LEAVE THE MIRE OF ELECTORAL ILLUSIONS

FIGHT AND BEAT THE RIGHT AND NEO-LIBERALISM

BUILD THE AUTONOMY OF THE CLASS MOVEMENT

THESE ARE THE STRATEGIC TASKS FOR ANARCHIST COMMUNISTS

On 9th April 2006, bourgeois representative democracy will once more be celebrating its traditional rite of the General Election. Both camps are in search of legitimacy and votes. The right needs them, aware as it is that its 5-year spell in office spelled ruin in every area that it was involved in; the centre-left needs them, aware as it is that it of its inability to offer an alternative to the right and to pressure from Italian capital. A great deal of hope is being placed in the 9th April, that it signal the long-awaited "kicking out" of Berlusconi and the demolition of his "House of Liberty" coalition. We have no interest in denigrating or denying anyone the individual freedom to exercise their right to vote. Neither do we necessarily consider indifferent or revolutionary those who decide not to vote be it out of a desire to express radical criticism of the parliamentary system or simply because the two coalitions are practically identical.

What interests us is that the 9th April must not be allowed to signal the end of the various movements that have coloured the Italian political scene since 2001; the many movements born from the grassroots and which in many cases (be it thanks to their capacity for self-organization and self-management or not) have remained as grassroots movements, in areas such as anti-capitalist struggles, workers' and union struggles, ecological and environmental struggles, pacifist and anti-militarist struggles, the struggles of migrants, against State repression, feminist struggles and the secularist and anti-clericalist struggles of recent times. 

They have been tough, difficult struggles, on two levels. On the one hand to unmask the mis-values of the right mixed with the mis-values of neo-liberalism (individualism, competition, arrogance, corruption, ignorance, injustice, de-regulation of civilized life, increased precariousness of individual lives...). On the other hand, to renew and practise the value of freedom through solidarity, through the defence and use of self-organization, through the demand for and protection of the individual and collective rights of people, workers, migrants. But do these movements and these struggles have a future? We are certain they do, as long as they do not fall prey to the illusion that elections are the only possibility to carry out any sort of structural change. We are certain they do, if we have been successful in making people aware that the capitalist neo-liberalism of our day can always count on the State and the government. And that is our option: to work towards the political capacity to express self-organization and conflict by all those with an interest in carrying out a radical change within society towards self-management and equality.

On 10th April, someone will be declared as the elected winner. If the right loses, we will have cause to be happy (and why not?!). If the centre-left wins, as good materialists we will have cause to be worried. We have not forgotten the centre-left governments of the period from 1996 to 2001, which laid the basis for the iniquities of their successors in the centre-right government. But this time, perhaps, there will be no carte blanche mandate: from precarious labour to the Schools Reform, from the TAV (High-Speed Train Link) to nuclear energy, from the attack on abortion legislation to that on IVF technology, from troops in Afghanistan to those in Iraq, from the Bossi-Fini immigration law to the CPTs (immigrant detention centres), these are all open wounds which are still visible on the rights, feelings and values of Italian and migrant workers, and this time round (perhaps) there will be no party, trade-union or church drive belt strong enough, no social peace or partnership to "keep the people in line". And we, with our characteristic way of doing politics, from below and collectively, through assemblies and self-management, communist and anarchist, we will continue our commitment both before and after the 9th April, to do our best to ensure that a huge, moving social opposition can live, organize and struggle for an alternative that is both communist and libertarian.

Council of Delegates
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici

Cremona, 15th January 2006