Axel Weipert: The Second Revolution. The Council Movement in Berlin 1919-1920

A Book Review by Ph. Bourrinet

The history of the council movement seemed a long outdated history after a myriad of studies in the 1960s and 1970s in both parts of Germany, often under very clear ideological banners: democracy versus dictatorship. After a long historiographical slumber on revolutionary events in Germany; after the so-called “collapse of communism”, important studies on the council movement emerged in 2013 with a volume devoted to the Hamburg Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council. (¹) Axel Weipert’s study, published in Berlin in 2015, is a very notable contribution to the new historiography after the downfall of the (Berlin) wall, this time devoted to the “second revolution”, the second phase of the council movement after the January 1919 workers’ defeat in Berlin. (²)

War in Ukraine: An Internationalist Voice from Russia

An interview with KRAS – IWA by Grupo Moiras (Spain)

Grupo Moiras is an anarcho-feminist group in Spain inspired by the ‘Mujeres libres’ of the Spanish Civil War. KRAS is one of the rare groups in Russia, from the anarcho-syndicalist milieu, who has defended a proletarian internationalist position for years. The interview presents the groups’ view on the character and stakes of the present war in Ukraine, on the contradictory positions that divide anarchists in Ukraine, most of whom are siding with the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and its army against the Russian military invasion; on the difficulties of anyone in Russia who tries to protest against the war in face of the military censorship and the brutal state repression of the Putin regime, and on the difficulties of the anarchist milieu in particular.

Lessons from the dockworkers’ strike in Italy against the mandatory ‘Green Pass’

Statement of ‘Le Prolétaire’, October 22, 2021.

Faced with the need to cope with the rising infection and hospitalization rates in the current  “fourth wave” of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a staggering vaccination campaign, some governments in the western hemisphere increasingly take their resort to measures… not so much of strengthening public health services, but rather of increasing repression, like blackmailing wage earners, who are barred from their workplaces and having their wages suspended, if they do not dispose of the required vaccination status, as for instance in Italy.

The following elaborate statement by the Bordigist group around ‘Le Prolétaire’  analyses an attempt initiated by dockworkers in Italy last autumn to thwart off such an attempt by the state to strengthen its control over the workers (via the “green pass”) – one that however was nipped in the bud rather spectacularly, not only by the usual political and syndicalist maneuvers, but also by the poisonous, if not nefarious, influence of the ‘anti-vax movement’. It also proposes some basic lessons to draw from this defeat that merit discussion.

Green Pass, yes – Green Pass, no: It’s the triumph of bourgeois ideology

Covid-19 Pandemic and government measures: I.O.D. on false controversies about the “Green Pass”

As many European governments see themselves forced to take emergency measures to counter the effects of a renewed upsurge of the pandemic, and prevent ailing health care systems from collapsing, a certain populist resistance against measures like the extension of the “green pass”  (or whatever the official proof of health vaccination status is called) has taken a new upsurge as well. This has translated in demonstrations in a number of countries (f.i. in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria), more often than not escalating in rioting and deliberate confrontations with the police. As the following statement published by the Istituto Onorato Damen argues at the hand of the situation in Italy, this wave of upheaval passes completely besides the real issues at stake.

‘Circolo Internazionalista’ on Protests against Covid-19 Policies and a certain ‘radical Left’

With the rapid propagation of the so-called “Delta” variant of SARS-CoV2 becoming dominant, the Corona-virus pandemic has entered a new phase. First discovered in India, it is reported to be more infectious notably than the “Alpha” variant that spread from the South of England at the end of 2020. Faced with this turn in the pandemic, among concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccinations already administered, and confronted with staggering of the respective vaccination campaigns, several governments in the Western hemisphere have been caught in the middle, and were forced to recede from all too “optimistically” lifting their restrictive measures, notably concerning their night-life, tourism and festival sectors during the summer holiday season. Very rapidly, a widespread tendency showed up to intensify state control of social life (e.g. through the application of the “Corona-passport”) and to forcefully lift vaccination degrees by mandatory vaccination for specific professional categories (notably in health care and hospitals, like in France), or even for whole sectors (like in the USA). In Germany, a.o., the government saw itself forced to hastily reintroduce stricter border controls, notably for those returning from holiday travels abroad in “high risk areas”.

The recent measures by the respective governments have led to a resurgence of “Corona-protests” in these countries, habitually mobilizing a very heterogeneous spectrum of discontent, without any proletarian class character or perspective, but with a marked presence of all kinds of openly right-wing extremist groups, manifesting their anti-social character with increasing aggressiveness. The influence of this amalgam with certain proletarian milieus and political tendencies has incited an internationalist group like the Circulo Internazionalista “coalizione operaia” in Italy to take position, as can be read hereafter in translation.

The Tormented Land of the Cedars

G. Fontana (I.O.D.) on the Beirut explosion of August 4

The huge explosion that destroyed the port of Beirut and caused hundreds of victims is only one of the last episodes of the permanent imperialist war. A war fueled by the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, which has in fact turned the cedar country into a theater of death.

Internationalist statements on the wave of protests and riots apropos of US state repression (Spring 2020)

A Rapid Press Overview

In the following we present a number of statements and press releases by groups, circles and authors claiming adherence to (proletarian) internationalism, mostly from US- or North American sources, apropos of the wave of international protests and riots sparked off by the police killing of Mr. George Floyd at Minneapolis (Minnesota). The concise ones have been adopted in full, the longer ones by extracting their conclusion.

The list does not pretend to be exhaustive and is supplemented.

The editor

(Last updated: Monday June 29, 2020)

The murder of George Floyd sets the USA on fire…

A Statement by M. Lupoli (I.O.D.)

Yet another brutal murder of a black man by a policeman has triggered a wave of protests, involving thousands of protesters in the USA and beyond. As always, the bourgeoisie uses violence, racism and repression against workers and anyone who protests against its order. Although there are widespread and radical demonstrations, expressing widespread discontent, every revolt is condemned to be exhausted by the system in absence of the revolutionary party.

The Algerian Crisis

‘Nuevo Curso’ on the mass protests in the Maghreb

With a country in general uproar, Bouteflika waited until the last moment to present his presidential candidacy. (¹) The demonstrators are still on the warpath because they know that the official candidacy wins. (²) But why should the fossilized Algerian bourgeoisie impose a dying Bouteflika who survives on medical care in Geneva?

Robin Goodfellow in the Land of the ‘Yellow Vests’

A critique by the Pantopolis blog (March 15, 2019)

We are happy to [refer to] the latest text from the group Robin Goodfellow (RGF). (¹) Coming from the Bordigist camp, it has striven to always be in tune with the class struggle, despite the desperately academic tone of its publications.

This text shows a positive spirit of openness towards the movement of the ‘yellow vests’, in which proletarians predominate. Contrary to some sects falsely laying claim to left-wing communism, Robin Goodfellow did not spit on the movement, quite the contrary. These sects did, by the way, not manifest an “aristocratism” of revolutionary “purists”, but rather the ubuesque (²) holy fear of micro-bureaucrats, ready to hide under their beds at the first signs of serious confrontation with the “forces of order”, shamefully describing the healthy reaction of the yellow vests to the terrible force of the capitalist state (³) as “useless violence.”

The text of Robin Goodfellow is very precise on the classes, or rather the heterogeneous layers that have intervened in the movement of the ‘yellow vests’. It deserves to be welcomed for demonstrating that, in the ‘yellow vests’ movement, the proletariat is very much present (workers, employees), even as a vast majority.