International Revolutionary Front

On October 20th, anarchist Alfredo Cospito, during a trial at the Sassari surveillance court, made an attempt to read an articulate statement in which he was about to announce that he is starting a hunger strike against the 41 bis prison regime to which he is subjected and against life imprisonment without possibility of parole. A battle that Alfredo does not intend to stop, until his own death. The comrade, who has been in 41 bis since last May 5th, under a decree signed by then Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia, is now being detained in the Bancali prison in Sardinia.

Alfredo Cospito is an anarchist who has always been at the front line of struggles, never willing to compromise or give up. He is a comrade who has been fighting since the late 1980s, a period in which he was imprisoned as a total objector (for refusing to serve in the obligatory military service) and who, after his arrest in 2012, during the trial that followed, claimed the responsibility for the shooting of Ansaldo Nucleare executive Roberto Adinolfi, an act that was carried out by Nucleo Olga / Federazione Anarchica Informale – Fronte Rivoluzionario Internazionale, FAI-FRI (“Olga Nucleus” / Informal Anarchist Federation – International Revolutionary Front), and occurred on May 7th of the same year in Genoa.

Alfredo has been always active in the defense of comrades affected by repression, in every corner of the world. His struggle objectively concerns all detainees, among whom we particularly remember the three militants of Brigate Rosse per la costruzione del Partito Comunista Combattente (Red Brigades for the construction of the Combatant Communist Party) locked up for more than 17 years in 41 bis (Nadia Lioce, Roberto Morandi, Marco Mezzasalma). In 2009, comrade Diana Blefari, from the same organization, committed suicide after her living in this harsh prison regime.

Alfredo has been uninterruptedly in prison for 10 years, which he spent in High Security sections until his transfer to 41 bis. In 2016 he was involved in repressive operation “Scripta Manent”, accused of subversive association with the purpose of terrorism and multiple explosive attacks. Following a Supreme Court verdict in July this year, the sentence for Alfredo and Anna Beniamino was reformulated to “political massacre,” the only punishment which means prison for life. The Italian state that has always been protecting fascist mass murderers now wants to condemn two anarchists for massacre for an attack that caused neither victims nor injuries. Continue reading “Italy: We do not allow the murder of Alfredo Cospito, on hunger strike since October 20th. Call for international mobilization” →

It may be due to the fact that I will spend a large portion of my remaining life in a prison, that lately I feel inclined to “necrophilia”, to “historicize” what has just been. After all, the last action claimed ‘Federazione Anarchica Informale – Fronte Rivoluzionario Internazionale’ in Italy was “just” a year ago. Usually we historicize the things “dead”, past, but in me the fear that everything that has been deleted or worse, distorted, has taken over. And I say this with the conviction (maybe I’m wrong) that the FAI-FRI has exhausted its vital charge and has passed the “baton” to something more essential, the revolutionary campaigns. Campaigns that, from one continent to another, relaunch revolutionary solidarity, not by an organization but by groups and individual comrades who never need to know each other personally. Dynamic alive, linear process as effective in the world goes by the name of “Black International” and that in fact does not even need the coordination, there is no need to meet, to know each other personally. The anarchists of action usually neglect the historical introspection, the anarchists who postpone the violent action instead tend to exhume distant experiences that are more unlikely to give rise to criminal retaliation and “imitations” in today. “It was a different time …”, this phrase still rattles in my head repeated to me as a boy endless times by anarchists / and more conscientious, anarchists / and other times precisely …

If our history is not written by us anarchists and anarchists will do so others. If the anarchist “historiography” ignores the relevance of anarchist action in time will be the official one to deal with distorting it, showing it. Then there are fortunate cases, as rare, in which to deal with it are revolutionaries of other “schools”, as in the case of the book The work of the mole that is presented in these initiatives. A book the result of the work of revolutionary communists that comes in its last pages to talk about anarchists and in particular of the FAI and then the FAI-FRI. They do it honestly, but they do it with an interpretation that leads to distortions, inaccuracies. It is more than natural that coming from an “other universe” (let’s say so) something escapes, but this does not mean that we cannot but be impressed by their work. Let’s put aside certain statements that are the heavy baggage of a Leninist thought that sees in the organization to conquer and direct the proletarian state its point of no return, indisputable. Statements that support the thesis that “the anarchist approach is often by definition (sic) devoid of strategic depth” or that the basic “contradiction” of anarchism would be the “refusal of organizational and programmatic structuring [which would prevent] the development of unity and high capacity/possibility of confrontation”. Statements that, when they do not distort the reality of things by supporting our lack of “strategic depth”, transform our strengths, “the refusal of organizational structuring”, into “contradictions”, into weaknesses. Not understanding that our innovative and potentially disruptive strength, our strong point, is right there.

The thesis that sees the FAI as “daughter” of the experience of Revolutionary Action is certainly a stretch. The thing that unites the two experiences in addition to the constant use over time of an acronym is the turmoil that both created within the anarchist movement. As for the FAI, the reactions of the movement were far more virulent than those had against AR, the accusations of being infiltrators, provocateurs flocked. The thing finds its explanation in the acronym used, and in the mockery of some claims against the so-called official anarchists. Continue reading “Contribution of Alfredo Cospito from the AS2 section of the Ferrara prison for the cycle of presentations “Guerrilla and Revolution”” →