DECOMPOSITION

for insurrection without vanguards

 
Contents

Going in Circles: A Critique of “The Coming Insurrection”
A Corps Perdu #3, international anarchist review, 2010

Blanqui or the Statist Insurrection
Finimondo, 2011

Blanqui in Venaus
Finimondo, 2014

‘The Death of Rémi and Confrontations:
‘The Radical Recuperators Come Out of the Woodwork,
Anonymous

Decisions, Compositions, Negotiations
Hourriya #6, 2021

Here Lies a Corpse
Avis de Tempétes (Storm Warnings) #3, 2018

A. Composition
Julien Coupat, Adrian Woblleben, Hugh Farrell, and other
Imaginary Friends

Ungrateful Hyenas Editions
ungratefulhyenas.noblogs.org
‘THE WRITINGS OF TIQQUN and the Invisible Committee have
given rise to the emergence of an authoritarian insurrectionalist
tendency that has been recruiting and building its ranks for about
the past decade and a half. Although one of the trademarks of
tiqqunism is its approach to “invisibility”, or not being legible

as a distinct tendency, after so many years and some significant
betrayal, tiqqunists have thoroughly revealed who they are and
what they want, which is at direct odds with any struggle against
authority

 

While tiqqunism has crossed the pond from France and taken
root across turtle island to some extent, the anarchist critique
of tiqqunism has not. This reflects a general commitment to
tolerance in the anarchist space, an unfortunate reaction against
the ideological dogmatism that silos people in insular and
stale subcultural enclosures. Thinking through the lens of this
false dilemma comes at the expense of uncompromising clarity
around how we relate to power, reformism, representation, and
the mechanisms of politics. In short, this tolerance, even when
motivated by a desire for openness and connection, blurs the
lines which lie atthe very foundation of autonomy and self-
organization,

‘Tigqunism pretends to offer an escape from ideological camps,
transcending the confines of identities that no longer serve

us and inviting us to be partisans in their insurrectionary,
composition, Not only is this an empty promise, as the
subcultural niche they have formed is highly exclusive,

insular, oppressive, and frankly unpleasant, itis also a way of
manipulating readers into uneritically adopting, or at least
tolerating, their proposals.

‘This collection aims to shed light on the authoritarian ambitions
‘woven throughout tiqqunist ideas in order to encourage

3
anarchists to abandon tolerance and move towards principled and
necessary conflict. Ideas are not neutral, they are not incidental
aesthetic preferences or personality quirks, they form the basis

of who we are, how we move through the world, and how we
struggle. As the authors of Blangui or the Statist Insurrection
remind us, the ideas we feel close to are “not irrelevant, and
constitute choosing an unmistakable side.”

Going In Circles is still relevant over a decade later, as it shows
how the practices of tiqqunists are entirely predictable from
their magnum opus, “The Coming Insurrection.” Blangui or the
‘Statist Insurrection traces authoritarian insurrectionalism to its
source. Blangui in Venaus gives a brief note on the proposals for
recuperation within “To Our Friends.” The Death of Rémi and
Confrontations furthers the theme of recuperation, commenting
on the tiqqunist mobilization of the State murdering a
demonstrator in order to dialogue with it. Decisions, Compositions,
Negotiations hones in on their logic of “composition” in the
context of land defense struggles, and Here Lies a Corpse speaks
to their use of composition to pacify the ZAD. We close with
‘our own “composition,” intended to lay bare the essence of the
tiqqunist project in the very words of those not-so-invisible men.
who love to put their names on things.

 

 

 

While tiqqunism inevitably plays out differently across contexts,
‘we value the insights and experiences of comrades from other
territories in recognizing and attacking authority in all its
guises. III Will Editions recently published a text championing
“composition” as the strategy that secured “victory” at the ZAD
in Notre-Dame-des-Landes and proposes the same strategy

be used in the No Cop City struggle. In bringing these texts
together, we hope to spread hostility to this vision of victory
and to tiqqunist involvement in the No Cop City struggle, or
anywhere else they rear their managerial heads,

 

For insurrection without vanguards,
‘Ungrateful Hyenas
Going in Circles:
A Critique of “The Coming Insurrection”

Translated excerpt from A Corps Perdu #3,
international anarchist review, 2010

 

“This book is composed of seven circles, four chapters and a
preface, In the first part, the Invisible Committee takes us
through the hell of present-day society in Dantesque fashion.
In the second part, we are finally introduced to the paradise of
insurrection, which we could reach by way of the proliferation
of communes. If the first part easily wins the reader's approval
through its description of a world strewn with permanent
disasters, the second is much emptier. Both, however, share a
common theme: a certain vagueness, well concealed by a dry and
authoritative style. Perhaps this is not even a flaw, but rather a
basic ingredient in the appeal of this little book.

‘To make its point, the Committee does not need analyses. It
prefers starements, Enough of these critiques and heady debates,
make way for the obvious and concrete objectivity that is
immediately self-evident! With contrived humility, the authors
‘even specify from the start that they aim only to “introduce a
Little order into the common places of our time, collecting some of the
murmurings around barroom tables and bebind closed bedroom doors’,
that is to say that they are satisfied to “lay down a few necessary
truths” (p. 12). Besides, they are not the authors of this book, but

“made themselves scribes of the situation,” because “its the privileged
feature of radical circumstances that a rigorous application of logic
leads fo revolution.” It was necessary to think it through: the
common-places are the necessary truths that must be transcribed
in order to awaken the sense of rigor, which will logically lead to
revolution! Obvious, isn't it?

‘You will find very few ideas upon which to reflect in the seven
circles that make up the contemporary social hell, and many
states of mind in which to partake. The authors avoid basing their
discourse on any explicit theory at all costs. To avoid running

the risk of being outdated or questioned, they prefer to record

the very banality of life, where everything is transformed into
something familiar - as an array of ‘common-places’ where the
imaginary figure of “the Frenchman’ surfaces at every turn. They
might as well pepper in any platitude whatsoever while they're at
it, even to the point of portraying reality as the exclusive product,
of totalitarian domination, rather than the fruit of a dialectic at
the heart of the social war. It is true that this would require them
to goa bit further than just generalized feelings. The propaganda
of power is treated as a significant and, above all, credible source
to describe their imaginary world without classes or individuals:
common knowledge (pg. 19), the HR manager of Daimler-Benz
(pg. 47), an Israeli officer (pg. 58), jokes among executives (pg.
64) or the first opinion poll that comes along (pg. 65) do the
trick. In The Coming Insurrection, everything is leveled, crushed by
control and repression. It is not the world that is described, but
the desert that power dreams of, how it represents itself This near
absence of dialectic between the dominant and the dominated,
the exploiters and the exploited, is no accident: the reader should
find themselves in this vision of the totalitarian nightmare, they
should be frightened by it. It is not a matter of convincing them,
nor of pointing out the mechanisms of adherence or voluntary
participation in our own servitude. The reader must share in this
pseudo-universal hell in order to then be saved in one foul swoop,
if they only join the big We and its subjective intensities,

 

 

By taking note of the imminent end of the world in an.
apocalyptic tone, and going over the various social spheres being
consumed by the lames, the Invisible Committee dwells on

the most immediately perceivable effects of the disaster, while
keeping silent about its possible causes. They inform us, for

6
example, that “total misery becomes intolerable the moment it is
shown for what iti: without cause or reason” (pg. 65). Without
cause or reason? ‘These are not the sharpest analyses of the
existent, neither those of a more communist variety against
capitalism nor those of a more anarchist variety against the State,
that would not be vague enough, and there are other texts for
that, like those reserved for a small milieu (the two issues of the
magazine Tiggun, disbanded in 2001, or The Call, a 2003 book,
an excerpt of which forms the 4* edition cover of The Coming
Insurrection). In this book, political powerlessness or economic
bankruptcy never lead to the development of a radical criticism
of politics or needs, because these themes are only pretext to

a nauseating description meant to valorize what follows. The
Coming Insurrection, born as a commodity, was simply designed
and written to reach the “general public.” As this “general public”
is composed of spectators eager for emotions to consume in the
moment, as they are resistant to any idea that could give meaning.
to their entire existence, let's give them easy images to latch onto
that won't be too tiring.

    

In order to more effectively hold the reader’s hand, the authors
must include them in the construction of a great collective

“We,” which is justified in contrast to the vile individual “I”. The
individual, which everyone knows only exists as a Reebok motto
(‘Tam what I am"), is quickly disposed of as a synonym for
“identity” (p. 14) ot “straigjacket” (p. 90). Its, in fact, the famous
gangs that are supposed to embody “ail possible joy" (p. 23).

Gangs are no longer the complex product of resourcefulness and
incarceration, of mutual aid (which is different from solidarity) in
survival and competition, but rather the form of self-organization
par excellence that must be emulated. In another book, this
sentiment is pronounced even more explicitly: “We are not afraid
of forming gangs; and can only laugh at those who will decry us
as a mafia.” (The Call, Proposition V).

As others have noted, the authors of The Coming Insurrection
“sce the decomposition of all social forms as an “opportunity”: just
ike Lenin, for whom the factory trained the army of proletarians, fo
these strategists cwbo are betting on the reconstitution of unconditional
solidarity of the lan variety, the modern “imperial” chaos is training
the gangs, fundamental cells of their imaginary party that will
combine into ‘communes” in order to join the insurrection.”*

Aspiring shepherds savor only the smell of the flock, “¢he
gathering of many groups, committees and gangs” (p. 107),
everything with a sufficiently herd-like mentality in order to
exercise control. Uniqueness must be rejected, it interferes with
the formation of a sufficient mass workforce,

‘The book also repeats over and over again that this society
has become unlivable, but mainly because it has not kept its
promises. And if it had? If “¢be people” had not been pushed out
of “their fields,” “their streets. “their neighborboods,"“the hallways
of their buildings” (p. 97), if we had not been robbed of “our own
language by education,” of “our songs by reality TV contests. of “our
city by the police” (p. 20)... perhaps we could still live happily in
our world? As if it had previously been ours, this world, and these
neighborhoods or these cities were not precisely an example

of our dispossession, something to destroy. As if the poor
reappropriating the carceral architecture of these neighborhoods
‘were not precisely one of the ultimate signs of alienation. No one
can “enuy these neighborhoods” (p. 20), and certainly not because
they have an “informal economy.” We gladly leave the hypocritical
distinctions between the mafia and the state to the Committee,
or those made between the different expressions of market
domination, that is to say, the little game of tactical preferences
between the different faces of the master. We prefer to fight
against authority and the economy, as such

    

As they proceed to deny the existence of a multifaceted social
‘war that is not the exclusive domain of one subject (the rebellious
youth of the banlieue), one sometimes wonders whether the
scribes of the little green book might be coming from a place

of ignorance. Perhaps they simply reflect the readers who are
being addressed, those who look at life in the projects and only
see policemen and young rioters, those who settle the score with
their families by maintaining ties to subsidize social subversion,
(p.26), those who can “circulate freely from one end of the continent
to the other, and even across the world without too much trouble” (p.
99), or even participate in the electoral spectacle as if they were
performing some subversive gesture (“We're beginning to suspect
that its only against voting itself that people continue to vate.’ p. 7).

 

 

Insurrection as a Proliferation of Communes

Where are we meant to arrive after having this modern hell
recounted to us? What dawn might we be led to by the end of
this civilization in decline that has nothing more to offer us?

A civilization that, no less, alleged to produce, like a well-oiled
machine, “the means of its own destruction” (this is not a reference
to the ongoing nuclear catastrophe, but to... “The proliferation of
mobile phones and Internet access points"! (p.46))?

Upon close inspection, the insurrection seems to come in this
book with no aim other than hastening the great collapse,
‘without moving beyond it to orient, for example, towards
anarchy (or communism, for others). Its its own goal, and
‘would be sufficient in and of itself. The tiqqunists already noted,
though not without ridicule’: “We are working to build up

such a collective force, that a statement like “Death to Bloom!”
or “Down with the Young-Girl!”is enough to cause days and
days of rioting,” More than nihilism—beyond this world there
is nothing but this world, without future or possibility—i

is a revisited millenarianism where the apocalyptic future is
already hidden in the present, making it seem totally detached
from our present and deliberate (or unintentional) actions. We
should simply be capable of embracing this agony in order to
make it a moment of liberation and purification, to take part in
the great destructive insurrection by establishing ourselves as a
force. Not only does the realist catastrophism of such a position
seem doubtful, but in the event of such a situation, it also seems
like this insurrection would only bring about a restructuring of
power, and not necessarily a real transformation of the world,
undermining all domination, The “communes” never appear to

 

 

 
be conceptualized as bases for experimentation, as a tension.
‘They are already here: “Every wildcat strike is a commune; every
building occupied collectively and on a clear basis is a commune.”

(pg. 102)

‘Moreover, this question is so blurred for the Committee that
they admit: “We can no longer even sce how an insurrection,
might begin.” (pg. 95) By riots, one would be tempted to

answer, Or by a revolt which, although initially of a minority,
generalizes socially. But no, that’s already too committed for
them. It is better to leave the question unresolved, to appeal to

as many curious people as possible, better to avoid subjects on
there are heated divisions. Better to continue to simplify
the reality of antagonism by presenting an Everything that can
only be attacked from a hypothetical elsewhere, by “secession,” by
“surreptitiously overtak{ingl” (pg. 109) or by constituting “a series
of centers of desertion” (The Call, Proposition V). By failing to

see insurrection as a particular process informed by everything
that precedes it, they avoid any reflection on how to fight for the
destruction of this system, within and from this system, while
also already carrying the projectuality of another world with us in.
the way we fight. That would require starting from the opposite
hypothesis to that of the authors. A revolutionary hypothesis

that is neither alternativist (we can build niches within the
existent, and already “a new idea of communism is to be elaborated”
in capitalism’) nor messianic (the inevitability of the collapse

of civilization for which we must prepare). In reality, there is no
outside that could escape the social relations of domination and
thus constitute the basis for building a force towards insurrection,
tis only in moments of rupture that these social relations can

be subverted. As an old text already said: “No role,no matter
how much it puts one at risk in terms of the law, can take the
place of the real changing of relations. There is no short-cut, no
immediate leap into the elsewhere. The revolution is not a war.”*

    

 

Another question that usually arises with insurrection is that
of relationships and affinity (the sharing of general perspectives
and ideas), which is not the same as affectivity (a momentary
sharing of particular situations and feelings, such as rage). Again,
don't worry about getting an answer, because the Committee
gets away with an acrobatic leap: “All affinity is affinity wiehin a
common truth.” (pg. 98) The trick is simple. Rather than starting
from individual desires, desires that are inherently varied and
divergent, it is enough to start from social situations which can
be easily perceived as common and named “truths.” Because the
Committee is not interested in the ideas we possess, it prefers
the truths that possess us."A truth isn'ta view on the world but
what binds us to it in an irreducible way. A truth isn't something.
wwe hold but something that carries us.” (pg. 97) The truth is
messianic, external and objective, unequivocal, beyond discussion.
tis enough to share the feeling of this truth to find ourselves
agreeing on banalities such as “we have to get organized.” To
avoid breaking the spell, we must swallow the truth that the dead
end of the current social order is transformed into a highway
towards insurrection, and the possibility that, for example, this
agony could be prolonged is impossible. And since all this is
inescapable, everyone can pleasantly avoid asking questions like
“organize how,"“to do what,”*with whom,” “why”?

‘And so disappears the old debate as well - between conceiving
of the destruction of the old world as an inevitable prerequisite
to any authentic social transformation, or believing that the
emergence of new forms of life will succeed in doing away

with the old authoritarian models by themselves, making any
gencralized direct confrontation with power superfluous. The
Invisible Committee is in fact able to reconcile these tensions
which have always stood in opposition to one another without
any problem. On the one hand, they hope for “a multiplicity of
communes that will displace the institutions of society: family,
school, union, sports club, ete.” (pg. 102) And on the other hand,
they advocate: “Not making ourselves visible, but instead turning
the anonymity to which we've been relegated to our advantage,
and through conspiracy, nocturnal o faceless actions, creating
an invulnerable position of attack.” (pg. 113) Here again, there

is something for everyone - for the back-to-the-landers who

try out the experience of settling quietly in the countryside (for

n
‘whom the Commune is the oasis of happiness in the desert of
capitalism) and for the enemies of this world (for whom the
Commune is synonymous with the insurgent Paris of 1871).

Like today’s advocates of the “non-state public sphere” (from the
most boisterous anarchist militants to the slickest “disobedient”
Negrist), the Invisible Committee argues that “local self
organization superimposes its own geography over the state
cartography, scrambling and blurring it: it produces its own
secession.” (pg. 108) But while the Negrists understand the
progressive spread of experiences of self-organization as an
«alternative to the insurrectionary hypothesis, the Committee
proposes a strategic integration of paths until then considered
incompatible. It is no longer sabotage or the small business, but
sabotage and the small business. Planting potatoes by day and
knocking down pylons by night. Daytime activity is justified

by the need for independence from services currently provided
by the market or the state and to guarantee oneself a certain
material autonomy (“How will we feed ourselves once everything is
paralyzed? Looting stores, as in Argentina, bas its limits,” pg. 125).
‘Nocturnal activity is posited as a requirement for interrupting
the flows of power (“In order for something to rise up in the midst
of the metropolis and open up other possibilities, the first act must be
10 interrupt its perpetuum mobile,” pg, 61)."The scribes then ask
themselves, “Why shouldn't communes proliferate everywhere? In
every factory, every street, every village, every school. At long last,
the reign of the base committees!" (pg. 101). Why, indeed, should
it not be possible to achieve the old 1970s illusion of “armed
communes”, that not only defend their own liberated space but
also go on to attack the spaces that remain in the clutches of
power?

 

‘The answer lies in the contradiction that the authors claim to
‘overcome: outside of an insurrectionary context, a commune
cexists only in the cracks left empty by power. Its survival remains
linked to its innocuousness. As long as it is a question of growing
carrots in organic gardens with no gods or masters , of offering
cheap (or free) meals in popular canteens, of treating the sick in
 

self-managed clinics, it all goes well. Basically, having someone
fill in the gaps of social services can be useful, and it provides a
convenient place to park the marginalized, far from the windows
of the metropolis. But as soon as one goes out in search of the
‘enemy, things start to go awry: At some point the police come
knocking, and the commune is finished, or at least resized. The
second reason why any attempt to generalize “armed communes”
outside of an insurgency is futile is duc to the material
<ifficulties in which such experiments flounder, with a myriad
of problems accompanied by a chronic lack of resources. Since
only a privileged few are able to resolve any difficulty as fast as
they can write a check, participants of the commune are almost
always forced to dedicate all their time and energy to its internal
“functioning.”

In short, sticking with the metaphor, on the one hand, the needs
of the daytime activity tend to absorb all strength at the expense
of the nighttime activity; on the other hand, the consequences

of the nighttime activity tend to endanger the daytime activity
Sooner or later this tension explodes. This does not mean that we
should deny the importance and the value of such experiences,
but it does mean that we cannot overburden them with a content
and scope that they cannot have: that of already being the
moment of rupture itself, which, if it expanded, would form the
insurrection. As Nella Giacomelli already noted in 1907 after the
experience of Aiglemont: “A colony founded by the men of today.
and obliged to exist in the margins of the current society so as

to draw in its resources is fatally destined to remain nothing else
than a grotesque imitation of bourgeois society. It cannot give us
the formula of tomorrow, because it itself reflects too much of the
old formula of the present, which unconsciously permeates us all
to the point of disfigurement.”

Extending the concept of “commune” to all manifestations of
rebellion or revolt and equating the sum of these moments
with Insurrection is another of the Committee's instrumental
gimmicks, which goes in circles without resolving the question.
If the totality of subversive practices is the insurrection, then

3B
it is not coming: itis already here. Haven't you realized? This
tendency towards confusion allows them to pander to both those
who aim to satisfy their daily needs as well as those who aim to
realize their utopian desires, to entertain both those who dedicate
themselves to “understanding plankton biology” (pg. 107) and

those who ask themselves questions such as “Bow can a TGY line
or an electrical network be rendered useless?” (pg. 112).While The
Committee can establish in the absolute a kind of self-interested
complementarity between all the practices, they do not advance
‘one inch on what these forms develop, on the question of why
which is the only thing that really gives them meaning, positing
that a collection of agains¢is sufficient. Perhaps one of the aims
of this argument for forms of hostility without speaking to their
substance resides in the Committee's explicit desire to draw lines
“of battle on a global scale” (pg. 99). That is to say, not to deepen
the passion for an existence free of any form of domination, but
to realize all kinds of alliances that only this absence of a shared
positive substance would make possible.

Finally, one last point piqued our curiosity: if this book does not
define a why of the insurrection, could it at least face the question
of the ooo? Here again, avoidance is dressed up in style: “As

for deciding on actions, the principle could be as follows: each
person should do their own reconnaissance, the information
‘would then be put together, and the decision will occur to us
rather than being made by us.” (pg. 124) Ir’ useless, therefore,

to waste time in tedious debates on what method to adopt and
which goals to pursue, the disagreements these debates provoke
are too inconvenient. Let's go fishing for information, and the
decision will come by itself, beautiful, brilliant and valid for all.
Do you need some more details? Take a look at the historical
references of The Call and The Coming Insurrection, and use your
imagination. If “the fires of November 2005 affer a made? (pg.

113), it is in words only, for the action that the scribes have

in mind better resemble a Black Panther Party led by Blanqui
(ice., perhaps the construction of the “party of insurrection”

or of “permanent collective organization™®). This authoritarian
mishmash of concepts, supplemented by such elusive notions as

 
relational “density” or communitarian “spirit” (pg. 102), rounds out
the confusing quality of the book, which, as already noted, is not
flaw but its major attraction. The Coming Insurrection is in step
with the times, perfectly fashionable. It possesses the qualities

of the moment, a flexibility and elasticity that can adapt to all
circumstances in a rebellious environment. It is well presented,
has style, and ends up being liked by everyone because it makes
everyone right without rocking the boat.

 

Let us return now to the starting point of this review, and
take this book whose authors decided to put out through a
leftist commercial publisher and to distribute in the temples

of consumption at face value for once. If it is clear that “the

task of cultural circles is to spot nascent intensities and to explain
away the sense of whatever it is you're doing” (pg. 100), let's

leave the hypocrisy of passing off simple collaborationism as a
daring incursion into enemy territory, as sound tactics, to the
opportunists. What a strange idea it is to secede or become
autonomous from institutions which they advise to participate in
jout he tion!

 

  

A revolutionary movement driven by the desire to reach a rupture
with the existent does not need the validation of the social order
that it criticizes. The Coming Insurrection in all the bookshop
windows is nothing but a caricature and commodification of an
insurrection that might shatter them all.

Insurgents without blindfolds

1. Exclusive interview with Julien Coupat in Le Monde, May 25,2009

2. Agamben, Badiou, Bensaid, Ranciére, Nancy and other true
democrats: “No to the new order”, Le Monde, November 28, 2008

3, Translator’s Note: The Frontist Party also known as the Common
Front or Social Front, was a political party in France founded in 1936

5
by Gaston Bergery and Georges Izard, It was a founding member of the
Popular Front.

4, Comité Invisible, A point of clarification, January 22, 2009, p. 4

5, René Riesel and Jaime Semprun, Catastrophism, disaster management
‘and sustainable submission, Encyclopédie des nuisances, June 2008, p.
41-42

6.Tiqqun, afterword of March 2004 to the Italian edition of Bloom's
‘Theory, Bollati Boringhieri, November 2004, p. 136. One may also

note the little game of correspondences between the twins of Tiggun,
“The Call and. The Coming Insurrection: in this afterword, Tiggun
recommends to the “Italian public” reads The Call, while Tbe Insurrection
has made it onto its back cover. Finally, the second text of the Comité
Invisible, A point of clarification, discreetly included at the bottom of
its third page a website that brings together these different writings,
and others to which they are related (such as those of the Committee of
‘the Sorbonne in exile)

7. Comité Invisible, A point of clarification, January 22, 2009, p. 3
8. At Daggers Drawn with the Existent, its Defenders and its Fake Crities

9. Ireos, Una colonia comunista, Biblioteca de la Protesta Umana
(Milan), 1907

10. Proposition 14 of the Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne in exile,
June 2006 & proposition of Jardin sembrase, Les mowvements sont fats
‘pour mourir, Tahin Party (Lyon), August 2007, p. 114
Blanqui or the Statist Insurrection

Translated from Finimondo, 2011

At best, Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) leaves us with a
slogan and a book. The slogan is No Gods, No Masters, which was
the title of the newspaper he founded in November 1880, a few
months before his death. The book is the fascinating Eternity

by the Stars,a meditation on the existence of parallel worlds

and eternal return. A battle cry and a philosophical work of
astronomy: that is all that's worth retaining from Blanqui. The
rest, we gladly leave to the dustbin of history, whether it be his
other newspapers (such as La patrie en danger) or his vanguardist
and authoritarian politics.

However, not everyone shares this view, to the point that

some have even been trying to venerate this name that seemed
given up for lost. This rediscovery has been driven by the most
‘energetic and least rigid authoritarian subversives, skilled in

the art of sniffing out the mood of the moment. In light of

the ever more imminent disintegration of this society, of the
constantly spreading flames of the riots, they realized that a
coming insurrection, hidden just around the corner, was more
likely (and also more desirable) than an electoral victory of the
extreme left (which would be made responsible for managing

a situation from which no outcome would be painless).
Otherwise, they would have risked leaving the terrain open

to those anarchist loudmouths, the only ones who had never
abandoned insurrectionary perspectives, even during the grayest
years of social pacification. These authoritarians also realized
that the sinister ancestors of social criticism, their so-called
“classics”, could be of no help to them, seeing as they had lost
their luster long ago. After having erected altars to them for
more than a century, after having made their thoughts luminous
beacons in the midst of a revolutionary squall that ended in

 
the most shameful of shipwrecks, their names no longer offer
any guarantee. On the contrary, they provoke genuine allergic
rejections, On the other hand, Blanqui, the forgotten one, this
great representative of authoritarian insurrectionalism, presents
all the characteristics needed to serve as an alternative historical
reference: original, charismatic, up to the challenge of the coming

 

Let's be honest, Marx, who warmed the armchairs of the British
‘Museum by teaching surplus value or the subsumption of
capital, and Lenin, working in a central committee to prepare
the triumph of the party bureaucracy, are no longer very ent
But Blanqui, my God, what a man! First of all, there is his
responsible for numerous insurrectionary attempts, nicknamed
“Enfermé” for having spent 33 years behind the walls of the
French imperial prisons—which arouses an unconditional,
respect capable of silencing, or at least cushioning, any possible
criticism. And then there’s also his explosive militant action, his
incessant agitation, his ardent activism, combined with a simple
and immediate language which expresses communist thought
while resisting the cold Marxist economic tone. This is where his
current force of attraction lies. With an absence of hindsight, in
an era where everyone had to stay alert, if only to find alliances,
Blanqui can be appreciated by everyone: by anti-authoritarians
who are thirsty for action, as well as by authoritarians in need

of discipline. Ifin his time he was somewhat snubbed by

the scholars of scientific socialism (who recognized his good
intentions but basically reproached him for having the same
defects as Bakunin), and firmly opposed by the enemies of all
authority, then today—as all good sense is eclipsed—he has all he
needs to take revenge.

 

  

fe—

 

Blanqui was not only a persistent and fiery agitator (the
anarchists faint with emotion), he was aso a persistent and
calculating leader (the orphans of state communism erupt in
applause). He joined the courage of the barricades and fell to
the martyrdom of imprisonment, his eye lost while scanning
the firmament. He did not formulate great theoretical plans,
sophisticated elaborations, unpalatable for today’s narrow tastes,
He also gave his instructions for taking up arms. Blanqui did not
claborate deep reflections, because reflexes prepared in advance
‘were enough for him. He is the perfect revolutionary icon

for today’s market, now that no one wants to debate complex
systems anymore. Today, we want intense emotions to consume.
And Blanqui doesnit bore us with abstract speeches; he's a
practical guy. Direct. Someone to listen to, from whom we all
have to learn, and whom we can therefore trust. That's why he
‘was exhumed. That's why, among the many incarnations of the
revolutionary dictatorship, he is the only one who can pass for a
fascinating adventurer rather than immediately revealing himself
as a petty man of power, A century and a half late, Blangui
captures them all. IFhe had a Facebook account, he would be
drowning in “likes.”

 

 

 

His revaluation is made even more appealing by his choice of
tactics. Recently, has the working class been terrorizing the
bourgeoisie, or has a smile rather blossomed on Marchionne’s
face [CEO of Fiat since 2004]? Has the proletariat been fighting
for its emancipation, or snitching on the wildest demonstrators?
Have you been hearing the streets rumble with masses of
insurgents heading for the presidential palace or rather masses of
fans going to the stadium? Have you noticed how the exploited
are more passionate about radical social criticism than the latest
reality show? In his memoirs, Bartolomeo Vanzetti remembers
his nightly hours spent poring over books, determinedly snatched
from the restorative sleep of work fatigue. He was a worker, but
he spent his free time studying: to understand, to know, to refuse
to remain raw material trapped by the gears of capital (or by

the dialectic of some intellectual). Today, the shadows under the
eyes of workers have other causes. Those who want to participate
in the ongoing social war must therefore take into account this
obvious fact: the masses don't care about revolution,

  

But it's not a problem anymore, really, and you know why?
Because Blanqui didnit care about the masses. He didn't need
them. A lucid, capable, bold elite, ready to unleash a well-

9
calibrated blow at the opportune moment was enough for him.
“The masses, as usual, would have adapted to the fait accompli. In
short, even in the midst of the current capitalist alienation, some
people give us hope. The Leninists are outdated, not realizing
that building a great party capable of guiding the exploited is,

no longer useful. The anarchists are also outdated, too stupid to
realize that there is. no longer enough consciousness to awaken
the exploited and keep them from ending up in the hands of the
parties. What we need is a handful of subversive conspirators
capable of elaborating and applying the correct strategy. Then,

in one stroke, the social question is solved! We must admit it -
Blanqui is the right man, rediscovered at the right time by people
who can only be right.

So right, in fact, that they are careful not to take Blanqui’s
essential ideas, detestable in many aspects, into consideration.
‘And they know it, His imaginary friends are so aware of it that
they limit themselves to praising its power, its styl, its feeling, its
determination (all admirable qualities, no doubt, but they do not
tell us much about the person who possesses them; Napoleon,
‘Mussolini or bin Laden could also have boasted those same
traits). As for his real friends, such as the communard Casimir
Bouis, incidentally also his publisher, they had no doubts about
the reason for Blanqui’s prestige: “He is the most accomplished
man of State that the revolution possesses.” Yes, Blanquist power,
Blanquist style, Blanquist feeling, Blanquist determination—all,
put in the service of a very specific political project: the conquest
of power. Even his surprising treatise on astronomy, even his
most accurate slogan, will never succeed in making us forget it

Who knows why, among all the good people who want to
praise a conspirator of the past, a barricader, a persecuted
person influential in the movement, no one thinks of Bakunin?
Because if one remembers Bakunin as a demon of revolt,
synonymous with absolute freedom, then Blanqui would be
rather synonymous with dictatorship. Bakunin wished for
“anarchy,” Blanqui proclaimed “regular anarchy” (isnt that
adjective adorable?) Bakunin invoked the “unleashing of bad

20
passions,” Blanqui prescribed that “no military movement should
take place except by order of the commander-in-chief, barricades
should be erected only on the sites designated by him’ (the self-
appointed commander, it goes without saying, was him). Bakunin
was looking for someone among the conspirators who was

‘fully convinced that the advent of freedom is incompatible with the
existence of states. He must want for the destruction of all States at the
same time as that ofall the religious, politcal and social institutions,
which includes: the official Churches, the permanent armies, the
ministries, the universities, the banks, the aristocratic and bourgeois
monopolies. This is so that on their ruins a free society may finally
emerge, no longer organized as it is today from the top down and from
the center to the periphery through unity and forced consolidation,

but rather starting from the free individual, free association and the
autonomous commune, from the bottom up and from the periphery to
the center, through free federation.”

Blanqui was looking for someone whose answer the question
“just after the revolution, will the people be able to govern
themselves?” would be: “the social state being gangrenous, heroic
remedies are necessary to pass to a healthy state, For some time,
the people will need a revolutionary power.” This power would
put immediate provisions into action like the “substitution of a
[State] monopoly in the place of any expelled boss... Transfer
to the State domain of all the movable and immovable goods of
the churches, communities and congregations of both sexes, as
well as their nominees... Reorganization of the personnel of the
bureaucracy...Replacement of all direct or indirect contributions
bya direct, progressive tax on inheritance and on income..
government: Parisian dictatorship.”

If during the 19th century, Bakunin and Blanqui were not just
‘ovo revolutionaries among many others, if their names acquired
such a reputation, itis because they were the incarnation of
two different and opposed ideas, because they represented the
‘ovo possible faces of the insurrection for the whole world: the
anarchist one against the State, and the authoritarian one in
favor of a new State (first republican, then socialist, and finally

a
communist). To feel close to one or the other, in itself, stil?
unmistakably constitutes choosing a side.

For Blanqui, the State was the driving force of social
transformation, since “the people can only emerge from serfdom
with the impetus of the great society of the State, and it takes
great courage to defend the contrary. Indeed, the State has no
other legitimate mission.” Criticizing Proudhonian ideas, he
argued that any theory that claimed to emancipate the proletariat
‘without relying on the authority of the State seemed to him

a chimera; worse, it was “perhaps” a betrayal. He was not so
ingenuous as to make false impressions. He simply argued that
“although all power is by nature oppressive,” to try to do without
it or to oppose it would be like “convincing the proletarians that
it would be easy to walk with hand and foot bound.” Those who
try to claim their attempts to revalorize “Enférme” are based only
in their interest in the practice of insurrection, only a technical
necessity that transcends any shared perspective, are deliberately
lying (with the exception, of course, of any action fetishizing
anarchists, who are barely even worth mentioning). If Blangui
was indeed looking for agreement “on the question of capital,
‘mean the practical means which, in the end, are the whole
revolution,” he did not hide the link that unites action with
thought: “The practical means are deduced from the principles
and also depend on the evaluation of men and things.”

 

 

One of his best-known texts, Instructions for Taking Up Arms,
which continued to fascinate the many young intellectuals who
‘were aspiring generals of a new Red Army after the Situationists,
is not just a manual for insurgents. The journal Critique sociale
had already published it in 1931 for a reason - not for its “strictly
military and anachronistic side,” but to emphasize “the value of
this important contribution to the critique of anarchic uprisings.”
Indeed, these Jnséructions continually justify the need for an
authority capable of putting an end to freedom that is considered
counterproductive. Itis the disgusted cry of a man of order at the
sight of so much disorder: “small groups are disarming the corps
de garde or seizing gunpowder and weapons from the armories.
lll this is done without coordination or direction, at the mercy
of individual imagination.” This text is an indictment against “the
shortcomings of the people's tacties ~ the undoubted cause of our
disasters. There was neither leadership nor any form of general
command; there was not even unity amongst the combatants...
the soldiers only do as they please.”

In short, if the insurrection is defeated despite the courage
and enthusiasm of those who take part in it, it is because
“organization is missing. Without organization, there is no
possibility of success.” This seems obvious, but how does one
obtain this organization, this coordination, this agreement
between the insurgents? Through the horizontal, pre-emptive
and widespread diffusion of an awareness, of understanding,
of an intelligence of the necessities of the moment (anarchist
hypothesis), or through the vertical establishment of a single
‘command that demands the obedience of all, who are kept

in ignorance until the necessary moment (authoritarian
hypothesis?). Of course, Blanqui has his practical instructions
to give in this matter: “A military organization, especially when
it must be improvised on the battlefield, is no small matter for
our party. It presupposes a command-in-chief and, to a certain
extent, the usual series of officers of all ranks.”

 

In order to put an end to “these tumultuous uprisings, with

ten thousand isolated individuals, acting randomly, in disorder,
without any overall thought, each one in his corner and according
to his fancy,” Blangui does not cease to provide his recipe: “Again,
it must be repeated: organization, unity, order and discipline

are the sine qua non conditions of victory. Troops are unlikely

to resist an insurrection that is organized and acting by means

of the whole apparatus characteristic of the government's own
forces for long.” This is the Blanquist practice of insurrection:

an organization without pity for the enemy, but which knows
how to impose internal order and discipline, on the model of the
apparatus of government force.

2
For us, this stench of the barracks provokes only horror and
disgust. Even if a red or red and black flag were to fly over

it, it would still be a place of repression and stupefaction. An
insurrection that, instead of developing in freedom at full throttle
stands at attention before an authority, would be lost in advance.
Tewould become the mere vestibule of a coup d’état. Against

this gloomy possibility, one can fortunately always trust the
intoxicating pleasure of revolt which, once it explodes, is able to
send all the calculations of these strategists into disarray.

 

 

Maurice Dommanget, who dedicated a lifetime of devotion to
Blanqui, recounts the atmosphere in Paris during the attempted
insurrection of May 12, 1839: “Blanqui was trying to give
orders, to prevent the desertions that were beginning, to “want
to organize the crowd,” a difficult task, given that almost no

one knew him. All shouted. All wanted to command. And
nobody obeyed. It was then that a rather lively and symptomatic
argument occurred between Barbés and Blanqui, which no one
has reported until now. Barbs accused Blanqui of having let
them all down, Blanqui accused Barbés of having discouraged
everyone with his slowness, and provoked the departure of

the faint-hearted and the traitors.” When insurrection breaks
out, when normality unexpectedly ceases to restrain human
possibilities, when all want to command because none want to obey
anymore, the so-called leaders lose all authority, rush uselessly ¢o
give orders, and fall to arguing among themselves. The disorder of
passions has been and will always be the best and most effective
antidote to political order.

Perhaps the best way to understand the abyss that separates

the authoritarian conception of insurrectionary action from

the anti-authoritarian one is to put them face to face in the
same period, within the same historical context. Nothing is
more instructive in this regard than a comparison between
Blangui and Joseph Déjacque, the French anarchist banished
after having participated in the days of 1848. What is Blanqui’s,
famous organizational model? A pyramidal structure, 1

 

4
hierarchical, like his Society of Seasons which preceded the
insurrectionary attempt of May 1839: its base component was
the week (composed of six members and subject to a Sunday);
four weeks formed a month (at the orders of a July); three months
formed a season (directed by a spring); four seasons formed a year
(commanded by a revolutionary agent). And these revolutionary
agents together constituted a secret executive committee, unknown
to the other affiliates, whose general could only be Blanqui.

At the crucial moment, when the insurrection was finally
decreed, the committee of the Society of the Seasons broadcast a
call to the people, in which it communicated that “the provisional
government has chosen military leaders to lead the struggle:
these leaders come from your ranks; follow them, they will lead
you to victory. They are named: Auguste Blanqui, commander in
The experiences that followed did not make him change
his mind, as demonstrated by the publication of the Instructions
for Taking Up Arms i. 1868, the Central Republican Society of
1848 or the Phalange and its clandestine groups of struggle in
1870. All his life, Blanqui never stopped plotting against the
government in power, but always in a militaristic, hierarchical
and centralizing way, always with the aim of establishing a public

 

    

safety committee at the head of the State.

In contrast, Déjacque evoked in his notes to the Revolutionary
Question (1854) the possibility and the urgency of going on

the attack with secret societies, inciting the creation of small
autonomous groups: “that every revolutionary choose, among,
those whom he believes he can best count on, one or two other
proletarians like himself. And that all of them—in groups of
three or four, not linked to each other and operating in isolation,
so that the discovery of one of the groups does not lead to the
arrest of the others—act with the shared goal of destroying the
old society”. In the same way, in the pages of his newspaper Le
Libertaire (1858), he recalled how, thanks to the meeting between
the subversives and the dangerous classes, “the social war takes
‘on daily and universal proportions... We, the plebeians of the

 

2
‘workshops, complete ourselves with a new element, the plebeians
of the prisons...Each one of us will be able to continue to make

  

ravited” the people to remain a mass to
maneuver, manage, discipline and keep obedient to the orders of
its self-proclaimed leaders, Déjacque addressed himself to each
proletarian to push them to liberating action, on the basis of their
‘own capacities and aptitudes and with their closest accomplices.
tis therefore not surprising that the same Déacque underscored
Blanqui’s dictatorial aspirations: “Governmental authority, the
dictatorship, whether itis called empire or republic, throne or
armchair, savior of order or committee of public safety; whether
it exists today under the name of Bonaparte or tomorrow under
the name of Blanqui; whether it comes out of Ham or Belle-

le; whether it has in its insignia an eagle or a stuffed lion...

the dictatorship is nothing but the rape of liberty by corrupted
syphilitic virility.”

 

Here again, to feel close to one or the other is not irrelevant, and
constitutes choosing an unmistakable side.

Finally, there is one last aspect of Blanqui that, to the keen

eye, may have seemed worth dusting off- his opportunism.
Displaying a certain disinterest in theoretical questions and

a strong attachment to the exclusively material problems of
insurrection, Blanqui pioneered a trend that is now rather
fashionable in subversive circles: tacticalism (the unscrupulous
use of maneuvers or expedients to obtain from others what

one desires) in the name of tactics (the technique of using and
maneuvering military means). Blanqui admirers generally use
the term eclecticism to describe his skillful and self-interested
changes of position. His conception of insurrection as the result
ofa strategic movement and not as a social event led him to
conclude that the end justified any means. For him, it was not the
‘method that counted, but the result, that is, the effective conquest
of political power. That is why, despite his taste for conspiracies,
in 1848 he tried to lead a democratic movement to participate

  

26
in elections. As his comrade Edouard Vaillant, his spokesman at
the congress of the First International in London in September
1871, recalled: “The work of the revolution was the destruction of
the obstacles that obstructed the way: its first duty was to “disarm
the bourgeoisie, to arm the proletariat,” to arm the proletariat
with all the forces of the political power conquered, taken from
the enemy: In order to achieve this goal, the revolutionaries

had to attack the power, to march against it on all the paths:
agitation, action, parliament, etc. They did not lock themselves in
the “model prison’ of any dogmatism. They have no prejudices.”

 

 

“This absence of ‘prejudices’—which at the time, beyond any
ethical coherence, were at least intuitions guided by a minimum
of intelligence—led Blanqui to sometimes embarrassing results.
In 1879, a few years after having thundered that “the disastrous
influence of the deliberating assemblies must end,” he tried,
without succeeding, to be elected deputy of Lyon. To realize this
laudable insurrectionary project, he asked for help from his friend
Georges Clemenceau, then a radical deputy, to whom he wrote:
“Become in the House the man of the future, the leader of the
revolution. It has not been able to find one since 1830, Fortune
gives it one, do not take it away.” As everyone knows by now,
Clemenceau did indeed go on to have a great career, becoming
first a senator, then Minister of the Interior, and twice President
of the Council, He earned the nickname of “France's top cop”
through bloody repression of strikes and revolts that culminated
in several massacres of proletarians, through merciless hunting
of subversives of all stripes, not to mention his interventionism,
during the First World War. One cannot say that Blanqui was
very clear-sighted when he asked the future leader of the reaction
to become the leader of the revolution! But ultimately, it isnt so
strange. He had seen in Clémenceau the makings of a political
leader, of a condottiere. He could not understand that power is
the tomb of the revolution.

Any we have no reason to pay homage to the corpse of
ing dictator. Beyond perhaps a slogan and a book, his
memory continues to reek. Stinking like his general staff, his

  

 
military style, his barrack spirit (*his friends were convinced that
the dominant personality in him was that of a general,” wrote the
good Dommanget). Let his admirers, old or new leaders of the
party of Statist insurrection, go and dig in his grave, emotionally
breathe the stench. With the recent earthquakes, who knows,
maybe they will end up buried by their Master's side—an eternity
in the mud.

2
Blanqui in Venaus

Translated from Finimondo, 2014

“Politics is the art of recuperation. The most effective way
to discourage all rebellion, all desire for real change, is to
present a man or woman of state as subversive, or—better
yet—to transform a subversive into a man or woman of state.
Not all people of state are paid by the government. There are
functionaries who are not found in parliament or even in the
neighboring rooms, Rather, they frequent the social centers
and sufficiently know the principle revolutionary theories.
“They debate over the liberatory potential of technology; they
theorize about non-state public spheres and the surpassing
of the subject. Reality—they know it well—is always more
complex than any action.”

~ Ten Blows Against Politics, 1996

For some time, a rumor has been circulating among some
anarchists in Europe about the latest publication of the Invisible
Committee, the authors of the 2007 international bestseller

The Coming Insurrection. It's rumored that the Committee's
members shared the draft of the text with their political friends
around the world, to gauge their reactions and to solicit useful
feedback, The first draft contained a harsh attack on anarchists,
guilty of not properly prostrating themselves before them (and
of having scoffed at the farce of Tarnac, where, when the police
came knocking, the alleged authors of the book rushed into the
protective arms of the left they had been at war with the day
earlier), But some of their friendly correspondents—from our
beautiful country it is said—suggested that they cut the overly
vehement parts, soften the tone, because ultimately, with some
reflection, there are still many services that these anarchist idiots
can render. This rumor originated with a mischievous anarchist
who apparently may have read the original draft of the text as

»
well as the correspondence about it. These are the risks of the
Commune and sharing tools: you never know who might peek at
a computer left on and unattended!

Whether this rumor is true or not, few days ago we were given
the gift of the Invisible Committee's new book, fresh off the
press, published in France at the end of last month. It’s called To
Our Friends (political ones, it goes without saying) and its imminent
and simultaneous publication in seven other languages is in the
‘works to promote its diffusion on the four continents, Italy will
be one of the lucky countries, so we might as well wait to read
the full translation.

Bur then, you may ask, why are we talking about it here and
now? Because thanks to the lessons of the Invisible Committee,
we finally understand that advertising is not only the soul of
business, but also the soul of subversion (well, the business of
subversion). Moreover, we would risk being mistaken for state
bureaucrats if we didn’t hurry up and share at least a few excerpts
from this new masterpiece with our readers. Anyway, here's a
preview, a scoop of sorts.

Choosing which part to share is ensy, too easy even. These
grandchildren of Blanqui devote some thoughts to Italy, more
precisely to the struggle against the’TAV in the Susa Valley
and its miraculous effects. Here is what they write: “Among

the miracles of the Susa Valley struggle, one has to include the
‘way it succeeded in tearing a good number of radicals away
from their painfully constructed identity. It brought them back
down to earth. In contact again with a real situation, they were
able to shed most of their ideological spacesuit—not without
incurring the inexhaustible resentment of those still confined in
their interstellar radicality where breathing is such a problem,
[...], Alternating family-style demonstrations with attacks on.
the TAV construction site, resorting to sabotage at one moment
and partnership with the valley’s mayors the next, associating
anarchists and Catholic grandmas, this struggle is revolutionary

30
at least insofar as it has been able to deactivate the infernal
coupling of pacifism and radicalism.”

Absolutely! As nice political animals, Blanqui’s grandchildren
think that the most natural and spontaneous environment to
live in is the 200. Those who do not enter the 200 or stay far
away condemn themselves to isolation, that is, to breathing the
stale air of a spacesuit, demonstrating an untiring resentment
against those who easily breathe the same air as mayors and
parliamentarians (and perhaps even as snitches and various
dissociati). The Invisible Committee's admiration of their Italian
anarchist apprentices is almost touching, these Victor Serge’s of
ours who have finally understood the strategic usefulness of an
alternating current of conflictuality, dear to authoritarians since
time immemorial. What a pity that “a fraction of the anarchists
swho declare themselves “nibilists™ and that in reality “are only
powerless" also pollutes this coveted air. Anarchists who identify
the enemy, give themselves means and attack... brrr, what a
horror, they are nothing but powerless, obviously. On the other
hand, those who get involved with mayors, priests and stalinists,
those who get elected to the city council like Tarnac superfans of
the Invisible Committee, of course, éhose people have...

‘Those people have wha‘? They have understood how things
work! “There is no Esperanto of revolt. Its not up to the rebels to

Jearn to speak anarchist; it's up to the anarchists to become polyglot.”
Esperanto is a foolish utopia, this new language which contains
clements of all languages, encompassing them without preference
and putting them in communication while respecting their
diversity. The most practical, immediate, strategic way to
communicate is to speak the language of others. English especially,
in business, Authoritarian only, in politics.

Anarchists, be polyglot! Stop meowing all alone in a ghost town,
bark and growl in the company of dogs and pigs! On Monday
speak humanitarian, on Tuesday democratic, on Wednesday
journalist, on Thursday syndicalist, on Friday legalist, on Saturday

3
communist, on Sunday—amen—liturgical. And occasionally,
speak rebel if you want. As for the anarchist language, it is better
to forget it entirely.

In any case, let’s be honest, what use is it to you?
The Death of Rémi and Confrontations:
The Radical Recuperators Come
Out of the Woodwork

Translated from the Internet, 2014

“Our strength won't come from our naming of the enemy, but
from the effort made to enter one another’s geography.”
~ To Our Friends, Invisible Committee

Mathieu Burnel, co-defendant in the Tarnae affair, was in good
company on October 31 on the set of “Ce soir ou jamais,” a
program broadcast by one of the official spokespersons for state
terrorism, the France 2 channel, At a time when clashes had been
taking place daily in several cities for nearly a week following the
police killing of a demonstrator in the struggle against the Sivens
dam, the beginning of a dialogue between “a representative of
the radicals” and representatives of the authorities was finally
possible. Blessed, then, are all those citizens who continue to
conscientiously pay their dues so that the public service channel
can accomplish its sacred duty of maintaining order (of which
dialogue between the dominated and the dominant is an integral
part) when the situation is at its most dire, Because without
representatives, there are no more represented, and without the
represented, there is anarchy! In order to stock the shelves of the
great supermarket of televised opinions, Mathieu Burnel used his
best tricks to compete with Juliette Meadel, national secretary
of the Socialist Party for industrial policy, Corinne Lepage,
European deputy of the Democrat Movement party, and Pascal
Bruckner, a reactionary philosopher.

33
On the theme of “Ecolegy, the new battlefield?” he once again
demonstrated the practical consequences of the words “to make
our power grow” or “not to designate the enemy but to compose with
dim.” Faced with potentially uncontrollable situations, power
regularly needs interlocutors, even aggressive ones, as we are
reminded by Daniel Cohn-Bendit's appearance on the ORTF on
May 16, 1968, after the beginning of the general strike. And if, as
an old bearded man dear to the authoritarians remarked, history
often repeats itself in the form of farce, itis because power only
gets the buffoons it deserves. October 2014 is obviously not

May 1968 (“Fuck May 68, Fight now!” said a tag on the walls of
Athens in 2009), but not everyone has the lucidity to wait for an
uprising before rushing onto TV to try to take the lead. Unless
the insurrection has already come, of course!

Speaking for each and every one of us - for “our generation,” for
Rémi Fraisse (who would have been part of “those people who
try to take seriously at least the question of their existence”) and for
“young people today” - the recuperator on duty claims to embody
this rage of a thousand faces. After radio and TV appearances
with his colleagues Benjamin Rosoux (the city councilor of
‘Tarnae since March 2014) or Julien Coupat (who invited nine
journalists to interview him over the course of four hours in
November 2012), this time he was not there to defend himself
against the accusations of the police, but to sell his party of the
“insurrection that has come”!

“The idea of using the media niches that power concedes

to revolutionaries to our advantage is not only illusory. It is
frankly dangerous. Their mere presence on the stage is not
enough to break the straitjacket of ideology in the heads of
the audience. Unless one confuses the power of expression
with the power of transformation, and believes that the
‘meaning of what one expresses, with the word, with the pen,
with the image, etc, is given a priori, without having to worry
about knowing who has the power to do it. There would be
content which could exist there in diverse forms without

4
being affected by it. This is the old illusion of the reified
world in which activities appear as things in themselves
detached from society. But just like other forms of expression,
the subversive form that language takes is the guarantee of
the incorruptibility of its meaning. It is not immune to the
dangers of communication. Using subversive language on
the terrain of domination is sufficient to undermine, or even
reverse, the meaning of it.”

- “The mirror of illusions, notes of discussions from

the side of La Bonne Descente” (Paris), 1996

Intervening in the media with the old Leninist argument (about
Parliament) of using it as a platform not only reinforces the
legitimacy of these tools of domination, but also endorses the
democratic game that establishes a basis of dialogue rather than
confrontation. “You don't argue with the enemy, you fight him is
an adage from the revolutionary experience, but it only applies to
those who really intend to abolish all authority. For the others -
starting with the politicians of the “movement - it is certain that
sooner or later one must show tact, know how to compromise in
improbable “alliances”, “to compose with what exists where one
is,” which is to say, to adapt to the existent rather than to subvert
it. Accepting the rules of the game rather than messing up the
game itself This dynamic, which we have seen in recent years in
‘Val Susa, Valognes and Notre-Dame-des-Landes, for example,
after the confrontations that pushed the cops bac
We have known for along time that not all politicians sit
Parliament but also emerge from struggles, and that the conquest
of power (or of hegemony) sometimes takes side roads.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Refusing the mechanisms of politics —of which recuperation and
representation are an integral part—is not a matter of principle,
but one of the conditions for truly experiencing autonomy and
self-organization, Only the dialogue of those in revolt will be
able to overcome the organized confusion, among themselves

in a space of anti-authoritarian struggle where words and their
meaning are not mutilated by the needs of control and the

 

  

38
consensus of power: It is there, far from any representation, that
ideas with neither masters nor owners, ideas that animate us, can
at last belong to anyone who recognizes themselves in them.

The enemies of order

1, An illustration of this logic can be found in “Et maintenant guon
_fait? (Indy Nantes, October 28), where anarchism and pacifism are
no longer ideas with practical extensions, a relationship to the world,
but stupid divisions to be overcome in order to “know bow to create a
_force” and “move towards victories.” For our little post-Blanquist generals,
in fact, why bother with ideas and coherence (between. means and
‘ends, for example), since everything is reduced to tactical “situations”
that simply need to fit into their miserable little calculations: “Sunday
night, we heard that Rémi was a pacifist, that the people who participated
in the clasbes were anarchists. Such statements are unbearable. To say that
is to maintain old divisions and to play into the hands of the police. The
strength of movements and struggles like the No-Tav in Italy, the ZAD

of Notre-Dame or athers, is precisely to have known how to gather within
them practices which instead of opposing each other, complement each other
‘and can associate with one another to move towards sensible and material
victories, The intelligence of the struggle isto transform what too often
“appears as rigid divisions and divergences into revisable tensions that allow
1s to grove together. Knossing ows to ereate a force out ofthe multitude of
practices.

We find, of course, the same proposal in “To Our Friends"by the
“Invisible Committee" (p. 149) about the struggle against the TAV in
Ttaly:*... resorting to sabotage at one moment and partnership with the
valley's mayors the next, associating anarchists and Catholic grandmas, this
struggle is revolutionary atleast insofar as it bas been able to deactivate the
infernal coupling of pacifism and radicalism.”

36
Decisions, Compositions, Negotiations

Translated from a chapter of Hourriya #6: The War of the
Underground, The Battlefield of Raw Materials, 2021

“There are many ways to envision and carry out a struggle against
a devastating project.

Some struggles that are motivated by an anarchist perspective
are informed by the clear proposal of attempting to prevent

the construction of a specific infrastructure through self-
organization, direct action and permanent conflict. This
method, which concretely implies the refusal of political and
media representation, of mechanisms of delegation, and of any
dialogue with institutions, clearly connects means and ends: a
project of domination cannot be fought with the instruments
of domination, From these foundations and by unambiguously
establishing an offensive and destructive approach, the proposal
of struggle is addressed to all those who recognize themselves in
it and wish to take it on, in their own way, obviously at the site
but also wherever else it makes sense.

‘The wager on hostilities spreading is also a wager on the
multiplication of points of encounter and self-organization,
‘enabling the weaving of complicity and the development

of solidarity in the heat of the struggle. The potential that
coordination offers exists thanks to the free association of diverse
initiatives and individual intentions.

Of course, informal organization is not a magic formula that
guarantees decision-making free of issues, power dynamics, and
questions of legitimacy. Nevertheless, the autonomy of each
individual or group, none of which can claim to represent the

 
struggle, et alone take the lead, can at least make it possible to
confront these problems in a direct and decentralized way.

Itis quite different when a struggle builds itself around a single
territorial focal point, for example, an occupation linked to the
contested project, and this becomes the main point of reference.
‘This raises the question of the centralization of decision-making
and activities. Indeed, long-term occupations often involve the
mobilization of a large number of people, to keep the occupation
alive and to ensure its defense. This often has the consequence
that these occupations become the starting points of “large
moments” or actions, if not for a mass, at least relying greatly on a

 

quantitative dimension,

In such situations, when it is out of the question to defer to the
leadership of some central committee, collective organization
usually takes place through assemblies. Even if care is taken to
distinguish between assemblies concerned with the organization
of the site and assemblies concerned with the struggle, the fet
that the two aspects are intertwined does not fail to bring up
questions of legitimacy tied to the dynamic of territory and the
‘occupation as a whole (the moment of arrival, one’s longevity and
“degrees” of involvement on the site, the potential repercussions
of certain activities on others and on the site itself, etc.),

‘When they are for decision-making, assemblies share the
trait that they are supposed to both represent and engage

all participants, Without going into detail about the various
mechanisms that can quickly be set in motion, in the name of
efficiency, to obtain a more or less forced majority or a consensus,
‘we will say that the decisions that emerge from these spaces
clearly take on a particular weight. Participants, then, expect the
‘weight of these decisions to be applied even to people in the
struggle who do not agree with them. It is not uncommon for the
centrality of the assembly of an occupation site to put itself in the
position of the representative or spokesperson of the struggle as

a whole, For example, when self-organized media claims to give
an account of the multiform reality of the struggle but essentially

  

38
reflects the perspectives or the activities decided on by the
assembly, and remains silent about other manifestations because
they do not fit into this framework.

‘None of these questions are abstract, and their implications are
all the more striking in the case of struggles strictly tied to a
territorial base which bring together motivations, methods and.
perspectives that are sometimes very heterogeneous. This brings
us back to the old theory of “common fronts,” even if high-flying
strategists, pethaps considering this concept to be out of fashion,
too obviously tainted with reformism or tarnished with the bitter
Stalinist associations of revolutionary history, have decided to

 

  

replace it with the term “composition.”

‘The theory nevertheless remains the same: in the classic
relationship of “force against force,” it is well known that “it

is unity that creates force.” The question, then, is how to make
opposing logics coexist in the name of a common objective, in
this case stopping the construction of an infrastructure project

at a given location, Behind the lengthy euphemism of the
“diversity of tactics of the different components of the struggle”
hide politician-like alliances and tactical maneuvers intended

to mask and dilute fundamental disagreements on questions as
crucial as relationship to legality and institutions (parties, unions,
media, etc.) the use of violence and willingness to negotiate, the
reformist approach or positions that completely break with the
existent.

Ir goes without saying that this “strategic” coexistence is based on.
both sides’ desire for instrumentalization. For example, legalists
rely on the radical workforce to establish a balance of power
likely to open up negotiations, while others imagine that they
can count on the left to “give cover” to certain actions or to rally
so-called “civil society”. In reality, this vast program generally
results in the citizens’ movement condemning actions that are
too offensive for their taste. Or, in a mirror effect, actions with

a radical appearance are actually deprived of this substance by
being put at the service of reformist aims.

39
In any case, the supporters of composition make a point of
maintaining this facade of unity, whether in common activities
(such as unitary demonstrations including a part of the political
spectrum, for example) or in the wider panorama of the struggle,
Beyond the deliberate blurring this entails, it means controlling
the forms of struggle in order to hold it all together at any

cost, determining what is opportune to bring forward, what
should and shouldn't be done. So “respecting the timing of the
movement” is an argument-bludgeon wielded by authoritarians
to enforce the lines that they see fit to define in the name of “the
‘common interest,” from the height of their position of power.

 

‘These are the authoritarians who, with their intermediaries,
have smothered the possibilities opened up on the ZAD of
‘Notre-Dame-des-Landes and beyond, in the struggle against
the airport and its world’, not hesitating to try to take the course
of certain demonstrations into their own hands, to label certain
attacks (against journalists, security guards, certain political
parties) as “counterproductive,” to suffocate the subversive
content and offensive perspectives that were aimed at those who
actually participate in the development of domination, beyond
the airport.

Other texts explain in detail, and much better than this one,
the mechanisms that have all too often enabled this so-called
“all together” logic to impose itself over time by crushing.

those who are undesirable and unmanageable to this world,
“The famous label of “victory” at the ZAD, brandished by the
promoters of composition and the co-management of land-use
and the struggle, was achieved by the CMDO? and co. taking
charge (through intimidation and beatings). This resulted in
the disastrous outcome we know: forced legalization and the
compliance of almost the entire zone to the required standards.
Far from defending “counter-worlds” and other “liberated zones,”
like their predecessors on Larzac, the “victorious” are bogged
down in negotiations on the price to be paid for the land, with
everything under state control from top to bottom

 

40
‘Though they hide their game under radical clothes, the
composers and their friends unfortunately do not have a
monopoly on negotiations, and one of the strategies of Power

in our latitudes consists of recuperating and integrating any
opposition by conceding a few crumbs or niches. Of course,
reformism is certainly not the exclusive domain of struggles
against profoundly toxic projects, but itis without question that
a myriad of alternatives has developed around the environmental
question,

 

Ecological crisis, global warming, saving the planet, are in the
spirit of the times and on the agenda. No longer able to deny
the devastating effects of industrial and technological society,
which is never referred to as such since the concern is mainly
censuring its perpetuation and expansion, the powerful are trying
to make the most of the situation at the greatest profit. So, the
States and their experts continue to sell their technical, scientific
and profitable solutions to the problems they keep creating. Gas
and seawater desalination plants, CO2 collectors, geothermal
‘energy, bio-mass, bio-fuels and so on are all new niches for the
sustainable development of green-tinted capitalism. And the lie
of the energy “transition” encompasses the conversion of huge
industrial sectors and investments into the renewable energy
market, in parallel to energy industries that already exist.

However, ecological deception has also flourished on the inability
of struggles against harmful, authoritarian developments to bring,
other ideas and perspectives to the fore. In the 1980s, in parallel
with repression in al its crudeness—the army was regularly sent
in to try to quell anti-nuclear protest movements—the French
state set up another tool to neutralize dissent. This apparatus

has greatly contributed to channeling and defusing the struggle,
against a background of faith in the promises of the left.

Citizen and environmental associations have since invaded the

landscape to propose their services as credible interlocutors with
Power, as well as alternatives that do not question the existing

4
framework, which is de facto perceived and positioned as
insurmountable.

“The logic of negotiation also takes more diffuse forms.
Pragmatists may seek to take advantage of the balance of
power established by the struggle to get money in exchange for
implementing a project, for example by receiving compensation
for environmental harm (additional income for the district,
compensation for the inhabitants, etc.). In another style, the
land manager may take up the principle of zoning to claim the
preservation of a place as a wetland “zone” with “remarkable
biodiversity” etc., or even “offset” zones as if everything were
interchangeable.

 

According to the realistic logic of the “lesser evil,” others find
themselves either demanding that those responsible for the
devastation mitigate or control its effects (for example, by
promises to reduce polluting emissions), or proposing, through
and within the struggle itself, alternative projects deemed more
acceptable: another highway or high-speed train line route, the
burial of high-voltage lines, other waste storage sites, ete.

 

“The refusal to accept plans for the burial of radioactive waste
at the end of the 1980s led to the 1990 moratorium. However,
the problem was only postponed by the suggestion of storing
radioactive waste on the site where it was produced as a last
resort, since the current accumulation of waste allows them to
play up the urgent need to find a solution, especially at Bure*

To avoid leaving room for any alternative solution and to
avoid entering the domain of managing existing waste, there

is obviously no other choice than to reject what produces it en
masse: nuclear power in all its forms and the society that needs
it. Even if it means being called irresponsible in the face of the
State, its dictates, and its regime of reason

Likewise, to thwart the pacification and recuperation of conflicts,
it is essential to make clarifications and lines of rupture that

 

42
constantly restate the question of means and ends. The struggle
against the destructive aims of the State cannot be carried out by
co-management, by legal battles, or by any recourse to a supposed
“public opinion’ that is a spectator or arbitrator. Control over
spaces and lives is not fought by creating more norms and
regulations, any more than the projects and infrastructure of
domination are challenged by convincing decision-makers.
Opposing the established order leads to confronting its repressive
forces but also its logic, and fighting the system also means
exacerbating its instability

41. Translator’s note: “Against the airport and the world that needs it”
became a slogan of the ZAD.

2. Translator’s note: For more about the CMDO, see The “Movement” is
Dead, Long Live... Reform:A Critique of “Composition” and its Elites

3. Translator’s note: See bureburebure.info

8
Here Lies a Corpse

Translated from Avis de Tempétes (Storm Warnings) #3, 2018

After years of struggle, on January 17, 2018 the French state
officially announced that they were abandoning their project to
build a new airport on the site of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in
favor of expanding the existing one on the outskirts of Nantes.
We were finally going to see the full scope of the famous “and its
‘world,” which had been brandished as a reassuring and almost
self-fulfilling totem within the struggle, an idea meant to prevent
the struggle from being reduced to simple territorial defense,
instead nourishing a critique against everything that would allow
a nuisance such as the proposed airport to exist in the first place.
‘Would the occupiers continue their fight by extending it to the
new designated site, in the name of Neither Here Nor Elsewhere?
‘Would they extend it to other large-scale nuisances, such as those
linked to Nantes and its suburbs (Technocampus Alimentation,
“zone to construct’ of Pirmil-Les Isles, a new prison being built
in Bouguenais, 95 video surveillance cameras being installed with
the creation of an Urban Supervision Center linking Nantes, Rezé
and Vertou...), or the mega-project of 80 offshore wind turbines
near Saint-Nazaire? It is certainly still too early to imagine what
new horizons of struggle will be embraced, so vast is the “and

its world,” but what we do already know is how the victory was
celebrated on the ground.

 

From January 22 to 25, at the express request of the State,
which had established this as a prerequisite for continuing
negotiations on the future of the occupied land, the citizenist
and authoritarian ‘composition’ of the ZAD began to clear the
road that crosses the zone of its protective barriers, but also
forcibly removed the two collective shacks that were encroaching
onto the road a little too much. Having done their dirty work of

“4
maintaining order against the inhabitants who had settled there
‘or were using the shacks, they returned control of the D281 to
the authorities ~ a curious practice of self-management for a
“Liberated territory’ ~ so that the latter could clear the ditches and
drain the field entrances under protection of their escort, and also
parade the prefect politician in front of the cameras.

 

“The support committees, on permanent watch since Operation
Caesar in 2012, had sworn, spat and even planted symbolic
sticks in the ground so that if the shacks were forcibly evicted or
the cops arrived on the ZAD, the fight would be on, Sure, but
for the existence of a little clause in body 6 at the very bottom
of the collective road map, which stipulated that the alarm.
would only sound if the uniforms were blue, not yellow or black
windbreakers. For it is indeed a collection of philo-statist groups,
of Leninist troops and adherents of a (not so) imaginary party
who cleared the way for a new police occupation that has been
going on for six weeks now (up to 30 mobile police vans), with
video recording, identity controls, harassment and surveillance
via drone, searches of vehicles and living spaces, all in the heart of
the ZAD.

When authorities on both sides of the barricade attempted to
co-manage the zone, a price had to be paid: the destruction of
the shacks of those zadists who were too rebellious against the
State dictates and the injunctions of the small entrepreneurs of
the struggle. This was not a banal episode of internal conflict,
but instead calls for a few reflections on the question of self-
organization and its perspectives,

 

One of the classic problems that arises in any occupation struggle
is that of its very project; the tension between an ephemeral
‘occupation intended to self-organize attacks on the surrounding

 

 

and a permanent installation that ends up concentrating forces
that are ordinarily incompatible, by projecting itself as an
experimental island of more or less radical alternatives. Sooner or
later, this untenable contradiction between alternative within and

45
offensive against the existent ends up bursting open, either when
the police pressure increases (with the traditional mediatization
of some distancing themselves from attacks and denouncing
radicals), or conversely under the weight of the negotiated
possibility of normalization (with the traditional clearing out of
‘uncontrolled elements).

‘Whaat is remarkable about recent events in the struggle at
Notre-Dame-des-Landes is not so much that the citizenists did
not even wait a week to literally toast with the prefect and the
army general director of the entire gendarmerie, but that it was
precisely the staunch partisans of composition with everyone
who just the day before zealously partook in destroying one of
the two shacks and evicting its occupants from the roof. When
composition means negotiating with the state alongside trade
unions and elected officials, when composition means choosing
the side of order at a crucial moment of the struggle when those
in the minority resistant any legalization, this only reveals the
true meaning of this elastic word: collaboration with the power

in charge. This kind of de facto convergence between power and
counter-power, between constituents and destituents, is not

the simple result of an emergency or panic situation, but the
consequence of a logic present in the very concept of composition.
Allowing authoritarians of all stripes to arrange things among
themselves when necessary, it naturally also works at the expense
of anti-authoritarians whose qualms are too demanding and not
realpolitik enough.

 

Structurally, the concept of composition is in fact nothing more
than the internal application of the military principle of alliance
the outside. If the latter applies between enemies who were
irreconcilable yesterday and who will be at war again tomorrow,
the former concerns adversaries within the same camp, capable of
cohabiting without destroying or excluding each other by putting
aside their opposing visions in order to temporarily concentrate
their forces in the face of common enemy. In both cases, this
presupposes a remarkable capacity to eradicate the uniqueness of
each individual and the singularity of their ideas, as well as the

 
  

46
multiplicity of their possible associations, in order to train varied
troops so that they march in lockstep in the service of a superior
centity (the party, the assembly, the collective, the people, the
movement of struggle)

Beyond the question of whether so-and-so is likable or not,
composition is a logic that fundamentally banishes all ethics

in favor of the calculations of politics. It is an alternative
management technique of order and the organization of
confusion that attempts to neutralize the irreducible antagonisms
which can smolder within struggles: between the adjustment

of the existent or its destruction, between negotiation with
power or direct action against it, between scientific counter-
expertise or refusal of specialization such as delegation, between
acceptance of parties and trade unions or self-organization

out mediation, between the presence of journalists or the
refusal of any representation, between authority or freedom. It is
therefore probably no coincidence that the mode of composition
suits authoritarians particularly well, with their quantitative
notion of a concentrated and more maneuverable force rather
than a disseminated and more autonomous one, with their
tactical sense of keeping up with changing winds, and above all
with their obsession with decoupling means from ends (which
explains, for example, their lack of scruples concerning using
professionals of mass lying to deliver their message; their ease
in declaring one thing in front of the courts and its opposite in
front of their supporters; or their competence at making contact
with the institutional left). In this logic of accountants, it is no
longer a question of defending autonomous perspectives and
subversive ideas here and now by incarnating them in one’s own
life, but only of strategic situations to be organized and managed,
indeed to be disciplined and made governable, in the name of the
efficiency of the struggle, to which a few necessarily enlightened
beings hold the keys. In this logic of majority decisions, tactical
compromises and superior commons, there is, of course, even less
thought of vast constellations of affinity groups self-organized
in an informal way, giving force a qualitative and dissonant
dimension. This dimension is capable of fully expressing the

 

 

 

 
famous “and its world’ from an anarchist perspective, with, on
the one hand, a revolutionary critique that tries to encompass
everything that allows the project being fought against to exist,
and, on the other hand, a methodology that nourishes hostilities
so that from the initial framework of the struggle—a particular
project of power—insurrectionary moments can explode that go
beyond it.

Despite the influx of victorious communiqués promising the
entry of the occupied lands into the straightjacket of the lav, no
‘one can forget that from the offensive beginnings of the struggle,
many attacks and acts of sabotage have flourished against the
sworld of the airport (not to mention the dozens of solidarity
actions elsewhere or the periods of confrontation with the

police).

 

‘This was the case with the opposition to the preliminary works
(staking and geotechnical drilling, construction of access roads)
and the bailiffs as early as 2010; with the occupation-ransack
of part of the current Nantes Atlantique airport in Bouguenais
in July 2011; with the sabotage of the construction site for the
extension of the Sautron/Vigneux-de-Bretagne dual highway
in May 2012; with the burning of train equipment in Nort-sur-
Erdre in November 2012; with the arson of the Vinci security
guard's car in Fay-de-Bretagne in November 2012; with the
sabotage of seven electric poles with a sledgehammer on the
route of the future road corridor in March 2013; with the
sabotage of the mobile telephone relay station in Vigneux-de-
Bretagne on three occasions in July, September and October
2014; and with the ransacking of the Total station in Temple~
de-Bretagne in February 2016. More recently, these possibilities
have also spread their wings to attack biologists (who came to
study the marbled newt in Vigneux-de-Bretagne, in April 2015),
local collaborators (the shed and straw storage of a hostile farmer
burned down in Vigneux-de-Bretagne in November 2012, the
family house of the Lamisse couple which was ransacked in
January 2016 at Notre-Dame-des-Landes), journacops (cars

of France 3 smashed with iron bars in October 2016), and

48
  

politicians (cars of France Bleu Loire Océan and Mélenchon,
soiled with shit in March 2017).

Reformism is undoubtedly the best option for arranging niches
within the existent, and the partisans of alternate conflictuality
have a historical head start in terms of the integration and
recuperation of struggles. As for the others, there is still a
whole world to be attacked, in which autonomous and affinity-
based possibilities remain alive, experimented with to the great
displeasure of the leaders of composition and their allies in the
struggle against this airport.

At Notre-Dame-des-Landes lies a corpse: that of a proper
composition that has definitively made clear, once it has been

put up against the wall, both swith whom (the State) and against
whom (the uncontrolled) it wishes to build its opportunistic little
world. Also, we know what the price is for letting the more or
less visibly organized authoritarian do their politicking in peace.
This is good news, because the increasingly unbearable smell of
this corpse opens up a thousand other paths. Towards freedom in
action, this time.

”
 

A Composition

By Julien Coupat, Adrian Woblleben, Hugh Farrell,
and other Imaginary Friends

NO ONE CAN DENY

‘The Arctic is melting, Japanese teenagers refuse to have sex, a
private company wants to build a colony on Mars, Europe is
being looted by hooded protestors, and humans may be extinct
by the end of the century

‘Meanwhile, glaciers melt, wildfires rage, Hurricane Whatever
drowns another city: Ancient plagues reemerge from thawing

permafrost

A government that declares a state of emergency against fifteen
year-old kids. A country that takes refuge in the arms of

so
football team. A cop in a hospital bed, complaining about being
the victim of “violence.” A city councilwoman issuing a decree
against the building of tree houses. Two ten year olds, in Chelles,
charged with burning down a video game arcade.

 

the Tunisia of Ben Ali, the busy Turkey of Erdogan, social-
democratic Sweden, Ba'athist Syria, Quebec on tranquilizers,
or the Brazil of beaches, the Bolsa Familia, and peace-keeping.
police units

Every oil spill, every sterile plain, every species extinction,

With every destructive earthquake, every economic crash and
every “terrorist attack”

the sphere of “economy,” of domestic management, “survival,”
“reproduction,”“daily routine,” and “labor”

Writing, accounting, History, royal justice, parliament, integrated
farming, science, measurement, political religion, palace intrigues
and pastoral power

“The digitized voices making announcements, tramways with
such a 21st century whistle, bluish streetlamps shaped like giant
matchsticks, pedestrians done up like failed fashion models, the
silent rotation of a video surveillance camera, the lucid clicking of
the subway turnstiles supermarket checkouts, office time clocks,
the electronic ambiance of the cyber café, the profusion of plasma
screens, express lanes and latex.

‘Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, Italy, the United States, Libya,
Syria, France, Chile, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, Bosnia,
Taiwan, Ukraine, and beyond

the occupation of plazas and buildings, flaming barricades, the

reappropriation and automatic communization of food and
clothing, masked demonstrations, molotov cocktails, street

51
 

 

ies, information hacking and leaks, highway blockades, and
strikes

Popular kitchens, supplies, street medicine, illegal takeovers, the
construction of emergency housing

the whole seamy mass of lay-abouts, liars, witches, madmen,
scoundrels and all the other vagrant poos,

terrorists, migrants, endocrine disruptors, fascism,
unemployment.

anarchist, environmentalist, Marxist, socialist

 

FIND EACH OTHER

hacker collectives, urban farmers, DIY art spaces, crisis cults, and
everyday hustlers

thousands of activists, dog walkers, punk rockers, parents,
dancers, scientists, students, doctors, campers, schoolchildren,
ecologists, tree-sitters, saboteurs, lawyers, documentarians, and
neighbors

birdwatchers, avers, academics, activists, history buffs, punks,
tenderqueers, carpenters

engineers, farmers, computer scientists, permaculture experts,
listeners, singers, thieves, nurses, historians, visionaries,
carpenters, plumbers, and a thousand other people

teamsters, sharp-shooters, translators, look-outs, saloons, hostels,
churches, farms, rumors, and slaves

Somewhere between the Olympics and the counterculture,
between Autonomia and Bauhaus, between quantum physies and
Sun Ra, between the great Apache warrior Lozen and Audre
Lorde.

in building hallways, atthe coffee machine, in the back of kebab
houses, at parties, in love affairs, in prisons

Bistros, print shops, sports facilities, wastelands, second-hand
book stalls, building rooftops, improvised street markets, kebab
shops and garages

a dealing territory, or a hunting territory; a territory of child’s
play; of lovers, ofa riot; a territory of farmers, ornithologists, o

flaneurs

In the shadows of bar rooms, in print shops, squats, farms,
occupied gymnasiums

the woods, at punk shows, at the beach, in dance parties, in the
black bloc

From pickling workshops and biointensive farms to hack spaces
and reoccupied native territories,

3
 

BUILD THE COMLIMUNE

knowing how to fight, to pick locks, to set broken bones and treat
sicknesses; how to build a pirate radio transmitter; how to set

up street kitchens; how to aim straight; how to gather together
scattered knowledge and set up wartime agronomics; understand
plankton biology;
interact; get to know possible uses for and connections with our
immediate environment as well as the limits we can't go beyond
without exhausting it.

 

‘oil composition; study the way plants

Get property: Pirate radio, Build stoves. Learn to cook. Learn
Languages. Get arms. Open street carts and businesses. Occupy
buildings. Set up cafes. Diners. Restaurants. Pizza shops.

Book stores. Permaculture. Mend wounds. Lathes. Giant pots.
Orchards. Build friendships. Acquire film equipment and

make documentaries. Talk to old comrades. Learn martial

arts, Read. Travel. Learn from each other. Write newspapers.
Weather the hard times. Loot. Hold regional gatherings. Write
internal journals, Refine the art of sabotage. Distribute counter-
information, Offset presses. Raw materials and the means of
production. Three thousand camping bowls. Survival packs.
Organic seeds. Share thoughts, feelings, and practice. Learn
history and learn from history. Build tables. Make art, Go to the
‘woods. Summer retreats. Dance parties. Get cars. Steal money.

54
‘Move close to each other. Start uncontrollable riots.

Learn to make fire. Build structures. Cultivate plants. Raise
animals. Cook. Cook for a thousand. Jailbreak phones. Jailbreak
friends. Infect networks. Build networks. Sing. Drum. War
Songs. Read tracks. Fix cars. Fix bikes. Design print. Design
furniture. Design circuits. Spin metal. Weld, Smithing. Bees.
‘Train. Learn to fight. To think. To love. To heal wounds. To heal
the world,

Work-based, neighborhood-based collectives, collectives of
citizens, of activists, of associations, of artists, etc., collectives of
every sort

the theater troupe, the seminar, the rock group, the rugby team

In urban centers, designers experiment with signal blocking,
counter-surveillance clothing and stealth apps to take us on and
off the communications grid. In Missouri, Open Source Ecology
maniacally builds a ‘civilization starter kit’ of the most essential
tools and machines for a relocalized, self-organized way of life
On the Great Plains, the Ponca plant ceremonial corn alongside
their former enemies both in opposition to the KeystoneX1

 

singing “Baby Shark’ to an anxious toddler, jumping subway
turnstiles, or carrying an umbrella in Hong Kong

high schools, punk shows, art scenes, cafes, bars

Cafes, restaurants, bars, gyms, universities, community
gardens, book stores, reading circles, at galleries, parks, hacker
conferences, farmers markets, salons

a cafe,a restaurant, a pizza shop, a book store, a gym, a bar.
You wander through your neighborhood, stopping by friends’

houses on your way to the cafe. You meet up nightly at the park

8
to work out. You walk each other home. You share each other's
cars. You go camping and learn bow ¢o start a fre together. You
pool money for a collective rainy day.

A repurposed storefront hosts weekly dinners that turn into
planning sessions. A collectively-run cafe sets aside profits to
incubate other spaces, like a wood shop where carpenters work
together to build more than just bookshelves.

a gourmet meal of stolen food; a few graffiti kids racking paint,
sharing the loot, and hitting the town together for a single night;
a conspiracy of baristas stealing coffee from the back [of the cafe
~ Editor’ note] to share with their friends at home

Live together. Share meals. Share money. Get everyone on food
stamps, build farms, share techniques for theft and resource
misallocation. Learn how to cook for two, then four, then twenty,
then a thousand

Herbal remedies, auto-repair, home construction, business
accounting, permaculture, programming, and legal work

plagiarism, mail, scandal, or a fist fight

Every block has a garden and a tool library. Houses are fixed up
and owned through use and care, Contracts are for people who
hate cach other, and they still get written up from time to time,
but shelter is not something you deprive even someone you hate.
In the garden, the neighborhood watch meets twice a week to
practice de-escalation techniques and nonviolent communication,
and trains for situations when those dontt work. The strip,

is dotted with every varicty of eatery, collectively run with

locally grown food and some specialty items acquired through
autonomous trade routes.

‘A group of designers and engincers who hate their jobs team
‘up to create an app that coordinates a flexible supply chain

among the farms and distribution points. These efforts lead to

36
an autonomous trade corridor springing up. The growth of the
network’s force and the utter disregard for regulations leaves the
authorities helpless, as food and people circulate freely along with
the spirit of rebellion.

   

Occupy deadening spaces—city halls, schools,shopping malls—
and breathe new life into them. Anticipate and intensify strategic
fractures. Redirect communications systems. Commander

 

 

supply lines. Seize power without governing.

 

‘THE MSURRECTION

In the subway, there's no longer any trace of the screen of
embarrassment that normally impedes the gestures of the
passengers. Strangers make conversation without making passes.
A band of comrades conferring on a street corner. Much larger
assemblies on the boulevards, absorbed in discussions. Surprise
attacks mounted in city after city, day after day. A new military
barracks has been sacked and burned to the ground. The evicted
residents of a building have stopped negotiating with the mayor's
office; they settle in. A company manager is inspired to blow

 
away a handful of his colleagues in the middle of a meeting,
“There's been a leak of files containing the personal addresses of
all the cops, together with those of prison officials, causing an
unprecedented wave of sudden relocations, We carry our surplus
goods into the old village bar and grocery store, and take what
wwe lack. Some of us stay long enough to discuss the general
situation and figure out the hardware we need for the machine
shop. The radio keeps the insurgents informed of the retreat of
the government forces. A rocket has just breached a wall of the
Clairvaux prison. Impossible to say if it has been months or years
since the “events” began, And the prime minister seems very
alone in his appeals for calm.

Farmers and gardeners experiment with organic agriculture
while makers and hackers reconfigure machines. Models escape
the vacant limelight and break bread with Kurdish radicals and
military veterans taking a stand for communal life.’Those with no
use for politics find each other at a dinner table in Zuccotti Park,
Oscar Grant Plaza, or Tahrir Square, and the barista who can
barely feed himself alone learns to cook for a thousand together
‘An Instagram star whose anxiety usually confines them to their
apartment meets a battle-scarred elder in Ferguson, where they
are baptized in tear gas and collective strength, and begin to feel
the weight lifted from their soul.

 

In the suburbs, a Walmart is now a hub for free goods and
getting organized. Truckers and first responders meet to
coordinate aid to a flooded territory. In the West, technologists
outfit weather balloons with transceivers to amplify the
autonomous internet. Labor freed from the economy increases
the yield of autonomous farms.

A network of fightclubs connects every major city. Experienced
members teach grappling and striking alongside basic fitness
and stretching. Each club finds its space and b
their community, especially those being cast off from this world.
One chapter in the Midwest mobilizes with truckers to resist
automation. Together they paralyze I-70 with the help of a

   

38
geotracking app, block the self-driving trucks, and break open
their cargo holds. What is useful is expropriated and the rest
turned to ashes. Smoke blinds police cruisers already lost amidst
makeshift barricades. The cargo yields a batch of mini-drones,
which are sent into defensive flight patterns via a reconfigured
app. The hacked drones infiltrate incoming police drones to
transmit a virus that freezes their propellers, dropping them
harmlessly to the ground. Acting with the chaos, the belligerent
truckers and fightclubbers take the offensive and make their
escape.

 

iferent groups of people cycle through the farms in
neighborhoods outside downtown, ready to provide food for
thousands of people occupying Woodruff Park. A warehouse on.
the west side has trucks and teams to drive to abandoned hotels
and industrial waste facilities, gathering “raw” material — metal,
lumber, kitchen equipment — that can be used to build brick
ovens and fix up the new building. A partisan cafe downtown
functions as an entry point for visitors and newcomers, as well as
a drop-in point for insurgents from around the state, the region,
the country, and even the world. The dance club lets people in to
blend with the crowd after a rowdy demo while giving them a
‘way to blow off some steam. Pirate radio transmitters broadcast
from secret locations outside of the city to spread sedition and
heresy into the heart of a great metropolis. University copy
machines are hacked for free prints for this weekend’s assembly
— the print shop is already running overtime. A friend walks out
of the store with a backpack full of goods and a knowing wink.
Doctors and herbalists are at hand, equipped to deal with any
injuries that might ensue from tonight's riot, well trained from
treating common ailments and injuries. The family lake house is
repurposed to sleep a hundred for a summer strategy meeting,
Slowly, something is growing.

  

Sourced from The Coming Insurrection, Te Our Friends, Now,
Inhabit, How to Start a Fire, The Vitalist International,
Clarifications, The Strategy of Composition, Nomos of the Earth,
Memes Without End, The Next Eclipse

9°
“ Reformism is undoubtedly the best option for arranging niches
within the existent, and the partisans of alternate conflictuality
have a historical head startin terms of the integration and
recuperation of struggles. As for the others, there is still a whole
world to be attacked, in which autonomous and affinity-based
possibilities remain alive, experimented with to the great
Aispleasure of the leaders of composition and their allies in the
struggle against this airport.

 

 

At Motre-Dame-des-Landes lies a corpse: that of a proper
‘composition that has definitively made clear, once it has been
put up against the wall, both with whom (the State) and against
whom (the uncontrolled) it wishes to build its opportunistic
little world. Also, we know what the price is for letting the more
or less visibly organized authoritarians do their politicking in
peace. This is good news, because the increasingly unbearable
smell of this corpse opens up a thousand other paths. Towards
freedom in action, this time.”