purposes, without giving up our tactical and strategic self-determination (precisely, that is the purpose of concretizing an internationalist insurrectional space).

Of course, it will always be possible to demonstrate, particularly in our days that everything has been clarifying — although, it was not so from the beginning, — that the performance of certain “anarchists” has never been lacking (especially in the past, but also in today) that have imposed absurd limits through bureaucratic organizations, full of “declarations of principles,” “statutes,” “rules” and, a thousand other restrictions. However, when taking stock and examining the past, we cannot forget the reflections of the time, that is, the prevailing “mentalities,” the outdated readings that were made of the world and the order that was assigned to the set of things and events. Finally, we cannot ignore the fascination that existed and, unfortunately still exists in certain sectors, for quantitative development — verifiable both in union and synthesis organizations, — betting on arithmetic growth as if by the mere fact of growth they could possess all the “positivities,” eliminating a priori any difficulties, including resignations, authoritarian attitudes and betrayals that arose here and there at key moments in the anarchist movement. Not to mention the distortions of “anarcho-populism” which has been taking shape in our days, an ideological cocktail (tested in the laboratory from two ingredients: the old platformism and a kind of postmodern Leninism, mixed in equal parts and served at the same time) that drives “progressive governments” in the name of “Popular Power.”

Of course, it may be worth clarifying — to avoid a misinterpretation of the above — that when we point out the “improper use of the definition of an individualist anarchist,” it does not mean that we do not recognize the historical presence of these lone wolves and wolves within the insurrectional and informal trend (capable of eliminating tyrants and shaking the dominion — and the voluntary servitude — of their time) and their tremendous contributions to anarchic conflict, even today, with their daring actions against all authority. Inadmissible emphasis that is sometimes made by some affinity groups, in frank contradiction with their own postulates, sometimes even entangling and exacerbating really non-existent differences in our tendency.

Another concept that is also often tossed around and used as a “universal remedy” is affinity. Instead of being understood as an “organizational” practice against the rigid structures of the “formal organization,” it is now used as an “anti-organization” criterion or as a “community coexistence structure” — as some “anarcho” put it (outdated liberals, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, renouncing the attack) — which increases confusion and introduces contradictions even where there were none (and where they should not exist!).

Specifically, it has been within the framework of specific events of the anarchist movement and through internal debates that have been articulated at different times, that the meaning of “informality” (that is, of “informal groups” and/or “informal organization “) has acquired its own specificity. So much so that, for example, the specific “informal groups” have also operated within union organizations and specific organizations (for example the group “We” in the Spanish Libertarian Movement). Therefore, it is evident that informality (of “groups”) can also be contained within rigid organizational structures that consider themselves “formal,” not so much and not only because they assume it in their name, but because they are structured in this way, they were established for this purpose and have internal evaluations and operational parameters that persist more or less stable over time, or that change according to established agreements.

In short, even within the “formal organizing machine,” informal groups can act (and have acted). However, it is from the dynamics and debates of the last decades of the last century that the concept of “informality” contrasts as an organizationally valid proposal to go beyond the limits and overcome the contradictions of the historical anarcho-syndicalist and organizations of anarchist synthesis-specificism: the formalization of relationships within an outdated machinery that requires time and energy, with its bureaucratic obstacles and pre-established forms of relationships, sucking the blood of its associates. To top it all, in a system that pursues its own times at a speed increasingly out of human reach. In this context, the organizing tool becomes an end in itself, not a useful means for the purposes for which it was conceived! Hence, the need to equip ourselves with new tools, new forms of organization, to adapt the anarchist struggle to the new dominant structures, improving immediate relationships between comrades, which with their fluidity redefine organizational needs to face new vicissitudes and dynamics, both internal and external.

Although the association of male and female comrades in affinity groups can go far beyond the limits and contradictions of the rigid structures of the organic unionists or of synthesis — by establishing themselves in direct relationships that favor, among other things, personal knowledge. Mutuality and intimacy — obviously, this organizational form by itself, does not guarantee that certain difficulties will not appear that only with the perennial dedication of each one can “eradicate.” For example, the same diversity of personalities — with different preparation, experience, and capacity for synthesis and analysis — that make up a group, determine the appearance of “natural leaders” (not wanted or desired but completely spontaneous). There have always been personalities who do more than others and, sometimes, do it better than others, and obviously, cannot be forced to measure themselves with the same parameters of an “equality” misunderstood as for “everyone” and “all.” Therefore, valuing the wealth and contribution of each person to the work of the “affinity group,” for the sake of the project to be shared in the fight against what exists, does not exclude the individual responsibility of each person in the face of the internal relations that are established.

From this point of view, even affinity does not guarantee us anything. It will always be the individual permanent tension that continually creates the features necessary to confront thespontaneous” moments of authoritarianism and individual and/or collective arrogance, avoiding the formation of spaces of power and centralizing attitudes, in the same way that surely it will happen on any hypothetical morning (The State did not emerge from the shadow of a magician, but from the condition that precedes the centralization of power!).

Another concept that is well worth a pause to reflect on is “Nihilism.” In fact, if we take it out of the poetic context and place it in front of the reading of the concrete scenario, it will be evident, for everyone, that its use is common to many of the tensions that animate contemporary anarchism (informal and insurrectionary). It is also indisputable that this concept has had a presence in our ranks for more than a century, counting on connoted figures with a long insurrectionary trajectory who in their time called themselves anarcho-nihilists.

Thus, let us begin by pointing out the two meanings of the term “Nihilism”: although it is an expression that is used in the nominative and accusative. On the one hand, it can be used as a synonym for “nothing,” in the sense of “emptiness” or, “nūlla res” , that is, the absolute absence of some “thing” (or reality); but it can also refer to “nothing” in a precise, predefined, determined way, whose conformation can emerge from the indeterminate of stable and/or changing forms.

Now, if we admit that from the parameters of contemporary anarchism, the safeguard of the founding elements of the current system of domination is excluded beforehand, understanding the uselessness and/or harmfulness of these in the possible “future society,” it is consistent to assume that the futuristic society lacks a sketch or scheme that we can define and/or describe today. If we have to immediately destroy everything that exists — for the reasons that we summarize succinctly — it is clear to us that we are necessarily and stubbornly “nihilistic” in the second sense of the word.

So, the supposed radical difference disappears, in fact, there is no difference in this way of understanding things, between those who identify as individualistic anarchists and nihilists and do not aspire to a “preconstituted anarchism,” on the one hand and, on the other, those who are also insurrectional anarchists but do not exclude the hypothesis of the possible participation of a sector of the excluded within the destructive dynamics of the insurrection and, at the same time, they do not bet on a hypothetical “pre-constituted anarchist society” either.

Here, the old plot of the individual-society reappears along with the differences between the so-called “pure” individualist anarchists and the so-called “social” anarchists, but beyond the labels with which we decorate ourselves, it is clear to us that history is not ordered “ontologically,” but is made up of readings and interpretations of political-cultural and social dynamics, mediated (why not?) by particular sensitivity and individual tendency. But beyond this obviousness, which has its own reasons, are there general and particular contexts that some prefer to exclude definitively, as much as they are necessary, while others admit that there are still possibilities of some type of participation of the “social sectors” in the destructive-insurrectional process?

We often resort to the demonstrations that History offers us to definitively conclude that each “Revolution” (in its meaning of “popular uprising against the existing” — or generalized insurrection) has always led to new centralized powers (read dictatorships) and that, per se, it is alien and an enemy of anarchism, since we fight against centralized power itself. But, as soon as we move a little beyond this conclusion, and begin to distinguish between “insurrection” and “Revolution” and/or, we consider the “revolutionary possibility” and the eventual “social participation” in our day, the discussion prevails (and is often inflamed) because those who hold one position or another have an abundant argumentative arsenal, and it is that these differences are far from being minor because they exceed academic rejoicing and are installed in the justifications of practical and organizational formulations in and around the actuality or obsolescence of the “revolutionary project” and, even, they connect with the differences around the quantitative vision and the consequent immobility implicit in waiting for “objective and subjective conditions” (that is, the intended awakening and stretching of voluntary servitude) for the “imminent” concretion of the generalized insurrection, which inevitably causes disagreements and controversy as generally irreconcilable.

Faced with this dilemma, there are comrades who choose to cut the discussion and put it in black and white: “either we consider that there are concrete possibilities of definitive destruction of the historical present, or we believe that there is none.” In this way, they conclude that those who think that there is no possibility, “volatilize in advance any thought about the hypothetical liberated tomorrow and have their souls at peace, since they eliminate the problem regarding the necessary affinity between means and ends and all planning of the destruction of the present and what follows.” And indeed, it could be concluded that by minimizing and/or denying the possibilities of reaching the “end,” “the means” are automatically despised. However, it weighs on the iconic anarchic reflection (“the means condition the end”) in response to the Machiavellian maxim (“the end justifies the means”). In truth, the choice of means for the anarchists goes always accompanied by our ethical principles (decidedly anti-authoritarian) and is not conditioned by the desired hypothetical end.

Of course, those who pose the impossibility of a seditious rupture in our days and assure that any “Revolution” will once again lead to dictatorship — even more under the conditions that today a much more authoritarian multicenter hypercapitalism imposes, thanks to technology and the genetic redefinition of all living organisms — they are not far behind when pronouncing before those who consider the final destruction of the system of domination to be feasible, insisting on the “expiration of the analysis” and the “ideological reading” of the defenders. of the “postmodern revolutionary project.”

But if there are still comrades who consider that there are possibilities of destruction of the centralized system of power, therefore, they should better assess the correlation of forces and interactions that are currently taking place. In this case, the “iron will” of the warrior, or of the coalition of warriors and warriors, will not be enough to bring down the enemy. Exactly, in this dynamic, the “anarchist movement” (in its historical integrity) has always presented itself as a seditious entity — with the temperate objective of radically destroying the institutional structure — which, by rejecting any hypothesis regarding the conquest of power, places the “insurrectional” event as the defining moment of the enemy’s destruction. However, it is evident that the current conditions are not the same as a century ago. Of course, this statement does not represent a priori negation of social sedition. If the long-awaited generalized insurrection were to take place tomorrow, we are convinced that it will be welcomed by all the components (individual and collective) of the trend, always passing it and guiding it towards Anarchy. This does not mean that we are willing to be surprised by the generalization of the struggle of the excluded sectors, but rather that we are attentive to every seditious outbreak in order to exacerbate it to the ultimate consequences.

The fact that at present, the informal and insurrectionary anarchist tendency recognizes the inability to preserve any elements of the system for future use and focuses on the destruction of what exists, thus leaving the future open to “nihilism” — making clear that there is nothing defined or definable in the present — it does not affect in any way its validity or the importance of its actions. However, domination and power do not disappear at all. So much so that there is no anarchic tension — in the context of the trend that concerns us — that does not take it into account and, more or less, does not try to “solve it”; frequently, with a certain candor and others, with totally miraculous illusions, despite dealing with the subject in concrete terms.

As a result, we sometimes meet comrades who, innocently, inscribe their illusions in the same logic of power relations without questioning themselves too much, and envision the anarchic struggle as a battlefield where two blocks face each other for the sake of definitive victory; some bet only on the propaganda that would emanate from the destructive action itself, considering it even more efficient if it is accompanied by explicit statements; others put their illusions on the “contagion” of destructive action and choose anonymity, reducing seditious action to a simple matter; and, of course, there are those who, on the other hand, cling to the awakening of voluntary servitude and similar positions, typical of “anarcho-social” ruminations, overcome by events and dynamics of the historical present that, continually, render any general hypothesis obsolete — valid everywhere and for everyone — of subversive-destructive intervention.

And it is precisely around these topics that another old concept that is quite beaten in our days emerges: “propaganda by the deed.” Historically, this concept has had its very particular meaning in anarchist circles, being authentically defined as the spread of the anarchic ideal through direct violence against domination, either through the physical elimination of the representatives of Power and/or, by the attack on its infrastructure or its most emblematic facilities (government buildings, police stations, army barracks, the judiciary, the legislature, churches, etc.). As indicated by the combination of words, this active dissemination of the anarchist ideology, does not require the intervention of words, since it is the “fact” itself that expresses the meaning of the action, so it does not need to be accompanied by any claim . To this conception, the reflections of the epoch — inspired by the aspirations of “raising the consciousness of the proletarian masses” — that yearned for the general appropriation of revolutionary methods, were combined, so it was recommended not to claim the actions to get their imitation by the majority of the exploited.

However, it was never entirely true that “propaganda by the deed” was limited solely and exclusively to what the action itself “expressed.” On the contrary, most of the time it was accompanied by posthumous letters and/or manifestos signed by its executors — generally published in the anarchist newspapers of the time — where the reason for the action was explicitly narrated or, failing that, the facts were vindicated in exalted editorials glorifying the “martyrs of Anarchy” and exposing the just motivations that led them to proceed against domination.

Certainly, most of the “propaganda for the deed” actions, with very few exceptions, were carried out by anarchist comrades who acted motivated by their convictions and/or in retaliation for the executions of their comrades. The “imitation” of the actions by the excluded social sectors was never verified (whether motivated by anonymous events or by editorial demands), on the contrary, the “contagion” was manifested among the anarchists themselves who easily deciphered the message from their comrades and they also chose to abandon the wait for the “revolutionary conditions” and overcame the fear of the omnipotent power by acting in total complicity.

In the framework of the dynamics of contemporary anarchism, where each component seeks “its” solution, far from increasing the differences, fundamental common points constantly emerge for all interested parties. In the first place, we detected that the absolute departure from the “social” is not entirely true for any anarchic component, since — although they declare not to take it into account — they often call for intensifying our actions and exceeding the limits every time the slightest outbreak of social explosion presents itself. On the other hand, it is also not true that the alleged “antisocials” do not have an eye on the post-insurgent possibility, since they openly reaffirm being as attentive to the future as they are to the present, with the determination to nip in the bud any attempt at centralized manifestation of power no matter how “revolutionary” it is assumed; they simply do not want to restrict the present with narrow parameters or give a determining connotation to what could be hypothetically built tomorrow on the ruins of the present.

In this same situation, the “others” are also inscribed, those who still remain anchored in the rigid and bureaucratic organizations. Although this sector is wrong in pursuing totally irrelevant paradigms in the current context of struggle, it is undeniable that they do not give up in their attempt for staying as close as possible to concrete reality, without renouncing — despite our constant reproaches — any of the anarchic yearnings, aware that only permanent insurrection opens the possibility of concrete confrontation with the system of domination, without not even knowing what they intend to impose what will happen in the hypothetical post-insurgency.

For now, it is possible to appreciate a kind of general “approach,” as a diagnosis of the informal and insurrectionary anarchic tendency, highlighting and recognizing that within it there are irreducible diversities with their tensions, preferences and ways of approaching the immediate destruction of what exists. But this fact does not hinder the development of our shared substratum nor does it hinder our ancestral objectives of destroying all domination, but rather it paves the way for smoothing out roughness — often exacerbated — and consolidating understandings. Hence the proposal to concretely exceed the current limits and deficiencies from the perspective of a possible renewed anarchic paradigm that can no longer be limited to any “regional” space, but demands the leading role of internationalist networking and its consequent insurrectional projection.

Then we see the abandonment of all our certainties, the absolute indolence against the bureaucratic rituals of rigid organizational containers, the imperious rejection of the inviolable and we go on to explore the infinite possibilities of new practices that can provoke and promote chaos, bringing new tensions to life that become mobile and are recognized more in life’s paths than in the deadly stability of fixed places. Today, the foreseeable stories no longer carry on and desires are concentrated in the ruthless attack on all forms of power, they are nourished in the pleasure of permanent insurrection and the passion for surprise, exalting the discovery of the new.

The possible anarchic paradigm against the current technological domain system

Unfortunately, some of our own stepped aside, defeated by the progress of the reaction; others were seduced by the offers of the enemy. But the best remain in our ranks, and occupy the most dangerous places in the anarchist movement. Many, because of anger, for some other phrase or for words spoken without reflection, for purely personal reasons or ideological differences, instead of seeking understanding and solidarity, hated and slandered each other, wasting time and much energy, leaving aside the propaganda in the newspapers to give space to purely personal writings, while the reaction advanced, organizing against us. When we found out, we found enemy bayonets and machine guns aimed at our chests.

In recent times, these internal conflicts have been somewhat reconciled, but I have observed and read that there are still traces of personal grudges that with a little goodwill can completely disappear from our anarchist groups. Much has been said about some comrades and they have been slandered [...] by some atrophied-minded individuals accusing anarchists of having sold themselves to who knows what saint [...] They do not see or do not want to see the widespread propaganda and agitation that we have carried out universally ... To all these intrigues and gossip we should not pay attention but show our contempt. Every effort is made to distract us from the fight against the State and Capital ... Let each act according to his own conscience, let each group be free in its action with anarchic objectives ...”

Simon Radowitzky

If we abstract from the assumptions that often arise from the diatribes and claims of the informal and insurrectionary anarchic galaxy, we could perceive many more common elements that deserve to be considered as the essential bases of the new direction of the movement, consistent with the fight for the destruction of what exists. And it is precisely around these foundations that it is necessary to stop to reflect, with the intention of identifying them better and debating them among the companions of the trend, in order to find possible coordinates that facilitate each of us to better sharpen their our weapons.

  • The horizon within which we understand anarchic thought and action in our days does not foresee a specific future society after the destruction of the existent; in the hypothetical case that we succeed in demolishing domination through the generalized insurrection, specifically, it will be the available energies — including the anarchists — that will propose the “social agreements,” avoiding their definitive crystallization and confronting any moment of command-obedience, exploitation and oppression. Anarchists, with all our limitations, assume ourselves as such because we are encouraged by the insatiable tension against any instituted power or to constitute, that is, against any consolidation of intersubjective relations, in order to prevent their institutionalization. This is understood not only as the legally established apparatuses but also as the behaviors and attitudes internalized by the majority of people and imposed for centuries through the family, school, religion, work, etc. Anarchy, conceived in its sense of anarchist society, cannot be imagined as a definitive conquest, but, rather, as a society in constant boiling and perennial change, where conditions and relationships persist and are potentiated — against all odds that they deny the validity of any centralized / institutionalized power. In this context, whenever possible attitudes and moments of power arise (even those who call themselves revolutionaries), we will forge the weapons and armor necessary to suffocate them.

  • As anarchists we cannot and do not want to impose anything on anyone — otherwise we would be denying themselves — we fight tirelessly against any institution, against all authority and against any organization that, in spite of us, sets itself up, or tries to institute itself, in harm to us (and others), limiting full freedom. From this perspective, we are aware that millennia of domination have forged voluntary servitude (ostensibly clinging to the unlimited consumption of goods today) that today faces a more expensive and arduous struggle than in the past. However, it also has much more refined sensibilities and operational tools that, overcoming all populism, allow it to clearly discern the responsibilities of the master and the slave.

  • These premises do not derive at all from intellectual speculations of a handful of enlightened ones, but rather sink their reasons into the gangrenous and increasingly omnipotent social context that characterizes the historical present. From this context, the impossibility of “safeguarding” the present arises and, at the same time, the urgency of destruction, in order to avoid the subsequent and definitive conquest of all vital space and the habitability of non-human people and animals, as well as the environment as it is known, directing our steps towards the total liberation of the planet and of all living things. It is these same reasons, very concrete and “material,” that animate the insurrectional and informal anarchic galaxy that, consequently, directs its actions to the destruction of the existent. However, there are still limits that prevent this operation from being carried out: in part due to the structural modification of power, which therefore requires the adaptation of the tools and organizational methods that allow us to obtain results. Objectively, it is necessary to abandon the attack on the “symbols” — which represent the enemy — and change it for the permanent assault on its structure and infrastructure (which itself is an intrinsic part of its essence). Often, involuntarily, comrades waste energy and resources attacking “objectives” that, while not completely useless, are certainly irrelevant in the fight for the destruction of what exists. Undoubtedly, these limits persist as a consequence of the heavy baggage we carry, brimming with old conceptions around the “class conflict,” which inevitably leads us to throw our arrows in the wrong direction. Understanding — each day better — the current system will allow us to identify its marrow and skin, its essence and its contours. Obviously, this exercise cannot be carried out individually, nor can it be carried out by a group of people, however much desired. This lack, this limit, in order to overcome it , requires the collaboration of all available energies, hence the urgency of a “place,” a “space,” which allows us opportunities for debate, knowledge, exchange of experiences and material and cognitive tools, which facilitates us to share projects, broaden affinities and narrow the rapprochement, managing to recreate — on a planetary leve — what we want with all our strength: a disruptive destructive power, without any component having to give up tactical and strategic self-determination or the set of perspectives that characterize it.

  • If in fact no component (individual or collective) of the anarchic galaxy with an informal and insurrectional tendency, claims the monopoly of the fight against the existent; if truly no one in our galaxy claims to possess “the effective recipe” for the triumphant attack against the prevailing system, we must then agree that everyone has enough valid reasons to continue, assuming their own limits both at the level of analysis and at the level of action (admitting that the two moments are closely linked.). Awareness of the need and the urgency to act destructively cannot avoid the evaluation of force relations in the field: in fact, as we have verified during all these years, no component — to the best of our knowledge — of the informal and insurrectionary galaxy, renounces either the objective of our action, that is, Anarchy, nor “propaganda by the deed.” We can spin it as we like, but our conscience admits (manifestly or implicitly) that the relations of force, at this moment, are favorable to the enemy. On the other hand, we must accept that it is not entirely true that the so-called “social anarchists” within the informal and insurrectionary tendency — except, of course, the “anarcho-populist / neo-platformist” distortions, put all their illusions only in the “social,” nor that they rely only on the “spontaneity of the masses” in search of the “correct” path for the definitive destruction of the current domain. If that were so, they would not support any insurrectional attempt and they would be waiting that the despair of the “masses” spontaneously explodes and provokes insurrection. It will also have to be admitted that anarchists, by themselves, do not have the necessary strength to destroy the historical present, despite the tension of one and the other towards that end. Likewise, it should be noted that the underlying question of the constant criticism of that sector of the galaxy that does not bet on the “social,” does not arise from nowhere but is built around a rejection of society as a structural appendage to the system of domination and, therefore, an indisputable collaborator and reproducer of power.

  • Since definitely no one has the irrefutable recipe for Anarchy, it is consequent that we act with all the intention of destroying what exists in any case. In other words, our attacks are certainly concrete, but in accordance with the desired end, they are limited (always and in any case) to trials that may or may not come close to the total destruction of the State-Capital, but, ultimately, they are only attempts and not certainties and this is a reason why each one — with a minimum of humility — should recognize the validity of the reciprocal “collaboration” between the two forms of struggle (undoubtedly present in our informal galaxy) or, at least, leave open the possibility of an eventual evolution in this sense. And here, a window still opens towards a new — and, however, not without precedent — way of understanding anarchism of “action” and opting for an anarchism without adjectives.

  • There is a question of essential importance that emerges from the topics dealt with up to now: if the anarchist conception of the fight against capitalism and the State — forged by the dominant industrial reality, — contemplated in parallel the destruction and post-revolutionary reconstruction at the worldwide (simplified in the candid formula: expropriation of the means of production and collective management of them = generalized socialization), the anarchic conception of the informal and consequently contemporary insurrectional tendency perceives it in a different way, particularly in relation to the hypothetical “liberated future,” privileging the destructive moment and remaining much more attached to the analysis of the conditions imposed by domination current. This is due, as we have previously stated, to the fact that we are aware that there is no inheritance to safeguard in relation to the future management of one’s life; which means that, since there are no valid “universal” indications, each territory, each population, each region, each geography will have the responsibility of destroying and building (if the case arises). But as we well know, “the spontaneity of the masses” is not a factor capable of the destruction of the pillars of the post-industrial (or hyper-technological) State-Capital by itself, so that the anarchists of different and different situations must take charge not only of correctly directing our destructive arrows, but of having “credibility” and being recognized in the territory in which we operate by the rebellious crowds. Hence, the inescapable commitment to knowledge of the territory, of the people who inhabit it and, consequently, the identification and destructive attack not so much on the symbols of power but on structures and infrastructures, on the neuralgic nuclei through which the prevailing system of domination is constantly created and reproduced. It is not even a question, then, that the “solutions” to the attack and the eventual post-insurrectional “construction” require in both cases the participation of those who inhabit the territory in question, but that these “solutions” will never be the same for the entire planet, despite the continuous international approval. As it can be deduced beforehand, this essential evaluation element urgently requires the comparison between the different clusters of cells of the anarchic galaxy and the exchange of experiences from which each one will be able to draw valid premises for their own actions, in any geography.

Closing these lines, undoubtedly long and perhaps boring, we consider that we can identify some elements that characterize the informal and insurrectionary tendency of contemporary anarchism that, probably, outline a different paradigm, much more energetic and functional to the fight against the current system of domination, compared to the old model of “classical anarchism”:

  • the need to continue sharpening the aim against the pillars of domination and not against the symbols of the system, aware of the attacks undertaken — without excluding blows — and that the moment of execution and destructive action are our responsibility. We have nothing to inherit, therefore there is nothing to preserve for tomorrow;

  • There are no certainties to cultivate, but the possibility that with the actions of each and everyone — each one according to their own parameters, — we can demolish once and for all the system of domination and everything that exists. However, the fact that the final destruction of domination is only a “possibility” today, does not limit our destructive actions or distract us from the ruthless attack (here and now) against all forms of power through the exercise of permanent insurrection;

  • Since there are no “universal recipes,” it will be up to the comrades who operate in their specific territories to locate the best prospects for anarchic intervention, promoting and/or participating in the insurrections of the most radicalized excluded sectors — being able to guide the revolt towards the destruction and elimination of power groups that allow and/or perpetrate domination and exploitation, including false “critics” — or, acting energetically from affinity groups and/or as anarchic individuals, concentrated in the permanent, ruthless and direct attack on domination;

  • The social complexity and the “mega-machine” of oppression and exploitation are in constant transformation, which requires the contribution of all the available energy to be able to dissipate the thick fog that surrounds it and to fine-tune our reflections and analyzes, updating our ability to attack and promoting the extension of the permanent insurrection.

It is urgent to give life at an international level to “places-moments” of knowledge, criticism and self-criticism, exchange of experiences and possibilities of developing affinity relationships, which materialize this new way of conceiving and practicing anarchism in a more energetic way, facilitating the violent attack on domination, directing our energies towards the destruction of the historical present and recovering the seditious essence of Anarchy in our day.

This enormous work demands to materialize the decided rejection of the logic of the enemy (the logic of Power); that is, constituent proposals, democratic assemblies and citizenist movements that, infallibly, implement the systemic recovery manual, instigating us to occupy the squares and self-manage our misery until some party emerges that again capitalizes on the experience and consolidates domination. For this reason, the urgency of propagating an irrefutable fact: that the insurrection will be all the more radical the less it can stay codified; understanding it no longer as the generalized, unitary and final episode of human vicissitudes, but imagining it as hundreds of thousands of insurrections, definitely permanent, where billions of living beings rebel and explore total liberation in the present.

February / April, 2020.
Written by various hands from different places on the planet.