#title Group & Guerilla Anarchism
#author Renzo Durruti
#SORTauthors Renzo Durruti
#SORTtopics group, affinity groups, insurrectionary anarchy, insurrection, guerrilla war, Anarchist Fighter
#date 13th February 2020
#source Retrieved on 15th August 2020 from https://bo-ak.org/index.php/en/theory-en/221-group-guerilla-anarchism
#lang en
#pubdate 2020-08-15T16:48:01
Innate to Anarchism practice is the practice of guerrilla struggle. Anarchism as an ideology and practice is one of asymmetric warfare — this means struggle that does not play the game of the oppressors such as the state or the capitalists. It seeks to undermine those forces through propaganda and action, to trigger an insurrectionary process that sweeps away the old world, for the new one built on federalism, mutual aid and solidarity.
Anarchist Guerrilla practice is taking many forms around the world, overwhelmingly armed and mobile.
It places hit and run tactics at the forefront, unlike static insurrectionary squatting and informal attacks by individuals, it recognizes the need for support networks, group organisation and mobile, underground tactics. A rejection of mass structures of organisation and and an emphasis on direct action, waged by autonomous groups is at the heart of the modern anarcho-guerrilla.
The Guerrilla is our practice, the group is our preferred form of organisation. The autonomous group, sometimes known as the affinity group in the history books, does not negate the necessity for structured, permanent organisation, roles and specialization. It also does not stifle the absolute need for individual initiative from within and outside the groups themselves. The small group is both structured and flexible, allowing the fullest development of the individual and the concerted attack of the collective. It rejects mass structures, which soon descend into leadership, bureaucracy, and are prone to police infiltration.
With a tight nit security, and small numbers as a limit on scale, informally federating with other groups for specific actions, any police infiltration is kept to a minimum, isolated in each group — ling at worst.
Contemporary examples such as RUIS, formerly the IRPGF in Rojava and “Revolutionary Struggle” in Greece are the seeds of this new (and old) anarchism.
Historical examples such Los Solidarios, Los Indomables in Spain, OPR-33 in Uruguay and numerous other examples, effectively prosecuted the armed struggle against both state and capital, based out of networks of community support.
These militant struggles, particularly in the Spanish experience were instrumental in building the revolutionary movements and cultures of their respective countries. They formed the backbone of the revolt against the fascist onslaught and were the embryos of the Durruti column, the Ascaso column, the Ortiz column and the Iron column ect. The groups were kept small but structured, embedded in local communities.
Utilising propaganda of the deed and sabotage they prosecuted a wars of attrition, culminating in organised insurrectionary attempts. These insurrectionary attempts, while highly organised where massive propaganda efforts to draw more working class individuals towards the anarchists and to cause cyclical revolutionary attempts culminating in the destruction of the state.
The networks of groups used expropriation to fund their acquisitions of arms and to support the numerous prisoner held in Spanish jails at the time. After the failed revolution, Anarchists such as Sabate, Facerias and many other continued to prosecute the guerrilla war against Franco, often circumventing the formal structures of the CNT-FAI, which as before the revolution, tended towards reformism and compromise — and even outright complicity with the state.
In many other countries, it was the armed guerrilla that provided the backbone to Anarchist struggle, from Bulgaria, to France to South America the armed anarchist guerrilla, based out of small groups have waged war against the capitalist order.
This is a history that has been widely ignored among “anarcho-liberals” and their historians, mostly likely due to their own cowardice and lack of revolutionary intent. Leave the “anarcho-liberals” to their reformism-build the revolutionary movement of action!
Slowly Anarchism is being re-armed and therefore rein-vigorated.
Long live the Insurrection!
Renzo Durruti.