In the Footsteps of the Struggle: Lambros Fountas
On March 10, 16 years ago, Lambros Fountas, a member of the Revolutionary Struggle organization, was shot dead by cops. The murder of our anarchist comrade took place during a preparatory action by the organization in Dafni, during an armed clash with police forces.
From its very first days, the anarchist movement has defended and continues to defend the memory and the substance of the actions of the armed fighter Lambros Fountas through marches, events, and actions. The very organization of which he was a member carried out an attack on the Bank of Greece in 2014, dedicating it to the fallen comrade and claiming responsibility under the signature “ Commando Lambros Fountas,” thereby paying tribute to the revolutionary.
As a member of the armed revolutionary organization Revolutionary Struggle, Lambros Fountas chose to act through armed proletarian resistance at a time when the social base was being battered by austerity measures. Measures imposed by the local and international elite to prevent the collapse of the European banking system. And while politicians and media moguls present the memoranda and agreements as “measures of salvation,” we experienced them as cuts to wages and pensions, as a present of destitution and an uncertain future.
The Revolutionary Struggle organization fought against these conditions by targeting the economically powerful and vigorously opposing the measures of the memoranda. It chose to create conditions of political instability, making it harder to bleed the social base dry, leaving behind a great legacy for the international and domestic revolutionary movement. Through actions against predatory “institutions” —the Bank of Greece, Citibank, etc.—, the stock exchange, and the uniformed murderers of the MAT, he defended the armed social revolution, writing new chapters in the book of revolutionary history.
And while I may never have met comrade Lambros Fountas, never gotten to know him, never fought side by side with him. But the thread of revolutionary memory bridges precisely this: fighters, movements, and struggles that, while unfolding in different corners of the globe and across different times and places, shared a common struggle and vision for liberation. Thus, the preservation of revolutionary memory is anything but a neutral process. It is a thorn in the side of oblivion and a crack in the history of the ruling classes. That is why securing it is part of our very struggle, part of the present and the future. That is why, even though the past was stained with blood, our dead managed to fill the inkwell of revolutionary history. And even if we did not walk beside them, we walked alongside them. And even if we did not choose the same path, we gazed at the same skies. Because we shared the same dreams and hopes, we experienced similar fears and rage. Thus, their struggle, the way they acted, and the way they fell serve as a call to arms, a starting point, and a catalyst for new cycles of resistance. And as long as we keep the revolutionary memory alive, we keep our history alive as well. A history built on the smiles and comradely glances of our own people, our own friends, and our own comrades. Just as our comrade Kyriakos Xymiteris did, who fell in battle nearly a year and a half ago on October 31, 2024, in the explosion in Ambelokipi. A comrade who envisioned a world of equality and freedom. A just world, built upon the ruins of the old one.
So, for Lambros Fountas, Kyriakos Xymiteris, and all the other fighters who saw themselves as part of revolutionary history and threw themselves into the fray, it is now our turn to turn their loss into a rallying cry. Let us live up to our history and our responsibilities, and let us see their deaths as a motivation to continue the struggle.
LAMBROS FOUNTAS IMMORTAL
KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS PRESENT
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS
END THE ECONOMIC HOSTAGE SITUATION OF OUR COMRADE POLA ROUPA IMMEDIATELY
Marianna Manoura
Dimitra Zarafeta
Korydallos Women’s Prison.
Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1640123/
