Autoorga Eng(1)

7/29/2019 Autoorga Eng(1)

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Sel-organisation is the frst act o the revolution;it then becomes an obstacle which

the revolution has to overcome.


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Summary

The bitter victory of autonomy 4

Self-organisation everywhere, revolution nowhere 4

On self-organisation in the current struggles 9

Struggles over immediate demands /revolution 16

A rupture 16Te question of class unity. 19

The rupture prefigured 23

Collectives 26

Activities which produce the objectivisation of the existence andunity of the class 27

Te wild kids 28

Argentina: a class struggle against autonomy. 28

Algeria : When they talk to me about Aarouchs, I have theimpression that they are talking about something foreign to me.34

Te Direct Action Movement (DAM) 36

Suicidal struggles: the obsolescence of autonomy 37

Communisation 39

Translators notes 46


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A

utonomy, as a revolutionary perspective realising itselthrough sel-organisation, is paradoxically inseparablerom a stable working class, easily discernable at the very

surace o the reproduction o capital, comortable within its limitsand its denition by this reproduction and recognised within itas a legitimate interlocutor. Autonomy is the practice, the theoryand the revolutionary project o the epoch o ordism. Its subjectis the worker and it supposes that the communist revolution is hisliberation, i.e. the liberation o productive labour. It supposes thatstruggles over immediate demands [1] are stepping stones to the

revolution, and that capital reproduces and conrms a workersidentity within the relation o exploitation. All this has lostany oundation.In act it is just the opposite: in each o its struggles, the proletariatsees how its existence as a class is objectied in the reproductiono capital as something oreign to it and which in its struggle itcan be led to put into question. In the activity o the proletariat,

being a class becomes an exterior constraint objectied in capital.Being a class becomes the obstacle which its struggle as a classhas to overcome; this obstacle possesses a reality which is clearand easily identiable, it issel-organisation and autonomy.


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The bitter victory of autonomy

Self-organisation everywhere, revolution nowhere

We can only speak o autonomy i the working class is capable orelating to itsel against capital and nding in this relationship toitsel the basis o and the capacity or its armation as dominantclass. Autonomy supposes that the denition o the workingclass is not a relation but is inherent to it. It was a question o theormalisation o what we are in present society as basis or the newsociety, which is to be constructed as the liberation o what we are.From the end o the First World War up to the beginning o the

1970s, autonomy and sel-organisation werent simply the wildcatstrike and a more or less conicting relationship with the unions.Autonomy was the project o a revolutionary process extendingrom sel-organisation to the armation o the proletariat as thedominant class o society, through the liberation and armationo labour as the organisation o society. In reeing up the truesituation o the working class rom its integration in the capitalistmode o production, an integration represented by all the political

and union institutions, autonomy was the revolution under way,the potential revolution. I this was explicitly the agenda o theUltra-Let, it wasnt only an ideology. Sel-organisation, unionpower and the workers movement belonged to thesame worldorevolution as armation o the class. Te armation o the trulyrevolutionary being which maniested itsel in autonomy couldnthave had the slightest hint o reality i it hadnt been the good,

unalienated side o the same reality which resided in a powerulworkers movement constraining the class. Te workersmovement was itsel also the guarantee o the independence o theclass which was ready to reorganise the world in its own image; itwas sucient to reveal the true nature o this power to itsel, byde-bureaucratising it, disalienating it. It was not a rare occurrencethat workers passed rom the necessarily ephemeral constitutiono autonomous organisations o struggle to the parallel universe

o triumphant Stalinism or, in northern Europe, to the bosom opowerul unions. Autonomy and workers movement nourishedand comorted each other mutually. Te Stalinist leader wasperhaps the workers equivalent o the boss by divine right,


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but he was also the institutionalcounterpart o autonomy. Sel-organisation as a revolutionary theory made sense in exactly thesame conditions as those which gave structure to the old workers

movement. Sel-organisation is the sel-organised struggle withits necessary extension the sel-organisation o the producers; in aword, liberated labour; in another word, value.A little step backwards. Already in the Italy o 1969, the sectorso workers in struggle are incapable o creating an assemblyconnecting up the diverse orms o sel-organisation and themovement is recuperated by the CGIL and its workshopcommittees. Still in Italy, in the sel-convened movements o

February-March 198 on the production line, sel-organisation isseen to be deensive, in the sense that it expresses the deence o anold composition and an old relation o the working class to capital,a relation which restructuring is in the process o abolishing. Forthe same reasons, in Spain the assemblies movement (1976, 77,78) creates or revitalises union structures; likewise the Dutch hotautumn o 198. Tis is equally the epoch in which all sorts oautonomous unions are ormed. It is undamentally a historicaltype o working class whose existence is put into question by therestructuring. At Renault, during the strikes o 197, it is theactory o Le Mans, where labour power is the most stable andthe rate o unionisation, at 0% is double the national average orRenault, that the strike is the hardest and sometimes has the airo an autonomous struggle. At the beginning o the 1980s, whenthis process o streamlining is completed essentially by hitting

the unskilled immigrant workorce, provoking an enormous waveo strikes in the car industry, the violence o the struggles is neverormalised in attempts to set up autonomous organs. Tey wantto kill us, but were already dead, such is the spirit o the struggles.I in 198-8, it is equally dicult to qualiy the miners strike inBritain as an autonomous, sel-organised struggle, it is becauseit was in act a strike without demands, without a programme,without perspectives. What it meant to be a class was now only

dened in and through the adversary o that class, in the actionagainst it. Te decline and lost meaning o autonomy are not asimple product o the retreat o class struggles. Te struggleis not a historical invariant constantly expressing the same


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class relation. Te decline o autonomy is not the decline o thestruggle, it is the decline o a historical stage o class struggles.

In France, when sel-organisation becomes the dominant orm o allstruggles, starting with co-ordination between the railway-workersin 1986, it no longer represents a rupture with all the mediationsby which the class is a class o the mode o production (a ruptureliberating the class revolutionary nature); sel-organisation losesits revolutionary meaning: the overgrowth [2] between the sel-organisation o the struggle and workers control o productionand society. Sel-organisation is nothing other than a radical orm

o syndicalism. Any struggle over immediate demands o anyamplitude or intensity is now sel-organised and autonomous;sel-organisation and autonomy have become a simple moment osyndicalism (here we mean syndicalism as opposed to the ormalexistence o trade unions). I the organisms o struggle whichthe Spanish dockers adopted in the 1980s attempt to guaranteetheir survival and change orm, it is because they were nothing

other than organisms or the deence o the proletarian condition.Terein lies the continuity which explains the transition o the oneinto the other. Te theoreticians o autonomy would have it that assuch the autonomous organs invent communism by remainingwhat they are: organs o the struggle over immediate demands.As such their natural inclination is permanence and thus theirtransormation.In all the current discourses on autonomy, it is remarkable to

observe that it is the revolution which has disappeared. Whatwas until the beginning o the 1970s the very raison dtre o thediscourse on autonomy, namely its revolutionary perspective,has become almost unspeakable. Te deence and valorisationo autonomy becomes an end in itsel and care is taken not toarticulate a revolutionary perspective there - the Italian workeristswere the last to do that. Now people are content to repeat that

the existing autonomy isnt the right one. But now it is the verycapacity o the proletariat to nd in its relation to capital the basisor constituting itsel as an autonomous class andin a powerulworkers movement which has disappeared. Autonomy and sel-


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organisation represented a historical moment o the history othe class struggle and not ormal modalities o action. In all thecurrent approaches, autonomy designates any activity where

proletarians coordinate directly to do something together, a sorto ahistorical and general orm o action on the condition that it isindependent o institutions. Te historicisation and periodisationo the class struggle vanish. We can only speak o autonomy i theclass is capable o relating to itsel against capital and nding inthis relation to itsel the basis and the capacity or its armationas dominant class (which in any case could only produce the

counter-revolution which rendered this armation impossible).

Currently, anywhere that sel-organisation and autonomytriumph, dissatisaction with them is immediately maniested.Already in France in 1986, the co-ordination between railwayworkers provoked movements o great deance, as did theattempt to constitute broader orms o co-ordination beyondthe local collectives in 200. Within the current triumphant sel-

organisation, it is what opposes it which pregures the abolition oclasses. It is not a question o a dissatisaction with a recuperatedautonomy, but with autonomy itsel in the sense that it is nolonger anything other than recuperated by its very nature. Tisnature, consisting o the liberation o the class ollowing romits autonomous armation (having broken its capitalist socialmoorings), was the denition o the revolution in the previouscycle; it is now that through which sel-organisation and autonomyexist and are consciously experienced as the limit o all currentstruggles. Everywhere, as soon as sel-organisation is established(and currently you can hardly escape it), people are ed up withit; it weighs heavily on the movement. As soon as it is initiated,it winds us up, because it reminds us bluntly what we are andwhat we no longer want to be. It is here, within sel-organisation,against it, that the struggle o the proletariat as a class produces

its own existence as a class as a limit to be surpassed. Autonomyis only ever the liberation o the worker as worker.Sel-organisation, autonomy, in act what we are as a class, havebecome objects o regular critique in the concrete course o


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struggles. It is a case o grasping the theoretical and practicaldiscrepancy within sel-organisation between what sel-organisation is now as a necessary orm o the class struggle, and

the practical and theoretical critique that is engendered withinitsel, even as it is put into practice. However we have to take intoaccount as a characteristic o this cycle o struggles the act thatthe battle against bad sel-organisation is waged in the name ogood sel-organisation. Currently, it is only within this battlein the name o good sel-organisation that the battle againstsel-organisation itsel maniests itsel, i.e. only here does theperspective o the revolution appear as something which is no

longer o the order o the armation o the class and which as aresult can no longer be radically o the order o sel-organisationor o autonomy.As long as class conrontation ails to positively initiate thecommunisation o relations between individuals as class actionagainst capital, sel-organisation will remain the only availableorm o class action. Te search or true sel-organisation isnot an error, the error itsel constantly indicates that sel-organisation is to be superseded, by constantly taking as its targetreally existing sel-organisation. Tis critique o really existingsel-organisation in the name o an ideal sel-organisation, inwhich it constitutes a process without end, creates a tension withinsel-organisation; it indicates the content o that which is to besuperseded: the impasse o sel-organisation, i.e. o its content,the armation, the revelation to itsel o the proletariat.

Te supersession o really existing sel-organisation will not beaccomplished by the production o the true, the right, thegood sel-organisation, it will be achieved against really existingsel-organisation, but within it, rom it.In the current struggles, the proletariat recognises capital as itsraison dtre, its existence against itsel, as the only necessity oits own existence. In its struggles, the proletariat adopts all thenecessary orms o organisation or its action. But when the

proletariat adopts the necessary orms o organisation or itsimmediate goals (its abolition will equally be an immediate goal),it does not exist or itsel as autonomous class. Sel-organisationand autonomy were only possible on the basis o the constitution


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o a workers identity, a constitution which has been swept awayby the restructuring. What is let now or these proletarians tosel-organise?

I autonomy disappears as a perspective, it is because the revolutioncan no longer have any other content than the communisation osociety, which means or the proletariat its own abolition. Withsuch a content, it becomes inappropriate to talk o autonomy and itis unlikely that such a programme would entail what is commonlyunderstood as autonomous organisation. Te proletariat can onlybe revolutionary by recognising itsel as a class, and it recognisesitsel as such in every conict and even more so in a context where

its existence as a class is the situation that it has to conront in thereproduction o capital. We should not mistake the content othis recognition. o recognise itsel as a class wont be a returnto itsel but a total extroversion through itssel-recognition as acategory o the capitalist mode o production. What we are as a classis immediately nothing other than our relation to capital. Tisrecognition will in act be a practical knowledge, in the conict,

not o the class or itsel, but o capital.

On self-organisation in the current struggles

Te English system o shop-stewards which was born in thecourse o the First World War engendered a specic organisationo the actory, which was given the name omutualism, in whichthe content o work-tasks and the rhythm o work were xed bymanagers in agreement with the workers concerned through theintermediary o these elected delegates. Tis system was sweptaway by all the restructuring, even beore the era o Tatcherism.In the course o the 1970s, numerous conicts arose around thispower o the shop-oor delegates; the swan-song o this systemwas on the one hand the proposals to transorm production bythe shop-stewards committees, notably in the weapons actories,and on the other it was the restarting o production by the workers

when rms closed. All this combined to produce a movementaround the notions o workers control and sel-management, aBritish avoured sel-managementism which surpassed in termso practice and ideas any French developments along these lines.


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oday, ater the decimation o British industry, this current nolonger represents anything at all. (changes, no.99, p2)A complex autonomous movement developed over more than

0 years, a kind o hybrid which combined the system o electedshop-oor delegates (the shop-stewards) and the utilisation obase union structures (oten reinorced by widespread use othe closed shop, i.e. enorced unionisation in a rm - in otherwords the management by the unions o the hiring o employees.A development o wildcat strikes was seen which on repeatedoccasions threatened governments which had decided to imposethemselves by orce. (...) Te crisis which was brewing in this

situation culminated in the Winter o 1978-79 - the Winter odiscontent- in the course o which the country was plunged into atotal chaos with no other perspective than the immobilism o thisbloc o resistance.Te Tatcher government swept all that away through thedestruction o the industrial apparatus, privatisation, globalisation,increasing the orientation towards nance o the economy, thegeneralisation o exibility, workers precariousness and massiveunemployment.Te balance o orces underlying the autonomous movement wasundermined; but it could only be (provisionally) overturned atererce disputes in the key areas o workers autonomy: the docks,the steelworks, the car actories, the printers and above all themines. (changes, no.107, Oct-Nov 200)Returning to the current period to draw out the lessons rom

the strike o the British postal workers, the text concludes: Teoundations o the struggle, i they mark a break by workerson the shop-oor rom the union leadership, also demonstratethe persistence o certain notions in labour relations and in theutilisation o base union structures, the very notions which thebringing to heel o the autonomy o struggles at the beginning othe 1980s had attempted to eradicate, but which are resurgent. (...)All the same, we have to consider that the Royal Mail is practically

one o the only national industries in the UK which has not beendismantled, or various reasons, including the intervention o classstruggle (it is one o the principal British employers, with 160,000workers, whose numbers give them an obvious power). Also


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the shop-oor practices in labour relations, which were commonpreviously in industry but eliminated in the 1980s, are alive and wellhere (our emphasis). We could not be any clearer than this.

Currently, in numerous disputes like that othe longshoremen othe West coast o the US, the bosses are attempting to break theunions or the same reasons that they break workers autonomywhen it maniests itsel, because both o them belong to the sameepoch, the same logic o capitalist reproduction. Tis is a pointwhich should exercise the minds o the advocates o the nowsecular ideology o workers sel-organisation. In our times, inthe post oce in Britain or the ports o the West coast o the US,

the autonomous struggle o workers becomes indistinguishablein its content to the deence o the large union institutions, notor reasons o the temporary utilisation o unions by workers, butor what theyare : large institutions regulating the autonomy olabour-power.On the evening o Friday July 18th, a wildcat strike breaks out atthe Heathrow airport against exibility and the annualisation owork-time. Ater three days strike by ticket staf and baggage-handlers, they return to work with the announcement o theopening o talks between the unions and management.Similarly, in Spain, during theshipbuilders strike in Jan-Feb 200,it is the renewal o the collective bargain and increased exilbilitywhich is at stake. On the 0th o January, the union demonstrationends up with barricades, cars set on re, the police use rubberbullets. On the th February, inPuerto Real, a base organisation

attempts to co-ordinate the struggle i necessary (changes,no.109, p2); on the 12th, ater renewed battles, a general assemblyo the workers decides to hold another demonstration in townwhich causes urther trouble; on the 1th talks between unionsand management resume. As usual, the wildcat strike, even whenaccompanied by the ormation o autonomous organisations, ismerely a substitute or or an accompaniment to union action. Ithas become impossible to expect anything else rom it, or to hope

or an internal dynamic which would constitute its supersessionrom its own basis and not against itsel.On the 2nd June 200, the IG Metall union calls or a strike inthe metal-workers industry in 5 regions o the ormer GDR. Te


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splits which have appeared between workers in the West andworkers in the East partially explain the ailure o the strike.Te increasing number o conicts in diferent workplaces, the

multiplication o sub-contracting and other measures to reducethe costs o production are ragmenting sites o exploitation, withthe corollary that global struggles by proessional branches o anindustry have almost completely disappeared. It is the question othe unity o the proletariat on the basis o struggles over immediatedemands which is posed.Futhermore it has become obvious that the proletariat cannotbe united or itsel as a revolutionary class by the wage, in the

ramework o its position as seller o labour-power, everythingproves more and more the contrary and this is so obvious that italmost jumps out and hits us round the head.In Italy, in December 200, the strike movement o theautoerrotramvieri ails to lead to any ormal organisation betweendepots. I the disease o the wildcat strike hit very hard, the unionanti-strike mechanism worked perectly (Lettre de MouvementCommuniste). Te delegate rom the drivers co-ordinationcommittee in Brescia, a member o the national co-ordinatingcommittee, is content to say that the illegal strike was the onlyweapon available to the workers and that i the unions havetaken up our demand or 106 euros, its because they are listeningto the rank-and-le; he adds that the strike is not aimed againstthe unions. Finally the tramdrivers o Milan resume the wildcatstrike with the slogan: we are the union. Te base unions played

to the ull their role as outlet or the anger o the employees, i.e.lets make no bones about it, the employees ully accepted thatthey should play this role.Unortunately no-one grasped or themselves the ofensivepolitical signicance o the struggle o the autoerrotramvieri northe permanent task o its organisation at the workplace, right upto the very last o the depots taken over by the movement. Tebase unions tried without great success to exploit the situation

in order to reinorce themselves to the detriment o the largeocial union conederations, but they reused to acilitate theindependent organisation o the struggle. (ibid). No-one graspedthis, not even the workers themselves.


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In a ash o lucidity this Lettre concludes: It is as i deensivestruggles no longer unctioned as the school o communism, as ithey no longer engendered their own political supersession.

Ater the strikes o the railway cleaners, ater the strikes in publictransport, it is now the turn o the metal-workers. In each case weare dealing with extremely erce struggles which develop outsideand against the unions, properly autonomous struggles (ouremphasis) (changes, no.109, p19). Tis is simply wrong. At Mel,the struggle o the FIA workers in May 200 started with strikescalled by the unions over the payment o days o down-time due to

technical problems; rapidly the workers go beyond this rameworkand add to these demands the organisation o working time andwages (these additions were accepted by the unions). Te strike wascontrolled rom top to bottom by the FIOM (union o the CGIL),including the blockading o the actory; the workers delegated theattempts to extend the struggle to the other FIA sites and alsothe conduct o negotiations. When an agreement (not a bad oneaccording to the estimation ochanges no.109) is reached, theattempt to contest this agreement byCobas [] ails. Te workersdidnt constitute a single autonomous organisation, a act whichdoesnt prevent the ideologues o sel-organisation to conclude,or this struggle as well as or that o the autoerrotramvieri :with the struggle o the workers o Mel, workers autonomy hasgone on to a new stage in Italy. Autonomy is only deployed andonly goes on to a new stage in the heads o militants who have

remained xated by their dream o Miraori: a actory allen intothe hands o the workers. What would they have done with it?Pathetic depths are plumbed by the conclusion o the changestext on the Mel strike. Tis conclusion reports the declaration oRoberto Maroni, Italian Minister o Social Afairs, in an interviewpublished in Corriere della Sera. Te minister states: When theunions agree in talks with the government to get the blockades

lited (he is reerring to Mel, but also to the strikes at Alitalia andin public transport, as noted bychanges) and dont manage to dothis, a problem o representation is posed. Te current system isin danger o not being capable o managing disputes. changes


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comment: he added that the moment had arrived to involve theautonomous organisations in the accords as well, because theyare more present and active among the workers. Maronis speech

is interesting not because o what he proposes, but because hedemonstrates that radical and autonomous orms o struggle areconstantly being thrown up and are beginning to pose a problem incertain strata o the government and the state. Te struggles o theworkers pose a problem or sure, but Maronis speech is evidentlyinteresting above allor what he proposes; not only is it interesting,but it is also true. Maroni recognises something that should

gladden the heart o any militant o autonomy: the autonomousorms o struggle adopted by the workers are representative. Tisis recuperation, manipulation the ideologues will say, but no.Maroni is much more lucid: the syndicalism o struggles overimmediate demands is mediated by autonomous organisations;lets recognise these organisations as interlocutors says theminister.Te capacity or struggle which Italian workers seem to bedemonstrating these days opens up vast perspectives or theuture when, constrained by the situation and the course ostruggles, Italian workers and those elsewhere will conront theirsituation o being workers which autonomy ormalises today asthe advanced orm o syndicalism. Already autonomy, as it hasreally maniested itsel at Mel, has revealed itsel to be incapableby its very nature o expressing the revolt against work which is

so present in the struggle o these workers. It is now within sel-organisation and autonomy, againstthem, that the dynamic o thiscycle o struggles is produced as a gap within the class strugglein general and sel-organisation in particular, i.e. as a gap withinaction taken as a class.Te sel-organisation o struggles is a crucial moment o therevolutionary supersession o struggles over immediate demands.

o carry on the struggle over immediate demands intransigentlyand to the very end cannot be achieved by unions, but by sel-organisation and workers autonomy. o carry on the struggle overimmediate demands through workers autonomy on the basis o


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irreconcilable interests is to efect a change o level in the socialreality o the capitalist mode o production. Te struggle overimmediate demands is no longer situated at the level o prot

and all the elements o the process o production which combineto produce it, but at the level o labour as productive o value, owhich surplus-value is a part.In the struggle over immediate demands, sel-organisationormalises the irreconcilability o interests between the workingclass and the capitalist class, and it constitutes in this way thenecessary moment o the appearance o class belonging as anexterior constraint; sel-organisation is also the orm in which thecommunisation o relations between individuals will get underway, against it.


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Struggles over immediate demands / revolution

A rupture

I sel-organisation, as a revolutionary process, has becomeobsolete, it is because the relation between struggles overimmediate demands and revolution has become problematic.Sel-organisation was the most radical orm o relation betweenthem as long as this relation was understood as an overgrowth.Ten, Pannekoek could tell us that ater a long historical period ostruggles, the working-class was becoming the dominant powerin a society based on councils, Negri that capitals history was

equivalent to the history o workers activity and Georges Marchaiswas writing a common program or the Let. All o them are deadnow.A revolutionary struggle emerges rom a conict o immediateinterests between proletarians and capitalists and rom the actthat these interests are irreconcilable. It is, so to speak, anchored inthese conicts, but i at a moment o the struggle over immediatedemands, the proletarians, compelled by their conict with thecapitalist class, dont lit the anchor, their struggle will stay astruggle over immediate demands and will, as such, lead to victoryor unortunately most o the time to deeat. On the contrary, ithey ght against market relations, seize goods and the meanso production while integrating into communal production thosethat wage-labour cant integrate, make everything ree, get rid othe actory ramework as the origin o products, go beyond the

division o labour, abolish all autonomous spheres (and in the rstplace the economy), dissolve their autonomy to integrate in non-market relations all the impoverished and even a large part o themiddle class, reduced to poverty by their movement; in this case,it is precisely their own previous existence and association as aclass that they go beyond as well as (this is then a detail) theireconomic demands. Te only way to ght against exchange andthe dictatorship o value is by undertaking communisation.

o deend the proletariats sacrosanct autonomy is to retreatinto the categories o the capitalist mode o production; it is toprevent onesel rom thinking that the content o the communist


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revolution is the abolition o the proletariat, not thanks to asimple logical equivalence (which would say that the abolition ocapitalist relations is, by denition, the abolition o the proletariat)

but thanks to precise revolutionary practices. Te proletariatabolishes value, exchange and all market relations in the war thatsets it against capital, and this is its decisive weapon.It integrates by some measures o communization the largest parto the impoverished, o those previously excluded, o the middle-classes and o the peasantry o the Tird World (on this issue tooit would be important to reect on the example o the strugglesin Argentina, not to deend interclassism but rather the abolition

o classes).Te ever untarnished autonomy o struggles as a acultyor transition rom a struggle over immediate demands to arevolutionary struggle is a construction that is not interested inthe context o this transition. It remains a ormal approach to classstruggles. I the content o this transition is put aside, it is becauseautonomy prevents us rom understanding this transition as a

rupture, a qualitative leap. Te transition is only an armationand a revelation o the true nature o what exists. Te proletariatsel-organizes, it breaks with its previous situation, but i thisrupture is only its liberation, the reorganization o what it is,o its activity, without capital, rather than the destruction o itsprevious situation, that is to say i it remains sel-organized, i itdoesnt go beyond this stage, it will automatically be deeated.o assume that any struggle about wages contains a revolt against

wage-labour is to assume that these two elements exist one insidethe other rather than that the second term is a contradictorysupersession o the rst. Such a view can now, in practice, onlylead to radical democratism. Fity years ago, it was possible tounderstand things that way and this conception led to the powero the Councils or to Real Socialism. Te citizens movement,alternative globalization, or, more accurately, radical democratism

represent without doubt the project o completion o the strugglesover immediate demands, and, as such, they cant have any otherprojects now. In the radical democratic perspective the evolutiono labour time ought to bring emancipation in leisure time; benets


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L

autonomie, comme perspective rvolutionnaire se ralisantau travers de lauto-organisation, est paradoxalementinsparable dune classe ouvrire stable, bien reprable la

surace mme de la reproduction du capital, conorte dans seslimites et sa dnition par cette reproduction et reconnue en ellecomme un interlocuteur lgitime. Elle est la pratique, la thorie etle projet rvolutionnaires de lpoque du ordisme . Son sujetest louvrier et elle suppose que la rvolution communiste soit salibration, celle du travail producti. Elle suppose que les luttesrevendicatives sont le marchepied de la rvolution et qu lintrieurdu rapport dexploitation le capital reproduise et conrme une

identit ouvrire. out cela a perdu tout ondement.Bien au contraire, dans chacune de ses luttes, le proltariat voitson existence comme classe sobjectiver dans la reproduction ducapital comme quelque chose qui lui est tranger et que danssa lutte il peut tre amen remettre en cause. Dans lactivitdu proltariat, tre une classe devient une contrainte extrieureobjective dans le capital. Etre une classe devient lobstacle quesa lutte en tant que classe doit ranchir, cet obstacle possde uneralit claire et acilement reprable, cest lauto-organisation etlautonomie.


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or all ought to become a progressive transition to an activitybenecial to the individual and to society, that is to say the abolitiono exploitation within wage-labour; wage demands would become

the sharing o wealth; the critique o globalisation and nancewould become more important than the critique o that whichhas been globalised (capital); liberalism and globalisation wouldbe the cause o exploitation. Anybody involved in recent strugglesor keeping a close eye on them knows very well that this languagehas become theirs, and not only in the public services.Nobody would deny that the revolutionary struggle originateswithin a struggle over immediate demands or even that it isproduced by it. Te question is the nature o the transition. Teonly deeply anticapitalist content conronting the capitalistlogic that a struggle could have consists in targeting the capitalistrelations o production (that is to say, or the proletariat, targetingits own existence), the reproduction o exploitation and o classes.A struggle over immediate demands that targets this is not astruggle over immediate demands any more, or only i the takeover

o the proletariat on society, the proletariat as the dominant class,is what we mean by revolutionary struggle.

Te question of class unity.

Te proletariat has not disappeared, nor has it become a purenegativity. However, exploitation doesnt produce a homogeneoussocial entity o the working class any more, a prevailing entity,

with a key role, able to be conscious o itsel as a social subject,in the sense habitually given to this, that is to say able to have aconsciousness o itsel as a relation to itsel,acingcapital.Integrated in another totality, having lost its centrality as aprinciple organizing the totality o the labour process, the bigactory which gathered a large number o workers together hasnot disappeared, but it is not the principle organizing the labourprocess and the valorisation process any more, as they are now a

lot more difuse. It has become a part in an organizing principlethat it doesnt grasp. In the contradiction between proletariat andcapital, there isnt anything sociologically given a priori (as wasthe mass-worker o the big actory) any more.


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Te difuse, segmented, ragmented, corporate characteristic oconicts is the necessary lot o a contradiction between classessituated at the level o the reproduction o capital. But it is because

these conicts are not a sum o juxtaposed elements but rather adifusion produced rom a historical modality o the contradictionbetween proletariat and capital, that a specic conict, because oits characteristics, because o the period and the conditions inwhich it takes place, is able to polarize the totality o the antagonismthat until then seemed irremediably diverse and difuse.o unite, workers must break the relation by which capital bringsthem together. One o the most common signs that their struggles

are going beyond the ramework o a struggle over immediatedemands and that workers are beginning to unite or themselves(that is to say begin to target their own condition) is the act thatthey subvert and dtourne the productive, urban, geographicaland social rameworks o their unity or capital, as in 1982 and198 in La Pointe du Givet (in the French Ardennes) or, morerecently, in Argentina.One cant simultaneously want the unity o the proletariatand the communist revolution, i.e. this unity as a condition orprecondition or revolution. Tere wont be any unity other thanin communisation and it is only communisation, by targetingexchange and wage-labour, that can unite the proletariat, i.e.there will only be a unity o the proletariat in the very movemento its abolition. Te hagiographers o struggles over immediatedemands can only speculate about unity, and they cant speciy

in any way the concrete orm it takes, unless it is the ormalunity o politics or o orms o organisation come to smooth overdivisions which however remain within the struggle. Tis unity isalways something to be addedto the struggle.Workers orge themselves into the revolutionary class inrevolutionising social relations, that is everything that they are inthe categories o exchange and wage labour. Within struggles overwages, they dont see the appearance o power or project, but the

impossibility o uniying without attacking their very existence asclass within the division o labour and all the divisions o the wagerelation and o exchange. Tat is, without putting class itsel intoquestion, without a revolutionary practice. Te only unication


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o the proletariat is the one it realises in abolishing itsel, whichmeans that this has to be the unication o humanity. Measureso communisation starting rom whatever point o the capitalist

world (it will have to be rom a multitude o points pretty muchsimultaneously) will have this efect o rapid communisation orwill be crushed.Under the cover o ideas o sel-organisation and autonomy wecan say whatever we like, that strikes are revolutionary, thatthey are so potentially, that they have something revolutionary,that they carry the seeds o revolution, etc. All this has only oneunction, to ail to recognise the leap, the negation, the rupture

and to avoid critiquingwage struggles. Tis leads to a gradualistand mechanistic conception o the passage o struggles overimmediate demands to revolutionary struggles; and to abandoningthe understanding that the class is the subject o its communistactivity in coming into conict with its previous situation. Marx,like all revolutionaries, saw a leap, a negation, but the diferencewith today is that beore the permanent association o the classmade it possible to envisage an organised continuity between onephase and to the other. Currently, the militants o autonomy seekin the deence o the price o labour power or in other struggles asomething, a seed, a potentiality o revolution. In this attitudeo waiting on the dynamic o struggles over immediate demands,the very struggle itsel is supposed to engender another. But thestruggles are only moments o activity o proletarians that theygo beyond and negate, not a chain o phenomena that gradually

link together - one struggle carrying the seed o another. In short,the link between struggles, is the subject transorming himselnegatively. Te link is not evolutionary.In the course o struggle, what was once the subject o autonomytransorms itsel and casts of its old clothes, so that it can nolonger recognise itsel as existing other than within the existenceo capitalism. It is the exact opposite o autonomy and o sel-organisation which, by their very nature, have as their meaning

only the liberation o the proletariat, its armation and, whynot, (or the nostalgic among us), its dictatorship. We can talk othe dynamic o struggles only to reach an impasse over the sel-transormation o the subject. It is to be blind to the act that in


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this dynamic, what is abolished is the sel-organised subject; and

that this dynamic exists only as abolition o the subject that sel-

organises. As long as the proletariat sel-organises, it can only do it

on the basis o what it is within the categories o capital. Te pointisnt to make a normative condemnation o sel-organisation, but

to state what it is and to say that the revolution is not a dynamic

that it contains and which simply needs to blossom.

Tere is a qualitative leap when the workers unite against their

existence as wage labourers, when they integrate the destitute and

smash market mechanisms; not when one strike transorms itsel

into a challenge to power. Te change is a rupture. Te questionis not the denition o sel-organisation or autonomy, we should

understand it as a social process; a process o rupture in the

class struggle, the sel-transormation o a subject that abolishes

what denes it. Tose who speak unceasingly o the dynamic

o struggles miss completely what is the essential moment: theproletariat as revolutionary subject abolishes itsel as subject o

autonomy.Tose who hold to the discourse o the dynamic o struggles think

that the workers, as they increasingly come into conict with

the state in their struggles over immediate demands, will realise

that to win their demands they will have to rise to qualitatively

superior orms o struggle. Tey will have to accede to the political

or organisational means adequate to their demands. Once more,

we all into the same distortion: the end is the same, only themeans are diferent. All orms o practice have a goal and use

means adequate to reaching this goal. I they change, then the

goals change. Te end is not exterior to the means, it is its result.

We are not concerned with violence, the means, or the councils

in themselves. What we ask is: why do the workers conront the

state? For the sake o sectional or national interests? o chuck

immigrants out? Against the Americans? Or because the statestands as the deender o market relations, and so o all o the

divisions o sector, o nation, o specic demands - against their

communist movement?


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The rupture prefigured

From struggles over immediate demands to revolution, therecan only be a rupture, a qualitative leap. But this rupture isnta miracle. Neither is it the realisation by the proletariat thatthere is nothing let to do but the revolution, ater the deeat oeverything else. Revolution is the only solution is just as ineptas talk o the revolutionary dynamic o struggles. Tis ruptureis produced positively by the unolding o the cycle o struggleswhich precedes it, and we can say that it still orms a part o it.Tis rupture ispreguredin the multiplication o gaps within the

struggle between on the one hand the proletariats questioningo its existence as a class in its contradiction with capital, andon the other hand, the reproduction o capital which impliesthis existence as class. As is empirically veriable, this gap is thedynamic o this cycle o struggles.We can point to aspects o the Argentinian social movementwhich, starting rom the deence o a proletarian condition andwithin this deence, went all the way to putting it into question;or o suicidal struggles; or o the exteriority in relation to theKabyl struggles o their sel-organisation in the aarchs; or o thewild kids activity in actories; o collectives; o the ailure oautonomy; o the unemployed demanding the de-essentialisationo work; o the direct action movement; o the dissatisaction thatsel-organisation contains within itsel as it exists truly only as itopposes itsel to capital in ratiying the existence o the proletariat

as a class o the capitalist mode o production; nally, o all theorms o practice within struggles which produce the unity o theclass as an exterior unity and an objective constraint.wo essential points describe the essence o the current cycle ostruggles:

Te disappearance o a proletarian identity rearmed withinthe reproduction o capital. It is the end o the workers movement

and the concomitant ailure o sel-organisation and o autonomyas a revolutionary perspective.

With the restructuring o the capitalist mode o production, thecontradiction between the classes is ound at the level o their


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respective reproduction. In its contradiction with capital, theproletariat puts itsel into question.

Struggles display characteristics which were unthinkable thirtyyears ago. In the strikes o December 9 in France, in the struggleso the sans-papiers, o the unemployed, o the Liverpool dockers,o Cellatex, Alstom, Lu, o Marks and Spencers, in the Argentinianmovement, in the Algerian rising; the specic characteristic othe struggle appears - in the course o the struggle itsel - as alimit in that this very specic characteristic (whether it is thepublic sector, demands or jobs, deending the means o labour,

ghting delocalisation, actory occupations, sel-organisationetc.), against which the movement collides oten in the tensionsand the internal conrontations o its decline - always comes downto the act o being a class and o remaining so.Most o the time, the movements are not expressed by ringingdeclarations or radical action, but by all the practices o ight, oro denial by proletarians o their own conditions. In the suicidalstruggles o Cellatex, in the strike at Vilvoorde and many othersit is evident that the proletariat is nothing i it is separated romcapital and cannot remain this nothing (that the proletariatdemands to be reunited with capital does not close the abyss thatthe struggle opens - the recognition and reusal o the proletariato itsel as that abyss). It is the de-essentialisation o labour whichbecomes the activity o the proletariat, both in a tragic manner inits struggles without immediate perspectives (suicidal struggles)

and in its sel-destructive activities, and also in the demandsor this de-essentialisation as or example in the struggle o theFrench unemployed and precarious workers in the Winter o 98.When it becomes evident (as it did in the Italian transport strikesor o the Fiat plant at Mel), that autonomy and sel-organisationhave no perspective, this is the point at which the dynamic o thiscycle o struggles is constituted and the ground is prepared orthe process o the supersession o the struggle over immediate

demands on its own basis. Te proletariat comes ace to ace withits own denition as a class which becomes autonomous in relationto it, which becomes oreign to it. Te practices o sel-organisationand their ate are clear examples o this.


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Te prolierations o collectives and the recurrence o intermittentstrikes (like Spring 0 in France, or the English postworkers)make palpable in dening themselves against it, that class unity

is an objectication within capital. We shouldnt judge thesephenomena with a normative measure, which sees in them only anunaccomplished project o class unication which is the antecedentto its armation. In these struggles, it is the exteriorisation oclass belonging which is revealed as the present nature o struggleas a class. In all these movements, seeing the segmentation o theclass as a weakness to be overcome in a unity, is to ask a ormalquestion and to answer it with a ormal question. Te spread o

these movements, their diversity, their discontinuity is their verydynamic and what is interesting in them. Going urther is notto overcome segmentation in unity - that is a ormal answer toa problem which is probably obsolete. Te point isnt to loosethat segmentation, the diferences. Going urther, is, in othercircumstances, the contradiction between these struggles in theirdiversity and the unity o the class objectied within capital. Tepoint isnt to say the more the class is divided the better, butthat a generalisation o a strike movement is not synonymouswith its unity, i.e. with an overcoming o diferences which areseen as purely accidental and ormal. Te point is to understandwhat is at play in these segmented, difuse and discontinuousmovements: the growth o a discrepancy within this substantialunity objectied within capital. Tis extreme diversity whichis conserved and maybe even deepened in a more widespread

movement (in contradiction with capital and this objective unitywhich it represents), is perhaps a condition o the articulationo these immediate struggles and communisation. Tese actsare now an unavoidable determination o the class struggle. Teunity o the class can no longer base itsel on the basis o thewage and the struggle over immediate demands as a prelude to itsrevolutionary activity. Te unity o the proletariat can only be theactivity in which it abolishes itsel in abolishing everything that

divides it. It is a raction o the proletariat which in overcomingthe demand based nature o its struggle will take communisingmeasures and which will begin the process o the unication othe proletariat which will not be diferent rom the unication o


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humanity, i.e. its creation as the totality o social relations thatindividuals establish between themselves in their singularity.In recent times we have seen how unemployment and

precariousness have been placed at the heart o the wage relation;we have seen how the situation o the clandestine worker has beendened as the generalised situation o labour-power; we haveseen how the immediacy o the social individual has been posedas the already existing oundation o opposition to capital (as isdone by the direct action movement); we have seen how suicidalstrikes have broken out as at Cellatex and others in the Spring andSummer o 2000 (Metaleurop - with reservations - Adelshofen,

la Societe Francaise Industrielle de Controle et DEquipements,Bertrand Faure, Mossley, Bata, Moulinex, Daewoo-Orion, AC- ex Bull); and we have seen how class unity has been posited asan objectivity constituted within capital. It is the content o eacho these particular struggles that produces the dynamic o thiscycle within and in the course o these struggles. Te revolutionarydynamic o this cycle o struggles appears in most o todays

struggles as the tendency or the class to produce its existenceas class within capital, and so to put class itsel into question(the class no longer has a relation to itsel). Tis dynamic has itsintrinsic limit in what denes it as a dynamic - acting as a class.As theorists we are the spies and promoters o this gap, which isthe class putting its own existence as class into question withinthe class struggle, and in practice, we are also its actors when weare immediately involved. We exist in this rupture.

We will now develop some o these points in relation to somerecent struggles.

Collectives

Te underlying dynamic behind the creation o collectives- whichno longer imply sel-organisation or autonomywithin each strikeo any importance and length is testament to the end o working

class identity. Tese ormations are not, as autonomy, a betterorganisation/existence o the class than those institutionalisedrepresentative orms, leaving to them what belongs to them,(leave to the unions what belongs to them), but the creation


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o a distance towards these orms which has as its content thedistance o the class to itsel. A distance established against a classunity existing as something objective within the reproduction o

capital. Tose nostalgic or the Great Class Party and the unityo the battalions o the working class are kidding themselves ithey think that the segmentation o the class is merely sufered- more oten it is willed, constructed and demanded. Te natureo the segmentation and the collectives is the proletariat makingextraneous its own denition as a class within the class struggle.How then could a unity that isnt one, that is an inter-activity, beconstructed within a wider class movement? We do not know...

but the class struggle has oten shown its innite inventiveness.We see as an extremely positive sign that the characteristics o thenew cycle o struggles are given to us in the course o ordinaryeveryday struggles.

Activities which produce the objectivisation of the existence andunity of the class

Tis class unity, even in the orm o the general strike, (in theclassical conception) has entered the era o doubt. When thestrikers o the spring o 200 in France called or a general strike,they didnt ask o the unions what they themselves were notdoing but would have wanted to do, they demanded something elsethan they were doing. Here we have a spontaneous, basic, sel-organised movement which sees as a way orward a call or ageneral strike rom the very unions which they distance themselvesrom on a day to day basis. Tere is not necessarily a contradictionthere (this is ater all how things transpired), but it is dicultto present the demand that the unions call a general strike as asimple continuation o the movement. Strangely, this movementdoesnt call or the general strike when it is on the rise, but ratherwhen it is in decline, which gives a strange hue to the nature o thegeneral strike. It is the strikers own action which dominates the

strikers, which was not the case teen days earlier when it wasthe continuous thread o activity and opposition through whichthe class exists in itsel as distinction in relation to its unity andits objectied existence in the reproduction o capital. Class unity


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is still alive and well, it is an objective unity in the reproduction ocapital, to appeal to the unions was simply to recognise the levelat which this unity exists, as a hypostasised unity.

Te wild kids

Here we are talking about the rejection o the entire order othe capitalist system o production by important sections o

young workers. Tis rejection has no time or the seductions orsanctions o integration or or the ideologies o sel-management.Tis situation has nothing in common with what we saw in the

1970s in Europe and America.Te collateral victims o the wild kids are the ables aroundcooperation tying the workers together, (or themselves), as astepping stone to revolutionary sel organisation and autonomy.

Argentina: a class struggle against autonomy.

We can talk about sel management o misery, but then weignore the main thrust o the problem o the very nature osel-management, sel-organisation and autonomy. It is justas easy to say that there is no possibility o sel-managementwithin the capitalist system - but generalised sel-managementhaving abolished the state and capitalist domination will in theend be nothing more than the management o businesses (o allbusinesses) and o their connections, their exchanges. It would

inevitably lead to the re-establishment o value and o the state.Te historic period o autonomous struggles in Argentina - theend o the 1960s and the beginning o the 1970s - is over notsimply because empirically we dont encounter similar struggles,but as a result o the transormation o the mode o exploitation,o the composition o the working class, in the modalities o itsreproduction. Te Rodrigazo o 197, with its area councils,

is revealed as the swansong o this period and this era o classstruggle. Even during this period, autonomy resulted only inormulating nationalist programmes, economic planning orrenewed trade union strength.


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At the moment, or the militants o autonomy, whats importantis the denial o actually existing autonomy, because they are stuckin an insurmountable contradiction. On the one hand, autonomy

and sel-organisation are the route travelled by the revolution inprogress, or they constitute the potential revolution. On the otherhand, the present expressions o autonomy are in a massive andrecurrent way the conrmation o the class as class o the capitalistmode o production. Te autonomous Argentinian movementsdeclare - we have done the work o the political parties, the NGOs,the government. Te only perspective, the only dynamic whichemerges is the one which is opened up by everything that runs

counter to this autonomy. We can be purists o sel-managementand autonomy i we like, in the end sel-organisation are theactories run by the workers themselves and the management othe planes trabajarby the piqueteros themselves, (even workingtime is now regulated within the movement). Since the piqueteroorganisations have won the right to manage these work plans,their allocation has itsel become a huge question, that is, not justin relation to the government, but within the movement itsel.We cannot argue that because o the work plans the piqueterosare no longer autonomous and sel-organised. I it is importantto emphasise the autonomous and sel-organised nature o themovements, it is not in order to show that they become degenerateor institutionalised, due to some sclerosis o sel-organisation andautonomy; rather they are the clearest maniestation, the simpletruth (neither good or bad), o what they are today: a rejection o

what we are in society which is nothing but our liberation.Te ew cases o occupation with the resumption o production,asking the state to take control o the actory, are the real contento autonomy at the moment (the autonomy o the workingclass is labour and value). We imagine i we like allthe actoriestaken over, this would change nothing. As long as the workerssel-organise as workers (sel-organisation is this by denition),the actories taken over will be capitalist actories, never mind

who runs them. Te essence o what has happened in Argentina,is that all the orms o sel-organisation, autonomy, workers controland assembly immediately encountered their limit in the ormo opposition and an internal contradiction treating them like a


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perpetuation o capitalist society. Abolishing capital is at the sametime denying onesel as a worker and not sel-organising as such,its a movement o the abolition o businesses, o actories, o the

product, o exchange (whatever its orm). Te proletariat as classand revolutionary subject abolishes itsel as such in the abolitiono capital. Te process o revolution is that o the abolition o whatis sel-organisable. Sel-organisation is the rst act o the revolution,what ollows is carried out against it.

Te content o this challenging o sel-organisation within sel-organisation is consciously articulated in Argentina around two

themes:subjectivity and labour.At the very heart o sel-organised collective projects, thesubjectivity and inter-individuality put orward is in oppositionto the particularisation o an activity like labour which is thecoincidence o the social and individual aspects o human activityoutside itsel; and is in opposition to the autonomisation othe conditions o production as economy. Te capitalist modeo production is a mode o production not because it needs topass through material production as such, but because its socialrelations need to pass through a orm, a principle, which can onlyexist objectively - value. Communism is not a mode o production,because activity is not gathered as an exterior common norm thatcan only exist as production objectiying itsel. In communism,relations between individuals are relations in which theirsingularity constitutes the reality o their relations. It is just

as absurd to conceive communism as a orm o organisationo production, which inevitably has in the end to be a orm oaccount, a orcibly abstract equalisation o activities which can bequantied, as it would be to conceive it as a purely inter-subjectiverelation to which production is a mere accessory. In communism,each activity is an end in itsel because there is no norm, there isno principle o equalisation or o a situation to reproduce.Te most important aspect o the Argentinian struggles is

precisely the one scorned by the apologists o sel-organisation.Not as they themselves would have it - the problem o autonomywithin productive activity become sclerotic in institutionalisationacilitating the reproduction o an economy in crisis (changes)


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- but because it is therein that autonomy truly lies and that itis brought into question. Revolution as communisation becomescredible within the modalities o productive activity because it

enters into contradiction with sel-organisation in the way inwhich its productive activities are implemented and in conictsin which sel-organisation itsel becomes the target.In the productive activities which developed during the socialstruggles in Argentina, something happened which was at rstsight rather disconcerting: autonomy appeared clearly as what itis, the taking over and reproduction o its situation within capitalby the working class. Te deenders o revolutionary autonomy

can say that this came about because it didnt triumph, but thiswas its real triumph. But, at the very moment when, in productiveactivities, autonomy appeared or what it was, it was the wholebasis o autonomy and sel-organisation which was overturned:the proletariat could not nd in itsel the capacity to create otherinter-individual relations (Were deliberately not talking aboutsocial relations), without overturning and negating what it is in thissociety, that is to say without entering into contradiction with thecontent o its autonomy. In the way that the productive activitieshave been carried out, in the efective details o their realisation,it is the determinations o the proletariat as a class o this societywhich have been efectively shaken: property, exchange, divisiono labour and, above all, work itsel.I we create canteens only so the compaeros can eat, then weare dickheads. I we believe that producing on a arm is just about

digging up beans so that so that thecompaeros can eat, then we arereally complete dickheads... I we dont know how to leave the armand everything which the state throws at us, how to be the builderso a new social relation, o new values, o a new subjectivity, letsnot bet on a new 19/20. (a militant rom MD Allen [] - southo Argentina - , Macache, p. 27). We want to engender a newsubjectivity, new values (ibid). Elsewhere in an interview withan activist rom MD Solano, it appears that the aim o all these

activities is not just to survive, but the main raison dtre is givenas developing new orms o lie in common: division o labour;rotation o tasks; hierarchy; men-women relations; orms oapprenticeship; public/private relations; unskilled/skilled labour;


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going beyond relations o exchange etc. An important position isor example, in MD Solano, the reusal (in so ar as is possible)to take decisions by voting: ... the idea being to nd the answer in

which everyone recognises themselves. It is the question o weand I which is treated in a new way here. Without going so aras to talk about the social immediacy o the individual, in suchan approach what is put in place is, beyond any mystical relationbetween the one and the general, the non-separation between thetwo which maintains their diversity. When there is a vote, it givesthe sensation o losers and winners, as i there were two groups.Here it is also necessary to insist again on the importance o

territorial organisation which calls into question sel-organisationas imprisonment in a particular situation (territorial unity is notsocially homogenous). Te occupied actory is no longer alone,it is part o a totality which includes it. Production, distributionthus pose problems which can no longer be solved in thecategories which strictly dene the proletarian condition and itsreproduction. An activist o the MD Allen (Macache) told howthe question o surplus, o overproduction, o its distribution,was posed in an occupied actory, how or the Brukman workerstaking over the actory and making it work again was part o arelation o orce which included the liaison with the unemployedpiqueteros movement. At that moment, we can say that what islacking is generalisation o sel-organisation or autonomy. Buti so we do not understand that what is called a generalisation isnot one, it is a destruction o the class as sel-organising subject.

Tis generalisation is a supersession by itsel o the subject whichpreviously ound in its situation the capacity to sel-organise. Iwe do not understand this dynamic as a rupture, we are stuckon the vision o a purely ormal movement because its contenteludes us, we are conusing the taking in hand o the conditionso survival and the abolition o the situation that one has been ledto take in hand. I the proletariat abolishes itsel, it does not sel-organise. Calling or the sel-organisation o the whole movement,

is to be blind to its content.We sel-organise like the unemployed o Mosconi, the workers oBrukman, the inhabitants o the shanty towns..., but when we sel-organise, we immediately come up against what it is that we are


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and which, in struggle, becomes what must be superseded. Sel-organisation as a general limit to supersession appears in conictsbetween the sel-organised sectors. What appears in these conicts

is that workers deend their present situation, remaining in thecategories o the capitalist mode o production which dene them.Unication is impossible without being precisely the abolition osel-organisation, without the unemployed person, the Zanonworker, the squatter no longer being able to be unemployed, aZanon worker or a squatter. Whether there is unication, butthen there is the abolition o the same which is sel-organisable, orwhether there is sel-organisation but then unication, is a dreamwhich is lost in the conicts that the diversity o situations implies(c. oppositions between the neighbourhood committees o ElAlto and the associations o Santa Cruz in Bolivia concerned withthe nationalisation o gas and oil).In Argentina, sel-organisation has not been surpassed, and it canonly be surpassed in the nal phase o a communisinginsurrection.Te social struggles in Argentina have announced this supersession.

When it becomes maniest that it can no longer have autonomy asits content as a realisable project or a project already in the courseo realisation, sel-organisation becomes an imprisonment withinits own situation which is precisely what the struggle against capitalmust go beyond. Te class struggle remains trapped in the simpleexpression o the class situation. In the course o the relentlessdeence o its most immediate interests, the existence o the classbecomes an exteriorised constraint within capital. In the deenceo its immediate interests, the proletariat is led to abolish itselbecause its activity in the occupied actory can no longer beimprisoned in the occupied actory, nor in the juxtaposition,the coordination, the unity o the occupied actories , nor ineverything which is sel-organisable (c. inMacache the testimonyo a Brukman worker).Tis means simply that the proletariat cannot struggle against

capital without calling into question the causes which deneitsel in its involvement with capital. It is that which we can seepeeping through the internal contradictions o the productiveprojects (sel-organisation o the class all o whose efective


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practical details overturn all the terms dening the class) and inthe conicts between the sel-organised structures.

Algeria : When they talk to me about Aarouchs, I have theimpression that they are talking about something foreign to me.

Te insurrectional social explosion beginning in the Kabylieregion in spring 2001 also illustrates the dissatisaction that sel-organisation gives rise to as soon as it is put in place, not by itstemporary shortcomings but by its very nature which conrmsthe existence o the proletariat dened as a class in the categories

o the capitalist mode o production. Tis dissatisaction that theinsurrectional movement maniests vis--vis the orms o sel-organisationwhich it gives itselat a certain point rests on two points:the extension o the movement and the question o demands. Inthis dissatisaction and the two points on which it rests, whatexists is the gap in the class struggle between the existence o theclass as it ormalises itsel in sel-organisation and the way thatthe continuation and deepening o its contradiction with capitalleads to its being called into question. In this continuation andthis deepening, in the absence o measures o communisation, theKabylie insurrection was condemned to a headlong rush withoutormalisable objectives and/or to return to its existence recognisedor itsel, that is to say recognised by and or capital, that is to saynally to negotiation through its orms o sel-organisation. Teriots did not have a perspective o demands, or such a generality

(the end o the hogra) that there could be one. Tey sometimesturned into conrontations (more or less manipulated by thepolice during the big Algerian demonstrations o June 2001)between rival gangs o looting demonstrators, which testies tothe impossibility o a class unication outside the revolutionaryactivity in which it abolishes itsel.Te aarchs played two contradictory roles, in one way an

expression o the movement, as its orm o organisation, itsplace o debate, its voice; they were also a new emerging orm opolitical representation: a substitute or the parties, a new politicalrepresentation which conned the revolt. Finally, very rapidly, the


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aarchs revealed themselves not as a broad space o expression orthe population, but as an arena or politicians old and new.Right rom the start the Algerian insurrection o Kabylie, despite

or because o its great violence, limited itsel to attacking allthe institutions o the state, but let intact, because it was notits objective and it did not have the means to attack, all therelations o production, exchange and distribution (despite a ewmarginal modications relevant to the solidarity or the mutualaid which marks any period where the habitual social rameworkis overturned). Tat insurrection had to sel-organise. Its sel-organisation was then only the sign that it did not overturn social

relations, that it had only a limited aim: the liberation o societyrom a corrupt and corrupting state (rom an unree state)according to the terms which appeared rom the beginning othe insurrection. It is its very limitation which gave birth to theorms o organisation that it gave itsel, that is to say orms osel-organisation.Te continuation o attacks against the institutions o the stateater June 2001 and the necessity o violence in these attacks areas much a rejection o the sel-organised movement o the aarchsas they are attacks on the Algerian state. It is its own existence asa class that sel-organisation ormalises as an existence in and orcapital and that, in struggle, the proletariat no longer recognisesas its own. Its existence as a class is autonomised or it. o parodyMarx in Te Class Struggles in France: it is only by making appearrom its own movement a compact, powerul sel-organisation,

making it into an adversary and ghting it that the party osubversion can nally become a truly revolutionary party.Tat doesnt happen without organisation, as when proletarianstake on various necessary tasks which impose themselves inthe development o the struggle: the blocking o roads, layingsiege to police stations, orcing shopkeepers to stop supplyingthe orces o order, the direct reappropriation o commoditieswhich are necessary or them by looting or the control o stocks...

Tis organisation is never the ormalisation o what they are inexisting society as the base or anchorage point o the new societyto construct as the liberation o what they are, that is to say itis not sel-organisation. It does not ormalise the existence o


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any preceding subject. Te situation o proletarians is no longersomething to organise, to deend and liberate, but something toabolish.

It is interesting to recall the simultaneously conictual andintegrative relations which are created between unemployed,employed proletarians, small shopkeepers, employees oadministrations which are still in Algeria more or less involvedin a relationship o political clientelism. No unity on the basiso demands can ever be realised. Te struggle o the Algerianproletarians o Kabylie imposes itsel by direct action, itexpresses itsel outside o any particular terrain (workplace,

neighbourhood...), it negates the divisions maintained by thecapitalist class, it tends to its generalisation and it bears a globalrejection o the state, it develops itsel in opposition to all thelegalist, pacist and electoral slogans.Tese proletarians only very rarely assert the class determinationso their activity. It is true that this difers in comparison with thepreceding cycle o struggles, where any action no matter how

reormist was loudly proclaimed to be the mobilization o theglobal working class, proud o itsel and its at-cap. Tat the actiono proletarians is no longer proclaimed to be class action does notmean it isnt class action. Te questioning by the proletariat oits own existence as a class which objecties itsel against itselas a determination o the reproduction o capital, is a convulsivetype o class action, as any sel-organization conrms. It is nosurprise that proletarians no longer arm themselves as acting

as a class when it is their adversaries who uphold the existence othe proletariat as a class as the dominant content o the counter-revolution acing it.

Te Direct Action Movement (DAM)

Because it proclaims the negation o classes as a liestyle, andthereby, as a precondition or the class struggle, the DAM ends

up in a series o dead ends: capital as domination and symbol,the unsolvable question o the DAMs own extension, its reerenceto needs, to pleasure, to desires, to an authentic human sel.Tis dead end appears in the course o riots- their sel-limitation


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(their sel-reerential character)- and in their recuperation inaims which are not their own, as in Quebec, in Prague and alsoin Genoa. However, this reciprocal exclusion which constitutes

the DAM between being proletarian and producing other socialrelations has become now, in this cycle, the necessary orm inwhich the dynamic o this cycle o struggles maniests itsel. Eveni the immediate relations o individuals in their singularity end upexisting merely as an alternative, the DAM pregures the contento the communist revolution: the proletariats contestation,against capital, o its existence as class.

Suicidal struggles: the obsolescence of autonomy

We have already evoked the struggle o Cellatex and thosewhich ollowed. In December 2002- January 200, the ACstrike in Angers (I systems, subsidiary o Bull) is carried outin a contradictory ashion by an inter-union coordinationcommittee and a strike committee broadly open, emerging romthe rank-and-le (changes no.10). Tree production lines are

momentarily restarted, which does not prevent the rest o theproducts ending up being burned. It is interesting to review thechronology o the events. Te actory is occupied ollowing theannouncement, on 20th December, o the denitive liquidationo the AC (ater multiple manoeuvres and dilatory discussions).Te actory is occupied, but no one knows why. On 10th January thestrike committee agrees to start the production o electronic cardsdestined or an Italian equipment supplier. On 22nd January, 200cards are delivered, on the 2rd the occupants burn cards takenout o storage, and on the 2th the occupants are evicted withoutdiculty.I Cellatex can teach us anything in terms o orm (violence hasa long history in class struggle), but also in terms o content, it isthat the dynamic at work in this type o struggle resides in the actthat the proletariat is in itsel nothing, but a nothing ull o social

relations: against capital, the proletariat has no prospect but itsdisappearance.In the same period, the workers laid of by Moulinex, in settingre to a actory building, inscribed themselves equally in the


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dynamic o this new cycle o struggles in which the proletariatsown existence as a class is the limit o its class action.


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Communisation

Te ultimate limit o the struggle over wages and conditions can bedened as that in which the contradiction between the proletariat

and capital comes to a head to such an extent that the denitiono class becomes an external constraint, an exteriority simplythere because capital is there. Class membership is exteriorisedas a constraint. Tis is where we nd the moment o a qualitativeleap in class struggle. It is here that we nd asupersession and notan overgrowing. It is here that we can pass rom a change in thesystem to a change o system.

Te ultimate point o the reciprocal implication between the classesis that in which the proletariat seizes the means o production. Itseizes them, but it cannot appropriate them. An appropriationcarried out by the proletariat is a contradiction in terms, becauseit could only be achieved through its own abolition as class, in auniversal union o production in which it is stripped o all thatremains o its previous social situation. In communism there isno longer a question o appropriation because it is the very notion

o product which is abolished. O course, there are objects (eventhe notions o objectivity and subjectivity are to be redened)which are used to produce, others which are directly consumed,and others which are used or both. But to speak about productsand to pose the question o their circulation, o their distribution,or o their transer, i.e. to conceive o a moment o appropriationpresupposes places o rupture, o coagulation o human activity:the market in market societies, the stockpiling and stint or limit[] in certain visions o communism. Te product is not a simplething. o speak o the product is to suppose that a result ohuman activity appears asnishedin relation to another result, oramongst other results. We should not proceed rom the product,but rom activity.In communism, human activity is innite because it is indivisible.It has concrete or abstract results, but these results are never

products, or that would raise the question o their appropriationor o their transer* under some given mode. Tis innite humanactivity synthesizes what one can say about communism. I wecan speak o innite human activity in communism, it is because


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the capitalist mode o production already allows us to see- albeitcontradictorily and not as a good side- human activity as acontinuous global social ux, and the general intellect or the

collective worker as the dominant orce o production. Tesocial character o production does not pregure anything: itmerely renders the basis o value contradictory.Te necessity with which the communist revolution is acedconsists not in modiying the share between wages and prot, butin abolishing the capitalist nature o the accumulated means oproduction. A struggle over wages and conditions can pass romthe level oconfictto that ocontradiction. Te level o conict

is that o the share between wages and prot. It doesnt matter iinterests remain irreconcilable on this level: we remain in a zerosum game that is indenitely reproducible, and as long as weremain on this level the pendulum will swing one way and thenanother, because we have not attacked the pendulum itsel. Televel o contradiction is that o surplus value and oproductivelabour, but one cannot demand to be a little less o a surplus-

value producing worker, other than through demanding a slightlyhigher wage or slightly less hours o work, which brings us back tothe questions o distribution and the conict. It is the insuciencyo surplus-value in relation to accumulated capital which is at theheart o the crisis o exploitation. I at the centre o the contradictionbetween the proletariat and capital there were not the questionosurplus-value producing labour; i there were only a problemo distribution and i all the conicts over wages were not the

existence o this contradiction, the revolution would remain a piouswish. It is thus not by attacking the nature o labour as productiveo surplus-value that the struggle over wages is superseded (thiswould always bring us back to a problem o distribution), but byan attack on the means o production as capital. A sel-organisedstruggle can take us to the point o rupture, but the attack on themeans o production is its supersession.Te attack against the capitalist nature o the means o production

is tantamount to their abolition as value absorbing labour in orderto valorize itsel; it is the extension o gratuity, the potentiallyphysical destruction o certain means o production; their abolitionas actories in which the product is dened as product, i.e. the


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rameworks o exchange and o commerce; it is the upheaval orelations between the sections o production which materialiseexploitation and its rate; it is their denition, their setting in

individual intersubjective relations; it is the abolition o thedivision o labour such as it is inscribed in the urban landscape,in the material conguration o buildings, in the separationbetween town and country, in the very existence o somethingwhich one calls a actory or a place o production. Relationsbetween individuals are xed in things, because exchange value isby nature material (Marx, Grundrisse...). Te abolition o value isa concrete transormation o the landscape in which we live, it is a

new geography. Te abolition o social relations is a very materialafair.

Te production o new social relations between individuals is thusthe communist measures, which are taken as a necessity o thestruggle. Te abolition o exchange and o value, o the division olabour, o property, is nothing but the art o class war: no more noless now than when Napoleon waged his war in Germany throughthe introduction o the Napoleonic Code. Previous social relationsare dissolved in this social activity where one cant distinguishbetween the activity o strikers and insurgents, and the creation oother relations between individuals; the creation o new relations,in which individuals only consider what is as a moment o anuninterrupted ow o production o human lie.Te destruction o exchange: this means the workers attacking

the banks which hold their accounts and those o other workers,thus making it necessary to manage without; this means theworkers communicating* their products to themselves and thecommunity directly and without market; this means the homelessoccupying homes, thus obliging construction workers to producereely, the construction workers taking rom the shops at liberty,obliging the whole class to organise to seek ood in the sectors tobe collectivised, etc. Lets be clear about this. Tere is no measure

which, in itsel, taken separately, is communism. o distributegoods, to directly circulate means o production and raw materials,to use violence against the existing state: ractions o capital canachieve some o these things in certain circumstances. Tat which


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is communist is not violence in itsel, nor distribution o theshit that we inherit rom class society, nor collectivisation osurplus-value sucking machines: it is the nature o the movement

which connects these actions, underlies them, renders them themoments o a process which can only communise ever urther, orbe crushed.

Military and social activities are indissoluble, simultaneous, andinterpenetrating. A revolution cannot be carried out withouttaking communist measures, without dissolving wage labour,communising supplies, clothing, housing, taking all the weapons

(destructive, but also telecommunications, oods, etc.), integratingthe destitute (including those which we ourselves will have reducedto this state), the unemployed, the ruined peasants, rootless drop-out students. o speak o a revolution carried out by a categorywhich accounts or 20 % o the population and which strikes toask o the state that it satises its interests : that is a joke.From the moment in which we begin to consume reely, it isnecessary to reproduce that which is consumed; or this welack the primary materials, spare parts, and ood (We avoid theunsatisying concept o use value which is an intrinsic conceptto the existence o the commodity). It is thus necessary to seize themeans o transport, o telecommunications, and enter into contactwith other sectors; in doing this one runs up against opposingarmed groups. Te conrontation with the state immediately posesthe problem o armament, which can only be solved by setting up

a distribution network to support combat in an almost innitemultiplicity o places (the constitution o a ront or o determinatezones o combat is the death o the revolution). From the momentin which proletarians dismantle the laws o commodity relations,there is no turning back (even more so because, in doing this,capital is deprived o essential goods, and it counter-attacks).Every social deepening, every extension gives esh and blood tonew relations, and enables the integration o more and more non-

proletarians to the communising class, which is in the processo constituting and dissolving itsel simultaneously. It enablesthe reorganisation o the productive orces, abolishing to an evergreater extent all competition and division between proletarians,


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acquiring a military position, and making o this the content andthe progress o its armed conrontation against those which thecapitalist class can still mobilise, to integrate and reproduce in its

social relations.Te capitalist class and its innumerable peripheral strata rest on acomplicated tangle o nancial connections, credits, and obligations,that is ridden with red-tape, bureaucratic, and vulnerable to thehighest point. Without these connections its internal cohesionbreaks down. Tis class is not a community ounded on a materialassociation; it is a conglomeration o competitors unied byexchange. Exchange is the abstract community (money). Tisis why all the measures o communisation will have to be a

vigorous action or the dismantling o the connections whichlink our enemies and their material support: rapid destruction,without the possibility o return. Communisation is not thepeaceul organisation o ree goods and o a pleasant way o lieamongst proletarians. Te dictatorship o the social movement ocommunisation is the process o the integration o humanity to

the disappearing proletariat. Te strict denition o the proletariatin comparison with other strata- its ght against all commodityproduction- is at the same time a process which orces the strata othe salaried petit-bourgeoisie, o the class o social containment,to join the communising class. It is thus denition, exclusionand, at the same time demarcation and opening, erasure o theborders and withering away o classes. Tis is not a paradox, butthe reality o the movement in which the proletariat is denedin practice as the movement or the constitution o the humancommunity. Te social movement in A

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