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This paper was born from the need to accompany the review “Anarchismo” with an agile publication capable of developing ‘circumscribed and condensed’ analyses. Political and social analyses, leaflets, communiques and documents of the anarchist movement as well as of other groups and organisations, as well as many short and very short articles concerning attacks on the structures of power, news items testifying forms of spontaneous rebellion, that are manifesting themselves with different modalities and often turn out to be quite extraneous to the specific ambit of the anarchist or antagonist movement.
Starting from a series of analyses — concerning among other things, the modifications in the productive structures, the perfectioning of information technology, transformations in the world of work and school, the progressive cultural emptying — a perspective of struggle is outlined: not only the attack on the ‘great temples of death’, on the ‘visible complexes that attract everybody’s attention’ but also and principally small and often simple objectives, peripheral structures spread over the whole territory that are beginning to take on increasing importance for capital: factories, commercial structures, seats of power, but also electricity pylons, communications cables, everything that combines in the development of capital and the continuation of exploitation. These analyses and proposals precede the publication of ‘ProvocAzione’ in part, but in this paper they are gone into further and turn out to be still, valid at the present time.

The concept of solidarity is not only used and abused by the various reformist syndicalist and humanitarian movements and even power itself, it is also sadly emptied of any content by many anarchists. The levelling is such as to reveal a symbolic attitude worthy of the Church but which allows us to put our conscience at rest.

Our task as anarchists, our main preoccupation and greatest desire, is to see the social revolution come about: a terrible upheaval of men and institutions which finally succeeds in putting an end to exploitation and establishing the reign of justice.

The rationalisation of exploitation at global level and the illumination among all those with a glimmer of dignity and passion that reformism is not the way to fight it, is leading to explosions of rebellion in many parts of the world. Anarchists are close to these moments, at least in spirit, but do we have anything to give this reality beyond causing immediate damage or attacking police lines? Must we continue to leave everything to chance, believing that organisational clarity will spring forth out of the blue? If we do, the great potential for new qualitative relations risks becoming reabsorbed into extremely pragmatic and convincing reformist programmes which apparently appear from nowhere. Some are not sleeping. The organisers of tomorrow’s misery lie constantly in wait for such opportunities to ride the tiger in order to harness and redomesticate it, possibly under slogans of freedom and self-management.

Although the Russian anarchists of the past are still alive in our hearts today, their actual historical and human experiences seem far off in the night of time. We are talkning about only a few decades, yet it is as though the dust of centuries has piled up on these events, preventing us from understanding them. Always victorious in battle, Makhno appears as a fearless knight galloping invincible at the head of the Ukrainian insurgents, first against the white Russians of Denikin or Wrangel, then against Trotsky’s Red Army.

This book tells of the life, the action and the death of an anarchist guerilla. Many things have happened since it was first published at the end of the sixties, and experience of armed struggle in Europe is no longer limited to that of the comrades who carried on the struggle against Francoist Spain. But that does not in the least detract from the theoretical and practical importance of Sabaté’s actions, and the value of this book in particular.

24th June 1894, the President of the French Republic Sadi Carnot reached the end of his life in Lyon under the blows of a young Italian anarchist, Sante Caserio.

The somewhat hasty and long overdue compilation of this pamphlet is the consequence of a deadline, a solidarity gig in London to be held on July 5 [2007]. The experience has been intense, one could say a labour of love. Reading and setting out the words of the imprisoned comrades has been a way of knowing them and being fired by their courage and passion for freedom. For a moment the walls within walls, locked doors upon locked doors, endless corridors and claustrophobic cells disappear in an embrace of free spirits. That brings us to the question of solidarity, and this pamphlet should also be seen as a contribution in that direction, in the eternal debate on the practice of solidarity.

Life has deserted the soulless labyrinth of man’s daily doings. So seemingly ecumenical, so apparently volatile, she is not so cheap. Attempts to encounter her by the slaves of democracy remain just that. The apparent choices in the shop windows of capital come down to one: you can inhabit the swamp with the frogs, wallow in the global quagmire of participation and help spread the mud till even your dreams become grey. Or you can go. Take flight with the vagabonds of the spirit, let the glow of freedom ignite your passions, kindle your spirit, illuminate your mind. Throw away all the prostheses and venture into the abyss of a world without limits.