Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group

Against the Gag Laws, Against State Repression!

WHEN : Noon, Tuesday, 23 December
WHERE : Spanish Consulate, 146 Elgin St, Carlton 3053

On 16 December 2014, Spanish police launched ‘Operation Pandora’. Round-ups, searches, and arrests were carried out at squats in the ‘Casa de la Montaña’ district of Barcelona, at the libertarian San-Andres reading room, the anarchist Poble-Sec reading room, as well as 15 private homes.

Presently, 11 anarchists have been detained incommunicado by the state and accused of belonging to an ‘anarchist terrorist’ organisation (https://libcom.org/news/spain-pandora’s-box-17122014).

At the same time as these attacks upon the anarchist movement, the Spanish government has introduced new laws which criminalise a wide range of political activity. Among other things, the new laws “allow fines of up to €30,000 for disseminating photographs of police officers that are deemed to endanger them or their operations. Further, individuals participating in demonstrations outside parliament buildings or key installations could be fined up to €600,000 if they are considered to breach the peace. Those insulting police officers could be fined up to €600. Burning a national flag could cost the perpetrator a maximum fine of €30,000″ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/20/spain-protests-security-law-parliament).

The police action and the enactment of new, harshly repressive laws come at the same time as the Spanish state is implementing deeply unpopular austerity measures, part of a European-wide attack on working conditions (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/spain-pain-austerity-deepens). In response, mass popular movements have arisen to contest these measures (therealnews.com/idirect.php?i=8838) and it is surely no coincidence that the state now aims to criminalise these movements and their activities.

On Tuesday, we will be joining the tens of thousands of workers in Spain who have already mobilised in response to state terror and repression to demand: the immediate release of the anarchists; the repeal of the new gag laws and; an end to the attack upon working conditions and workers’ movements in Spain.

Please join us outside the Spanish consulate in Melbourne at midday on Tuesday and let workers in Spain know that they do not struggle alone.

https://www.facebook.com/events/304306116435173/

The working class must take the issue in its own hands!

During the last 3 years in Greece, savage austerity imposed by the Troika (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission) has crippled the country’s economy. The austerity has led to a depression that is as bad, if not worse, as the Great Depression was in the United States. Enjoying the atmosphere of anguish and despair associated with economic depression, Golden Dawn has flourished, espousing an ideology of hate. It is in effect a Fascist party that promotes anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and misogynist chauvinism and has grown to become the third most popular political party in the country.

It is this threat which led the Greek government to arrest the party’s leadership and dozens of its followers after a Golden Dawn member fatally stabbed anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September last year. Some Golden Dawn members (including senior leaders) have also been charged by police with bashing defenceless individuals, whom Golden Dawn deemed to be enemies, for causing explosions and for blackmail. A police investigation that has been launched into the party, but has failed to produce clear results.

Beyond their racist, bigoted ideology, Golden Dawn draws inspiration from the violent methods of the Nazi German regime of the last century. Its members and supporters routinely whip themselves into a frenzy of hate with torchlight rallies, demagogic rhetoric and stiff arm salutes.

Golden Dawn is promoting division between ethnic and religious communities in Greece. It also promotes hateful attitudes towards women and espouses the marginalisation and suppression of people who it deems to have an ‘unnatural’ sexuality. Tellingly, it denies the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.

It is no accident that Golden Dawn has arisen in Greece at the present time. Fascism is capitalism’s last line of defence, the refuge it seeks when all else fails and it needs to crush the working class. As workers in Greece mobilised against the Troika’s brutal austerity assault and the political establishment imploded, sections of Greek capitalists turned to Fascism in order to protect their wealth and privilege. If capitalist democracy cannot save Greek capitalism, Golden Dawn is in the background to impose capitalist dictatorship.

Golden Dawn was planning a visit to Australia in late November by Eleftherios Synadinos and Georgios Epitideios. They are former army generals and are Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing Golden Dawn.

This planned visit was cancelled after organising against it started to get up a head of steam and the Fascist MEPs’ visas were delayed. An antifascist group in Melbourne, centred on workers of Greek background, reached out to unions and to community groups and received a significant response.

In May this year, black-shirted Golden Dawn followers in Australia tried to hold a rally outside the Greek Club in Brisbane, supported by Fascists of the Australia First Party. They were successfully confronted by members of the Greek community, unionists and other antifascist protesters. They have also twice held similar rallies outside of the Greek Consulate General in Sydney. In Melbourne they have not organised similar rallies but they have been active through a front charity called “Voithame Tin Ellada” (“We Help Greece”).

The cancellation of the Golden Dawn visit is a victory, but we must not be complacent. In the event of Golden Dawn making another attempt to visit Australia, community groups, Left organisations and, most especially, the unions, must take the initiative to act in a united front against the Fascist scum. They must be stopped in their tracks by a massive mobilisation of the working class.

FASCISM – NO PASARAN!

This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

The Liberal Government brought down a budget in May that outraged workers across Australia. It is a massive attack on the working class across the board, with cuts to pensions, Medicare, higher education, State funding for health and education, unemployment benefits and much more. There is hardly a sector of the working class that won’t be dramatically affected.

Touch One, Touch All

We can’t base our strategy on negotiations in the Senate. That would leave us at the mercy of capitalist politicians. Anybody who thinks we can rely on the Palmer United Party, the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, Family First and co needs their head read. These people, where they’re not loose cannons, are hardened reactionaries.

Leaving the Budget to negotiations in the Senate also breaks the Budget up into single issues that may be wangled through piecemeal with dirty deals. We might be divided on this cut or that, on the basis of “Thank goodness it’s not touching me”. We must oppose the Budget root and branch, because an injury to one is an injury to all.

Anyway, much of the Budget (like the cutting of funding to the States) doesn’t need a specific Act of Parliament, having been included in a supply bill which has already passed. To win, we must defeat the Liberals.

A General Strike

The Liberals have nailed their colours to the mast and their credibility would be destroyed by backing down, so only the strongest possible working class mobilisation could defeat them – and a general strike is the strongest mobilisation we can perform.

Three other considerations show that a general strike the best strategy. Thirty years ago, a single militant union could go out on its own and win disputes, but at the moment nobody wants to stick their head up. It is necessary to go all out at once to avoid martyring a single militant union. Secondly, a general strike would bust the anti-union laws up for good. They can’t prosecute millions of workers, so they’ll be forced to let us go. And thirdly, a general strike would give millions of currently non-organised workers a strong reason to join their union.

Rank & File Movement

Many might ask, “If a general strike is such a great idea, then, why aren’t the ACTU organising one?” We all know the answer to that – the ACTU Executive is so committed to the ALP that it couldn’t possibly initiate action that would go against the ALP leadership’s wishes. The official representatives of 1.7 million workers are reduced to begging for crumbs.

What is required is a rank and file movement in the unions that can take them back from the craven collaborators who dominate them. We need to re-build the rank and file networks that were mostly wound up in the 1980s as the so-called “Communist” Party of Australia surrendered to neo-liberalism and became key supporters of the Accord between the ACTU and the Labor Government. The rank and file movement would operate on the basis first enunciated by the Clyde Workers Committee in 1915. Its motto would be “We will support the officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them”. In this movement, all political currents within the working class would advance their views and have them judged on their merits in the course of open debate and the benefit of experience.

Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott

In order to create this rank and file movement, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group has taken the initiative to start up the Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott. Because only the ACTU can call a general strike at the moment (if anyone else did, the strike wouldn’t happen), it takes the form of a petition to the ACTU Executive.

In the course of building support for the petition, a rank and file movement will come into existence and it is that movement which can compel the ACTU to organise the strike – or can organise the strike itself if the ACTU refuses. And the rank and file movement will itself change the politics of the unions by challenging the union bureaucracy, who are wedded to capitalism, Parliament and neo-liberalism. The MACG would argue for the perspective of taking the unions out from under the officials and restructuring them along libertarian lines, with federal structures and autonomy for local initiative.

The Campaign is structured as a united front, where all currents within the working class can speak freely, advancing their views and having them tested on their merits. In addition, the demands have deliberately been couched in relatively vague terms, describing what we are against, because positive objectives and essential questions like the length of the strike will have to be determined in the course of the campaign. To set them out in advance would be either to limit the appeal of the campaign, to foreclose radical opportunities, or both.

The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott meets fortnightly in Melbourne and can be contacted by E-mail at generalstriketostopabbott [at] gmail.com or via Facebook: Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott.

You don’t have to be an Anarchist to join. In fact, the campaign wouldn’t work if it was restricted to Anarchists. All you need is to agree that Tony Abbott needs to be stopped and we should have a general strike to stop him. So let’s get cracking.

This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group republishes this article, which is a contribution to a vital discussion and with which we are in general agreement.

Unionism and Direct Action
by Brazilian Anarchist Coordination (CAB)

From Anarkismo

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27377

In the first half of 2014, the struggles of diverse categories of workers were taken to the streets to the dismay of bosses and governors. The powerful’s counterattack was supported with the help of the mainstream media, which tried to criminalise the protests and demobilise the strugglers. This happened before, during and after the World Cup – a time in which the news sought to legitimise the violent actions of the repressive apparatus of the state and its leaders. Following this came the political persecutions and arrests of dozens of protestors in an authoritarian manner, violating democratic means and human rights.

But it is undeniable that these workers’ struggles took on large proportions, and you can identify in them a common practice that has been quite rare in contemporary Brazilian unionism. They were strikes built in the workplace, independently of the union leaderships – sometimes even having to confront them. They won victories, total or partial, that the old union leaders, many of them playing the game of governments and bosses, said were impossible to win. These movements inspired many others, in smaller proportions and not always with the same level of advancement, that were hugely significant in the attempt to reinvigorate the way of waging union struggles in Brazil.

This practice can be identified, principally, in the protagonism and direct action of the rank-and-file, deciding on the course of the strikes in opposition to the bureaucracy and centralisation of personalised union leadership and partisan union currents. The latter, on the other hand, are flawed union practices which in general do not realise the urgencies of the working class, nor do they build spaces with political autonomy and the direct participation of workers.

Thus, experiences of autonomy, struggle and class solidarity emerged around the country, be they in the example of protesting workers in the big infrastructure works of the PAC (mainly in the north and northeast of the country), the street sweepers in Rio de Janeiro, the bus drivers in Porto Alegre, or the subway workers in Sao Paulo. They demonstrated, in practice, that the struggle begins from below and, not infrequently, without the guardianship of – or even against – the union leaderships in a clear demonstration that who should have control of the struggles is the rank-and-file as a whole and not a group of “enlightened” leaders.

Actions that also have in common the renewal of some important values of the various historical struggles of the exploited and oppressed classes around the world:

Direct Action: the methods of struggle to advance demands had a very diverse repertoire after the strikes. Examples of these are pickets, occupations, sabotage and demonstrations that paralysed the circulation and operation of essential services. Direct Action is the use of all necessary means to strengthen struggles spearheaded by workers. It means not handing over to someone else the power to decide on matters of everyday life. Instead, the collective is to exercise this power directly, without intermediaries or representatives.

Rank-and-File Protagonism: there is a disposition in the rank-and-file of workers to advance the union struggle and often of fighting the bureaucratic stance of the unions’ leadership themselves. This is how the example of union struggles in this period was driven by the rank-and-file of the sectors. This is the ingredient of a strong unionism, with workers’ control through direct democracy. Combatting the authoritarian and anti-democratic culture present in the unions, including in many of those led by groupings that put themselves on the left in political composition.

To the extent to which workers organise themselves and advance, the reaction of the state and governors has been to criminalise strikes and protest, repressing legitimate struggles and propagating lies through the bourgeois media; the great ally of the bosses and the powerful. Here we denounce the complicity between this hegemonic capitalist media, the governors and the strong economic groups that control the country.

We are excited to see the revival of this combativeness in union struggles around the country, since being the protagonists of our struggles is fundamental. Unions are important instruments that can empower the workers’ struggle. However, when they are captured by a partisan bureaucracy, or contained by the employer, they cease to be a means of struggle and turn into a way of life for the opportunists; people who claim to be representatives of the workers but who fortify themselves in the union structure. They subordinate the workers’ urgencies to their interests, or to those of their party, distancing themselves from the workers’ reality.

It is in the accumulation of our forces and through our mobilising power that we can confront even the unjust judicial decisions in the service of governors and bosses. It is also through our collective strength that we can achieve the victories we desire. That we do not lose our desires for change! That every fight, every picket, every strike, with their victories and defeats, may strengthen the idea that a new world is possible.

Within this process of radicalisation of struggles, it is necessary to have as an objective the revival of Revolutionary Syndicalism. A conception of union struggle defended by Mikhail Bakunin – besides having been named as a “potential suspect” for stimulating struggles and being involved in them in Rio de Janeiro [1] – the 200th anniversary of whose birth we commemorate in 2014.

200 Years of Bakunin

In 2014, we remember the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Russian revolutionary and anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. Exemplary militant*, his life was confounded with the struggles of the workers of his time, principally within the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA). Together with other comrades he was also responsible for the establishment of anarchism as a force socially engaged in the struggle for freedom and equality. In 1868, Bakunin helped found the Alliance of Socialist Democracy, a clandestine organisation and the first specifically anarchist organisation in history, which acted within the IWA.

The IWA being the space that brought together and boosted workers’ struggles in this time, it is important to point out that it was the accumulation of the International’s anti-authoritarian currents that had the greatest influence on the labour movement of our Latin American continent. After the Hague Congress of the First International, statist and federalist conceptions split up amid strong polemics and followed different paths. And it is the libertarian current of socialism (federalist and anarchist) that would boost the continuity of the IWA, and it is in 1872, in Saint-Imier in Switzerland, that Bakunin and the federalists founded the International, later known as anti-authoritarian.

The sections and federations linked to the International that were formed throughout Latin America relied on quite accurate general guidelines and on autonomy for their development, giving continuity to the federalist proposals and Bakunin’s revolutionary syndicalism. He understood syndicalism as a means and not an end in itself, and that the role of anarchists should be to add fuel to the processes of class mobilisation and to organise struggles together with the workers. Propagating the cause wherever they met workers. It was in fact in action, and from the tactics consecrated by experience, that the outlines of a more radical union doctrine were taking shape, becoming the historical expression of the time.

The Genealogy of the General Strike

The idea of the general strike was launched by the International Congress held in Brussels in September 1868. At the time, it was a tool with the objective of struggling against the war at the time. But it was in 1869 that Bakunin, in a pioneering way, analysed all the possible consequences of the General Strike.

“When strikes are expanded, communicating little by little, they become very close to turning into a general strike; and a general strike, with the ideas of liberation that reign today in the proletariat, can only result in a great cataclysm that would provoke a radical change in society. We are not yet at this point, no doubt, but everything leads us to it.”

Bakunin thus makes important contributions to this conception of the strike as a tool for mobilising the workers’ force, and that “they already indicate a certain collective force, a certain understanding among workers”. As a practice of assertive struggle and of formation in struggle, the General Strike should also embody the solidarity between sectors of the oppressed class because, “the needs of the struggle lead workers to support each other, from one country to another, from one profession to another”.

Brazilian Anarchist Coordination – union front

English translation: Jonathan Payn

Translator’s note:

1) Mikhail Bakunin, an anarchist born in Russia 200 years ago this year, was being investigated by Brazilian police for allegedly participating in anti-World Cup protests in Rio de Janeiro, in 2014, after a teacher who was suffering state repression at the time mentioned him in a phone call.

Related Link: https://anarquismo.noblogs.org/?p=110

* MACG Note: While the MACG regards Bakunin as one of the great founders of Anarchism, we do not regard him as infallible. In particular, we regard his Alliance for Social Democracy as a misguided project. It was motivated by a genuine desire to solve a real problem in the revolutionary movement, but did so in ways not compatible with libertarian principles. The movement later transcended Bakunin on this issue and adopted ways of organising that were consistent with its principles.

The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group today attended a demonstration in support of the defence of Kobanê. About 500 people attended, including many from Melbourne’s significant Kurdish community. The MACG distributed the leaflet reproduced below.

VICTORY TO THE ROJAVA REVOLUTION!

Defend Kobanê!

The siege of Kobanê continues, with the murderous cutthroats of Da’esh (a.k.a. ISIS) not relenting in their attempts to crush all resistance to their vicious and reactionary movement. The heroic women and men of the YPG-YPJ forces are putting up an implacable defence, despite being outnumbered and outgunned by Da’esh.

The United States imperialists have supplied small quantities of weapons to Kobanê (even if some of them have fallen into the hands of Da’esh!) and have staged some air strikes on Da’esh positions. Meanwhile, the increasingly authoritarian regime of Recep Erdoğan in Turkey shows which side he is on by keeping the border sealed against assistance and reinforcements for Kobanê. Now the US has announced it will send “reinforcements” from the peshmerga of the reactionary Kurdish Regional Government, quislings of Erdoğan – with the obvious purpose of crushing the Rojava Revolution. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Da’esh

Da’esh is not an anti-imperialist force, but is rather Frankenstein’s monster. US imperialism spent decades from the 1940s onwards fostering reactionary Islamist organisations to undermine working class, progressive and anti-imperialist movements. This culminated in its financing, arming and training the most fanatical jihadis it could find to fight against the USSR in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Since then, many of the jihadis have turned against their erstwhile masters, while descending into ever more extreme reactionary politics. Da’esh has a mad dream of establishing a global Caliphate. This is, of course, impossible to achieve, but Western imperialists could help it spill a lot of blood along the way.

For decades, Western imperialist powers (especially the US, Britain and France) have dominated West Asia. They have backed the most reactionary and violent regimes, have repeately invaded the region and have sponsored Israel. Any force which strikes blows against the imperialists will therefore gain support from many local people. While we cry no tears for dead jihadis, we must warn that imperialist intervention turns Da’esh into a hydra. For every jihadi that US or other imperialist forces kills, another two or more are recruited. It cannot be otherwise, because imperialism is justly hated across the region. If US imperialism maintains its military intervention, it could eventually strengthen Da’esh to the point where it overthrows the Jordanian monarchy and/or the House of Saud. If the Kurds survive this, it will be no thanks to Uncle Sam.

The Rojava Revolution

The Rojava Revolution stands out as a progressive beacon to all humanity, emerging from amongst the imperialist domination, bloodthirsty tyrants and religious reaction holding sway across West Asia. Taking advantage of the withdrawal of most of the butcher Assad’s forces from West Kurdistan, the Kurds have established a Democratic Self Administration in the largest canton in Rojava and have been defending all the cantons with the People’s Defence Units (YPG) and Women’s Defence Units (YPJ). Both the heroism of the YPG-YPJ and the commitment of the PYD and other progressive forces to the liberation of women have, quite deservedly, gained the admiration of the world.

At the heart of the Rojava Revolution is democratic confederalism, which offers a solution to the national problem, not only in Kurdistan, but everywhere. Instead of constructing capitalist nation States, which can only ever oppress those within their borders and enslave national minorities, democratic confederalism relies on autonomy for all, down to the smallest local level. And it is democratic confederalism that is the secret to reconstructing West Asia and the world along progressive and humane lines.

The Class Struggle Road

What, then, is the road forward? Da’esh is the immediate enemy against which the Kurds are defending themselves. This Frankenstein’s monster must be slain, but it can only be done by the region’s workers and oppressed masses themselves. Imperialist intervention will only strengthen the monster. The solution is the unity of workers in struggle against jihadi reaction and against all the oppressors and their flunkies. Workers, united, can draw the oppressed masses in behind them and confront the US and other Western imperialists, Russia, the butcher Assad, the Turkish chauvinist Erdoğan and his AKP, Erdoğan’s quislings in the KDP and PUK, the Gulf monarchies, the mullahs of Iran, the Shi’ite sectarians of Iraq and, last but not least, the Zionist war machine in Israel.

This is a formidable list of enemies, but each of them is hated passionately by those they oppress. The people of West Kurdistan and their supporters need to recognise that the Rojava Revolution, to its present point, has been made possible by a set of circumstances that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Assad had withdrawn his forces from Rojava in order to address greater dangers closer to home, No other government will give a revolution that space, so the only road forward is class struggle.

It is class struggle that can unite workers across national and sectarian divides and draw in the oppressed masses behind them. The struggle against Da’esh is necessarily military at this point, because the right to use reasonable force in self defence is inalienable. Fundamental change of power relations, though, can only occur when workers take their workplaces away from their employers. It is the workers, and only the workers, who can change the world.

The Choice

There are two paths that the Rojava Revolution can take. One leads to certain defeat, while the other gives it a chance of surviving and flourishing. The PYD can become a pawn of imperialism, or it can be spark for a revolution which ends oppression altogether and establishes democratic confederalism. The PYD, of course, has the right to obtain arms from wherever necessary, even from the imperialists, but that is conditional on no concessions being made on points of principle. If the PYD sells its soul to the imperialists by allowing itself to be used against Arabs who resist imperialism, or takes a backward step in its revolutionary democratic confederalism, all the reactionary forces in West Asia will be able to turn the masses against the Kurds once more. The Rojava Revolution will then die – perhaps even at the hands of the PYD itself. If the PYD takes the course of class struggle, the Rojava Revolution has a fighting chance.

FREEDOM FOR KOBANÊ!
FREEDOM FOR KURDISTAN!
FREEDOM FOR ALL!

Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
25 October 2014 http://www.melbacg.wordpress.com
PO Box 5108 Brunswick North 3056 E-mail: macg1984@yahoo.com.au