Originally published in the Portuguese anarchist paper A BATALHA #196

DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT OF REVOLUTION

« ... the masses are spontaneously moving towards and building grass-roots socialism, without charismatic leaders or an "illuminated" vanguard party. »


In a previous article (see A BATALHA, nº191, translation in  http://www.ainfos.ca/02/may/ainfos00400.html) I dealt with the question of revolution nowadays.

This subject, dealt with so often by the most diverse people in so many different contexts, needs a brief definition to ascertain the sense in which I am going to employ it in this text. Here, "revolution" will be held as a deep and lasting social transformation that places the whole of humanity in a position to make use of all natural and social goods in a free, egalitarian way. The ethical need for revolution does not seem to me to be in any doubt; we now have, at the start of this millenium, the material tools for all humanity to enjoy decent living conditions and even somewhat more, but the inequalities in wealth and power distribution have been such as to enhance misery in all its forms, wherever it occurs. This happens without affecting the comfort of a minority which has everything and wastes it with a total lack of shame, indifferent to the values of humanism and solidarity it proclaims in speeches, only to send its guilty conscience (if it has one) to sleep.

The need for a revolution is not at all a mechanical one, as one could apprehend from a "historic materialist" interpretation of capitalist evolution and its contradictions. If that should be the case, then it would be silly to try to speed its coming or to provoke its occurrence; one should only have to wait until it happens as if it were a natural phenomenon, like the inevitable passage of a comet through a solar system, for instance.

The risk that present day humanity could extinguish itself cannot be excluded by anybody with an ounce of sense; beyond the danger of a global nuclear war, that nobody can exclude in the short term (as long as nuclear weapons are stockpiled), other "bombs" exist - the "demographic bomb" and the "ecological bomb". The planet may well become unfit for life due to the blindness or short-sightedness of its inhabitants. Due to the accelerating degradation of living conditions and not to any blind determinism, many insurrections will occur, forcing the system to use increasingly repressive means. This is not a ‘prophecy’, just the observation of an inevitable outcome, stemming from the following circumstances:

- the existence of a single world super-power, to which all the other powers are forced to submit;

- the existence of a shortage in easily-exploitable oil resources in the short-term future and therefore a growth in prices up to the point where the substitution of present technology by a new form which no longer uses fossil fuels is inevitable;

- the ever-growing misery of the so-called Third and Fourth World countries due to predator economic and social policies with a totally destructive effect on social structures, as a consequence of the ultra-liberal policies of the IMF, World Bank and WTO;


- the impossible task of keeping the population of the so-called developed countries above the level of "social unrest", as the industrial centres are being displaced towards peripheral countries where a semi-enslaved workforce is suffering the most violent exploitation (such as the ‘maquiladoras’ near the Mexican/US border or the way the most savage capitalism is being implanted in the People's Rep. of China), performing a large part of the industrial production for the markets of the richest countries.

Since transition to another kind of society is blocked by the almost absolute military might of the global imperial power, peripheral societies will suffer all kind of insurrections, coups d'état, wars both internal and cross-border, with no other effect than the deepening misery of the totally defenceless victims resulting from such violence. War will increasingly appear in the form of civil wars between rival groups, ethnic or other, only coming to a halt when and if the
imperial masters decide to stop it.

As for the consequences of global warming, these will unfortunately be more severe in the tropics, accentuating drought in semi-arid zones (like the Sahel) or increasing the frequency and severity of typhoons and other devastating climatic phenomena in such zones as the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean coasts.

Regarding the so-called "western democracies", they will increasingly show their totalitarian face, with technologies for the selective repression of dissidence, universal video control, the systematic violation of electronic mail, etc. The underlying reason for this drift towards increased security, though using the alibi of the "war against terror", is crystal clear: the armies of jobless generated by the sudden transformation of production processes (the technological revolution), combined with the mass exodus of industries towards countries where the wages are lower, will not be sustainable by a welfare system in chronic deficit, that the "national" bourgeoisie refuse to feed in due proportion (see the tax evasion promoted by a number of "tax havens" not only in exotic places but even within the EU, such as the Portuguese island of Madeira, the British colony of Gibraltar, or the grand-duchy of Luxembourg).

The majority of people belonging to the oppressed classes - be they in rich countries or poor - will see their standards of living declining. The young will not have much reason to hope for a future in accord with their legitimate expectations as long as this decadent civilisation continues.

Revolt will inevitably grow. The question is, therefore, not whether there will be more social unrest, but rather how this social agitation will yield the solution to the structural crisis of capitalism, a crisis that cannot be solved within the system itself.

In fact, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the cyclic crises in capitalism were "absorbed" and "resolved" in large measure through the expansion of the system's dominion in its peripheral areas (the colonies and later the neo-colonized countries) or even through inter-imperialist wars that allowed industry to operate full out after being paralysed by a crisis of overproduction (the obvious case being the 1929-32 crisis "solved" by the 2nd World War).

But now, which parts of the planet are still to be explored and exploited? Which parts are not subjected to one or another form of capitalist economy? Only so-called "communist" China, now totally yielding to the cruellest version of capitalism, the same China which launches millions of peasants into the slave markets of the big cities, to build an industrial framework which will be able to rival the other Asian industrialized powers. Seeing as the great corporations show no interest in investing there, the African continent is chained to its fate, simply that of a reserve of raw materials.

The wars of recent times have been characterized by totally defenceless civilian populations being targeted, butchered by "courageous" soldiers hundreds of kilometres away, the famous zero casualties warfare (seen from the imperialist side, of course). So it was in Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan and Iraq too (it still is in Iraq, which has suffered hundreds of deadly bombings since the end of the 1991 war, with industrial and residential quarters targeted regularly under the pretext of neutralizing "mass destruction weapons factories"). Therefore, war will destroy resources in an increasingly efficient manner, but not permit any kind of expansion, as those countries will be reduced to total marginality as far as the markets are concerned, both as producers and as consumers. We only need to see the situation in the ex-Yugoslavian countries since the wars, to give one example.

The increase in military expenditure by the sole remaining superpower (an increase above the spending level during the tensest years of the "Cold War") came to remedy a deep depression that threatened to precipitate the USA into stagnation. Look at drop over eight months in New York stocks and mainly in the NASDAQ, between April and December 2000. However, to remedy is not to solve: weapon and ammunition production either needs to be used (generating more destruction) or to be stockpiled, but in any case, does not furnish any significant contribution to other industrial activities, or does so in a very marginal fashion. The outcome is an enormous bleeding of all sorts of resources, from financial to raw materials, from scientific potential to specialized labour force, and this for a goal which is neither productive nor reproductive. In other words, it will not increase the global benefits of the system even though it does generate, in the short term, big profits for the industries associated with the production of such weapons as the "Star Wars" enterprise.

To maintain their profits, the big corporations will adopt two processes: simple and straightforward predation of resources as they already do, but on a larger scale, and taking back from the "developed" countries' populations the benefits of the "welfare state" which were gained through class struggles during the 3 decades of capitalist expansion following the 2nd World War.

We have, therefore, capitalism digging its own grave, only sustaining itself thanks to a monstrous, repressive machine, with all means of control over everything and everyone, maintaining the semblances of "democracy", if possible, so that it can keep the population in its torpor. This capitalism in a state of accelerated decay will not bother with the destiny of Argentina, or even of two or three "Argentinas", as their desperate citizens will not matter in their game of hegemony. Since they are not a direct threat to the survival of the system as such, it is likely that entropy zones will be tolerated at the edges of the system, simply contained because their rehabilitation would be at too high a price and would have no usefulness to capital.

Within the so-called developed societies, the ghettos of misery, with their corollaries of violence, prostitution, drugs, etc., will remain and grow, as it makes global social control easier. In this instance, people are constantly confronted with their neighbours being reduced to the condition of human trash. What better instrument to discourage social dissent? What better way to ensure submission, than the panic which losing one's miserable job would provoke?

Such evolution will not be unlimited, though, because above a certain level the mechanisms of oppression become too unbearable and trigger an awakening of social conscience in the younger generations who come into contact with the brutality of the powers that be.

The search for alternatives has already begun, and this long before Seattle, too. The birth date, in fact, of this new era of anti-capitalist struggle is 1st January 1994 with the Chiapas insurrection led by the Zapatistas. From that moment on, the contemporary anti-capitalist movement - nicknamed "anti-globalisation" by the media - has been growing and increasingly challenges both States and big corporations. This is less as a result of the demonstrations per se (which hold no immediate danger for the present "order") but is rather due to the resultant loss of legitimacy in consequence of those collective actions: the libertarian "happenings" of young people, who know better than ever before (and much better than during May '68) what they are rejecting and have themselves taken on the task as the builders of another future where man exploiting man or the devastation of nature no longer have their place.

At a local level, these alternative groups and coalitions are developing grass-roots communities, unnoticed due to the media blackout. They are the seeds of another way of life, of another culture, other values. The lackeys of power - be they from the right or from the authoritarian left - will continue to defame the movement as "something from marginal people". Nevertheless, the process is on its way and a blossoming of new projects is expected, such as has already been done in certain domains, from alternative news services (such as "Indymedia" and other internet projects) to the squat movement, where social centres are created which fully adopt a different way of life. The collectives practise grass-roots democracy, where hierarchies are absent and openness and mutual aid are the rule, and they form a solid network with each other.

Equally promising are the forms of grass-roots democracy: neighbourhood assemblies in Buenos Aires and other cities of Argentina bringing together common people around the resolution of everyday problems. There, it is survival itself which is often at stake. Again, in that same country, occupied and self-managed factories show (to those who may still have doubts) how adequate the solutions which libertarians have always defended are.

Such social phenomena is even more remarkable given the relatively low number of libertarians in Argentina (*) and make it unreasonable to pretend they had some great responsibility in the insurrection, or at least in its beginnings.

Therefore, in spite of the enormous repressive means unfolded under the pretext of "war on terror", north, south, east or west, the masses are spontaneously moving towards and building grass-roots socialism, without charismatic leaders or an "illuminated" vanguard party.

In this way, a new concept of revolution is being built, a new concept of revolutionary action in total confrontation with capitalism and in search of alternatives, outside and in conflict with the old, routine schemas of the authoritarian left of the past.


Manuel Baptista
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(*) Although it is a country where libertarian socialism was once dominant in the workers' movement (through the FORA, a member of the IWA), there are not many direct survivors from this period as a result of Peronism and Videla’s bloody dictatorship. Present-day Argentinian libertarians come in large part from dissident elements of either Marxist or left Peronist organisations.