“…The jump to a Politics of Fronts is necessary and possible for the fighting forces which aim to effectively determine the conflict. That is why all ideological-dogmatic positions that exist today must fall and be overcome, between the fighting forces and the revolutionary movement, since they divide the fighters. These positions are not capable of leading the struggles and the attack, at the necessary level of political determination. The Front develops around practical attack, in a conscious and organised path in which the next moments of unity of the fighting forces mature. Because to organise the fighting revolutionary front, means to organise the attack.”
A Politics of Fronts
Red Army Faction – New Red Brigades/Communist Combatant Party
“They say the first thing that dies at war, is truth”
Wanting to place the above statement in a radical direction, we can say that revolutionary war is the war of truth against its death, in the wars which take place under the blood-soaked flags of power and capitalism. The flags of racism, patriarchy, militarism, imperialist interests, exploitations, techno-totalitarianism.
In the face of these wars, the revolutionary war acquires a specific character. It means our militant opposition to the political-economic and military plans of capitalism and at the same time the restoration of historical legacy and memory of struggle against oblivion, inside the social fields in which we operate. The struggle of the truth of a struggle with a thousand forms that rises against propaganda and the mechanisms of power.
The capitalist crisis is deepening and the contradictions are sharpening. The “end of history” as preached by the apologists of capitalism has not come, on the contrary the historical bets on the final overcoming of a greedy and inhuman system constantly raise radical questions and arm the struggles that are breaking out all over the world.
The news bulletins, the police announcements, the threats by politicians are not just the voices that spread confusion. It is the institutional representation of the – classist and without limits – violence of the system. It is the uniformed guards who beat us in the demonstrations and in the neighbourhood squares, it is the queues for unemployment benefits, the loose and badly paid hours, the unpaid overtime, the terrorism of capital of us who are part of the new working shift. It is the cops who will enter our universities to control our every move, it is the life they are stealing from us every day demanding more discipline, more working hours, more taxes, more indifference in the face of the authoritarian exploitation of the oppressed.
If we do not decide that we must collectively overcome the obstacle of fear, if we do not prepare to crush them, we are doomed to live our small and daily death to which they have condemned us. In the roads, the prisons, the concentration camps, the psychiatric hospitals, in the metropolitan hard labour of displacement of the surplus labour force. Where the word “right” is a class privilege, where the violence of capital and the state flattens souls and bodies.
It is a permanent conclusion in the discussions between comrades that there is a huge absence of a coherent political plan which, avoiding the traps which we often set ourselves, will manage to put its presence at a central level. Of a political plan which will seek new tools of analysis and communication, organisation and political composition. It will therefore seek ways to organise the revolutionary war adapted to the needs, the analogies and the challenges of our time.Through specific conclusions, so that the actions and the dialectic they feed can set the struggle in motion.
“The memory of fire is the memory of a struggle which constantly explodes”
It is a collective need to describe, with the words brought to the present by the storms of the past, our roots inside time, our collective vision for life and struggle, the perspective we set in our action. Revolutionary action, when it appears at the forefront of history in every era, inevitably connects with, and at the same time transfers to today, its historical political burden. It is the thread of resistance that comes from far away, from places and times where people with steel tenacity tried to bring the beast of each empire to its knees. It is the historic duty towards those who without hesitation fell in the fire of politics and social doubt to feed it, to make it into a fire that will turn revolutionary visions into a rushing river that threatens to sweep the ruling class.
Because contrary to prevailing views, the world anarchist movement was established as a radical force through revolutionary violence, the sacrifices and blood of our comrades, the incessant war on the structures of political, religious and economic power.
We begin with a proclaimed goal: To regain our political dangerousness in the face of the most barbarian social and political system, named capitalism. Such an ambitious goal requires first of all organisation, self-discipline, commitment, consistency and the will to take back the life that they steal from us every day.
Political organisation, crystallising our basic political positions, analysing the situation, creating groups for self-education and mutual aid, creating points of dialogue where dialectics will be a way of effectively resolving our political disagreements-concerns. Because our existential need to revolt against capitalist society cannot on its own cover a choice of conscious enlistment to the cause, if it is not connected dialectically with our political composition in a collective field where it will clearly claim its place in history. It is the moment when agreements are vows of life which shatter excuses and hangups. It is the moment when action crushes any suspicion of a truce.
The organisation of networks of revolutionary violence, which will cultivate the radicalisation of sections of the revolutionary movement, will create direct action cells by propagandising through action, will strike with sharp force persons and structures in the authoritarian edifice based on a wider plan of political destabilisation, will develop bonds of solidarity and mutual aid between them. We are here for each other against our common enemy.
Self-discipline, because in an age where repression and social control have become an unbearable reality, whoever is not aware of the seriousness and effectiveness of the opponent will find themselves faced with unpleasant reality. The development of an illegal political plan does not mean that attack is an end in itself. It means that we select the war of attrition as a battle tactic, it means we protect our sensitive information from the prying eyes of the enemy, it means that the intensity of the attacks must be developed in parallel with defence structures against repression. Defence structures with self-defence countermeasures and safety valves that will allow the networks of revolutionary violence to withstand the pressure of repression.
Commitment and Consistency, because the war against authority is not some occasional hobby but a life choice. Because such a choice may cost the loss of life or freedom of a comrade. Because the promotion of a political plan which aims to clash dynamically with state and capital, requires commitments around organisational and political needs that arise. It requires consistency in the responsibilities that each and every one of us has to take, in order to carry out a political initiative or a specific plan. It requires seriousness, humility and understanding, so as to breathe together new life to the struggle for the abolition of exploitation and oppression.
The creation of this illegal political venture is a collective starting point for struggle. Comrades who participated in groups, cells or individual initiatives of offensive actions decided to create a political formation of revolutionary violence, which will coordinate its action so as to multiply the dynamic of its blows. It will advance the need for organised and coordinated praxis so that our attacks are not fragmentary actions, but direct their dynamic around a tangible strategy, around a political plan of rupture with the system.
Taking into account everything we mentioned, as well as the perspective we believe the struggle should acquire, we created the Direct Action Cells. A tool of the struggle, to raise once more the axe of war against state and capitalism. An organisational association of revolutionary forces which also extends its hand to common struggle with every radical element that agrees with and embraces the political plan and framework that we submit, and operates based on the principles of horizontal organising, solidarity and mutual respect.
Our initiative could not be judged elsewhere but on the very field of revolutionary war. Where thoughts meet actions. Where contemplation meets responsibility. Where an idea finds flesh and blood to breathe. And the time and place could not be another but the warlike confrontation which unfolded on the side of the revolutionary Dimitris Koufontinas during the hunger strike for life and dignity.
We collectively testified publicly that… “you will pay dearly, you will pay for everything”, transporting to the present the words of comrades from our common history. Thus, the first appraisal of the offensive activities of the Cells of Direct Action leaves as a short legacy 20 attacks on central targets and persons of authority in the 2 largest metropolitan centres of the country.
More specifically, we took responsibility for organising, coordinating and carrying out arson attacks in Athens:
- At the Foundation for Economic and Industrial research (Ίδρυμα Οικονομικών και Βιομηχανικών Ερευνών – ΙΟΒΕ) in Koukaki
- At the 13th Public Economic Agency office (ΙΓ’ ΔΟΥ) in the area of Kypseli
- At the residence of the executive of the General Secretariat for the Coordination of Governmental Work of the New Democracy Party (Γενική Γραμματεία Συντονισμού Κυβερνητικού Έργου της ΝΔ), Stratos Mavroidakos, in Ilion
- On a cop’s vehicle, in the area of Petralona
- At the residence of the retired Lieutenant General of the Hellenic Police, Christos Kontaridis
- At the residence of the Brigadier General of the Hellenic Police, Michalis Ladomenos
- At the residence of Giannis Katsiamakas, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Athens Officers (Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Αξιωματικών Αθηνών – ΠΟΑΞΙΑ) and retired Lieutenant General of the Hellenic Police, in Vyronas
- At the residence and vehicle of Katerina Magga, Sergeant of the Patisia Police Station, in Ano Patisia.
And in Thessaloniki:
- At the offices of the Hellenic-American Union, in Vardaris
- On a vehicle of the Ministry of Labour, on Mitropoleos Street
- At the military residences opposite NATO Headquarters, in the Evzoni area
- At the gate of the Ministry of Macedonia-Thrace
- At the residence of the cop Ilias Xatzis, in Sykies
- At the residence of the president of the Union of Thessaloniki Police Officers (Ένωση Αστυνομικών Υπαλλήλων Θεσσαλονίκης) Dimitrios Padiotis, in Sykies
- At the residence of the retired supreme court justice and former president of the court of appeals Antonios Tsaloportas, on Xarilaou
- At the residence of the New Democracy politician, Afroditi Latinopoulou, in Kamara
- At a vehicle of the Diplomatic Corps in the centre of Thessaloniki
- At the residence of the right-wing family of the Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Paskonis, in Triandria
- At the residence of the right-wing Nakou family, in Ano Poli
- At the residence of the right-wing Kosmidis family, in Kato Toumpa
What is our political plan, which we are publicly presenting to the wider anticapitalist-anarchist movement, so that it can support the plan and align itself within the interior of the Direct Action Cells? A political plan which will unfold, will create cracks, raise questions and return to our political reality the saying that if the revolutionary movement does not succeed in standing on its own two feet to walk the path that it will determine, it is doomed to fail. A political plan which will analyse the contemporary stakes, not with the intention of simply imprinting them on the social and political map, but wanting to throw itself in the fire of battle by undermining the normality which the class enemy imposes.
The first aims of the Direct Action Cells are:
1. To be a tool for struggle which will channel the potential of any groups or individuals that will enlist to participate on the basis of a specific strategy of struggle that we choose to promote. This strategy can be either the field of an internal dialogue which develops inside the Cells and results in political agreement, or a comprehensive political proposal submitted by a group of comrades who choose, while maintaining their political and organisational autonomy, to propose the development of a specific political direction for the struggle.
2. To be a visible expression of the radical shift of a section of the anarchist movement which we want over time to become larger and larger, in terms of fighting power and not only numerical concentration, more and more uncontrollable, more and more effective in its choices and strategies. We want this radical shift, as described above, to act as a trigger for mobilisation and counterattack. To fuel with will, unity and faith the rebirth of struggle in the face of division and fragmentation.
3. To bring back to the people of the struggle the logic of direct confrontation with state and capital. The notion that interprets dialectically our belief in the revolutionary cause and the formulation of specific strategies of struggle which, to the extent that they are developed in healthy and comradely political terms, come into conflict with the node of the political and economic plans of state and capital. To bring back the word Revolution to the forefront of the movement without diminishing the targeting, the vision and the flame of the insurrectionary perspective, because right now it might seem unrealistic to some. It is a different thing for a targeted, socially grounded political approach to take place (something we seek), and it is another thing to withdraw from basic and fundamental values of the anti-state and anarchist struggle. On the other hand, it is precisely this finding and proposition that must emerge from dialectical fermentation, thought and determination, in order to realise all those small or big moments of fire and attack that elevate it and give it its essential meaning.
4. To not leave anyone facing the enemy alone. Solidarity must know no borders. We fight united with every struggling part of society, with each and every person who expresses their hatred for any system of authority and acts in the direction of overthrowing the existent. We seek to spread the revolutionary networks of resistance, overcoming all limits and restrictions, whether they are prison walls or barbed wire. We set the conditions of our lives as we want, against any oppressor who will feel our threatening existence. Always with every militant prisoner, with every persecuted and wanted person who fights, insurrects, rebels against the hellish penitentiaries and judiciary authority. Let us create those bulwarks to state and capitalist rage, throwing ourselves into the affair of the spreading of struggle.
Comrades, we invite you to our side to strengthen the gaze that looks straight at the enemy. To collectively assume the political responsibility – and the historical burden behind it – that will escalate the militant confrontation with every power. With base organisation and unity in practice, we fuel revolutionary dialogue through offensive propaganda, coordinating our forces and continuing the struggle. Comrades in battle, we call you to create new Direct Action Cells.
“…There are more and more people resisting around the world. For those of us who persist in fighting for the future, having experienced defeat may be an advantage. We have lived through the exhaustion, the death of an upsurge. Today, we are seeing and living the budding new life behind that phase. These situations where the invisible recreate the consciousness of being the only creative multitude, they reinvent our ability to function while asking questions…”
Joëlle Aubron – Action Directe
End to the truce – Everything continues…
Organisation – Unity – War
Direct Action Cells:
Cell of Anarchist Anti-violence
Organisation Anarchist Action
Cell of Anti-State Anger
Cell of Revolutionary Solidarity
Cell Yelizaveta Kovalskaya
From: Athens IMC