Anarchic update news all over the world 15.08.2017

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Britain, 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Czech, AFED, A3: Capitalism kills [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  THE CNT AND THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION,                   PART 2:
      THE CRISIS IN THE IWA AS SEEN FROM THE CNT 
      (ca) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





This year's London Anarchist Bookfair will be on Saturday 28th October from 10am to 7pm. 
---- Venue: Park View School ---- West Green Road, London, N15 3QR  ---- We are now taking 
bookings for this year's Bookfair. If you go to the Bookings page of the website you can 
download the booking form. Then just send it back to us with payment. ---- What is 
anarchism? ---- Like all really good ideas, anarchy is pretty simple when you get down to 
it. Human beings are at their very best when they are living free of authority, deciding 
things among themselves, rather than being ordered about. That's what the word means: 
without government. Read on... http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/anarchism.html ---- 
Anarchism and the bookfair

Bookfairs provide a space where like-minded people can come together to re-affirm old 
friendships, make new ones, discuss all things anarchist and anticapitalist and start 
planning the future revolution. They're also one of the public faces of anarchism. Anyone 
unfamiliar with the ideas or wanting to know more about the politics can come along, look 
through books, sit in or get involved in meetings, workshops and discussions or just chat 
to the groups and organisations having stalls there.

It is also a space where we counter the rubbish talked about anarchism by sections of the 
media and our opponents. Bookfairs are one small element of making anarchism a threat to 
the present political system.

We need people to help us publicise the event to every nook and cranny in London. If you 
are new to anarchism, check out the pages websites and bookfairs. There are links to 
anarchist and campaigning groups around the country and anarchist bookfairs throughout the 
world.

Access issues

If you have any access requirements, please let us know so we can try and meet your needs. 
If you are Deaf and require BSL interpreting and/or speech-to-text provision, please give 
us as much notice as possible and we will do our best to organise these. To discuss any 
specific access needs, please contact us at access at anarchistbookfair.org.uk.

Dogs

To make the bookfair a safe environment for children and adults alike, we ask people do 
not bring dogs to the event, except guide dogs. Thanks.

Cameras

Please don't take photographs: it's not necessary and it can annoy or worry some people.

See a map of the venue and surrounding area.
Directions to venue

 From Seven Sisters
Come out of tube and walk down West Green Road. Either get 41 bus down the road to Philip 
Lane stop (3 stops) or walk along West Green Road (15 minutes).

 From Turnpike Lane
Come out of tube and get 41 or 230 bus from stop outside the florists towards West Green 
Road (4 stops) and get off after KK McCools pub. Or 67 bus from same stop but get off 
before mini roundabout (again 4 stops) and walk along West Green Road a couple of hundred 
yards. Or walk from tube along West Green Road (15 minutes)

 From Manor House
341 bus (towards Turnpike Lane). It's about 9 or 10 stops.

Or overground to Seven Sister and then get bus or walk.
Look for the Anarchist Bookfair banners on the blue metal fence outside the venue.

http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/

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Message: 2





Modes based on inequality and oppression have their victims, including capitalism. 
Download, print and enlarge the August issue of the A3 wall paper! ---- On the night of 
June 30, 2017, she died in Athens for a heart attack by Daniel Prelorentz. She was 
employed as a blacksmith in Zografou, Athens, and she was about to take a second shift in 
24 hours and a third in 36 hours. ---- Zografou's district administration, who was in 
charge of her work, immediately tried to get rid of the responsibility for her death. It 
had nothing to do with Daniel being forced to work three shifts within 36 hours, 
regardless of her senior age and more than 40 degrees of heat. The death of Daniely is the 
result of a policy aimed at the total exhaustion of wage-earners. It results from the 
introduction of the so-called multi-speed operating mode. In it, people without permanent 
employment must obey any libolos from the top, if they want to have the chance to continue 
to be hired.

On Wednesday 19 July, a protest march from Ilisia to Zografou took place in Athens in 
response to the death of Daniela Prelorentza. It was organized by collectives, 
self-governing groups and anarchists from the eastern suburbs of Athens. It was attended 
by three hundred people. He ended at the Zografou City Hall, which the protesters polished 
in red, symbolizing the blood of the workers killed by the bosses and the state.

In our country, under the slogan of the state "active employment policy", we offer 
time-limited employment opportunities. It is the cleaning and maintenance of public areas 
and communications, or the unskilled work of the mower. Whoever has no choice and does not 
want to die of starvation, may be glad that the summer temperature remains below 40 � C. 
The official herd will be careful to avoid hurting herself if she does not want to lose 
the state alms. And, surprisingly, a few years ago, there was no idea for these publicly 
beneficial citizens to be visibly marked with a tape on their sleeves and did not try to 
hide their futile social status. However, demonstrating human dignity is not a habit in 
our country.

Typical is more of a reaction. As if one proud Czech, a happy employee of the corporation, 
publicly welcomed the progressive form of bossing by the employer (so-called bossing) - 
staffing chips. It is not said that people are milling. The chip under the skin is simply 
needed to operate the copier, open the door, or pay in the company canteen. And so far 
it's free!

We are still terrified by the bloated communist's bubble, and in front of us they are 
waving us with the Black Book, which calculates its victims. Communist regimes governed by 
the above state, bureaucratic and party power were clearly condemnable and their victims 
easily identifiable. Victims of the capitalist regime, not counting frequent shootings in 
strikers, etc., often have a very individual character. It is a distinct individualism 
that denies interpersonal solidarity that forms the basis of capitalist ideology. Take 
care of yourself, and if you do not have it, do not you!

People dying due to poor access to medical care, poor working conditions or poor health. 
Stress causing heart attacks, inexperience leading to alcoholism ... Many hundreds of 
Indian peasants who have committed suicide after their multinational corporations began to 
work ... Devastated communities in developing countries, poverty-stricken areas in the 
rich West that simply left the capital because they did not generate it anymore Profits 
... Global arms trade, wars driven for oil resources or price ... This list has no end.

For governments and the media that reproduce capitalist ideology every day and are an 
integral part of the regime, people like Daniel are invisible. Rather, they will bluff a 
terrorist threat, while the number of victims of capitalism many times exceeds the number 
of deaths due to attacks by fascists of different faiths in European capitals.

For us, Daniel and other nameless victims of capital are above all a man who has the same 
right to a dignified life as a bunch of bankers, speculators and politicians who have 
brought Greece to ruin. The fact that the victims of capitalism do not count does not mean 
they do not exist. We know and do not forget about them. Capitalism is a murderous system, 
whether it's doing the dam of freedom and democracy as it wants. We do not disapprove.

A3 ( August 2017)

The A3 wall paper is published annually by the Anarchist Federation. They are intended 
primarily for spreading through street lifts or posting in workplaces and schools.

13.8.2017 Nakladatelstv� AF

http://www.afed.cz/text/6729/a3-kapitalismus-zabiji

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Message: 3





This is the second part of a translation from last year that gives context about the 
current proposal to create an international organization of revolutionary unions, which 
was initiated by the Spanish CNT, the Italian USI, and the German FAU, but which many more 
revolutionary unions from other countries are engaging with, including the IWW in the UK & 
Ireland. The first part dealt with the CNT's contradictions since the death of Franco in 
1975; this part deals with the contradictions of revolutionary unionism internationally, 
and gives context for why the unions mentioned above eventually decided to chart a new 
path. There are many useful points for revolutionary unionists in North America to think 
about, and this also provides useful context for the discussion the North American IWW 
will hold at its 2017 Convention about whether to take part in creating a new 
international organization.

A map showing the IWA's presence in Europe. The sections which favor the refoundation 
proposal are in green, while those who are opposed or undecided are in red.
CONTINUED FROM PART 1. ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY RABIOSO. TRANSLATED BY BRANDON.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING: FROM THE CNT TO THE IWA

Historically, the International Workers Association (IWA) never played a relevant role in 
the history of the workers movement; the only exception, perhaps, was the Spanish 
Revolution of 1936, in which the CNT played a key role. After its defeat,  the rise of 
fascism and the second world war brought about the destruction of all of the other 
sections except one, the Swedish SAC, thanks to Sweden's neutrality during the war. At 
first, the SAC stayed true to anarcho-syndicalist principles while the Swedish welfare 
state was under construction. The loss of members, and a fear of ending up totally 
marginalized, led the organization to embark on a 180 degree change at its 1942 Congress, 
in the middle of the war. It formed a part of the machinery of the Swedish welfare state, 
which supported it financially.

The first step was to accept a role in distributing unemployment funds, like the other 
unions. They created a fund for this purpose, with the generous  help of the State, which 
also generously supported the payments. This collaboration, apparently innocuous, has 
degenerated to the level where they accept police as members and have created a caste of 
functionaries. A good example of this is Arbetaren, the SAC's organ, with a distribution 
of 3,500, which until 2010 had no less than 10 editors on a union salary, thanks to state 
subsidies, and which ended up criticizing some of the SAC's own struggles for being 
"radical."[i]To be fair, we should also mention that at its 2009 Congress the SAC 
radicalized its strategy, but not all the way: the majority of the organization still 
voted against a ban on cops.

In 1951, the IWA held its 7th Congress, the first after the start of WW2 (the last had 
been in 1938). At this congress they denounced the SAC's activities. In 1956, the SAC 
ceased paying its contributions to the IWA, and in 1959 decided to leave the IWA after an 
internal referendum. Thus the IWA lost the last union worthy of the name, and became 
nothing more than a federation of miniscule propaganda groups scattered across the globe, 
without even the most basic workplace presence. The hardest years of the Cold War were a 
period of "wandering in the desert" for the anarcho-syndicalist movement, which also 
suffered various internal splits in the CNT-in-exile, its largest section by far.

The situation changed completely in the 70's. The economic crisis and the CNT's 
resurrection in 1976 cleared the path for the creation of new anarcho-syndicalist 
organizations: the German FAU, heir of the FAUD, founded in 1976; the Direct Action 
Movement in the UK (now Solidarity Federation), created in 1979; in 1983 the re-activated 
USI, the historical Italian section, organized its first congress; and at the end of the 
80's the French CNT-F had its first successes at building a workplace presence. 
Unfortunately, in a repetition of the myth of Sisyphus, the new organizations suffered 
similar problems to the ones that the CNT was just beginning to recover from.

The IWA in the 20's, the swan song of a movement that would soon become history due to 
internal conflicts and the rise of fascism and bolshevism.
RETURN TO THE WORKPLACE, AND THE INTERNAL CRISES OF THE CNT-F AND USI

First came the French CNT, at the start of the 90's. After successfully starting a branch 
at COMATEC, a company involved in cleaning the Paris metro, and winning a strike, the 
CNT-F participated in the union elections in 1991. They did the same in STES, another 
workplace where they had created a strong branch. The participation in union elections in 
Paris and its consequences (subsidies, privileges for a caste of functionaries, etc) led 
to strong tensions in the heart of the organization, which finally split in November of 1992.

The CNT-F split into the CNT-F/Vignoles (Paris), created in a Congress of February 1993 
and favoring participation in union elections; and the CNT-F/Burdeos, created in a 
Congress of 1993, opposed to participation. The division was stark: while Paris had the 
majority of the members of the old CNT-F, the majority of the branches went over to 
Burdeos, reproducing France's structure, with Paris rising high above the rest of the country.

The biggest consequence of the CNT-F's rupture was a change to the IWA statutes, 
eliminating the possibility of having two sections in the same country. This was the first 
change to the statutes since 1922, which says a lot about the organization's lack of 
contact with reality for decades. Finally, the XX IWA Congress (Madrid, 1996) decided to 
expel Vignoles, and Bordeaux became the French section. As far as the union elections go, 
despite assurances from Vignoles that these were exceptional measures, their 2008 Congress 
decided to make them one of their main tactics for workplace organizing.

Just as the French section had split over questions of organizing strategy, a similar 
conflict was brewing in Italy. Once again, the context was the beginning of real 
industrial activity and the need to define a valid strategy for workplace organizing. And 
once again, as in Spain and then in France, the debate centered around organizing 
strategy. In the USI's case, the discussion centered around relations with other Italian 
rank-and-file unions, especially the COBAS (Rank-and-File Committees).

In the early '90's, after it had succeeded in becoming a real union, a conflict developed 
between its three wings (pure unionist, anarchist, and anarcho-syndicalist). The first 
conflict was with the anarchist wing, which left the organization in the mid-�90's after a 
Congress in Prato C�rnico (Udine). After this  a conflict between the two remaining groups 
developed around how to interpret an agreement made in 1993 about collaborating with other 
rank-and-file unions. In February of 1995, the majority of participants at a delegate 
meeting in Bari approved the establishment of "a federative pact with other unions." The 
pure unionist sector (centered in Rome) saw this as a green light for fusing with other 
groups, which would have led to the dissolution of the USI.

When they realized what the pure unionists were planning, the coordinating bodies and the 
anarcho-syndicalists convoked another delegate meeting, this time in Milan, which reversed 
the previous agreement. This was the start of an open conflict between the two sections, 
which chose different paths. The pure unionists of USI-Rome didn't take long to show signs 
of authoritarianism, with the same people remaining in coordinating positions, and they 
didn't see any problems working with the fascist union HISNAL. Worse still, they refused 
to stop calling themselves USI-AIT, leading to confusion which they took advantage of to 
sabotage any strikes from the anarcho-syndicalist side. Italian law requires unions to 
communicate strikes to the government if they are to be valid - every time the 
anarcho-syndicalists called a strike, the pure unionists sent a letter to the government 
calling it off. At the same time, in 1995 the anarcho-syndicalists reunited with the 
anarchists who had recently left, and this unified group began calling itself USI-Prato 
C�rnico or just simply USI-AIT.

The conflicts in the CNT-F and the USI reached their high point in 1995-1996, which made 
the 1996 IWA Congress fundamental to the future of the organization. Both conflicts were 
resolved internally by the USI-Rome leaving voluntarily, and by recognizing the 
CNT-F/Bordeaux as the French section. Sadly, the Congress took place in a very emotionally 
charged atmosphere. This marked the future of the IWA, which began a stage marked by 
conflicts and internal struggles.

THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICES

The 1996 Congress, which should have been the start of the IWA's resurrection, ended up as 
the starting point for a hellish internal dynamic, and the CNT played a key role. The 
first step had been taken in the 1984 IWA Congress (Madrid), which approved a motion 
brought by the CNT - which had just suffered its worst-ever split - that prohibited the 
IWA sections from having any contact with the SAC. This was because SAC had given 
financial support to the split group (the future CGT).[ii]The agreement prohibited any 
"official" contacts, but permitted "unofficial" contacts, opening a dangerous space for 
interpretation.

The important thing about this agreement is the mental state which it reflects. After 
suffering splits in its biggest sections, the IWA ended up trusting nobody, like a wounded 
animal. Trust, the basis of federalism, was replaced by surveillance over member sections 
and the threat of punishment whenever it seemed useful. An agreement made in the following 
Congress (Granada, 2000) extended this logic by prohibiting sections from maintaining 
contacts with organizations in other countries without the approval of the local section, 
a logic that was more feudal than federal, and which would have important consequences. 
One important detail to remember is that this agreement was proposed by the NSF, the 
Norwegian section, which has no workplace presence.

Another important change that began in the 1996 Congress is that "Friends of the IWA" 
groups, which until then had only been able to participate in meetings by expressing their 
opinion, began to submit proposals and participate in voting. These groups, dedicated to 
propaganda and without any union activity, are tend to more dogmatic postures due to their 
lack of workplace presence. They have a similar mentality to their twins, organizations 
without union activity but which have nevertheless managed to become members of the IWA, 
as well as the sections which in the past were real unions but which today are mere 
fossils without any workplace presence.

Since the IWA makes decisions through voting, and each section has one vote, these phantom 
unions and groups, closer to the past and the history books than to the reality of 
workplace struggles, dominate the decision making in practice.

After the crises of the USI and the CNT-F, the �90's saw several other truly surrealist 
events. One of these was the crisis in the WSA, the section in the US, in which a new 
local section (Minnesota), created in 1999, dedicated itself to expelling the "lifelong" 
members, changing the name of the organization and, finally, leaving the IWA at the start 
of 2002, complaining about its "lack of solidarity," disappearing shortly 
thereafter.[iii]After it left, the old members of the IWA in the US reorganized as the WSA 
and asked to be recognized as a section, which the IWA Secretariat (in Granada) refused. 
They were then rejected at the IWA congress in 2004, despite the support of the FAU and 
the USI.

A similar event happened with the Czech section, admitted in the 1996 Congress. Despite 
its name (Anarcho-syndicalist Federation - FSA), this section was more of an anarchist 
federation than an anarcho-syndicalist union, as the USI complained in 2005. The FSA 
focused on attacking the USI and the FAU, two of the biggest IWA sections, while it lacked 
even the most basic workplace activity. In its 2004 Congress the FSA changed its name to 
reflect reality, becoming the Federation of Anarchist Groups, and finally in 2007 it 
voluntarily left the IWA.

AGAINST THE USI AND THE FAU

After the splits in the CNT-F and the USI, a witch hunt broke out inside the IWA. One of 
its victims was the USI, thanks to its participation in a union representation body (the 
RSU - Reppresentazione Sindicale Unitaria). After 2002, this became a chief topic in IWA 
discussions, and there was a growing clamor to expel the USI in the name of a supposed 
"orthodoxy."  The fact that the Russian and Czech sections were most vocal for expulsion, 
while having no workplace presence, led the USI in 2005 to denounce the disastrous 
consequences of accepting anarchist groups as IWA sections. The discussion about the USI's 
participation in the RSU ended after the Manchester Congress (2006), where the majority 
accepted that it was in line with the IWA statutes. Around this time, the Czech FSA 
abandoned the organization and became the anarchist federation that it had always been.

The FAU, which had opposed the separatist and emotional dynamic from the start, quickly 
became the punching bag. It refused to see the IWA become a mere forum for debate, without 
any contact with social struggles, and so it confronted the sterile line promoted by 
groups without any union activity. At the same time, it never ceased to defend its freedom 
of action as an organization, rejecting the paranoid line that preferred to see reformist 
conspiracies against the IWA in every corner. It shouldn't come as a shock, then, that the 
most orthodox sector saw the FAU as its main enemy to beat on.

The Spanish section played a shameful role in all of this during Jos� Luis Garcia Rua's 
mandate as the IWA general secretary (a post which he'd also held for the CNT).[iv]It was 
the CNT which asked for the FAU's expulsion, and due to the CNT's pressure an agreement 
was reached giving the secretary executive powers to expel the FAU for the slightest 
infractions. The supposed conspiracies to create "parallel internationals" have all turned 
out in time to be hallucinations, divorced from reality, but the agreements preventing 
sections from working with other groups are still hanging like the sword of Damocles.

For its part, the FAU began discussing whether it would even remain in the IWA after the 
1996 Congress. However, the two referendums on the subject (in 2001 and 2005) didn't reach 
the majority that the statutes required. The second and last of these took place after the 
Granada Congress in 2004, which gave the IWA secretary the right to expel the FAU. 
Although the majority were in favor of leaving, some well-respected members (in Hamburg) 
announced that they would leave the FAU if that happened, which ended up tipping the scale 
to stay.

Beginning of the end for a dark age? Participants in the FAU Congress of May 2016, which 
applauded (textually) the CNT and USI's initiative to refound the IWA.
BEGINNING OF THE END, OR END OF THE BEGINNING?

It's one of those ironies of history that the CNT is now confronting the IWA over the 
application of the 2004 agreement - which the CNT had proposed - allowing the secretary to 
expel the FAU. The current secretariat, in the hands of a miniscule and recently created 
section that is opposed to the FAU, has decided to use the executive power that it never 
would have had if the IWA had remained true to federalist principles.

Of course, this isn't the only reason - this was just the straw that broke the camel's 
back. There are others: the Polish secretariat refuses to give access to the bank accounts 
and email to the sub-secretariat named at the last IWA Congress (in Lisbon), which is in 
the CNT and has been waiting for over a year; the secretariat allowed groups which had 
been de-federated from the CNT to participate in that same Congress; and the secretariat 
is demanding that the CNT pay its contributions (which represent 80% of the IWA's budget) 
immediately, when it has asked for more time due to having an unexpected bill for 500,000 
euros related to an accident.[v]

However, the main reason for the radical change in the CNT's posture is the internal 
change since the Cordoba Congress, which put an end to the power of the pseudo-unions. It 
was logical for the CNT to propose the same in the IWA, but failure was inevitable due to 
the power of the pseudo-sections: 30 in Poland, 15 in Serbia, 10 in Slovakia, 5 in 
Russia... with one vote each, the same as the entire CNT. Recognizing that the IWA as it 
is currently configured is a failed project, the CNT has launched a project to reorganize 
it, which was immediately supported by the USI and applauded by the FAU. If the only real 
section left - SolFed in the UK - decides to support this project, the current IWA would 
become an empty shell in the hands of the Polish ZSP, centered in Eastern Europe, 
dedicated to promoting splits, as the current secretary is already doing with the CNT.[vi]

[i]I met some members of the "radical" section of the SAC around 2007 and this fits with 
what they said at the same time. They even had a newspaper called Motarbetaren, "The 
un-worker", which was named both as a critique of work and a jab at the paper. More 
information on the SAC's "radical" wing can be found here. The Twin Cities IWW also hosted 
a talk from a long-time SAC member in 2013, who confirmed these problems as well as the 
SAC's trajectory of recovering its radical traditions.[This and all other endnotes are by 
the translator.]

[ii]I have heard that the SAC at the time offered financial support to both sides, but 
only the split group accepted it.

[iii]There is a large IWW presence in Minnesota, but as far as I know, nobody has ever 
come across the people behind this. A great example of a "phantom union."

[iv]Garcia Rua is sometimes called "the lion of Granada" for his machinations in defense 
of "orthodoxy" and his viciousness. His prot�g�s are among the tiny group calling the 
current CNT "reformist" and which may try to split (with the encouragement of the IWA 
secretary).

[v]The accident happened at the run-down hall of one of the pseudo-unions, who did not 
insure it because they were too anarchist. The liability ended up falling on the CNT as a 
whole. This pseudo-union is now part of the "orthodox" group that calls the current CNT 
"reformist."

[vi]The IWA held a Congress on the weekend after the Bilbao meeting. The press release 
already speaks of trying to start new groups in Spain, Italy, and Germany, and states that 
at the next Congress "the CNT-AIT will be represented by those continuing in its legacy."

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The CNT and the International Workers Association, part 1: The CNT since Franco
About Us / Program[EN / FR / ES]
On "Fundamentalism" in the IWW

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