Bruno Astarian

The French strikes of May-June 1968 - Bruno Astarian

A demystifying review essay and analysis summarizing the events of May-June 1968 in France with an almost exclusive focus on the strikes of the workers, based on reports and testimonies garnered from a voluminous bibliography, providing a sobering reassessment of the largest nationwide strike in French history, which the author defines as a “generalized non-insurrectional work stoppage”.

Translation into English completed January 2013

Communization As a Way Out of the Crisis - Bruno Astarian

In this short essay written in 2009, Bruno Astarian defines “communization” as the direct establishment of communism, and denies the need for a “transitional” regime: first, he says, the proletariat will launch insurrectionary expropriations “to assure its own survival” in response to the crisis; then after the crisis has been overcome by the free distribution of stored goods, production will resume in the form of “production without productivity” (without accounting) and “consumption without necessity” (without the fear of scarcity or poverty), in a new society where “free distribution … breaks with all separations” in the form of “a single unified free activity”.

Communization As a Way Out of the Crisis – Bruno Astarian

1. The Immediacy of Communism

1.1. Definition and Origin

Crisis theory/theories: a discussion - Bruno Astarian

Bruno Astarian dissects Theorie Communiste's text 'Crisis Theory/Theories'.

In his text, RS tries to reconcile two opposing explanations of crises. In my opinion, he fails. He doesn’t demonstrate the need for such a reconciliation (To me, Mattick’s theory remains sufficient – though I admit that I didn’t read it for quite a time).

Crisis activity and communisation - Bruno Astarian

Through the lens of recent struggles in Greece and Bangladesh, Bruno Astarian examines what distinguishes proletarian activity in times of insurrection from that of everyday class struggle, how this could lead to a process of communisation, and what such a process might involve.

More than a text on communisation, what follows actually describes the relationship between capitalism and communism, from the perspective of the crisis, in the present period.

Reactions of the American proletariat during the 1929 crisis

Submitted by Steven. on Aug 14 2009 16:26

With many commentators stating that the 2008 recession is the world's worst since the great Depression, Prol-position analyses the 1929 recession, its effect on workers in the US and how they responded.

In 1930-33, the situation of the American proletariat declined sharply. While not putting capitalist domination on the line, the proletariat was far from apathetic during that period. This text intends merely to summarize the various forms and phases of resistance by the American proletariat to its deteriorating conditions of reproduction.