A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #44 - The War to Come - Libertarian Alternative / FdCA (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

«Strictly speaking, we cannot have a foreign policy, since we stand, and 
wish to stand, outside and against the current division of the world 
into rival states. ---- «For us there are no foreigners . We want all 
men, whatever their place of birth, whatever the ethnic stock from which 
they derive, whatever the language they speak, to consider each other as 
brothers and to group themselves freely and cooperate together for the 
greater well-being, the greater freedom, the greater civilization of 
all. ---- «And since this universal brotherhood , this harmonization of 
all interests, of all aspirations in a vast unity (that of the human 
race) which respects and favors the free development of all varieties, 
the full autonomy of all individuals and all groups, are still an ideal 
in contrast with the harsh reality of today; since men are still divided 
into the oppressed and the oppressors , and the former live by 
exploiting the labor of others, and the workers bear the weight of all 
social burdens and are constrained in their material and moral 
development and often reduced to the most squalid and brutalizing misery 
- we stand, whatever our country of origin or residence, for the 
oppressed against the oppressors, the workers against the parasites, 
without any regard for the various political groupings, into which 
historical events and the interests and ambitions of the masters, even 
if favored by special natural conditions, have divided humanity».[Errico 
Malatesta, Our foreign policy. War and Peace , «Volontà», year 2, n. 10, 
07/03/1914; italics ours.]

These clear words, spoken on the eve of the First Imperialist World War 
by our comrade Errico Malatesta, are still highly relevant today in a 
world devastated and bloodied by over fifty conflicts unleashed by the 
imperialist powers for control of the world market, conflicts that are 
becoming increasingly widespread, expanding dramatically.

And these are the themes we wish to reiterate on the occasion of April 
25th and May 1st, to characterize these anniversaries not from an 
institutional perspective but as perspectives of anti-fascist and 
internationalist struggle, harking back to the best periods of the 
Italian and international proletariat in the troubled but luminous path 
to its emancipation.

The little theatre of politics

The "No" victory in the constitutional referendum on March 22-23 has 
undoubtedly weakened the current government, at a time when the war of 
aggression against Iran by Israel and the United States credibly 
portends a sustained and uncontrolled increase in energy costs, with 
potential rationing, rising consumer prices, and rising inflation amid 
declining GDP and a rising public deficit. This outlook is characterized 
by a sharp increase in military spending at the expense of key essential 
services: a very difficult scenario to manage, capable of undermining 
the electoral consensus of the governing majority. Moreover, the 
"overtaking" of the so-called "broad field," once its profound internal 
disagreements have been resolved, could even transcend the status of a 
hypothesis and become a viable possibility (see the Supermedia Polls 
data of March 10). The Prime Minister, seeking a way out, could, after 
the partial and belated cleanup of her own ranks, compounded by the 
"restructuring" conducted within Forza Italia by Marina Berlusconi, the 
downward spiral of the League, and the electoral threat of General 
Vannacci, consider calling early general elections to try to salvage 
what can be salvaged: this is certainly not a foregone conclusion, but 
it is nevertheless possible.

We reiterate once again that the "No" victory should be considered 
positive as it has weakened the government and, above all, the social 
elements that support it. However, the future appears highly uncertain, 
and it is by no means certain that in the event of a general election, 
whether early or not, the vote will be unfavorable to the political 
formations that comprise this government. The parliamentary opposition 
forces (and those outside of parliament, the same ones calling for the 
government's resignation) immediately attempted to fully acquire the 
referendum results and divert them for a possible electoral deadline. 
The "primaries" represent the first, and problematic, step toward 
creating a unified parliamentary perspective and alternative to the 
current majority: that is, the "broad field," which for now remains only 
a hypothesis, to be constructed amidst a thousand uncertainties and 
difficulties. The attempt to squeeze the referendum consensus into a 
partisan dimension is certainly crude in form and reprehensible in 
substance, and it is likely to be a failure: after all, the scenario is 
unprecedented, but that is not the point.

The recent referendum dynamics between omission and deformation

Regarding referendum turnout, this was deemed "high" because it would 
have represented renewed participation by the electorate, recording a 
turnout of 55.69%, which was overemphasized as "exceptional," which is 
only partially true: the last constitutional referendum, held in 2016 
and concerning the Renzi-Boschi reform, achieved a turnout of 65.48%, 
and the 2022 general election recorded a turnout of 63.91%. 
Parliamentarism tends to superimpose its own expectations on reality, so 
a significant but numerically low turnout (44.31% abstained) becomes 
"exceptional" only because it exceeded the most pessimistic 
expectations. But the interesting aspect concerns youth voter 
participation, a topic greeted with suspicious emphasis by the "No" 
camp. Young people voted with increasing turnout, although, for the sake 
of objectivity, it's worth citing SWG projections, which show that 
abstention among younger generations for the 18-24 age group stands at 
47%, rising to 52% for the 25-34 age group, still higher than that of 
other age groups that recorded higher voter turnout (Renato Mannheimer, 
in "Italia Oggi" of 01/04/2026). Let's not think that these 
considerations are "praising" abstentionism. In this regard, while we, 
as anarchist communists, do not give in to the electoral call, we 
believe abstentionism to be a complex and contradictory social 
phenomenon: a phenomenon that must therefore be scientifically evaluated 
with extreme objectivity since, due to its very social and class 
characteristics, it is neither a matter of general indifference to be 
dismissed outright nor, certainly, a sign of a growing awareness among 
the exploited masses. We do not attribute any revolutionary significance 
to referendum deadlines, but at times, certain rights of the less 
well-off social classes have been defended precisely by pursuing 
referendum objectives such as, for example, divorce and abortion. Even 
in the case of the last constitutional referendum, the victory of the 
"No" vote certainly prevented the current government from continuing its 
attack on the living conditions of the lower classes within the 
framework of a truly authoritarian drift.

New awareness and militant need

The vast movement that led to the No vote in the referendum, although it 
developed in a climate of widespread mobilizations that unitedly 
involved broad sectors of the student and youth movements, women's 
movements, trade unions, and civil society, inevitably suffered from the 
"electoral truce," partially declining in quantity and quality. 
Nonetheless, the renewed participation of the younger generations is 
certainly not entirely attributable to "defense of the Constitution," 
but rather, primarily, to the united mobilizations against imperialist 
wars financed at the expense of wages, essential services, and the 
working and living conditions of the less well-off social classes. This 
participation was the consequence of a social and class phenomenon that 
saw widespread mobilizations against all imperialist wars, against 
massacres, genocides, and devastation from Ukraine to Gaza and Iran, for 
peace, and against rearmament policies implemented in the exclusive 
interest of arms producers, distributors, and financial capital. The 
youth "no" to the referendum grew out of student protests, protesting 
cuts to education, corporatization policies, and the hierarchization of 
teaching, driven by an authoritarian, competitive, and meritocratic 
vision of subjugating education to the war industry and military 
propaganda. It also opposed any reintroduction of compulsory military 
service, and the rampant militarism that permeates society as a whole, 
including schools and universities, precisely as a preparation for war. 
These protests were held against the authoritarian turn of the Meloni 
government, which, with its "security decrees," equated social conflict 
with a mere public order problem to be addressed through repressive 
police and judicial action. These protests fostered a widespread 
awareness among a significant minority of young people, which has become 
a driving force. An anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and 
anti-authoritarian awareness, but also solidarity, which has seen 
support for the widespread blockades of ships and trains carrying 
weapons to Israel and active participation in the Global Sumud Flotilla, 
which expressed concrete solidarity with the Palestinian population of 
Gaza, massacred, dispersed, and starving by the genocidal actions of the 
Israeli government, with the complicity of the United States and the 
European Union. It has been the heightened sensitivity to environmental 
issues, which has seen the government ignore the escalating 
environmental disasters caused by rampant construction and the failure 
to protect territories that, conversely, require massive investments 
that are instead destined for rearmament and thus war.

It is not institutional proclamations, but social and class conflict, 
articulated around clear, unified, and shared objectives, that 
determines participation and thus a renewed awareness of the ways and 
times to build a better world of peace, equality, and freedom. But if 
social and mass movements are built through concrete mobilizations 
against capital and its wars, they must inevitably confront the 
difficulties of the moment, becoming, by their very nature, fluctuating 
and contradictory. The social awareness that is created can also be 
reabsorbed and dispersed by the growing ebb. But it is precisely this 
social awareness that must be preserved to ensure that it becomes 
organized militant realities, capable of supporting and qualifying mass 
movements from a class perspective, especially in moments of crisis, 
when defeat and discouragement take hold, so that new impulses for 
struggle can expand to broader contexts. From this perspective, the role 
of teachers appears essential in making a significant contribution not 
"to state schools" but to the defense of the social characteristics of 
public schools, in order to produce alternative awareness to the drift 
and barbarization of capitalist society.

Giving concreteness to internationalism for its generalization

The period we are experiencing is shaping up to be the most dramatic 
since the Second World War. Proxy wars between the major imperialist 
powers sow destruction and death. In such a context, which opens up 
unprecedented scenarios that legitimately raise the possibility of a 
Third World War, there are no aggressors and the aggressed, but rather a 
single imperialist dimension in which more or less dominant powers, 
constantly in conflict, clash, all striving for control of strategic 
areas for global market dominance. It is a clash between predators, 
pitting bourgeoisies and states against the civilian populations 
overwhelmed by the war; a clash of power relations in which siding with 
one side against the other means being reduced to supporting a more or 
less dominant imperialist component, which denies and represses all 
social and class autonomy and opposition. The proletariat of various 
countries, called into conflict with its brothers and sisters in other 
countries to defend interests that do not belong to it, is extremely 
divided when, if united, it would demonstrate such immense strength as 
to block every conflict, from Ukraine to Iran. The validity of the 
internationalist perspective is certainly the only viable alternative to 
the barbarity that capital imposes for its survival, but it cannot be 
limited to the declaration of our best intentions. A strategy is needed 
"to return to victory" at the continental level, with unified objectives 
that begin with the uncompromising defense of the living conditions of 
the subaltern classes, divided and hostile to the very powers that are 
fighting each other and that are pitting our class against itself, thus 
alienating any credible internationalist unity. It is necessary to begin 
to concretely combine the fight against war and for peace with the 
concrete defense of the living conditions of the lower classes in Italy 
and Europe: defending wages and their purchasing power, for the quality 
and security of jobs, against precarious employment, for the significant 
development of essential social services especially education, 
healthcare, transportation, social security, and land and environmental 
protection thus diverting resources from military spending and 
rearmament; defending and expanding the gains achieved in recent years 
by women against violence, the rise of patriarchy, intolerance, and 
homophobia, against racism, resurgent fascism, and against the 
oppression of diversity, so that it may have full citizenship in civil 
society. Defending these objectives jointly, from the bottom up, and 
with a self-management perspective, against all trade union and party 
bureaucracy is also the priority of anarchist communist militants, who 
must strengthen their political organization to counter the ebb by 
extending the conflict to broader contexts.This constitutes the first 
practical step towards a continental organization of workers against 
capital, imperialism and its wars.

In the spirit of May Day, long live the internationalist unity of the 
proletariat!

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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