Dear Comrade (Letter 22/10/1970)

Dear comrade,

The present situation of the development of proletarian struggles imposes, in our opinion, precise choices on all those who intend to place themselves on the terrain of coherent subversion. Choices that, of course, must be articulated on the double moment of the theory-press and the consequent minimal organization.

Well, it seems to us that the present fragmentation of the forces that want to be revolutionary (and, for that very reason, anti-hierarchical and council-based) is no longer beyond toleration. In fact, this, besides preventing us from serious opposition to the momentary bureaucratic-Leninist dogma of which the most recuperative and spectacularist example is undoubtedly provided by “Lotta continua,” blocks and hysterizes theoretical research, seriously reduces the possibility of correctly practicing our hypotheses, and finally places us on the treacherous ground of those who fail to concretize the critique of the ideology of the organization (militantism) into the praxis of the organization against the coagulated ideology.

It is, moreover, clear that it is necessary to reject, first and foremost in ourselves, any voluntaristic (and therefore unrealistic) attempt to “reunite” subversive forces (whether determined by individual comrades or small groups) that is not based on the minimum of theoretical and organizational agreement. Our goal therefore is not that of the union of various forces, but that of unity among them, outside any hierarchical and bureaucratic temptation.

The minimum bases of agreement, below which it is impossible to descend on pain of degrading ourselves to “ideological militants,” are, in our opinion, the following:

(a) maximum consistency between each thesis formulated and between theoretical formulation and practical implementation (dissemination, communication, intervention and direct action);

(b) the conscious critique of every separate aspect of social survival and, likewise, of all present social existence (including, first and foremost, the critique of bureaucracies and institutions);

(c) the consciousness of the need to wage a ruthless struggle against ideology, in whatever form it represents itself, not excluding the “council” one, for the reaffirmation of the revolutionary value of theory;

(d) the recognition of the partiality of our organization (as of any other revolutionary organization with which we have dialectical relations); this partiality is necessary today in order to split off globally from the world of the parcellular, but it will be to be denied at the moment of the realization of revolutionary violence, in which we can do nothing less than recognize ourselves in the revolutionary movement that will self-identify with the real movement;

(e) the perspective of Proletarian Councils as the only possible form for the beginning of conscious history;

(f) the rejection of executive and authoritarian militantism, even if disguised under the guise of the authority of thought; the capitalist principle of efficiency, based on the logic of exchange value, must be overthrown into the revolutionary principle of effectiveness, based on the logic of use value;

(g) the recognition of the theoretical-practical autonomy of each comrade, provided that it is not inconsistent with the set of theses formulated and provided that there is maximum transparency among all comrades, themselves interchangeable, though all necessary;

(h) the refusal to present themselves, on any occasion of the struggle against the mercantilist society, as individuals and not as part of the theoretical-practical organization that is based on the above points.

All comrades who agree on these minimum bases are invited to the MEETING organized by the signatories for SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, at 3 p.m., at 31 LAGRANGE St. (at VENTURA - central staircase, 2nd floor).

The meeting, although devoid of a bureaucratically peremptory agenda, should have a clearly operational value: not in the sense that immediate actions will necessarily have to be chosen, but rather in the sense that each comrade will have to take an unequivocal position and that everyone will have to make the choice of the perspective and direction on which to articulate any intervention, even if theoretical.

In this regard, the minimum themes for discussion can only be:

1st. Fight against ideology in its highest and determining levels (labor ideology, commodity ideology, entertainment ideology, consumer ideology, consensus ideology),

2nd. Struggle against coagulated and materialized ideology (cores of production of material commodities or ideological commodities: e.g., factories and schools; cores of transmission of ideology and its rehypothecation as consensus ideology: e.g., prisons, asylums etc.; cores of reception of ideology: e.g., urban cores and neighborhoods etc. – the dialectical interdependence of these various separate moments that need to be unified in the critique –) is, moreover, itself evident;

3rd. Fight against the ideology of permitted and spectacular dissent (critique and attack on the falsely revolutionary and really bureaucratic forces);

This issue arises as inalienable not because of a bureaucratic will on our part, but because the acceptance of it demonstrates in the participants that minimal radicality from which it is not possible to disregard in the perspective of continued common revolutionary work.

On the other hand, implicit in it is the request to everyone to present to the other comrades and to the discussion only the best of one's own theoretical and practical subversive work on whatever “front” it has been carried out, that of daily life not excluded.

‎
per l’ORGANIZZAZIONE CONSILIARE
d’Este – Ghisleni – Ventura.
Turin, October 22, 1970