Anarchic update news all over the world - 11.07.2017

Today's Topics:

   
1.  anarkismo.net: Free Speech, Democracy, and "Repressive
      Tolerance" by Wayne Price (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL special July-August -
      history, Dossier 1917: Editorial: Anarchists, their role, their
      choices (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Poland, rozbrat.org: Hamburg against all of the G20. Riots
      in response to austerity Participants FA Poznan and the
      Collective Siren [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  The Police Lost Again Tonight in Hamburg (July 8 at 5:52am)
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





The Use of Herbert Marcuse to Justify Left Suppression of Free Speech ---- There has 
recently been controversy on the Left over "free speech" for right-wingers (not 
necessarily fascists). Should it be supported or physically opposed? Some leftists have 
revived interest in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse on "repressive tolerance" and why it 
should be opposed. Marcuse's theory is reviewed and arguments are raised against it from a 
revolutionary anti-authoritarian perspective. ---- There has been, recently, controversy 
on the Left over "free speech." Should radical leftists and anti-fascists disrupt speeches 
by right-wingers? Should leftists break up such meetings, charge the stage, and smash 
windows? Or should the leftists limit themselves to counter-demonstrations, boycotts, 
protest leaflets, and, perhaps, heckling? The controversy is not so much over public 
events by fascists-U.S. Nazis or Klan members, for example-but over right wingers who 
claim to not be fascists but "conservatives" who value free speech.

In working out an approach to this issue, a number of leftist thinkers-anarchists and 
Marxists-have revived interest in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse (1969). In 1965 (updated 
1968), Marcuse wrote an influential essay, "Repressive Tolerance" (which appeared with 
essays by two others in the little book, Critique of Pure Tolerance). Marcuse (1898-1979) 
was one of the most influential Left theorists of the ‘sixties and ‘seventies. A member of 
the Frankfort School, he was a scholar of Marx, Hegel, and Freud. Marcuse had an enormous 
impact and following. Given the general ignorance and muddle of much of today's radical 
thinking, it is not surprising that there has been an attempt to revive Marcuse's ideas 
about free speech and the limits of "pure tolerance."

Herbert Marcuse's Opposition to "Tolerance"

Marcuse argued that "tolerance" of differing political views was a fine goal for a good 
society. But it was wrong for the Left to "tolerate" right-wingers here and now, in the 
current social system. He was not speaking just of intolerance toward out-and-out 
fascists, but towards a very wide range of views. He was not just against tolerating bad 
actions (such as racist physical assaults on People of Color, women, and leftists).

He called for: "Withdrawal of tolerance from regressive movements before they can become 
active; intolerance even toward thought, opinion and word, and finally, 
intolerance...toward the self-styled conservatives, the political Right...." (110; his 
emphasis) "Tolerance would be restricted with respect to movements of a demonstrably 
aggressive or destructive character (destructive of the prospects for peace, justice, and 
freedom for all). Such discrimination would also be applied to movements opposing the 
extension of social legislation to the poor, weak, disabled." (120) This means restricting 
tolerance for a lot of people.

By "withdrawal of tolerance" he did not mean only opposing conservatives and those who 
were against "peace, justice, and freedom for all." He did not mean only organizing 
against them, fighting them through literature and speeches, demonstrations and strikes, 
boycotts and civil disobedience-as well as physical defense against violence from the 
Right. He proposed to physically suppress these views which were contrary to his-to not 
allow them to be published or to be spoken, to be in party platforms in elections, or to 
be organized for in any way.

If Marcuse had his way, "...Certain things cannot be said, certain ideas cannot be 
expressed, certain policies cannot be proposed, certain behavior cannot be permitted...." 
(88) "This is censorship, even precensorship...." (111) He advocated "...apparently 
undemocratic means...the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and 
movements....new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational 
institutions...." (100) There will have to be "extreme suspension of the right of free 
speech and free assembly." 109)

Who would determine what opinions were to be tolerated and which were not? "Who is 
qualified to make all these distinctions, identifications for the society as a 
whole[?]...Everyone who has learned to think rationally and autonomously...the democratic 
educational dictatorship of free men." (106) Although coming from the Marxist tradition, 
Marcuse rejected the idea of the rule of the working class (whether conceived of as 
democratic or a dictatorship). Instead, he raised the idea of "the dictatorship of an 
‘elite' over the people....a dictatorship of intellectuals....the political leadership of 
the intelligentsia...." (120-1) However, he pulled back; this may have been too bluntly 
authoritarian. Although it is the logical conclusion of his orientation, he finally 
rejected "a dictatorship or elite, no matter how intellectual and intelligent" in favor of 
"the struggle for a real democracy." (122) Which was still seen as consistent with 
opposition to "tolerance."

Marcuse's Reasons for Rejecting Tolerance

How did Marcuse justify this repressive strategy, which seems to contradict his goal of a 
free and democratic society? He argued that the Right's opinions are bad and "destructive 
of the prospects for peace, justice, and freedom for all." (During the reign of Franco's 
fascism, the Spanish Catholic Church similarly declared that "Error has no rights," to 
justify suppressing Protestantism.) Marcuse claimed that it was not so hard to know what 
was best: "the institutional and cultural changes which may help to attain the goal[of 
freedom]are comprehensible...they can be identified...on the basis of experience, by human 
reason....True and false solutions become distinguishable...." (87)

Experience contradicts this optimism. Even if we limit ourselves to the Left-to those who 
are for "peace, justice, and freedom for all"-opinions vary enormously about how to 
"attain the goal." Disagreements are many among Leftists. At times, they have led to 
bloody suppression, not only of the Right, but of other Leftists as well.

The libertarian-democratic tradition accepts that people are limited and fallible. The 
truth can never be known with absolute certainty but only approximated, to the best of 
human ability, at any one time. Therefore there must be free speech and opinion, letting 
differing views be expressed, clash with each other, and influence each other. As 
expressed opinions interact with actual human experience, a truer and more useful set of 
ideas will emerge over time.

Marcuse regards this libertarian-democratic model as an abstraction which does not fit 
existing capitalist society. While not the same as fascist totalitarianism, even the 
freeist bourgeois democracy is still dominated by a minority, the capitalist class 
(more-or-less the "one percent" and its minions). Even the best-paid working class still 
works to support the capitalists out of an unpaid-for surplus, that is, is exploited. But 
today the working class and others put up with this exploitation and oppression without 
rebellion. This is partly due to massive propaganda and mis-education poured out by a 
"monopolistic media...the mere instruments of economic and political power...." (95) This 
combines with a relatively high standard of living for most of the population due to 
modern technology. There is a flood of consumer goods which drowns more natural desires 
for fulfillment. The result is "a democracy with totalitarian organization." (97)

This is not counting the actual suppression of the Left. In Marcuse's period, this 
included McCarthyite witchhunting, FBI persecution, and Klan terror in the South. More 
recently, there has been the non-judicial jailings of Muslims, and the destruction of 
Occupy encampments throughout the country by coordinated police attacks.

In Marcuse's opinion, the workers and the rest of the population are mentally numbed by 
this system. They are not capable of thinking rationally and autonomously, even if they 
knew the facts. They are overwhelmed by life, used to taking orders in their daily jobs 
and satisfied with the minor pleasures of the consumer society. Politically they are used 
to the narrow range of opinion available in the newspapers, on radio, and in TV news, and 
offered by the two parties (a range from slightly-liberal to not-quite-fascist 
reactionary). Everyone can say what they want, but one side has the loudspeakers, which 
determines what everyone hears.

"The democratic argument requires a necessary condition, namely that the people must be 
capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they put have access 
to authentic information, and that, on this basis, their evaluation must be the result of 
autonomous thought." (95) None of these conditions apply, he believes. Seeing the 
population this way, leads to Marcuse's abandoning the working class-most of the 
people-and attraction to a dictatorship by an intellectual elite.

Freedom of speech and association (tolerance) are necessary aspects of capitalist 
representative democracy. This is itself simply one way for the capitalist minority to 
rule, exploit, and oppress the people. This limited democracy has its uses for the ruling 
class. It permits factions of the ruling class to raise their disagreements with each 
other and to work them out (without bloodshed). Also, it serves to bamboozle the people 
into thinking that they really run the state.

In this context, democratic tolerance becomes "repressive" for Marcuse. It is "repressive" 
because it supports and justifies the overall undemocratic system. The Left is tolerated, 
so that liberals get to make their complaints, and even tiny revolutionary socialist 
grouplets get to put out their rarely-read newspapers. The Left gets to blow off stem and 
the system looks democratic. But the ruling class is not impacted and the complacent 
majority is not affected. Similarly the Right is tolerated, from overt fascists, to 
far-right-authoritarians who deny that they are fascists, to moderate-conservatives. The 
Right is permitted to mis-educate the people with lies and bigotry, under the protection 
of "free speech" and tolerance.

"In endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same 
respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and 
propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This[is]pure tolerance of 
sense and nonsense...." (94) This certainly sounds like current U.S. political discourse.

Marcuse's One-Dimensional Analysis

Marcuse's analysis of capitalist society was true then and is true now-but it is not the 
whole truth. It is one-sided and ignores the inner contradictions and conflicts within the 
apparently totalitarian-democratic-affluent society. Marcuse insisted that industrial 
capitalism was in the process of ending inner contradictions which might once have moved 
society forward; it was developing "one-dimensional man"-the title of one of his books. 
(Ignoring inner contradictions is surprising for an authority on Hegel and dialectics.)

In fact, the sixties and seventies of Marcuse were a time of upheavals and conflicts. It 
included the Civil Rights and Black Liberation movement. This was the time of the struggle 
against the Vietnamese war. These two movements shook up U.S. politics and culture. They 
led to other struggles-for women's liberation, LGBT rights, ecological sustainability, and 
so on. By the early seventies, there were large workers' rebellions, including union 
organizing, national wildcat strikes, and Black caucuses in unions. Internationally, 1968 
was the year of a workers' almost-revolution in France, an anti-Stalinist national 
rebellion in Czechoslovakia, and the Tet offensive in Vietnam (a turning point in the war).

Most importantly, Marcuse did not see that the late sixties and early seventies were the 
end of the post-World War II boom. (Marcuse's blindness to the weaknesses of the 
capitalist prosperity was pointed out at the time by the libertarian Marxist, Paul 
Mattick[1972].) The effects which had overcome the Great Depression (such as massive arms 
spending and looting the environment) had worn out by then (see Price 2012). The world 
economy began to go downhill overall (with ups and downs). There developed new threats of 
global environmental catastrophe. The ruling class turned to "neo-liberal" policies, 
attacking the working class' living standards, weakening the unions, cutting government 
social benefits, de-regulating businesses, and slashing taxes on the wealthy. None of 
which restored overall prosperity.

Rather than everyone happily agreeing about politics and culture, in a stable, affluent, 
monolithic society, as Marcuse had seen things, there is now turmoil, vicious conflict, 
and an inability of the ruling class to keep things moving together smoothly. There is 
working class distress and dissatisfaction, among African-Americans and white workers. 
There is massive hostility toward the government. This is not (yet) a time of 
revolutionary upheaval, but neither is it one of one-dimensional totalitarian unity and 
solidity as described by Marcuse.

The Benefits of Free Speech and Tolerance for the Left

The capitalists certainly benefit from their limited democracy, freedom of speech, of the 
press, of assembly, and general tolerance. But so do the exploited and oppressed and their 
defenders on the Left. It is not a one-sided arrangement. The oppressed can form mass 
organizations to pressure the capitalists for benefits. African-Americans waged a 
large-scale struggle in the fifties and sixties which succeeded in ending legal racial 
segregation. Workers organized unions (workers have better pay and better working 
conditions when they have unions). Similar gains (real, if limited) have been won over 
time by women, LGBT people, and others due to their (tolerated) freedom to organize and 
mobilize.

The radical Left has also benefited from tolerance. If we add together all the anarchists, 
socialists, communists, radical feminists, radical pacifists, and everyone else who 
regards themselves as radical, this is still a small minority of the population. The big 
majority dislikes the views of the far Left. That millions of people believe in free 
speech and tolerance of minority extremist opinions is a major defense for the radical 
Left-not a complete defense but an important one. To a major extent, it protects the Left 
from government suppression and mob violence.

Freedom of speech and assembly, tolerance of minority opinions, has permitted the Left to 
continue even in times of reaction and repression. It has remained possible to for a 
minority to "blow on the coals" of revolutionary tradition, even in the worst of times. It 
has made it possible for a minority of advanced workers and youth to make contact with 
revolutionary socialists and join their cause. Doing this would be infinitely more 
difficult under conditions of fascist or Stalinist totalitarianism.

The extreme Left has been able to have an impact on the broader society. In times of 
turmoil, small groups and tendencies may suddenly have a major effect on the world. During 
the thirties, the Communist Party, and others on the Left, played a major role in 
organizing unions, the unemployed, and African-Americans. They won improvements for the 
workers and oppressed. In the upheavals of the sixties, the antiwar movement was organized 
and led by Trotskyists, Communists, radical pacifists, anarchists, independent socialists, 
and others-a minority which had a great effect on the politics and culture of the time. 
Radicals had a smaller, but real, impact on the African-American struggle. The ruling 
class became worried that too many young people were being influenced by revolutionary 
programs.

In brief, while tolerance and democratic freedoms have benefits for the ruling class, they 
also have real benefits for the people and for the Left as such. The capitalist class, 
because it is the ruling class, gets the lion's share of the benefits-so long as society 
is stable and prosperous. But in times of turmoil and upheaval, the Left gets to use its 
freedom and tolerance to its maximum advantage, to challenge the system. At which point, 
the rulers would be most likely to attack these freedoms. The Left would be foolish indeed 
to oppose the very free speech protection that it depends on.

What About Fascism?

What about the U.S. Nazis, the Klan, and similar groupings? Should they be granted freedom 
of speech or should their organizing be stopped for force, whenever possible?

When the Italian Fascist Party was working its way to power, and when the National 
Socialists were building themselves in Germany, the big problem was not their speeches. It 
was their actions. They assaulted the sellers of Left newspapers, broke up Left meetings, 
burned down union halls, and murdered opponents. In response, the police did little and 
the reactionary judges gave them slaps on the wrist. The failure of the liberal state was 
in not stopping such behavior. The failure of the Left was in not forming common fronts 
and fighting back against this aggression.

The Left groupings should have formed defense guards to defend their meetings, their 
halls, and their newspaper sellers. They should have taken the battle to the fascists. 
They should have retaliated by breaking up fascist meetings and driving the fascists from 
the streets. Such tactics were attempted by the Italian anarcho-syndicalists, but the 
Italian Socialists and Communists would not agree. Similar tactics were proposed by 
Trotsky to fight the rise of Nazism. Again, the German Communists and Socialists would not 
agree. In both cases, the Communists were too sectarian to work with other Leftists, and 
the Socialists had faith in bourgeois legality to protect them.

However, it would be a mistake to call on the government to ban the fascists or outlaw 
their speech. This is the state-the capitalist state. The Left should not trust it. Given 
the power to outlaw political opinions, it will put most of its efforts into silencing the 
Left, not the Right. Far better to demand that the state keep hands off political opinions.

But the Left does not have to respect the fascists! The Nazis are not a Conservative 
Discussion Club. They deliberately identify with a movement which overthrew political 
democracy (however limited), murdered millions of Jews, Romany, Slavs, and others, waged 
aggressive war, and subordinated other nations. Similarly, the Klan identifies with 
night-riding masked murder done to enforce white supremacy. When either group tries to 
march through a Jewish or African-American neighborhood, it is not to win local adherents 
but to frighten people with the threat of violence.

The big majority of U.S. workers are hostile to fascists in a way that they are not toward 
conservatives. Militant counter-demonstrations against overt fascists (who are understood 
by most people as fascists) are understandable. Efforts to break up their rallies and 
marches are justifiable and comprehensible as a form of self-defense.

What Are We For?

Marcuse objected to having a minority (the capitalists and their agents) rule over the 
rest of the population. He wanted to replace this with a truly democratic and free 
society. But his methods implied an elite "educational dictatorship." (106) A minority of 
rational and autonomous people would make the decisions, while suppressing other views 
which, they believe, do not lead to peace and freedom. In effect, he wanted the current 
society to support free speech for the Left while it is out of power-but if the Left 
should ever get into power, it should suppress the free speech of others. This seems like 
a foolish thing to say out loud, but there it is.

Such views are really quite common on the Left. Much of the Left wants to turn the U.S. 
into something very like the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, Castro's Cuba, or even 
Lenin and Trotsky's early Soviet Union-one party dictatorships with state capitalist 
economies. Of course they do not believe in free speech for anyone but themselves-which is 
not free speech at all. Unlike Marcuse, they rarely say this explicitly, but it is their 
program.

Also, a great many anarchists openly reject democracy of any kind-not only capitalist 
representative democracy. (See Price 2016; 2017) They reject even the most participatory, 
direct, antiauthoritarian-socialist democracy, in the workplace or community (managed by 
consensus or by majority rule with respect for minorities). They deny, sincerely, that 
they want any kind of dictatorship, but provide no alternate form of collective 
decision-making. Without an explicit belief in radical democracy, it is not surprising 
that many anarchists slide into elitist practices, such as denying free speech to others, 
even non-fascists. (Many other anarchists believe that anarchism is the extreme form of 
participatory democracy. When everyone is involved in governing, then there is no 
government-that is, no institution separate from and over everyone, no state.)

 From another perspective (one which is compatible with anarchism and libertarian 
socialism), on the demand for free speech, "There can be no contradiction, no gulf in 
principle, between what we demand of this existing state, and what we propose for the 
society we want to replace it, a free society....What we demand of this state now does 
constitute our real program....The kind of movement we build now, on a certain basis, will 
determine our new society, not good intentions....Our aim by its very nature requires the 
mobilization of conscious masses. Without such conscious masses, our goal[socialist 
democracy]is impossible. Therefore we need the fullest democracy....We want to push to the 
limit all the presuppositions and practices of the fullest democratic involvement of the 
greatest mass of people. To the limit, that is, all the way." (Draper 1992; 165-6, 170, 172)

In conclusion: An antiauthoritarian Left should have no tolerance for the Right. That is, 
it should organize against the Right, polemicize against the Right, mobilize and 
demonstrate against the Right, do all that it can to expose the lies and evil program of 
the Right. It may demand debates, or, when objectionable speakers appear, get up and walk 
out. Within the broader movement of opposition (the "Resistance", which is mostly 
pro-Democratic Party liberals), there should be an effort to build a revolutionary, 
antiauthoritarian, Left wing. This should oppose all sections of the Right. It should also 
criticize the liberal supporters of capitalism, who have prepared the way for the 
successes of the Right.

Contrary to Marcuse's expectations, the current condition of capitalism is shaken by 
failures and internal conflicts. Fissures in the system have been revealed, and they open 
up a great deal of dissatisfaction and frustration with the society and the state. There 
are now possibilities for a revived mass movement of the Left.

But what kind of Left will it be? Will it present an elitist, authoritarian, statist 
vision of socialism? Or a vision of the fullest freedom and radical democracy? If we want 
freedom and cooperation, then we need a movement whose methods are consistent with its 
ends-which prefigure the ends. When necessary it would physically defend workers and 
People of Color from violent fascists. But in general, it should make clear by word and 
deed that it is the most consistent and thorough defenders of freedom, including free 
speech. Whatever his other contributions, Marcuse has nothing to teach us in this area.

References

Draper, Hal (1992). "Free Speech and Political Struggle." In E. Haberkern (ed.). Socialism 
from Below. NJ: Humanities Press. Pp. 162-172.

Marcuse, Herbert (1969). "Repressive Tolerance." In R. Wolff, B. Moore, Jr., & H. Marcuse. 
Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon Press. Pp. 81-123.

Mattick, Paul (1972). Critique of Marcuse; One-Dimensional Man in Class Society. NY: 
Herder & Herder.

Price, Wayne (2012).  "Living Through the Decline of Capitalism."
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/24227?search_text=Way...Price

Price, Wayne (2016). "Are Anarchism and Democracy Opposed? A Response to Crimethinc"
  https://anarchistnews.org/content/are-anarchism-and-dem...thinc

Price, Wayne (2017). "Democracy, Anarchy, & Freedom." C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: 
Anarchy and Democracy.
https://c4ss.org/content/49237

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30376

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Message: 2





A dossier realized by Guillaume Davranche (AL Montreuil) ---- and Pierre Chamechaude 
(Friend of AL, Paris north-east) ---- Of the Russian Revolution, libertarians often retain 
only two epic and meaningful episodes: the Makhnovshchina, Cronstadt 1921. The initial 
sequence of 1917-1918 is less well known. Yet this is where the main part of the game has 
been played for the anarchist movement. ---- What then was his consistency, what was his 
role, what choices did he make ? ---- In February 1917, after the collapse of the imperial 
institutions, an alternative administration - the soviets, the factory committees - 
emerged as the basis of a possible popular power. Possible, but not assured. Much would 
depend on the direction of the various political currents at work. ---- In February 1917, 
anarchism was the most minority component of Russian socialism.

To be sure, the overwhelming politicization of the proletariat and the conscripts led to a 
bloated growth of parties and unions, hitherto clandestine. But how can we transform this 
flood of volatile converts into a collective force capable of influencing the course of 
events ?

All the organizations were confronted with this issue, which the anarchist movement could 
not answer. For lack of means, assuredly ; Because of a lack of will as well, because of a 
spontaneous residue inherited from the "  terrorist  " period of 1905-1906.

Years later, many activists will highlight these shortcomings. Voline deplored the lack of 
"  cadres  " to spread anarchist ideas and "to  thwart the powerful propaganda and 
Bolshevist action  ". [1]Makhno want to "  anarchists cities  " for not having supported 
those campaigns [2]. Anatole Gorélik will judge that "  there were very few anarchist 
militants of sufficient theoretical formation  " and will evoke his anguish when in the 
Donbass he saw "  every week,

Since the anarchist movement had not been able to overcome its initial disadvantage in 
time, a large part of its movement was satellited and then aspired by the Bolshevik Party, 
which its numerical and organizational superiority revealed as a more effective tool to 
counter the hurry: The bourgeoisie and the counter-revolution.

What to do to escape this fatality, and create surprise ?

This dossier tells how the libertarian movement played its part and tried to catch up, 
before being brutally strangled by the new power.

In summary

February-March 1917: After the Tsarists, drive the capitalists
Minority but galvanized, anarchists advocate expropriation all the way
A tract of the Communist Anarchist Federation of Petrograd (March 1917)
April-May: the irrepressible rise to the social explosion
The first libertarian wave (1905-1908)
Anarcho-syndicalists in factory committees
June-July: insurrection not enough
The fiasco of the days of July
August-September: the counter-revolution digs its own tomb
The Other Components of Russian Socialism in 1917
October red (and black): the assault in the unknown
A Ukrainian revolutionary: Maroussia emerges from oblivion
November 1917-April 1918: from pluralism to the confiscated revolution. Four cleavage points:
People's Power vs. State Power
Socialization against nationalization
Popular militia against hierarchical army
On requisitions and expropriations
Epilogue 1918-1921: resistance and eradication


[1] Voline, The Unknown Revolution, Volume 2, Entremonde, 2009, page 17.

[2] Nestor Makhno, Memoirs and Writings 1917-1932, Ivrea, 2009, page 108.

[3] Anatole Gorélik, quoted in Alexandre Skirda, The Russian Anarchists, the Soviets and 
the Revolution of 1917, Editions de Paris-Max Chaleil, 2000, page 144.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Dossier-1917-Edito-Les-anarchistes-leur-role-leurs-choix

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Message: 3





The organization of the G20 summit in Hamburg was to be a show of force of global elites. 
This city is a hub for port workers and traditionally an important focus of social revolts 
in Germany. The decision on his election to the place where is held the G20 was designed 
to confirm that the participants are able to suppress all resistance to their plans to 
impose policy crisis, cuts in social security, militarism and nationalism. The scale of 
the protests residents of Hamburg and groups from all over Europe, however, surpassed the 
imagination of policymakers. ---- Contrary to media transfers of residents of the city 
were an important group among the protesters. Their actions took on the form of banners 
hanging from the windows of houses, the strike of teachers and students of secondary 
schools, actively participate in the demonstrations, opening markets in order to gain 
access to the means of subsistence, as well as self-defense against the aggressive 
behavior of the police. It's understandable, even if one takes into account that Hamburg 
has paid dearly for the organization of the summit. City budget has been depleted of 
millions of euros. Thus the party for a few consisted of all residents, some of whom 
expressed their opposition on the streets.

The main goal of the protests was the Congress Center lying in the heart of the city. The 
German authorities have surrounded them, but the police cordons, barbed wire, armored 
transporters and water cannons. Therefore, the height of the protests took place in other 
central districts of the city - St. Pauli, Altona, Sternschanze. Several times they came 
in to destroy banks, looting supermarkets and shops network of global brands. In this way, 
the protesters expressed their opposition to the police and the political oppression and 
regained their livelihoods, to which every day have limited access due to low wages, 
unemployment and lack of social security.

Politicians and the media with them to define these events as hell on earth. Certainly, a 
condition in which the population recovers the wealth generated from the perspective of 
elites is hell on earth. Food riots are hell for the rich, who live off the labor of 
others, but for working poor living with their own hands universal access to means of 
subsistence is paradise. Politicians and business unions fight, make eviction, destroying 
the health service etc., thereby limiting employee access to the products of their own 
labor. Some of those who are in Hamburg dared to reach for his, felt firsthand the 
brutality of the German authorities. It should however be borne in mind that the scale of 
state violence they have experienced in recent days, is incomparable with the slaughters 
dokonywanymi years in Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, for 
which the responsible politicians would meet during the next G20 summits.

G20 meeting provoked a wave of social resistance in the streets of Hamburg, who took 
different forms. The authorities claim that it is a manifestation of left-wing extremism, 
although in reality it is spontaneous and rational response to poverty and exploitation, 
which is repeated throughout the history of capitalism. Business and political elites 
deepen inequalities not only in following the summits like the G20, but above all by the 
receiving society the fruits of his daily work. Therefore, fighting against exploitation, 
we are organizing in their own cities, without waiting for new protests against the 
international summits.

Participants FA Poznan and the Collective Siren

http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/miedzynarodowe/4545-cay-hamburg-przeciw-g20-zamieszki-w-odpowiedzi-na-polityk-zaciskania-pasa

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Message: 4






Why They Couldn't Keep Control ---- Tonight, for the second night in a row, approximately 
20,000 police armed with the best crowd control technology money can buy utterly lost 
control of downtown Hamburg. Last night was bad enough, with clashes and decentralized 
attacks continuing well past sunrise; tonight they were forced to withdraw completely from 
the Schanze neighborhood for several hours, as barricades burned in the intersections and 
thousands of people of all walks of life joyously celebrated a police-free zone. Now the 
mayor who invited the G20 to Hamburg is pleading for the end of the violence he started. 
---- This shows that, even with the very latest technologies, no amount of police violence 
can control a population that is determined to refuse to be dominated. This is good news 
for partisans of freedom everywhere around the world.

As we compose these lines, the police are storming Schanze with the utmost of brute force, 
recklessly pointing machine guns at reporters and everyone else, seeking to avenge 
themselves on those who remain on the streets after most participants have gone home to 
rest. The special forces units of Hamburg and five other cities are deployed on the 
streets, as well as Austrian special forces. But no amount of violence and oppression can 
conceal the fact that they lost control-and more importantly, that they never deserved 
control in the first place.

Conspiracy theory nuts will allege that the G20 was intentionally placed in Hamburg to 
provoke the population in order to justify further crackdowns on civil liberties. This is 
half true: in putting the G20 immediately beside one of the most radical neighborhoods in 
Germany, the authorities were testing the population to see how much people will put up 
with. Hamburg is being treated as an experimental laboratory of repression, with police 
officers brought in from several other nations in the European Union to study repression.
But if we can make it impossible for the police to control us despite more than one out of 
every twelve officers in all of Germany being concentrated in a single city, then surely 
we can defend our freedom from the state as a whole. The point here is that we cannot be 
cowardly, clinging to the illusion that the state will permit us our freedoms if only we 
are submissive enough. No people has ever achieved or retained freedom that way.
Things have reached a point of no return: the future will be revolutionary liberation, or 
it will be a police state. The supposed middle ground, in which limited freedoms are 
watched over by a state restrained by the will of the people, has always been a myth, an 
illusion that is harder and harder to maintain.

Let's look closer at the breakdown of police control. In 1987, the German police began to 
shift to their current model for crowd control, in order to correct for the ways that 
crowds had outmaneuvered and defeated them-especially on May Day of that year. The 
subsequent model of German policing, in which long lines of riot police are supplemented 
with highly mobile snatch squads that maintain close contact with the crowd, has more or 
less served to control urban unrest until now. (For a more thorough overview of the recent 
history of German police tactics, consult this helpful article.)

In 2017, exactly thirty years after the origins of this model, the crowds of Hamburg 
succeeded in once more outmaneuvering and defeating the police. This time, they did so by 
spreading the action over a vast area of the city, moving swiftly and focusing on 
decentralized actions. Whenever the police established a control line, people gathered on 
the other side of it-not only demonstrators, but also supportive spectators. Small, highly 
organized and mobile groups of demonstrators were able to identify exit routes and carry 
out swift attacks, while larger crowds stretched the police one direction, then another. 
The more territory the police had to control, the more they antagonized the population, 
and the more demonstrators they had to deal with as their lines became more and more 
thinly stretched. Finally, they lost control of the most unruly regions and were forced to 
retreat entirely.

In addition to tactical concerns, however, the most important blow to the police has been 
that, by going too far in seeking to control the population by brute force, they lost 
legitimacy in the public eye. Their absurd and unprovoked attack on yesterday's Welcome to 
Hell demonstration turned the entire city against them. No wonder they have lost control.
They will surely regain it, probably at the cost of a great deal of suffering inflicted at 
random on those who remain on the streets. But we should be heartened by the fact that 
they were beaten, that they could not control the population-and we should be inspired by 
the tremendous courage that people have shown in Hamburg, standing up to such a powerful 
adversary and refusing to back down.

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