Due to the timeliness and relevance of the following text, we are releasing a complete but unpolished draft translation of it. Source: culmine. Translation by: war on society:
(This draft translation contains a few errors and some poor wording; it should be mainly understandable as it is, but we ask that it not be disseminated very widely yet; please expect a final version to appear in the coming week…)
Do not say that we are few
To our sisters and brothers of the FAI / International Revolutionary Front, a contribution reasoning its communication, organization and armed struggle, at the dawn of a new era
Do not say that we are few
And that the commitment is too great for us.
Would you say that two or three tufts of clouds
Are few in the corner of the summer sky?
In a moment they let down wherever …
Flashes of lightning, bursts of thunder
And it rains on everything.
Do not say that we are few
Say only that we are.
– Lee Kwang Su
In recent times, in the metropolises overlooking the banks of the Mediterranean, the streets are continually animated by increasingly heated protests and manifestations of the oppressed who are no longer willing to suffer the oppression of rule: from Greece to Tunisia, from Spain to Libya, the fuse continues to burn. In one of these streets we met and we have decided to deepen the discussion on what is moving in the circles of insurrectional anarchism across the world.
Within the general optimism of the comrades who, in the diversity seen always new outbreaks of struggle, in a dialogical and lively informal international confrontation, there was a dissonant voice. It was a comrade of our “Sisters-in-arms, Mauricio Morales Cell,” who told us ragefully of the censorship of the communique/discussion that claimed the actions mentioned above. These 12 claims, delivered by post to various realities of the anarchist movement in Italian, were not published by any, preventing a communication vital for the international growth of informal discussion. Today we know that this censure is only the desperate reaction of a former anarchist tainted by assemblary bureaucratism and by the obsession of the social struggle transformed into stupidity in partial struggle.
From the ashes of the old and glorious individualist anarchism, a new insurrectionalism has been / is being born. As our sisters wrote in their never-arrived claim: “For the first time in history an informal organization, a federation of informal groups across the world was made flesh, bleeding and drawing blood.” The informal organization is no longer an abstract fantasy, a soliloquy in the mouth of a handful of (more or less learned, more or less sincere) comrades. In these last years, in various parts of the world, the new nihilists have sparked the concern of various states, and fear and hostility in the official part of the anarchist movement. The new anarchism will give the destructive fantasy its proper force and will cement the nihilistic act with the proper consistency. Since we launched the proposal for an “Informal Anarchist Federation,” much water has passed under the bridge. Today, thanks to the sisters and brothers of the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire” who have relaunched the “FAI / International Revolutionary Front,” the “FAI / International Network,” “The International Network of Action and Solidarity,” the “Informal Anarchist Federation – International Network“… with its thousands of names has become a reality. A reality which, now more than ever, needs to grow through the medium of informal organization on the world stage thanks to a federation of action groups. Dozens and dozens of cells, nuclei, movements, and individual comrades who diffusely and horizontally, united by a strong and clear pact of mutual aid, chaotically and destructively wage war on the existent.
In Greece:
– Conspiracy of Cells of Fire / FAI / International Revolutionary Front
– International Revolutionary Front / Conspiracy of Cells of Fire / Revolutionary Groups for the Spreading of Terror – Cell of Vandalisms.
– International Revolutionary Front / Terrorist Warriors’ Complicity of the fallen commando John Severino
– International Revolutionary Front / Deviant Behaviors for the Spreading of Revolutionary Terrorism / Cell of Anarchic Action
– Cell of Revolutionary Solidarity – FAI
– Anarchist Revolutionary Front / Deviant Behaviors for the Spreading of Revolutionary Terrorism / Cell of Reflexive Attack
– FAI / Cell of Aggressive Conscience
– International Revolutionary Front / Conspiracy of Cells of Fire / Revolutionary Groups for the Spreading of Terror / Abnormal Cell-Heretics
In Indonesia:
– FAI Informal Anarchist Federation, Indonesia Section.
In Mexico:
The two souls of Mexican insurrectionalism (ALF-ELF) and the Autonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution – Praxedis G. Guerrero.
– Informal Anarchist Federation / Acrata
– Earth Liberation Front (ELF) / International Network of Action and Solidarity – Anti-Civilization Informal Group
– Earth Liberation Front (ELF) / Informal Anarchist Federation International Network
– Insurrectional Cell Sole-Baleno of the Autonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution – Praxedis G. Guerrero / FAI
– Commando of Free, Dangerous, Wild and Incendiary Individuals for the Black Plague / FAI / International Network
– Luddites Against the Domestication of Wild Nature / FAI / International Network
– Eco-Anarchist Cell for the Direct Attack / FAI / International Network
– Revolutionary Action Brigade for propaganda by the deed and armed action – Simon Radowisky / FAI / International Network
In Chile:
– International Revolutionary Front / Insurrectional Commando Aracely Romo
– Commando 8th of December International Coordination FAI
In Russia:
– ELF Russia Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) / International Network of Action and Solidarity / International Revolutionary Front
In Peru:
– Circle of Iconoclastic Action / FAI
In the Netherlands:
– Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Dutch Cell
In England:
– International Informal Anarchist Federation / FAI
In Italy:
– FAI / Artisans Cooperative of Fire and Affinity (occasionally spectacular) / International Revolutionary Front.
– FAI / 20th of July Brigade / International Revolutionary Front
– FAI / Sisters-in-arms, Mauricio Morales Cell / International Revolutionary Front
– FAI / Lambros Fountas Revolutionary Cell
– FAI / International Solidarity
– FAI / Animal Revolt
– FAI / Horst Fantazzini Revolutionary Nucleus
– FAI / Cell against Capital and Prison and its Jailers and its Cages
– FAI / Armed Cell for International Solidarity
– FAI / Terrible Anonymous Revolt (RAT)
– FAI / Metropolitan Cell
– FAI / Narodnaja Vojla
It has been ten years during which, through action with our limitations, but with constancy, we have striven to realize this organizational design. Naturally the growth will not be linear and progressive, there will be ups and downs, for long and short periods in which almost all will be silent and then back stronger than ever in a country that we might not even imagine. Every group and individual with its strength, its will, will give its proper contribution of action and of communication to help everyone else to adjust the shot.
The repression has hit hard in Greece. Our sisters and brothers of the “Cells of Fire” continue to fight within the walls, participating with their writings, in an exceptional manner, in this organizational arrangement. If we know one thing, in such diversity, we are the hand that will break the chains. At first what we will bind the revolutionary solidarity through what some anarchists stupidly call “fictive movement,” failing to understand that their solidarity is tempered in any revolutionary project.
In our history we in the Italian FAI have always acted, without mediation, in “social” struggles: the struggle against FIES [extreme isolation units in Spanish prisons used to cage anarchist prisoners and other “uncontrollables”], the struggle against CIE, never relating to them in a demagogic top-to-bottom way. We have always acted as individuals not wanting to indoctrinate anyone. We destroy that which destroys us, what does not kill us makes us stronger.
The only limits that we place our actions are of an ethical character. In a world divided into included and excluded, we have with our actions made a choice. We are not interested in a society divided into classes, we do not want any dictatorship of one class over another, we want anarchy! Millions of microcosms where each individual can experiment freely. Something very similar to what we experience every day through action, elaborated in the best way of organizing without surrendering one’s own individual freedom. It is amazing to grow in this organizational experience together with sisters and brothers who we have never seen and probably never will see. It is amazing how, in a given historical moment, individuals who do not know each other come to the same conclusions.
We do not know how the FAI / International Revolutionary Front will evolve; the possibilities are enormous and unimaginable. It could die in a flash or grow exponentially. Our growth will be mainly qualitative, growth consistent with the unimaginable potential of informal organization. It will take a long time before the FAI / International Revolutionary Front gives its best, before the informal organization creates real problems in this state of things.
It is a war of anarchist resistance that began more than a century ago. With its highs: the contribution of the Paris Commune, the era of propaganda by the deed, the era of great revolutions and its lows: the trade unions, non-violence, the libertarian municipalism, all of which we believe goes by the name of compromise.
Our path will be characterized by a long and continuous communication through action. Communication is the core of all our informal structure, and is also its weakness. Until a year ago, our action-communiques could be read on the front pages of all major Italian newspapers; this sufficed us to communicate. Today, power (it was inevitable) has realized the danger of this communication and they censor not the action but the communique, the message. To speed up the dissemination of this writing and to reach the greatest possible number of actual anarchists, we decided to use e-mail. This choice is also due to the scarcity of Italian language publications willing and able to give space to what is new is moving in the anarchist movement internationally. To increase the reproducibility of an action, in our opinion, this action must be motivated, claimed. Otherwise, power will pollute it, distorting the meaning and making it in fact sterile and this, which we write, we know well for having experienced it directly on our skin many times. A destructive action will always remain a beautiful thing, even if it is not claimed. It can be done for the sheer pleasure of doing it. To do something right is always good. But to us this is not enough, we want to make this system fall. The more reproducible the action, the greater is its real destructive potential; the more rebels understand that a real resistance exists the more they will be motivated to action. In the past and even today, some of us happened to individually participate in actions that were not claimed, with comrades who of course were not part of the FAI / International Revolutionary Front, in order to make technical data that could save the precious lives of comrades, and–why not?–to learn some new technique.
We of the Italian FAI continue to travel all the routes that can flow into the revolutionary river. Riots, popular struggles, more circumscribed projects of radical struggle, all contribute to give new life to our practices of attack. It has been ten years that we have acted undisturbed. Power hits right and left with increasingly fanciful repressive operations, but so far none of us has ever been hit. We regret very much for the comrades who were arrested and indicted, but better that the perpetrators remain outside, free to strike and to strike again. Some of us may fall, but will soon be replaced by other groups. We hope on this occasion to behave like the sisters and brothers of the “Cells of Fire,” who continue the struggle with courage and consistency within the walls of a prison that we are sure will miss.
Criticism must always be active and alert. We have to save criticism and self-criticism from self-referentialism that would lead us to be fictitious, to go nowhere.
As we’ve said before, it is preferable that the affinity groups are not known to each other, to better combat repression, but if it happens like it happened to us, to re-meet in the field of movement, then the risks increase contemporaneously with the immediate prospects. For example, increased technical capacity, increased chances of acquiring weapons and explosives, greater ability to support the comrades forced into clandestinity.
We have read with great attention “The Sun Still Rises” of the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire,” and we came to the conclusion that the three key points of the informal agreement of the second generation of the “Cells of Fire” can become the key points the “FAI / International Revolutionary Front.” In these three points are based on our main features.
First: the destructive direct action as a necessary and indispensable. Action that can go from the launch of a Molotov cocktail to the assassination, with no hierarchy of importance, each group or individual will decide how best to take, in accordance with its own revolutionary ethic that surely must agree never to strike in the pile. This point should give rise, according to our perspective, to a new anarchist and nihilist guerrilla, thousands and thousands of fires against capital wherever.
The second key point is important to us and we are never the spokesmen, representatives of anyone. We do not represent that we, women and men, in constant revolt against the existent, against political power, technological power, the power of capital which is likely to wipe out the entire lives on this planet on all levels. In us naturally there is no hope in a class that will impose its dictatorship over another, which then always reduces to the dictatorship of the “representatives” of a class over all others. In us there is no solidarity that does not confront subjugation, but that if the exploited do not move a finger to lift, contributing thereby also to our oppression. What qualifies us most is the refusal of delegation, of “representation,” our revolt is individual and it is there that our anarchism, nihilism and revolution traverses the organizational instrument of the informal federation.
The third issue featuring: international revolutionary solidarity. The comrades who participate in this informal arrangement should launch campaigns of struggle that will join with other groups of the FAI / International Revolutionary Front, in their own time and manner. Three simple and direct points which we believe would mark a step forward for our informal organization, expanding its vision of “anti-social” and “nihilistic” the founding document of the FAI, “Who we are: An open letter to the anti-authoritarian and anarchist movement.”
Everything about the “FAI / International Revolutionary Front” is in chaotic and continual evolution, beginning with its many names and definitions. We are only just beginning, the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire” is the motor of this explosion of revolutionary vitality. The driving force of an informal federation that is growing and that has exceeded the confines—which for us anarchists are dead—of nations. Any organizational writing, analysis and criticism coming from the actions of the FAI / International Revolutionary Front will never be the definitive one. Our informal federation is in continual evolution. The comrades of the International Revolutionary Front span the world by one fire and another, already contributing to the analysis and to the growth of this project. Our sisters and our brothers who are imprisoned are our greatest strength, their analysis opens our eyes, our anger and hatred for their arrest gives us strength. A continuous and infinite organizational adjustment: this is the Informal Federation at its source, not in the perspective of a distant future revolutionary world that will arrive we do not know when, if ever, but in the perspective of the quality of our existence, which in this moment, here and now, is fully realized in the armed struggle against power.
We of the Italian FAI propose as the banner of this struggle the symbol of the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire,” the 5 arrows of different lengths and different directions that together affect the power. To indicate the myriad of groups and individuals of the International Revolutionary Front / FAI, who, with varying intensity but united by a pact of mutual aid, strike without breath. The arrows are topped by a black star with an A inside, our symbol of anarchism; above the star, the name of the group of the International Revolutionary Front that claims the action. We decided on a symbolism for the story of “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire” came in and we broke through the rebels in our hearts. This, of course, if the Greek comrades are in agreement.
In a time of world crisis at all levels, perhaps an informal anarchic structure means to stop awaiting the events and go to the revolution. In Arab countries, regimes collapsed to give rise to other regimes, this time democratic. The world super powers are easy game to influence events, Europe is on the brink of collapse, we must not remain with hand in hand, tied to old organizational schemes that have already past their worst. To hold an Informal Anarchist Federation is to concretely intervene in view of the struggles of the excluded of the whole world, it is to concretely intervene in the struggle that nature takes every day against criminal human “technology.” To intervene through the reality of widespread attacks on the territory. Attacks that are never missed, but that tie together by an informal international network based on the pact of mutual aid, becoming more visible, more virulent, multiplying the diffusion and in fact the subversive potential. As we have said, we do not believe we have the truth in our pocket, but we are convinced that in certain moments in history, the ideas impose themselves on their own, now is the time to give the real contribution that perhaps will make the difference. A good wager, which we make, the best wager that an anarchist revolutionary can make, to throw your heart over the obstacle and see what happens.
We of the FAI / Artisans Cooperative of Fire and Affinity (sometimes spectacular) / International Revolutionary Front and the FAI / 20th of July Brigade / International Revolutionary Front adhere to the campaign of revolutionary solidarity that the comrades FAI / Sisters-in-arms, Mauricio Morales Cell have initiated with the package bomb to the Koridallos prison. Once a year, we will strike in solidarity with our sisters and brothers of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire until we find them in freedom. The dozens and dozens of years in prison to which they were condemned will be transformed into a tragic boomerang for the Greek state. The interests of that state in Italy will be struck, year after year, with ever increasing hardness. We invite other groups and individuals of the FAI / International Revolutionary Front around the world to do likewise.
LONG LIVE THE CONSPIRACY OF CELLS OF FIRE
LONG LIVE THE FAI / / INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY FRONT
FAI / Artisans Cooperative of Fire and Affinity (sometimes spectacular) / International Revolutionary Front
FAI / 20th of July Brigade / International Revolutionary Front
