How the Revolution killed the revolution

By an Anonymous Leeds occupier, received via email.

The tactic is clear: see a struggle, consume it and brand it as their own. It’s painfully ironic that the most vocal critics of the far right and “the system” instigate the same strategies, tools and manipulative behaviors as those they paint themselves the antithesis to: the same spin, propaganda, speechifying, blind faith and violence.

Sitting in a lecture theatre beginning to over-boil with political fervor, applause and yelps in agreement it became clear to me what the form of our true enemy was. The Socialist speakers made important links between the struggle against rising tuition fees and the wider issues we face regarding cuts and job outsourcing across the board, and being able to generalise our problem is key to changing it, but I think they failed to make the next logical step in addressing the fundamental essence of our struggle; the workings of power. What is needed is an anti-Oedipal wake up call, a recognition of our everyday fascism and to turn the old world on its head. We have no use for a revolution where the exact same hierarchical power structures are merely replicated under a new banner.

Worse than merely profiting from the branding of a demonstration, struggle or movement, the infiltration and manipulation by the Red army essentially serves as a destructive force to the movement. The paranoia resulting from the prospect of a government informer in the ranks of a group of activists can wage its own damage, but its effect is miniscule compared to the alienating language, imagery and dictatorial fashions of the Socialists who seek to take control and make a struggle their own. The new face of McCarthyism. Marx’s alienation cannot find an antidote in more politics, more power games.

They grab hold of a movement, squeeze it until it is bled dry and it’s only themselves left. Sitting in a room surrounded by other white, middle class males with their red banners and shit rag newspapers. Is this what it looks like to have won? Your flags are red with the blood from the movements you’ve killed.

“When she told her French friends about it, they were amazed. You mean you don’t want to fight the occupation of your country? She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand. Embarrassed, she changed the subject.” – Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness Of Being”

“Left wing violence, right wing violence, all seems much the same, Bully boys out fighting, it’s just the same old game. Boring fucking politics that’ll get us all shot, Left wing, right wing, you can stuff the lot. Keep your petty prejudice, I don’t see the point, ANARCHY AND FREEDOM IS WHAT I WANT” – Crass, “White Punks on Hope”