By Alfredo Maria Bonanno

From the late Seventies until the early Eighties, industry in the leading capitalist countries was in crisis. The relationship between plant and productivity had never been worse. Struggles led by the trades unions, as well as those of the proletariat in general (especially in their more violent manifestations under the leadership of the various revolutionary working class structures), had led to a rise in labour costs quite out of proportion to capital's income. Incapable of adjusting, lacking the strength to reduce labour and employment costs drastically, it seemed as though the whole system was moving towards its natural collapse.

But by the first half of the Eighties rapid change had set in, with industrial restructuring taking an electronic direction. The primary and secondary productive sectors (industry and agriculture) were in decline, with consequent reductions in employment. The tertiary (services) sector had expanded out of all proportion, absorbing some of the laid-off work force, thus attenuating the social backlash that the capitalists had feared more than anything else.

In short, the much-feared riots and revolutions did not take place. There was no intolerable pressure from the reserve army of the proletariat. Instead, everything quietly adapted to changes in the structures of production.

Heavy industry replaced old plants with robotised ones capable of reaching hitherto undreamed of levels of flexibility and low levels of investment. Labour costs decreased without this leading to any fall in demand because the services sector held well, assuring levels of income that were sufficient to inflate the capitalist system as a whole. Most of the sacked workers managed to find some way of getting by in the new flexible and permissive capitalist world.

The new productive and democratic mentality

None of this would have been possible without the emergence of a new flexible mentality at the work place: a reduction in the need for professional qualifications and an increase in the demand for small, auxiliary jobs. This coincided with a consolidation of the democratic mentality.

The middle classes' myths of careers and improvements in workers' wages disappeared for good. All this was possible thanks to articulated interventions at every level: a) In the schools, in the adoption of less rigid teaching methods better suited to building a 'malleable' personality in young people. This was to enable them to adapt to an uncertain future of the kind that would have filled their parents with horror; b) In the political management of the most advanced capitalist countries. Authoritarianism gave way to democratisation, involving people in fictitious electoral and referenda procedures; c) In production where, as we have said, the disappearance of professional qualifications has made producers tame and flexible.

This all took place according to the spirit of the times. Dreams of philosophical and scientific certainty gave way to a 'weak' model, based not on risk and courage but on adjustment in the short-term, on the principle that nothing is certain but anything can be fixed.

As well as contributing to the disappearance of the old and in many aspects out-of-date, authoritarianism, the democratic mentality also led to a tendency to compromise at every level. This resulted in a moral degradation where the dignity of the oppressed was exchanged for a guaranteed but uncomfortable survival. Struggles receded and weakened.

Obstacles faced by the insurrectional struggle against post-industrial capitalism and the State

Undoubtedly one obstacle to be faced is precisely this amorphous, flexible mentality outlined above. This cannot be compared to the old-style reliance on social security; it is simply a desire to find a niche in which to survive, work as little as possible, accept all the rules of the system and disdain ideals and projects, dreams and utopias. The laboratories of capital have done an exemplary job in this sense. School, factory, culture and sport have united to produce individuals who are domesticated in every respect, incapable of suffering or knowing their enemies, unable to dream, desire, struggle or act to transform reality.

Another obstacle, which is related to the first, consists of pushing production to the margins of the post-industrial complex as a whole. The dismembering of the class of producers is no longer a nebulous project, it has become a reality. And the division into numerous small sectors which often work against each other is increasing this marginalisation.

This is fast making the traditional structures of worker resistance, such as workers' parties and trades unions, obsolete. Recent years have witnessed a progressive disappearance of the old-style trade-unionism, including that which once aspired to revolution and self-management. But, more importantly, we have witnessed the collapse of the communism which claimed to have built a socialist State--realised through police control and ideological repression.

It cannot be said that any organisational strategy capable of responding to the new conditions of capitalist productive and social reality in general has emerged.

Developments that might have arisen from proposals made by insurrectionalist anarchists, especially those moving in the direction of informal relations between individuals and groups based on affinity, have not yet been fully taken on board. They have often received a tepid welcome by comrades due to a certain, in some ways understandable, reluctance to abandon the old ways of thinking and apply new methods of organisation.

We will say something about this further on as it is central to the struggle against the new structures of repression and total control produced by Capital and the State.

Restructuring technology

The present technological revolution based on information technology, lasers, the atom, subatomic particles, new materials such as optic fibres which allow energy transportation and consumption at speeds and over distances once unthinkable, genetic modification concerning not only agriculture and animals but also man, etc., has not stopped at changing the world. It has done more. It has produced conditions that make it seem impossible to plan or make plans for the foreseeable future, not only as far as those who intend to maintain the present state of affairs are concerned, but also by those who intend to destroy them.

The main reason for this is that the new technologies, which are now interacting and becoming part of the context that has been developing over at least the past 2,000 years, could produce unpredictable results. And some of these results could be totally destructive, far beyond the devastating effects of an atomic explosion.

Hence the need for a project aimed at the destruction of technology as a whole in its first, essential phase, and which bases all its political and social approaches on this imperative.

Political, economic and military restructuring

Profound changes are also taking place in the economic sector. These changes are affecting the political situation in advanced capitalist countries, with consequent effects on the military sector.

New frontiers in post-industrial capitalism are emerging from widespread processes and re-arrangements that are continually in flux. The static concept of production tied to heavy machinery in huge factories capable of producing a multiplicity of consumer goods has been surpassed by the ingenious idea of swift change and increasing competition in specialised production with stylish, individual, personalised products. The post-industrial product does not require skilled labour but is set up on the production line directly, simply by reprogramming the robots to produce it. This has meant incredible reduction in storage and distribution costs and eliminated obsolescence and stockpiling of unsold products.

This development created great new possibilities for capital around the beginning of the Eighties, and by the end of the decade it had become the norm. So the political situation had to change to correspond with the new economic one.

This explains the considerable changes that took place at the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties. There has been a move towards careful selection of the managerial strata, which must be able to see to the requirements of this new form of production. That explains why advanced industrial countries such as the US and Great Britain went through a period of increased authoritarianism in government, then moved on to a more versatile, flexible form of political management corresponding to the economic necessities of various countries which are now all coordinated globally.

The collapse of actual socialism and the rebirth of various forms of nationalism

Any advance from the countries of actual socialism beyond cautious, reciprocal suspicion was unthinkable in the old capitalist reality. But the birth of the new computerised, automated capitalism has not only made advances possible but has forced these countries to change radically, pushing them to an irreversible as it was indecent collapse.

Rigid authoritarian regimes based on ideological calembours such as proletarian internationalism and the like are finding it difficult to comply with the needs imposed by a production structure that is now coordinated globally. If they do not want to get stuck in a precarious, marginal situation, the few remaining authoritarian regimes will have to resolutely democratise their political management. Inflexibility forces the great international partners of industrial development to stiffen and declare war one way or the other. It is in this sense that the role of the army has also changed considerably. It has intensified internal repression, and at the same time taken on the role of global policeman that was first developed by the US. This will probably continue for a number of years until other crises interrupt and require new yet equally precarious and dangerous forms of equilibrium.

Accordingly, the resurgence of nationalism is bringing with it one positive albeit limited element, and one that is extremely dangerous. Its immediate and specific effect consists in the overturning and dismemberment of the big States. Any movement that goes in this direction is to be hailed as positive, even if on the surface it presents itself as being a carrier of traditional, conservative values.

The other factor, the one that is extremely dangerous, is the risk of wars spreading between the small States, declared and fought with unprecedented ferocity and causing tremendous suffering in the name of miserable principles and just as miserable alternatives.

Many of these wars will lead to a more efficient and structured form of post-industrial capitalism. Many will be controlled and piloted by the multinational giants themselves. But basically they represent a transitory condition, a kind of epileptic fit, following which social conditions could evolve in the direction of the elimination of any trace of the old State organisms.

At the moment we can only guess how this might happen, starting off from an examination of conditions today.

Possible developments of the insurrectional mass struggle in the direction of anarchist communism

The end of the great trades union organisations' function of resistance and defence--corresponding with the collapse of the working class--has allowed us to see another possibility for the organisation of the struggle. This could start from the real capacity of the excluded, i.e., of the great mass of exploited, producers and non-producers, who already find themselves beyond the area of guaranteed wages, or who will in the near future.

The proposal of a kind of intervention based on affinity groups and their coordination and aimed at creating the best conditions for mass insurrection often comes up against a brick wall even amongst the comrades who are interested in it. Many consider it to be out of date, valid at the end of the last century but decidedly out of fashion today. And that would be the case had the conditions of production, in particular the structure of the factory, stayed as they were a hundred and fifty years ago. The insurrectionalist project would undoubtedly be inappropriate were such structures and their corresponding organisations for trade union resistance still in existence. But these no longer exist, and the mentality that went with them has also disappeared. This mentality could be summed up by respect for one's job, taking a pride in one's work, having a career. This, along with the sense of belonging to a producer's group in which to associate and resist and form trade union links which could even become the means for addressing more problematic forms of struggle such as sabotage, anti-fascist activity and so on, are all things of the past.

All these conditions have disappeared for good. Everything has changed radically. What we could call the factory mentality has ceased to exist.

The trade union has become a gymnasium for careerists and politicians. Wage bargaining has become a filter for facilitating the adaptation of the cost of labour to the new structures of capital. Disintegration is extending rapidly beyond the factory to the whole social fabric, breaking bonds of solidarity and all significant human relationships, turning people into faceless strangers, automata immersed in the unliveable confusion of the big cities or in the deathly silence of the provinces. Real interests have been substituted by virtual images created for the purpose of guaranteeing the minimum cohesion necessary to hold the social mechanism as a whole together. Television, sport, concerts, art and cultural activities constitute a network for those who passively wait for things to happen, such as the next riot, the next crisis, the next civil war, or whatever.

This is the situation we need to bear in mind when talking of insurrection. We insurrectionalist and revolutionary anarchists are not referring to something that is still to come about, but to something that is already happening. We are not referring to a remote, far off model, which, like dreamers, we are trying to bring back to life, unaware of the massive transformations that are taking place at the present moment. We live in our time. We are the children of the end of the millennium, actors taking part in the radical transformation of the society we see before us.

Not only do we consider insurrectionalist struggle to be possible but, faced with the complete disintegration of traditional forms of resistance, we think that it is the condition towards which we should be moving if we do not want to end up accepting the terms imposed by the enemy and becoming lobotomised slaves, insignificant pawns of the mechanisms of the information technology that will be our master in the near future.

Wider and wider strata of the excluded are moving away from consensus, and consequently from accepting reality or having any hope of a better future. Social strata who once considered themselves to be stable and not at risk are now living in a precariousness they will never be able to escape from by dedication to work and moderation in consumerism.

Revolutionary Anarchist Insurrectionalist Organization

We believe that instead of federations and groups organized in the traditional sense - part of the economic and social structure of a reality that no longer exists - we should be forming affinity groups based on the strength of mutual personal knowledge. These groups should be capable of carrying out specific coordinated actions against the enemy.

As far as the practical aspects are concerned, we imagine there would be collaboration between groups and individuals to find the means, documentation and everything else necessary for carrying out such actions. As far as analyses are concerned, we are attempting to circulate as many as possible in our publications and through meetings and debates on specific questions. An insurrectionalist organizational structure does not rotate around the periodic congress typical of the big syndicalist organizations or the official movement federations. Its points of reference are supplied by the entirety of the situations in the struggle, whether they be attacks on the class enemy or moments of reflection and theoretical quest.

Affinity groups could then contribute to the forming of base nuclei. The aim of these structures is to take the place of the old trade unions resistance organizations - including those who insist on the anarcho-syndicalist ideology - in the variety of intermediate struggles. The base nuclei's field of action would be any situation where class domination enacts a separation between the included and excluded.

Base nuclei are nearly always formed as a consequence of the propulsive actions of insurrectionalist anarchists, but they are not composed of anarchists alone. At meetings, anarchists should undertake the task of outlining class objectives to the utmost.

A number of base nuclei could form coordinating structures with the same aim. These specific organizational structures arte based on the principles of permanent conflictuality, self-management and attack.

By permanent conflictuality we mean uninterrupted struggle against class domination and those responsible for bringing it about.

By self-management we mean independence from all parties, trade unions or sponsorship, as well as finding the means necessary for organizing and carrying out the struggle on the basis of spontaneous contributions alone.

By attack we mean the refusal of any negotiation, mediation, reconciliation or compromise with the enemy.

The field of action of affinity groups and base nuclei is that of the mass struggles. These struggles are nearly always intermediary, which means they do not have a direct, immediately destructive effect. They often propose simple objectives, but have the aim of gaining more strength in order to develop the struggle towards wider objectives.

Nevertheless, the final aim of these intermediate struggles is always attack. It is however obviously possible for individual comrades and affinity groups to strike at individuals or organizations of Capital and the State independently of any more complex relationship.

Sabotage has become the main weapon of the exploited in their struggle in the scenario we see extending before our very eyes. Capitalism is creating conditions of control and domination at levels never seen before through information technology, which could never be used for anything other than maintaining power.

Why we are insurrectionalist anarchists:

- Because we are struggling along with the excluded to alleviate and ultimately abolish the conditions of exploitation imposed by the included.

- Because we consider it possible to contribute to the development of struggles that are appearing spontaneously everywhere, turning them into mass insurrections, that is to say, actual revolutions.

- Because we want to destroy the capitalist order of the world which, thanks to computer science restructuring has become technologically useful to no one but the managers of class domination.

- Because we are for the immediate, destructive attack against the structures, individuals and organizations of Capital and the State.

- Because we constructively criticize all those who are in situations of comprise with power in their belief that the revolutionary struggle is impossible at the present time.

- Because rather than wait, we have decided to proceed to action, even if the time is not ripe.

- Because we want to put an end to this state of affairs right away rather than wait until conditions make its transformation possible. These are the reasons why we are anarchists, revolutionaries and insurrectionalists.

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