https://petergelderloos.substack.com/p/free-free-free

Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli (1928 - 1969) was an Italian railroad worker and anarchist who fell to his death on this day in 1969 while being detained by Italian police. His death became the subject of the play "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" by Dario Fo.

Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named "Ponte della Ghisolfa", and was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross. He organized young anarchists in the "Gioventu Libertaria" (Libertarian Youth) in 1962 and helped found the "Sacco and Vanzetti anarchist association" in 1965.

A few days before Pinelli's death, Italian fascists from the "Ordine Nuovo" orchestrated a bombing campaign in Milan; one bomb in Piazza Fontana killed 17 people and injured 88. The bombing was blamed on Italian anarchists, and Pinelli was detained along with many other leftists, including Pietro Valpreda, who was falsely convicted and served eighteen years in prison.

Just before midnight on December 15th, 1969, Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli, including Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, were put under investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal proceedings concluded it was due to accidental causes.

Calabresi was later gunned down at his home in 1972, for which left-wing journalist Adriano Sofri was convicted in 1997.

• Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli (1928-1969): the 17th victim of the Piazza Fontana bombing

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• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
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Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was born in 1842 and breathed his last in 1921. Kropotkin was a Russian noble. He was educated for army and at the age of twenty he became a military officer in Siberia.

Kropotkin’s great interest in science developed from his military training which he received to get a job. This moulded his life in future. He had a scientific mind and devoted his time and energy to the study of books on science.

As a military officer in Siberia Kropotkin got ample opportunity for geographical survey and expedition. Thus his shift from military service to geo­graphical survey and expeditions enriched the subject profoundly. He contributed many articles to different journals.

Peter Kropotkin was a man of different mentality and attitude. His stay in military service could not satisfy his academic and intellectual requirements and desires and after serving several years he relinquished the job, and entered the University of St. Petersburg in 1867. His vast knowledge in geography brought for him the post of secretary of Geographical Society.

Even this vital administrative post could not detain him for long time. He moved to radical political movements. In 1872, Peter Kropotkin joined the International Workingmen’s Association. Later on he was deeply involved in subversive and anarchical activities. This led him to imprisonment in 1874.

He escaped from prison in 1876 and went to England. The England of the second half of eighteenth century was the centre of revolutionary activities, although she never experienced any revolution.

He also travelled to Switzerland and Paris. While in Paris he was again arrested by the French government in 1883. Released from prison in 1886 he went to England and settled there. While in exile, Kropotkin gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. He returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917 but was disappointed by the Bolshevik state. The rest of his life was spent without political activity.

Peter Kropotkin was an evolutionist anarchist. But his evolutionism was more scien­tific than that of his predecessors. He wrote several books on anarchism such as ‘The Place of Anarchy in Socialist Evolution (1886), The Conquest of Bread (1888), Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)’, ‘The State – Its Part in History (1898)’ and ‘Modern Science and Anarchism (1903)’. His deep interest in science, particularly biology and anthro­pology, opened before him new and enchanting vistas of knowledge and all these inspired him to study biological science with added interest.

• The Funeral of Peter Kropotkin :anarchists:

• A meeting between V.I. Lenin and P. A. Kropotkin :lenin-shining: :kropotkin-shining:

• Words of a Rebel :anarchy:

• Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution :AC-AnarKitty:

• Syndicalism and Anarchism :ancom:

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• 🐌☕ Zapatista Coffee

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays

I was debating the merits of incorporating some anarchist ideology, since my professor has been introducing some things to us.

Anarchism, different types, has its appeal.

but I keep running into multiple positions that i can't for the life of me understand. This one in particular. How do you have solidarity when you can't support states or hierarchies?

Also the existence of states, and what it takes to abolish them is of great interest to me. Because it seems to be as simple as uh, implementing direct democracy? Or some form of democratic functions in all society. So all institutions and borders can exist, but if you're democratic you're good? Do all situations really have to involve everyone?

so is literally a few elections and renaming institutions enough to replace the nation state? Seems incredibly easy then, i dont know what the fuss is about. (Although i think democratic armies are stupid why should that be a thing.)

Also my professor has an annoying tendency to hate on former socialism whenever its brought up. Also the sort of stereotypical obsession with rojava (which explicitly enshrines the right of private property, but otherwise i support the fight of the kurdish population for liberation) and the Zapitistas (who denounce western anarchism and explicitly identify as a sort of their own ideological deviation from marxism. Libertarian socialism in reality. Not hating on the Zapitistas of course, they're cool as fuck and i support their fight against discrimination of ethnic minorities and natives. Other anarchists have a liking of Makhnovshchina, which gets a lot of undeserved hate in marxist circles but was more a warlord state than anarchist. But i'd be fine with that because it was a rough time and they were doing what they had to, but explicit denial of this and upholding it is very strange to me.

But these are... states??? Why is it Marxist states that get flak?

wait its probably the purges... yeah i'd be mad about that too if it was me...

Anarchists i think get lots of undue hate towards them as well, with many criticisms brushing them aside being equally applicable to marxism.

Also i dont want to see any marxists give a joking or sectarian answer, or ill report them. Im interested in learning the responses of anarchists, and the best ones i can find are usually here. I can get kind of defensive, i dont like being wrong, but i do genuinely want to learn.

Given the recent discourse with regard to trans/misogyny and the call for reading more fucking books to fix your brainworms, I present an anthology of queer insurrectionist writing.

I particularly recommend "Toward the Queerest Insurrection", "Criminal Intimacy", and "Preliminary Notes on Modes of Reproduction".

In a similar vein, I recommend "I Don't Bash Back, I Shoot First!".

1. Be gay
2. Do crimes
3. Start a gang
4. Take up space

Feel free to cross post this into your favorite gender-adjacent comms to stir the pot and promote the war against God!

No, I'm not putting this in /c/electoralism , for reasons found in the third paragraph

Most people know there's first-past-the-post and there's ranked-choice. But I've recently learned there's a much longer list than that, and they all have pros and cons.

Somecomrades would say 🙄yeah bourgeois elections who cares🙄 but that is wrong: the mathematics applies to all voting. It's the engineering side of the question: "If we have a bunch of people, maybe a hundred, maybe a million, how do we decide what the collective will is in the fairest way?" The name of the field is social choice theory because a social group is trying to make a choice.

You: oh bourgeois elections are a farce lol

Me: exactly and that's why we need to study how can voting be not a farce

First-past-the-post gets a hard time, and deservedly so. But the people who say "first-past-the-post bad, ranked choice good" are oversimplifying. It turns out there are all these mathematical trade-offs, and it is formally provable that there is no perfect system.

Most ranked choice voting systems* can suffer from a crazy effect where getting more votes makes you lose. The technical name for this is a monotonicity failure because mathematicians are shit with names. (*There are theoretical ranked-choice votings that don't fail monotonicity, but I don't know of any being applied in a political system. Companies probably have used them.)

In the 'Popular Bottom' Scenario, gets 45% of the vote and isn't elected; but in the other scenario he gets 39% and is elected. What happened is he lost supporters to a rival (Top) who eliminated his other rival (Center) for him, so he was able to sneak in.

First-past-the-post doesn't have this problem: more votes is always better. But it has plenty of other problems. The USA system fails the no favorite betrayal criterion catastrophically; that's the criterion that you should be able to vote for who you like best. Usans "have to" vote for a candidate they hate.

This page summarises it pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_voting_rules with tables comparing the different traps multi-winner systems fall into and the traps single-winner systems fall into.

Some cool systems:

• The Quota Borda system is a proportional-distribution, meaning the guy with 20% of the votes gets 20% of the power, multiwinner system that "has never been in use, but was voted the best at a conference on electoral reform held in Belfast with representatives of all parties"

• PDF – "This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797"

• "two important experts, Nicolaus Tideman and Andrew Myers, have both recognized minimax as one of the best systems. I agree with that. This paper presents my own reasons for preferring minimax....I recommend a new version of minimax called minimax-TD....completely or partially eliminates four minimax anomalies, including the two worst ones.

Anyway, interesting stuff to think about if we design democratic/anarchistic systems for collective decision-making. It wouldn't have to be electing representatives, it could be voting on policies, same maths either way.

Ocra is governed by a community council that holds weekly meetings with all inhabitants in attendance; most decisions are made directly democratic. The community also practices the system of faena (Spanish for "task", known as Mink'a in Quechua), a mandatory weekly community labor tribute that all adults in the town have to take part in.

This communal labor initiative goes back to the Incan labor systems—Mink'a for local communities, and Mit'a for federal projects. The local laws of Ocra prescribe 4 days of faena per month, and the community council decides over when and where the collective labor force shall be deployed.

Background: What led to the strategies of cooperation under especifismo?

So here's its understanding of the conditions that led to especifismo.

During the German and Spanish revolution, there were largely three approaches to cooperation against the fascists. All of them were considered disastrous to some degree, but for different reasons and with different lessons. For those familiar with the Popular Front, the United Proletarian Front, and the communist alliance, feel free to skip to the next section.

Even if you are familiar though, please consider reading through this so that it may be corrected where it has made any errors!

The left-Republicans and the Comintern under Stalin agreed on a strategy known as the Popular Front, a class collaborative strategy in which progressive bourgeoisie and radical proletarians would fight together against fascists. Today, it would be an understatement to say that this strategy is not approved of by socialists. The Popular Front widely led to

• massacres of workers and anarchists by both the bourgeoisie and Stalinist parties,
• sabotage of organized defenses by the bourgeoisie,
• heavily traumatizing abusive relationships forming between the bourgeoisie and the anarchists who gave in to being "militarized" by the bourgeoisie,

and in general, acquiescence to the Popular Front is typically considered the beginning of the end.

On the other end were specific tendencies among historical materialist-style communists (henceforth histcom). These histcom tendencies were largely distinguished by their opposition to the other prominent histcom tendency of the time, Leninism. These histcoms would come to be known as left-communists, and they advocated alliance with others who shared their political priorities, which is to say revolutionary communism.

Finally, on neither end, one could find Leon Trotsky and the Trotskyists, Armando Borghi and the anarchist Italian Syndicalist Union, and anarcho-communist Errico Malatesta calling for a United Proletarian Front. Because anarchists and Trotskyists were politically smaller groups, the goal was to insert their political organizations into broader proletarian social movements and proletarian political parties, including the social democrats who were still wiping their hands clean of workers' blood and were expected to betray the workers again.

Such a risky strategy required a great deal of care. The goal was defensive, having a large enough mass of labor and skill to combat fascism, and offensive, converting the rank-and-file of less revolutionary or less anarchist organizations towards revolution. This would undermine reformism, if it succeeded, which it did not.

Today, both anarchists and Trotskyists believe that the United Front was the most correct approach. A significant difference is that anarchists emphasize experimenting with variants of the United Front that address its weaknesses.

Enter, the development of especifismo by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation.

More background: How does cooperation work under the especifismo organizational strategy?

Especifismo is the strategy of having a specific anarchist organization, henceforth SAO, which maintains a general political line. This organization is led by the broad social movements that arise, sometimes because of SAO actions, and sometimes independently of them. The SAO provides resources for mass movements, which in turn can bring members of the mass movement into the SAO who can then provide further resources from the general political line of the SAO.

For those familiar with how especifismo formed strategies drawn from the United Proletarian Front, feel free to skip to the next section. But like before, it would appreciate thorough readers who are able to provide correction. :)

After a great deal of analysis of the United Proletarian Front, the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation emphasized a need to form alliances in social movements on the basis of both a strong subjective and objective analysis. That is, of the political, ideological, and cultural structures of society, and of the social, economic, material basis of society. A strong grasp of both would determine what alliances are appropriate and when.

As an example, one strategy is that of an intermediate organization. The SAO can form a caucus in other political organizations which are directly tied to some social movement. So a specific anarchist organization whose program is anti-abuse and anti-racist can allocate several of their members to joining their local Queers for Palestine chapter, calling out abuse and providing anti-abuse resources which can bring others in those chapters into alliance with them. Should those people learn more and accept the program of the SAO, they can join the SAO.

Another strategy is to have fronts which engage with some particular social movement. Say, by creating a front for working with tenants such as a tenants' union supported by the SAO.

This ensures that

• the long-term goal of the SAO isn't corrupted by liberalism or reformism or reactionaryism,
• that the well-established structural analysis of the SAO isn't eroded, and
• that the general strategy and program of the SAO remains informed by the SAO's long-term goal and structural analysis.

Furthermore, because the SAO does not impose its political line on a social movement and always seeks to support ongoing social movements however they can within the confines of the general strategy, this ensures that

• the SAO is flexible and always listens to the vulnerable and marginalized who are fighting for their needs, and
• the SAO is constantly engaging with social movements and so makes their presence known to interested members of those social movments.

Critique: Doubling down on flawed analysis

From "The Specific Anarchist Organisation: The Anarchist Organisation", summarized below:

the specific anarchist organisations uses, both for its internal and external functioning, the logic of what we call "concentric circles"...the concentric circles seek to resolve an important paradox: the anarchist organisation needs to be closed enough to have prepared, committed and politically aligned militants, and open enough to draw in new militants.

....

In practice the logic of concentric circles is established as follows. Inside the specific anarchist organisation there are only anarchists that, to a greater or lesser extent, are able to elaborate, reproduce and apply the political line of the organisation internally, in the fronts and in public activity.

....

There is not a hierarchy between the circles, but the idea is that the more "inside", or the closer the militant, the better are they able to formulate, understand, reproduce and apply the lines of the organisation. The more "inside" the militant, the greater is their level of commitment and activity...the more they commit, the more they will decide. The less they commit, the less they will decide.

This does not mean that the position of the more committed is of more value than that of the less committed. It means that they participate in different decision-making bodies. For example, those more committed participate with voice and vote in the Congresses, which define the political and strategic lines of the organisation; the less committed do not participate in the Congresses, or only participate as observers, and participate in the monthly assemblies where the tactics and practical applications of the lines are defined.

Here, it sees the especifismo approach as an onion. Have an SAO which members of the social movement can peel the layers of by being increasingly dedicated to it. Once they are highly dedicated, they are provided more decision-making power over the actions of the SAO.

The problem is that this creates a feedback loop. While the structural analysis of an SAO should be very difficult to contradict, the SAO should always be responsive to structures which they are unaware of. If an SAO includes in their structural analysis heteropatriarchy and settler-colonialism as contemporary expressions of the overall system of domination, but no acknowledgment of the sanist institutions of psychiatry and their downstream structures (e.g. suicidism), then the analysis is flawed.

And this flawed analysis can lead to a great deal of chauvinism and abuse in the SAO which needs to be quickly and carefully addressed and remedied. But say that someone who experiences suicidism must first commit themselves to the SAO before being able to provide anything on the level of structural analysis or political or strategic line. This is largely going to select out those who experience suicidism and sanism, and ensure that it doesn't make it into the SAO's structural analysis. Who wants to dedicate themselves to an organization that treats them like shit?

This is a feedback loop. An incomplete analysis will entrench itself deeper and deeper.

Solution: The power to add, not subtract

The outlines of especifismo are correct. It is important to stand with the bulwark against white settler-colonial thought and ensure that the core of the SAO cannot be corrupted. It is also important to be open and flexible, to be anti-chauvinistic, to listen to those in need and be willing to take accountability for when we err and do harm.

But there is a way to prevent both chauvinism and corruption when it comes to the core structural analysis as well. Being trauma-informed, power- and oppression-aware, analysis should yield forms of oppression which are missing from the structural analysis and provide those with experience the power to add to it. A suicidal person who faces suicidism can, without eroding the acknowledgment of white settler-colonialism or heteropatriarchy, add to the SAO's analysis the institution of sanism and psychiatry. The SAO, which may have hitherto been filled with sanist slurs and no militant motivation to smash psychiatry thoroughly and completely, must now evolve its general strategy in light of this addition to the structural analysis.

Summary

Especifismo is a strategy which aims to resolve the paradox of needing to be closed to reactionary elements, but open to movements of revolutionary potential even if they have reactionary elements. To this end, they are fluid on the social level, but firm on the political level.

But firmness on the political level can lead to a feedback loop in which they become increasingly chauvinistic and inaccessible to those most vulnerable. For this reason, there is a need to give individuals who aren't a part of the core SAO the power to add to the core structural analysis of the SAO. To have their experiences centered when they have the most at stake.

Corrections

Here, it will edit in corrections as they are provided should anyone respond. <3

In hunter-gatherer bands, in primitive villages, in stateless societies like modern Somalia, people support each other in mutual aid as the norm. Most human and animal life is in support; conflict is the exception.

In these stateless societies, when the norm is breached, the natural balance is considered to have been disturbed and it must be rebalanced.

That redress is sometimes blood-vengeance, like in the Kanun law of traditional Albania. But it's very often compensation in the form of a transfer of assets. You broke my leg so I'm mad and angry. But then you transferred me three cows, so now I'm not angry any more. And I don't feel you got away with it: I have my dignit of not being a little bitch who can be victimised with impunity. A variant of this system was in place essentially universally before modern states, and still is in Somalia (look up 'xeer'). Or the tribal areas of Afghanistan are stateless and have Pashtunwali justice.

This is justice and it feels like justice. The offender is materially worse off because they offended. The victim is no worse off, they are restored. The offender's life is not unneccessarily ruined, like it is by a criminal record; the payment is the ed of the matter; balance is restored. There are no victimless crimes; you are not punished for smoking weed; you are punished/harmed when you inflict harm on someone.

The opposite would be injustice. The characteristics of injustice would be the opposite of all this. If the hatchet is never buried it's injustice. If one person can victimise another with impunity, in an asymmetrical relationship, it's injustice. If the system starts harming people who have not first done harm, it's injustice.

The purpose of policing and courts and prisons is to create injustice. It is based on the monopoly of legitimate violence. Cops can be violent with you: you can't be violent with cops. They will make you feel small, aggrieved, victimised, and they will never rebalance the issue. If you try to rebalance it (justice), that's what the system is designed to prevent; justice is the worst outrage against police and courts, the one thing they can never tolerate.

the cranky one and the fav anarcho-essayist

A fun and informative guide to creating a mobile community kitchen. I really enjoyed all the details on equipment.

should be called hobbitonism tbh