npub1z0…4kyzg on Nostr: During moments of great upheaval, one question anarchists have often asked is how to ...
During moments of great upheaval, one question anarchists have often asked is how to make the situation irreversible.
Sometimes this has looked like killing specific oppressors, like when the generals were executing during the Paris commune (or the royal family during the French revolution a hundred years before).
Sometimes this has looked like escalating the level of destruction, like the determination to burn down the police station in Minneapolis in 2020 or the destruction of every bank they could in Greece in 2008.
All of these efforts of breaking with the past failed -- the monarchy got restored, the military retook the city, social peace prevailed, and no banks doesn't mean no capitalism.
It makes me wonder if "how do we make the situation irreversible" is even the right question. Maybe a better one is "What will we carry forward from this moment when the tide of revolt subsides?"
What can be built here? What can be gained? Revolution is unlikely to play out as one decisive clash, but as a sequence of struggles that eventually produce enough self organization to replace what previously existed -- a tide that never ebbs.
Sometimes this has looked like killing specific oppressors, like when the generals were executing during the Paris commune (or the royal family during the French revolution a hundred years before).
Sometimes this has looked like escalating the level of destruction, like the determination to burn down the police station in Minneapolis in 2020 or the destruction of every bank they could in Greece in 2008.
All of these efforts of breaking with the past failed -- the monarchy got restored, the military retook the city, social peace prevailed, and no banks doesn't mean no capitalism.
It makes me wonder if "how do we make the situation irreversible" is even the right question. Maybe a better one is "What will we carry forward from this moment when the tide of revolt subsides?"
What can be built here? What can be gained? Revolution is unlikely to play out as one decisive clash, but as a sequence of struggles that eventually produce enough self organization to replace what previously existed -- a tide that never ebbs.