‘Armed Proletarians for Communism’

The open assembly convened after the call of the Anarchists’ Initiative against State Killings decided to convene a demostration at the French Embassy (7 Vassilissis Sofias Avenue) on Tuesday 17 May at 18.30, the day when the appeal of comrade Claudio Lavazza is being considered, through which he is demanding his release from prison. Below is the text of the appeal.

FREEDOM FOR CLAUDIO LAVAZZA

THE FRENCH STATE TAKES REVENGE ON POLITICAL PRISONERS

Our anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza has been in prison since 1996, having already completed 25 years of continuous detention. He is one of the longest serving political prisoners in Europe. Claudio was one of the militants who took up arms to oppose capitalist rule politically and militantly.

An insurgent proletarian who participated in conflicts and expropriations in the early years of joining the movement in the dynamic 1970s in Italy. Armed fighter of the revolutionary movement of the 70’s-80’s afterwards. Member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, a horizontal guerrilla group with strong ideological influences from workers’ autonomy. Participant in the coalition of groups under the name ‘Organised Communists for Proletarian Liberation’, an armed project to support fugitives and free comrades and comrades-in-arms from prison. Accomplice to the 1981 attack on the prison in Frosinone where imprisoned militants were released.

At a time when the meaning and content of words had not been surrendered to museification, revisionism, and limited activism. But it found meaning through the practical cultivation of hope in those imprisoned and “exiled” from the legal order by the relentless repression of the state and the parastate. That words like freedom and solidarity would be put into practice with guns in their hands. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Demonstration at the French Embassy in solidarity with the anarchist prisoner Claudio Lavazza (17/05)” →

On Thursday, April 14th, the event of the Anarchist Initiative against State Killings, concerning the case of the anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza, took place at the ASOEE with a relatively massive presence of comrades. The presentation was read as well as the transcript of an interview Claudio has given about his case and a video was shown concerning the expropriation of a bank in Cordoba and the subsequent confrontation with the police forces where he was arrested. Finally, comments and statements were made by comrades about the connection between Claudio’s experience of struggle, especially the years he participated in the Italian movement, and the present day, and it was decided to call an open assembly to organize a meeting at the French embassy on May 17, the day when the comrade’s appeal against the decision of the bourgeois justice system that forces him to serve another 5 years in prison until he is released will be heard. Below is the text of the submission where you can also find a Pdf file.

We will begin our submission by answering the simple question. Why do we consider solidarity with the comrade Claudio Lavazza important today? We answer by saying that in Claudio’s person we see a part of the revolutionary memory of contemporary revolutionary history.

Claudio from an early age was an insurgent proletarian who was actively involved in the mass movement and proletarian struggles of that period in Italy. But what was the historical context that fuelled the great struggles of that period?

“The post-war environment and the Cold War”

On a macro-level, the end of the Second World War and the new balances of terror that took shape in the international environment after the use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction in 1945 in Japan by the US and the subsequent nuclear arms race from 1949 onwards (when the USSR acquired the corresponding technology), influenced the intensity of the historical period of the Cold War, the milestones of which were the Greek civil war (1946-1949), the Chinese revolution in 1949, the Korean civil war (1950-1953), the lifting of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis a year later in 1962. These developments were decisive for the so-called transition to the so-called ‘peaceful coexistence’ process, which largely involved the establishment of strict non-intervention zones. These zones were in the perceived centre of the western and eastern world, i.e. almost the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, which of course did not prevent any of the main Cold War competitors from intervening even militarily in their own immediate zones of influence and even more so on the periphery of the perceived undeveloped world, moving the hot fronts of warfare to Latin America, Africa and Asia. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Update and contribution from the event on the case of anarchist Claudio Lavazza on 14 April at ASOEE” →