The Anarchist Tension

Alfredo M. Bonanno

1996
1 am always somewhat embarrassed when | begin a talk, at least to start with. And this
embarrassment increases in the case of what we mistakenly call conferences, or as one
more modestly tries to camouflage them, conference-debates. After all it is a question of
someone turning up from elsewhere, perhaps from another generation, as though they have
rained in from the past. Someone who stands in this classroom to give a talk and strangely,
even dangerously, resembles those who hammer your brains with quite different intentions.
If youisten carefully however you willfind that, beyond appearances, there is a considerable
difference in the concepts | am about to outline.

The first of these concepls takes the form of a question: What is anarchism? It might
seem strange that | should take up such a problem in this situation as | know for certain
that there are many anarchists here, because | know them personally. And if nothing else,
anarchists should at least know what anarchism is. Yet it is necessary to take up the ques-
tion “What is anarchism?’ time and time again. Even in a few words. Why is that? This
does not normally happen in other expressions oflfe, in other activiies or ideas that define
themselves with some foundation to be something or other.

So anarchists keep asking themselves the same question: What s anarchism? What
does it mean to be an anarchist? Why? Because it is not a definition that can be made
once and for all, put in a safe and considered a heritage to be tapped litle by lte. Being
an anarchist does not mean one has reached a certainty or said once and for all, ‘There,
from now on | hold the truth and as such, at least from the point of view of the idea, | am
a privileged person’. Anyone who thinks like this is an anarchist in word alone. Instead the
anarchist is someone who really puts themselves in doubt as such, as a person, and asks
themselves: What is my life according to what | do and in refation to what | think? What
connection do | manage to make each day in everything | do, a way of being an anarchist
continually and not come to agreements, make lttle daily compromises, etc? Anarchism is
nota concept that can be locked up in a word like a gravestone. It is not a political theory. It
is a way of conceiving life, and life, young or old as we may be, whether we are old people
or children, is not something final: it is a stake we must play day after day. When we wake
up in the morning and put our feet on the ground we must have a good reason for getting up,
if we don' it makes no difference whether we are anarchists or not. We might as well stay
in bed and sleep. And to have a good reason we must know what we want to do because
for anarchism, for the anarchist, there is no difference between what we do and what we
think, but there is a continual reversal of theory into action and action into theory. That is
what makes the anarchist unlike someone who has another concept of life and crystallises
this concept in a political practice, in political theory.

“This is what is not normally said to you, this is what you never read in the newspapers,
this is what is not written in books, this is what school jealously keeps quiet about, because
this s the secret of lfe: never ever separate thought from action, the things we know, the
things we understand, from the things we do, the things with which we carry out our actions.

Here is what distinguishes a politician from an anarchist revolutionary. Not the words, not
the concepts and, allow me, in certain aspects not even the actions because it is not their
extreme — let us say radical — conclusion in attack that differentiates and characterises
actions. Itis not even accuracy in the choice of objective that qualifies them but it is the way

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in which the person, the comrade who carries out these actions, succeeds in making them
become an expressive moment of their lives, a specific characterisation, meaning, quality
of lfe, joy, desire, beauty, not the practical realisation, not the sullen realisation of a deed
that is mortally an end in itself and enables one to say; I have done something today’ far
from myself, at the periphery of my existence.

There, that is one difference. And from this difference another emerges, a considerable
one in my opinion. Anyone who thinks that things to be done are outside ourselves and are
realised as a number of successes and failures — life is a staircase, at times you go up,
at times you go down. There are times when things go well, and times when they go badly.
There, whoever thinks life is made up of such things: for example, the classic figure of the
democratic poliician (for goodness’ sake, someone you can talk to, a friendly guy, tolerant
who has a permissive side to him, believes in progress, in the future, in a better society,
in freedom) well, a person like this, probably not wearing a double-breasted jacket, no tie,
S0 casual, a person who close up looks like a comrade and who himself decares he is a
comrade, this person could very well be a cop, it makes no difference. Why not? There are
democratic policemen, the era of uniform repression is over, repression has friendly aspects
today, they repress us with lots of brillant ideas. How can we identify this person then, this
democrat, how can we recognise him? And if he pulls the wool over our eyes to prevent us
from seeing him, how can we defend ourselves from him? We can identify him through this
fact: that for him life is realisation, his life is made up of doing things, a quantitative doing
that unfolds before his eyes, and nothing else.

When we talk to someone we cannot ask to see their membership card. Their ideas often
make us end up totally confused and unable to understand anything because we are all nice,
progressive chatlerboxes and all praise the beauty of tolerance and such like. How can we
see that we have an enemy before us, the worst of our enemies? Because at least we could
defend ourselves from the old fascist. He hit out, and if we were capable of it we hit him
back, harder. Now things have changed, the situation has changed. It can even be dificult
to fish out a fascist thug today. But the individual we are trying to describe, this democrat
that we find all over the place, in school, Parliament, in the streets or in the policeman’s
uniform, a judge or a doctor, this fellow here is our enemy because he considers life in a
different way to the way we consider it, because for him lfe is another kind of lfe, is not our
life, because for him we are extraterrestrials and | don't see why we should consider him
1o be an inhabitant of our planet either. This is the dividing line between us. Because his
concept of lfe s of a quantitative nature, because he measures things like success or,if you
like, failure, but always from the quantitative point of view and we measure them differently
and that is what we should be thinking about: in what way does life have a different meaning
for us, a meaning that is qualitatively different?

So, this amiable gentleman wreaks criicism upon us and says, ‘Yes, anarchists are
good people but they are ineffectual. What have they ever done in history? What State has
ever been anarchist? Have they ever realised government without a government? lsnit a
free society, an anarchist society, a society without power, a contradiction?' And this critical
rock that crashes down on us is certainly consistent, because in fact if you look closely at
anywhere that anarchists got near to realising their utopia of a free society such as in Spain

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or Russia, f you look at them closely, you find these constructions are somewhat open to
criticism. They are certainly revolutions, but they are not libertarian revolutions, they are not
anarchy.

So, when these gentlemen say, "You are utopians, you anarchists are dreamers, your
utopia would never work’, we must reply, “Yes, it true, anarchism is a tension, not a reali-
sation, not a concrete attempt to bring about anarchy tomorrow morning’. But we must also
be able to say but you, distinguished democratic gentlemen in government that regulate our
lives, that think you can get into our heads, our brains, that govern us through the opinions
that you form daily in your newspapers, in the universities, schools, etc., what have you
gentlemen accomplished? A world worth living in? Or a world of death, a world in which life
is a flat affair, devoid of any quality, without any meaning to it? A world where one reaches
a certain age, is about to get one’s pension, and asks oneself, ‘But what have | done with
my life? What has been the sense of living all these years?

That's what you have accomplished, that is what your democracy is, your idea of the
people. You are governing a people, but what does people mean? Who are the people?
Are they perhaps that small, not even very significant, part who vote, go to the elections,
vote for you, nominate a minority which in turn nominates another minority even smaller than
the first that governs us in the name of the law? But what are these laws if not the expression
of the interests of a small minority specifically aimed in the first place at benefiting their own
perspectives of enrichment, the re-enforcing of their power and so on?

You govern in the name of a power, a force that comes from what? From an abstract
concept, you have realised a structure you think can be improved upon... But how, in what
way has it ever been improved in history? What condition are we are living in today if not a
condition of death, of flattening of quality? This is the critique we need to throw back at
the supporters of democracy. If we anarchists are topians, we are so as a tension towards
quality; if democrats are utopians, they are so as a reduction towards quantity. And against
reduction, against the atrophy lived in a dimension of the minimum possible damage for
them and the maximum damage for the great number of people who are exploited, to this
miserable reality we oppose our utopia which s at least a utopia of quality, a tension towards
another future, one that will be radically different to what we are living now.

So all the remarks made by anyone who talks to you in the name of political realism,
men of State, teachers (who are the servants of men of State), theorists, journalists, all the
intellectuals who pass through classrooms ke this and in their speechifying talk with the
calm, tolerant words of the realist, state that in any case nothing else is possible, reality is
what it is, it is necessary to make sacrifices; there, these people are swindling you. They
are swindling you because you can do something else, because any one of us is capable
of rising up in the name of our wounded dignity before such a swindle. Because any one of
us can realise that we have been swindled, because we have finally realised what is being
done to our detriment. And in rising up against it all we can change not only the reality of
things within the limits that it s possible to know them, but also one’s life, make it worthy
of being lived. One can get up in the moring, put one’s feet on the ground, look in the
mirror and say to oneself, ‘At last | have managed to change things, at least as far as | am
concerned and feel one is a person worthy of iving his or her life, not a puppet in the hands
of a puppeteer you can't even see well enough to spit n their face.

So that is why anarchists keep coming back to the question of what anarchism s. Be-
cause anarchism is not a political movement. O rather it i, but only in a minor aspect. The
fact that the anarchist movement presents itself historically as a poltical movement does
not mean that this exhausts all the anarchist potential for lfe. Anarchism does not resolve
itself in the Cuneo anarchist group, or groups in Turin, London or anywhere else. That is
not anarchism. Of course there are anarchists there, or at least one should assume there
are, the kind of comrades who have begun their own insurrection individually, have become
aware of the context of obligation and coercion that they are forced to live in. But anarchism
is not just that, it is also a tension, the quality of life, the strength we manage to draw out
of ourselves, the capacily to change the reality of things. Anarchism is the whole of this
project of transformation linked to what we realise in ourselves when we bring about our
own personal transformation. So it is not a quantifiable fact that can be historicised. Nor s it
an event that will simply occur in the course of time, appearing through particular theories,
people, movements as well as, why not, precise revolutionary acts. There is always some-
thing more than the sum of these elements, and it is this something more that continues to
make anarchism live on in other ways.

So we continually need to maintain a relationship between this tension towards some-
thing absolutely other, the unthinkable, the unsayable, a dimension we must realise without
very well knowing how to, and the daily experience of the things we can and do, do. A
precise relationship of change, of transformation.

The first example that comes to mind on this question is another contradictory element.
Think of the concept behind the statement there are problems to be solved. This is a classic
phrase. We al have problems to solve. Life itself is a problem to be solved. Living is a
problem, our social conditions, having to break through the circle that restricts us, right to
simple everyday goings on. We consider all this to be a problem.

And hereinlies the great misunderstanding. Why? The structures that oppress us (| think
many of those present here are students) maintain that problems can be solved and that
they can solve them for us. Moreover, they use the example of problems that are solved in
geometry, mathematics, etc.. But this kind of problem, the problems of mathematics that are
presented as resolvable are false problems, they are not really solved at all. The answers
to them are simply a repetition of the same problem in another form, in technical terms, a
tautology. One says one thing and answers by repeating the same thing another way. So,
basically, the problem is not solved at all it is merely repeated.

And when we talk of solving a problem that involves the lives of all of us, our daly ex-
istence, we are talking of questions of such complexity that they cannot be reduced to a
simple restatement of the problem itself. Take, for example, ‘the problem of the police’. The
existence of the police constitutes a problem for many of us. There can be no doubt that the
policeman is an instrument of repression used by the State to prevent us from doing certain
things. How do you solve such a problem? Can the problem of the police be solved? The
very question reveals itself to be absurd. There is no such thing as solving the problem of
the police. Yet from a demaocratic point of view it would be possible to solve some aspects by

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democratising certain structures, changing policemen’s attitudes and so on. Now, to think
that this might be a solution to the problem of control and repression would be as stupid as
itis illogical. In actual fact, it is nothing other than a way of regulating repression in keeping
with the interests of power, of the State. If a democratic politic is effective today, a far less
democratic structure of control and repression might be effective in the future just as it has
been in the past and any rare, marginal minorities who thought otherwise on the subject
would be expelled or eliminated from the ranks.

When | say police, | mean any repressive structure from military police to judiciary, all
expressions of the State that serve to control and repress. So, as you can see, social prob-
lems cannot be solved. The swindle operated by democratic structures is precisely their
claim to solve such problems. This swindle shows how democratic politics are not based
on reality or even a minimum of concreteness. Everything is rigged up on the implication
that things can be improved, can be resolved in time, can be set right. It is in this concept of
setting things right that the strength of power lies, and it is on this improvement that power
stands and continues in the medium and long term. Power relations change as we wait for
what they promised to come about but it never does. Because these improvements never
materialise. Because power changes and transforms itself throughout history, yet always
remains the same. A handful of men, a minority of privileged peaple who hold the levers of
power, look after their own interests and safeguard the conditions of supremacy of whoever
happens to be in command.

Now, what instruments do we have to combat this state of affairs? They want to control
us? So we refuse control. Of course we can do this. We undoubtedly do, trying to minimise
the damage. But to refuse control in a social context is only valid up to a point. We can
circumscribe certain aspects of t, yell when we are struck unfairly; but there are clearly
certain areas of power where rules are called laws, signposts indicate enclosures and men
calling themselves policemen prevent us from entering. There is no doubt about i, try getting
into Pariiament and see what happens. | don't know. Certain levels cannot be gone beyond,
certain controls are inevitable.

So what do we do to oppose this situation? Simply dream? Have an idea of freedom,
which moreover must be carefully formulated, because we cannot say: ‘the freedom anar-
chists wantis simply a reduction in control'. I that case we would find ourselves faced with
the problem: ‘But where does this reduction in control end? At a minimal level perhaps? For
example, would the State become legitimate for anarchists if instead of being the oppressor
State of today, it were to become, let us say, the ideal minimal State of the liberals? No,
certainly not. So that is not the way to think. It is not a question of trying to limit control,
but of abolishing control altogether. We are not for more freedom. More freedom s given to
the slave when his chains are lengthened. We are for the abolition of the chain, so we are
for freedom, not more freedom. Freedom means the absence of all chains, the absence of
limits and all that ensues from such a statement.

Freedom is a difficult, unknown concept. Itis a painful one, yet tis peddied as something
beautiful, sweet, reposing. Like a dream so far off that it makes us feel good, like all the
things that, being far off, constitute hope and faith, a belief. In other words, these intangibles
which apparently solve today’s problems do not in fact solve them but simply mist them over,

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change them around, preventing us from having a clear vision of all the woes of our times.
Al right, some day we will be free. OK, things are in a mess, but within this mess there is
a subterranean strength, an involuntary order independent of ourselves that works in place
of us, which will gradually change the conditions of suffering which we are living in and
take us to a free dimension where we will al live happily ever after. No, that is not freedom,
thatis a swindle that tragically resembles the old idea of God that often helped us, and stil
helps many people today in their suffering, because they say to themselves, ‘very well, we
are suffering today, but we'll be beter off in the next world'. In fact, as the gospel says the
last will be first, heartening the last of today because they see themselves as the first of
tomorrow.

If we were to fob off such an idea of freedom as real we would be doing no more than
cradiing today’s suffering by medicating social wounds in exactly the same way s the priest
heals those of the poor who listen to his sermon, deceiving themselves that the kingdor of
God will save them from their pain. Anarchists cannot think this way. Freedom is a destruc-
tive concept that involves the absolute elimination of all limits. Now freedom s an idea we
must hold in our hearts, but at the same time we need to understand that if we desire it we
must be ready to face all the risks that destruction involves, all the risks of destroying the
consituted order we are living under. Freedom s not a concept to cradle ourselves i, in
the hope that improvements will develop independently of our real capacity to intervene.

In order to understand such concepts, become aware of the risks one runs by wielding
such dangerous concepts, we must be able to form the idea within us.

There is also considerable confusion on this point. It s customary to consider that any-
thing that passes through our minds is an idea. One says ‘I have an idea’ then tries to
understand what that means. That is the Cartesian concept of idea as opposed (o the Pla-
tonic one which is an abstract far off point of reference. But that is not what we are refering
towhen we say idea. The idea is a point of reference, an element of strength that is capable
of transforming life. It is a concept charged with value that becomes a concept of strength,
something that can develop and make our relationship with others different. Al that is an
idea. But what is the source that the elements that make it possible to elaborate such ideas
spring from? School, university, newspapers, books, teachers, technicians, television and
S0 on? What reaches us from these instruments of information and cultural elaboration?
A considerable accumulation of information cascades down on us, boils inside us like a
cauldron, making us produce opinions. We tend not to have ideas, but opinions.

That is the tragic conclusion. What is an opinion? It is a flattened idea, an idea that
has been made uniform in order to make it acceptable to the largest number of people.
Opinions are massified ideas. It is important for power that these opinions be maintained
because it is through opinion, the control of opinion, that they obtain given results, not least
the mechanisms of propaganda and electoral procedures through the use of the media. The
formation of new power elite’s comes not from ideas but from opinions.

What does opposing oneself to opinion-making mean then? Does it mean acquiring
more information? That is, opposing counter-information to information? No, that is not pos-
sible because no matter how you look at it you cannot possibly oppose the vast amount of
information we are bombarded with daily with counter-information capable of ‘unmasking’

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through a process of investigating hidden causes, the reality that has been covered up by
all that informative chatter. No, we cannot operate in that direction. Whenever we attempt
to do so we realise that it is pointless, that we are not able to convince people.

That is why anarchists always consider the problem of propaganda critically: Yes, of
course, as you see there is a well-stocked table here as s always the case at nitiatives or
conferences of this kind. There are always our pamphiets, our books. We are laden with
papers and are very good at bringing out such publications. But that is not the only kind of
work we need to do, and in any case they do not contain elements of counter-information,
or if they do itis purely accidental. This work is aimed essentially, or should be, at building
an idea or a number of leading ideas, a number of strong ideas.

Let us give just one example. Over the past three or four years an affair has developed
that the newspapers have reported using horrible terms like ‘tangentopoli’ or ‘clean hands’
(legal procedures in course where many politicians have been sentenced for having ac-
cepted money from the capitalists in exchange for contracts in the public works sectors]
and so on. Now what has this operation instilled in people’s minds? It has built the opinion
thatthe law is capable of setting things right, of sentencing politicians, changing conditions,
S0 can take us from the old concepts typical of the frst ltalian Republic to the new ones of
the Second Republic. This opinion, this process, is clearly very useful. For example it has
allowed the emergence of a 'new’ power elite to take the place of the old. New up to a point,
but with certain characteristics and sad rehashes of old habits and personages. This is the
way opinion functions.

Now, consider comparing this process of opinion-making, which is of considerable advan-
tage to power alone, to the construction of an idea-force that might be an in-depth analysis
of the concept of justice. The difference is abyssal. But what i right? For example, it was cer-
tainly right for many, and we also considered it right ourselves, for ex-socialist party leader
Craxi to be forced to remain locked up in his villa in Tunisia. The whole thing has been quite
amusing, it even made us laugh, made us feel good because it is quite nice when pigs at
thatlevel end up being put out of circulation. But is that real justice? For example, Andreolti
is in difficulty. It seems he kissed Riina [mafia boss] on the cheek.

Such news certainly makes us smile, makes us feel better, because a pig like Andreotti
was annoying even at a simple physical level, just seeing him on TV was enough. But what
is this idea of justice? Judges for the prosecution Di Pietro and Borrelli have a horde of
supporting fans. Milions of people have been drawn into this process of uniforming opinion.

Is the concept of justice we need to ponder on any different? What should it lead to? It
should lead us to recognising that if Craxi or Andreotti arc responsible then people like Di
Pietro or Borrelli are responsible tothe same extent. Because if the former are politcians, the
others are all magistrates. The concept of justice means fixing a demarcation line between
those who support and defend power and those who are against it If the very existence of
power is unjust and if al attempts, some of which we have just seen, reveal themselves to
be no more than self-justifying swindles, any man of power, more or less democratic as he
might be, always stands on the wrong side of justice no matter what he does.

o build such a concept of justice obviously means to form an idea, an idea you don't find
in the newspapers, that isn't gone into in the classrooms or university auditoriums, which

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cannot become an element of opinion or lead people to vote. In fact, such an idea leads
o internal conflict. Because before the tribunal of one's self one asks, ‘But I, with my idea
of social justice, how do | see it when what Di Pietro does seems good? Am | being taken
for a ride too? Am | also an instrument of opinion, terminal of the great processes for
maintaining power, becoming not just their slave but also their accomplice?

We have finally got there. We have reached the point of our own responsibilty. Because
if it is true that for anarchists there is no difference between theory and action, as soon
as the idea of social justice lights up in us, iluminates our brain even for a split second, it
will never be able to extinguish itself again. Because no matter what we think we wil feel
quily, will feel we are accomplices, accomplices to a process of discrimination, repression,
genocide, death, a process we will never be able to feel detached from again. How could
we define ourselves revolutionaries and anarchists otherwise? What freedom would we be
supporting if we were to give our complicity to the assassins in power?

You see how different and critical the situation is for whoever succeeds, through deep
analysis of reality or simply by chance or misfortune, in letting an idea as clear as the
idea of justice penetrate their brain? There are many such ideas. For example, the idea of
freedom s similar. Anyone who thinks about what freedom actually is even for a moment
will never again be able to content themselves by simply doing something to slightly extend
the freedom of the situations they are living in. From that moment on they wilfeel guilty and
will ry to do something to alleviate their sense of suffering. They will fear they have done
wrong by not having done anything till now, and from that moment on their lives will change
completely.

Basically, what does the State want from the formation of opinion? What does power
want? Yes, of course, it wants to create mass opinion because from that they are able to
realise certain operations such as voting, the formation of power groups and so on. But that
is not all they want. They want our consensus. They want our approval. And consensus
is gained through precise instruments, especialy those of a cultural nature. For example,
school is one of the reservoirs from which consensus is realised and the future intellectual,
and not just intellectual, workforce is but.

Today capitalism requires a different kind of person to those it required in the past. Up
until recently there was a need for people with professional capacities, a pride in this ca-
pacity and particular qualifications. The situation is quite different now. The world of work
requires a very modest qualification level whereas qualities that did not exist and were even
inconceivable in the past such as flexibility, adaptabilty, tolerance, the capacity to intervene
at meetings, etc. are required in their place.

Huge production units based on assembly lines for example now use robots or are built
on the conceptual basis of islands, small groups working together who know each other and
control each other and so on. This kind of mentality is not only found in the factory. It is not
just a "new worker’ they are building, but a ‘new man’; a flexible person with modest ideas,
rather opaque in their desires, with considerably reduced cultural levels, impoverished lan-
guage, standardised reading, a limited capacity to think and a great capacity to make quick
yes or no decisions. They know how to choose between two possibilties: a yellow button,
ared button, a black button, a white button. This is the kind of mentality they are building
And where are they building it? At school, but also in everyday life.

What wil they do with such a person? They will use them to bring about all the modi-
fications that are necessary for restructuring capital. They will be useful for a better man-
agement of the conditions and relations of the capitalism of tomorrow. And what will these
relations be? They will be based on faster and faster change, a call o satisfying non-existent
desires, desires that are piloted, determined by small groups that are becoming more and
more numerous. This new person s quite the opposite of what we are capable of imagining
or desiring, the opposite of quality, creativity, the opposite of real desire, the joy of life, the
opposite of all this. How can we fight against the realisation of this technological man? How
can we struggle against this situation? Can we wait for a day to come, a great day that
will turn the world upside down? What the anarchists of the last century called ‘la grande
soirée’? The great evening or the great day — 'l grand jour' — in which forces no one could
foresee would end up taking over, exploding into that social conflict we are all waiting for,
called revolution? So everything will change and there will be a world of perfection and joy?

This is a millenarian idea. Now that we are reaching the end of the millennium it could
take root again. But conditions have changed. This is not reality, it is not this waiting that
interests us. What does interest us is another kind of intervention, a far more modest one, but
one that is capable of achieving something. As anarchists we are called to do something
We are called by our own individual responsibility and by what we said earlier. From the
moment the idea lights up our mind, not the idea of anarchy, but of justice, freedom, when
these ideas illuminate our minds and we see the swindle before us — which today more
than ever before we can define a democratic swindie — what can we do? We must set
to work, and this setting to work also means organising ourselves. It means creating the
conditions of reference and relating between anarchists, conditions that must be other than
those of the past.

Reality has changed. As | said before, they are building a different man, a de-qualified
man, and they are building him because they need to build a de-qualified society. They have
removed the figure of the worker from the centre of the conception of the political society as
it was, after de-qualifying him. In the past the worker bore the greatest brunt of exploitation.
Thatis why it was thought thatthis social figure would necessarily give birth to the revolution.
Itis sufficient to think of the Marxist analysis. Marx's Capital is dedicated to the ‘liberation’
of the worker. When Marx speaks of man, he means the worker. In his analysis of value,
he is talking of the work pace; in his analysis of alienation, he is talking about work. There
is nothing that does not concern work. But that is because the worker was central to the
Manist analysis at the time when it was developed. The working class could be seen to be
the centre of the social structure.

Using different analyses, anarchists also came close to a consideration that the worker's
position was the centre of the social world. Think of the anarcho-syndicalist analyses. For
the anarchosyndicalists it was a question of taking the concept of trades union struggle to
its extreme consequences, freeing it from the narrower dimension of trades union bargain-
ing and developing it right to the realisation of the revolution through the general strike. So
according to the anarcho-syndicalists the Society of the future, the free anarchist Society,

10
was 1o be nothing other than the present Society freed from power but with the same pro-
ductive structures, no longer in the hands of the capitalists but in the hands of the collective
which would manage them in common.

This concept is quite impracticable today for various reasons. First of all, because tech-
nological transformation has made it impossible for there to be a simple passage from the
present society o the future one we desire to live in. A direct passage would be impossible
for the simple reason that it is not possible to use information technology in liberated forms,
in a liberatory way. The new technologies and computer technology applications have not
limited themselves to bringing about certain modifications in particular instruments, they
have transformed all the other technologies as well. The factory, for instance, is not simply
a structure of the past with the addition of computer technology but has become a com-
puterised factory, which is quite different. Bearing this in mind we can only mention these
concepts in a very general way because it would take time to go into them adequately. So
we must recognise that it is not possible to use this patrimony. This passage runs parallel
o the end of the myth of the centrality of the working class.

Now, in a situation where the working class has practically disintegrated, the possibility
of an expropriation of the means of production no longer exists. So what s the conclusion?
‘The only possible conclusion is that this set of instruments of production we have before us
be destroyed. The only possible way is to pass through the dramatic reality of destruction. If
the revolution we imagine and which moreover we cannot be certain will ever come about,
it will not be the revolution of the past that saw itself as one single event that might even
take place in a day or one fine evening but will be a long, tragic, bloody affair that could
pass through inconceivably violent, inconceivably tragic processes.

Allthis is the kind of reality e are moving towards. Not because that is what we desire,
not because we like violence, blood, destruction, civil war, death, rape, barbarity. It is not
that, but because it s the only plausible road, the road that the transformation wanted by
those ruling us and who are in command have made necessary. They have moved on to
this road. We cannot change all that with a simple flight of fancy, a simple dream. In the
past hypothesis where a strong working class existed, one could fool oneself about this
passage and organise accordingly. For example, the organisational proposal of anarcho-
syndicalism saw a strong syndicalist movement which, penetrating the working class and
organising almost the whole of i, was to bring about this expropriation and passage. This
collective subject, who was probably mythical from the start, no longer exists even in its
mythical version so what sense would there be in a syndicalist movement of a revolutionary
nature? What sense would there be in an anarcho-syndicalist movement? None at all

So the struggle must begin elsewhere, with other ideas and methods. That is why we
have been developing a critique of syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism for about fifteen
years. That is why we are, and define ourselves, insurrectionalist anarchists. Not because
we think the solution is the barricades — the barricades could be tragic consequence of
choices that are not our own — but we are insurrectionalists because we think that anarchist
action must necessarily face very serious problems. These problems are not desired by
anarchism but are imposed by the reality that those in power have buil, and we cannot
obiiterate them simply by wishing them away.

1
An anarchist organisation that projects itself into the future should therefore be agile. It
cannot present itself with the cumbersome characteristics and quantitative heaviness of the
structures of the past. It cannot present itself in a dimension of synthesis like organisations
of the past where the anarchist structures claimed to sum up reality in ‘commissions’ that
treated all the various problems, making decisions at periodical congresses on the basis
of theses that even went back to the last century. Al this has seen its day, not because a
century has passed since it was thought out, but because reality has changed.

That is why we maintain there is a need for the formation of small groups based on
the concept of afinity, even tiny groups made up of very few comrades who know each
other and deepen this knowledge because there cannot be affinity if one does not have
knowledge of the other. One can only recognise one's affinities by going into the elements
that determine one's differences, by frequenting each other. This knowledge is a personal
fact, but itis also a question of ideas, debate, discussions. But in relation to the first points
we made this evening, if you remember, there can be no going into ideas if there is not also
apractice of bringing about actions. So, there is a continual reciprocal process of going into
ideas and realising actions.

Asmall group of comrades, a small group who simply meet in the evening to have a chat
would not be an affinity group but a group of friends, pub-mates who meet in the evenings
to talk about anything under the sun. On the contrary, a group that meets to discuss things
and in discussing prepares itself for doing and through that doing contributes to developing
discussion that transforms tself into discussion about things to be done, this s the mech-
anism of the affinity group. So how then can affinity groups enter into contact with others
where the deepened knowledge that exists in the single group does not necessarily exist?
This contact can be assured by informal organisation.

Butwhatis an informal organisation? There could be refationships of an informal kind be-
tween the various affinity groups that enter into contact with each other in order to exchange
ideas and do things together, and consequentl the existence of an organisation, also very
widespread throughout the country, comprised of even tens, or why not, hundreds of organ-
isations, structures, groups of an informal character based on discussion, periodic analy-
ses, things to be done together, etc. The organisational logic of insurrectional anarchism
is different to the organisations we mentioned earlier concerning anarcho-syndicalism. The
organisational forms referred to here in a few words merit going into, something | cannot do
now in the dimension of a conference. But such a way of organising would, in my opinion,
remain simply something within the anarchist movement were it not also to realise rela-
tions beyond it, that is through the construction of external groups, external nuclei, also
with informal characteristics. These groups should not be composed of anarchists alone,
anyone who intends to struggle to reach given objectives, even circumscribed ones, could
participate so long as they take a number of essential conditions into account. First of all
permanent conflict, that is groups with the characteristic of attacking the reality in which
they find themselves without waiting for orders from anywhere else. Then the characteristic
of being ‘autonomous’, that is of not depending on or having any relations at all with polit-
ical parties or trade union organisations. Finally, the characteristic of facing problems one
by one and not proposing platiorms of generic claims that would inevitably transform them-

12
selves into administration along the lines of a mini-party or a small alternative trades union.
The summary of these ideas might seem rather abstract and that is why before ending |
would like to give an example, because some of these things can be better understood in
practice.

A theoretical model of this kind was used in an attempt to prevent the construction of
the American missile base in Comiso in the early ‘80s. The anarchists who intervened for
two years built ‘self-managed leagues'. These self-managed leagues were precisely non-
anarchist groups that operated in the area with the unique aim of preventing the construction
of the base by destroying the project in the course of realisation.

The leagues were autonomous nuclei characterised by the fact that their only aim was
o attack and destroy the base. They did not take on a whole series of problems, because
if they had done they would have become groups of syndicalists with the aim of, let us
say, defending jobs or finding work or resolving other immediate problems. Instead, their
Sole aim was to destroy the base. The second characteristic was permanent confiic, ie.,
from the moment these groups were formed (they were not specifically anarchist groups,
but there were people in them who were anarchists), they went into conflict with il the
forces involved in building the base, without this conflict being determined or declared by
any representative organism or by the anarchists who had promoted the initiative. The third
characteristic was the complete autonomy of these groups, that is to say they did not have
links with any parties or unions, etc. The struggle against the base is known in part, and in
part not. And | don't know if it is the case to take up the story again here, | just wanted to
mention it as an example.

So insurrectionalist anarchism must overcome one essential problem. It must go beyond
a certain limit otherwise it will remain no more than the idea of insurrectionalist anarchism
That s the comrades who have lived that insurrection of a personal nature we mentioned
earlier, that ilumination which produces an idea-force inside us in opposition to the chatter
of opinion, and form affinty groups, enter into relationships with comrades from other places
through an informal kind of structure, only realise a part of the work. At a certain point they
must decide, must go beyond the demarcation line, take a step that it is not easy to turn
back from. They must enter into a relationship with people that are not anarchists concerning
a problem that is intermediate, circumscribed (such as, for example the destruction of the
base in Comiso). No matter how fantastic or interesting this idea might have been it certainly
wasn't the realisation of anarchy. What would have happened if one had really managed to
enter the base and destroy it? | don't know. Probably nothing, possibly everything. | don't
know, no one can tell. But the beauty of realising the destructive event is not to be found in
its possible consequences.

Anarchists guarantee none of the things they do. They point out the responsibility of
persons and structures on the basis of the decision that they are determined to act, and
from that moment on they feel sure of themselves because their idea of justice illuminates
their action. It points at one person’s responsibility, or that of more people, one structure or
more structures, and the consequences that such responsibilty leads to. It is here that we
find anarchists' determination to act.

13
But once they act along with other people, they must also try to build organisms that
are capable of holding together and creating consequences in the struggle against power.
We must never forget this. And this is an important point to reflect upon: power realises
itself in time and space, it is not something abstract. Control would ot be possible if police
stations did not exist, if prisons did not exist. Legislative power would not be possible if
pariiament did not exist, or if there were no litle regional parliaments. The cultural power
that oppresses us, that fabricates opinion, would not be possible if there were no schools
and universities. Now, schools, universities, police stations, prisons, industries, factories,
are all things that realise themselves in specific places, in circumscribed areas which we
can only move around in if we accept given conditions and play the game. We are here at
the moment because we agreed to play the game. We would not have been able to enter
the building otherwise. This is interesting. We can use structures of this kind. But at the time
of attack such places are forbidden to us. If we were to have come in here with the intent of
attacking, the police would obviously have prevented us.

Now, because power realises itself in physical space, anarchists’ relation to this is impor-
tant. Of course insurrection is an individual fact and so in that place deep inside us, at night
as we are about 1o go to sleep, we think .. well, in the last analysis things aren' too bad’,
one feels at peace with oneself and falls asleep. There, in that particular place inside us,
that private space, we can move about as we please. But then we must transfer ourselves
into the physical space of social realty. And physical space, when you think about it, is
almost exclusively under the control of power. So, when we move about in this space we
carry this value of insurrection with us, these revolutionary values, and measure them in a
clash in which we are not the only ones present.

We must therefore individuate significant objectives and verily their existence — and as
luck would have it these objectives exist perpetually, everywhere — contribute to creating
the conditions so that people, the exploited on whose backs these objectives are realised,
do something to destroy them.

I believe this revolutionary process is of an insurrectional nature. It does not have aims
(and this is important) of a quantitative nature, because the destruction of an objective or
the prevention of a project cannot be measured in quantitative terms. It sometimes hap-
pens that someone says to me; ‘But what results have we obtained? When something is
done, people don't even remember the anarchists afterwards. ‘Anarchists? Who are these
anarchists? Monarchists? Are they these people who support the king? People don't re-
member very well. But what does it matter? It is not us that they must remember, but their
struggle, because the struggle is theirs, we are simply an opportunity in that struggle. We
are something extra.

In the freed society where anarchy has been reached in a quite ideal dimension, anar-
chists, who are indispensable in the social struggle at all levels, would simply have the role
of pushing struggles further and further, eliminating even the smallest traces of power and
always perfecting the tension towards anarchy. Anarchists inhabit an uncomfortable planet
in any case because when the struggle is going well they are forgotten about and when
the struggle goes badly they are accused of being responsible, of having approached it the
wrong way, of having taken it to the wrong conclusions. No illusion then concerning any

14
quantitative results: if the struggle realised from an insurrectional point of view is correct,
has gone well the results if any might be useful to the people who brought it about, certainly
not to the anarchists. It is important not to fall prey to the illusion that many anarchists un-
fortunately do, of believing that the positive outcome of a struggle can result in a growth in
our groups, because thatis not so and this systematically leads to disillusion. The growth of
our groups and an increase in the number of comrades is important but that does not come
about from the results obtained so much as through the building, the formation, of these
idea-force, the clarification we talked about earlier. The positive results of struggles and the
numerical growth in anarchist groups are two things that cannot be seen as a process of
cause and effect. They might be connected, they might not.

Justa couple of words to wind up | have talked about what anarchismis, what democracy
is and the incomprehension we are constantly being faced with; of the ways the structures
of power we call modem capitalism, post industrial capitalism, are being transformed; of
some anarchist structures of struggle that are no longer acceptable today and the way one
can oppose oneself to the reality of power and, finally, | mentioned the difference between
raditional anarchism and the insurrectional anarchism of the present day.

Thank you.

15
find each other.

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“dowhatever you wane

Alfredo M. Bonanno
The Anarchist Tension
1996

Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from www.geocities.com
Original Title,: La Tensione anarchica. Translated by Jean Weir. 1996, Edizioni
Laboratorio, Cuneo. 1998, Elephant Editions, London, Elephant Editions, B.M. Elephant,
London WGTN3XX

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