A-Infos (en) Greece, Athens, A letter from a social class struggle anarchist.

Dear Comrades, I don’t have to go to work until Monday so I am in a position to say a few things 
about the majority of the Greek anarchists. ---- This majority supports a vague kind of anarchism; 
for these persons the very big differences between Proudhon, Bakunin, Malatesta, Cafiero, 
Kropotkin, Camillo Berneri, Bookchin and so on, are simply details. Why so? Because after reading a 
few anarchist pamphlets they think that there is no need to read any more and examine more 
carefully the thinking of each of the above-mentioned theoreticians. Moreover they think they 
“know” – after reading only a few pamphlets! And who are those that don’t know? The entire Greek 
population (minus these two hundred people)!! ---- These anarchists think that we need no theories 
– we need violent actions to radicalise any social upheaval. For them, the only activity which has 
any importance is violent action – the only true action!!

What do we really have? Uneducated anarchists (they don’t think before acting, they don’t think 
after acting and they don’t think of the consequences of their actions), they are the supporters of 
an anarchism which has never existed (they are not individualists, not syndicalists, nor communists 
– they are simply “anarchists”) believers in the one and only solution for all the “problems” 
(violence) and they are elitist (they “know”, and all the others don’t “know”).

In fact given the mindless action of these anarchists the Greek state has no need of provocateurs. 
Their participation in a demonstration always leads to their direct confrontation with the police 
and dispersal of the demonstrators. Of course they don’t give a damn about the purpose(s) of the 
demonstrations.

Maybe what I say sounds strange to your ears but it is true. Besides its only 10% of the whole 
“story”. If I tell you all the story.

Concerning the social upheaval of the last few days I am glad because, after many years, I have the 
opportunity to speak about a real social upheaval. Straight after the murder of young Alexandros, 
in a few hours, demonstrations organised all over Greece, through the SMS of mobile phones, with 
the participation of old and young alike, students and workers, parents with their children, Greeks 
and non-Greeks, teaches and pupils (boys and girls of 12 years old), soldiers and civilians, and so 
on. In a few hours all the barriers that keep the working class divided disappeared!! The 
confrontations with the police this time (I’m talking about the violent confrontations that took 
place on Saturday, Sunday and Monday at noon) were necessarily violent in order to keep each 
demonstration going on – the minimum violence to achieve the specific purpose. Right after the 
murder, the demonstrators appealed continually to the “general public” to come and unite with them 
in an act of solidarity, self-respect, anger and resistance to the vicious situation created by the 
two ruling class parties. Many of the demonstrators occupied television and radio stations to make 
their appeal(s). The first day after in the schools all the students appeared wearing black 
clothes. In only two and a half days a movement had been created!

In order to divide this movement the ruling class decided to withdraw the police forces from the 
streets, on Monday evening in very city and every town all over Greece – in the hope that the usual 
action (the mindless violence) of the usual two hundred anarchists would generate fear among the 
demonstrators, fear in the “general public” about their shops, their cars, fear of parents about 
the participation of their children in the demonstrations, and disagreements in the movement about 
the “amount” of necessary violence and so on.

Happily the movement went forward without even a pause as Monday night’s burnings showed, and on 
the next day (Tuesday) schools, colleges and polytechnics were occupied thus preserving the social 
character of the movement intact.

Unfortunately then came the Christmas holidays and no-one knows what will happen on 1 January when 
the schools again open their doors.

Please read the statements of the Greek anarchists carefully. Most of them are revolutionaries in 
word only in order to justify their mindless violent actions.

Which way forward for the movement? It depends (as always) on the movement itself – in the ability 
of its participants to think further about what they have achieved already, what more they want to 
achieve and the ways and means by which their struggle can be conducted. Happily they continue to 
make appeals to other parts of the working class to take part in the movement and to dynamically 
expand its goals.

So it also depends (as always) on the willingness of those parts of the working class to “transfer” 
the struggle into their workplaces and into their communities. Otherwise without this and other 
dynamic expansions of the movement it will, sooner or later become “sterile”, just one more student 
movement and will die out. All this isn’t theory. We have seen it happen many times before…

Comradely yours
Spyros Nea Smyrni — Athens – Greece 31-12-2008
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