The concepts of relational power (Hardt & Negri, 2000), rhizomatic networks (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), temporary autonomous zones (Hakim Bey, 1985), and tactical interventions into the everyday (de Certeau, 1984), underpin much socially engaged art practice, as well as the anti-capitalist movement. But rather than referencing the aesthetics of DIY or collaborative culture, Ressler lives it through his work: finding film-makers, writers and theorists to collaborate in rigorous investigation into the myriad of tactics with which people are finding ways to express their social connectivity and alternative economic culture around the world.

In the film What Would It Mean to Win? (Begg & Ressler, 2008) John Holloway talks about protest as asymmetrical to capitalism because it proposes a different way of organising and being. In the publication accompanying the exhibition AEAS, (Ressler, 2007) Gregory Sholette describes the asymmetrical networks of the artworld: one which is based on mutual aid and gift economy, and the other on a market economy of institutional representation supported by art dealers and collectors (p15-16). It is possible to map the characteristics of informal production and distribution methods in art and activism. However, it is an unstable map, where artists often keep (or desire) a relationship with the formal art economy, both to legitimise their work aesthetically as art, and to keep the art-world as a communication/distribution channel for financial as well as ideological reasons.

Horizontal artist and activist networks are in contrast to the pyramid of capitalism (George, 1992), and attempt to construct spaces for dialogue, consensus decision-making and action as a model for social change. But there are problems here – in many ways the activist message utilises mainstream communication tactics, where art adds complexity and often confusion.

As an artist and film-maker Ressler is both representing activism, and expressing his political interests through the work, but what are the conceptual and aesthetic concerns of this process?

From an activist perspective it may seem banal to consider how Ressler’s practice reconciles his role as an activist within artistic terms. But for artists the question of cultural expression and representation lies at the heart of political change. Whilst both the mainstream and activist media often depict the polarities of political positions, Ressler attempts a more reflexive view. Every film includes the cultural context and explores the role of creativity in political change. But certain aspects of his work deal with complexity and ambiguity in representation, more than others.

Ressler’s films acknowledge activism as a form of self-expression (creatively, as well as politically), but they are also conscious of their own role of representing particular subjectivities (Bromberg, 2006).

The film 5 Factories – Worker Control in Venezuela (Azzellini & Ressler, 2006) examines the contemporary experience of co-operatively run companies supported by the controversial public reforms of the Chavez government. But the film is not typical of much activist documentary where high emotional drama can leave the viewer informed but completely exhausted, guilty and disempowered. Neither is it a charitable request, or a government information film. Instead it is a considered presentation of a model for an alternative economy in progress. Ressler and Azzellini take care to include the voices of workers from all areas of the production and management process. The content of the film is narrated through the individual experiences of the workers, inter-cut with visually seductive film-shots of the scale and beauty of the industrial production process. These shots, combined with the workers narratives, clearly represent knowledge of the raw material, and pride of ownership of the production process.

Symmetry and Asymmetry
There is symmetry throughout Ressler’s work – firstly in the analogy between art and activism as exploring worlds that are both asymmetrical to capitalism. Secondly, the films often work as pairs, with documentary of protest in Europe screened alongside evidence of alternative economies in other continents. Watching the film What Would It Mean to Win? (Begg & Ressler, 2008) is made manifest through the example of 5 Factories (Azzellini & Ressler, 2006). They form a diptych reflecting ambition and meaning between the two continents and cultures, each forming a context for the other.

There is symmetry of responsibility in Ressler’s work. The audience is not simply given information, they are asked to think, to imagine and to enact. The challenge of the Imagine… texts speaks directly to the audience, taking John Lennon’s day-dreaming into a series of specific socio-political propositions. Here, the artist creates a vision, and takes others on a process of visioning the world in a different way. Whilst the films document a socio-political movement, the texts challenge audiences to apply these ideological struggles, to our own experience.

But lastly – I want to introduce a type of linguistic symmetry that has been less critiqued within Ressler’s practice.

Ressler’s most conceptual and ambiguous work has been realised through collaboration with David Thorne. They have created designs for a series of 3 BOOM! Banners (2004), which feature extremely long url’s. The banners are designed for public space, both physically – strung across the city square, and virtually as website domain names, exploring the complexity of protest in public space. The almost impossible websites (no-one has bought the domain names yet) use a different visual and linguistic strategy compared to the films and Imagine texts.

The banner slogan is written in one continuous line without spaces. One of the texts reads:

www.ifonlypeoplewouldopentheirheartstothevisionthatfreedomisonthemarchandbelievethattheyarebeingspiritedonthewingsofangelstoabright
andshiningfuturecalledglobalfreemarketdemocracythenthefactthatthisvisionthingonlybecomesclearaftertheireyesaregougedoutandtheycannot
seewheretheyaregoingatallandthattherearenoangelsleadingthewayonthislongforcedmarchcouldbebetterleftunsaid.com

Activism (and media) has a tendency to simplify the message, in a way that art can mimic, parody or interrogate. Ressler’s films are serious, even when depicting performance-art activism that uses humor as a tactic (Begg & Ressler, 2008), whereas the BOOM! banners embody both the utopianism and symbolic nature of action in virtual space, with irony and humor. Ressler and Thorne describe the intention of the work:

“to mix up the rhetoric of oppositional politics and to complicate the visual and verbal languages of protest.”

The text is symmetrical, which leads the reader to try and decipher meaning through this pattern. The words ‘vision’, ‘march’, and ‘angels’ are repeated. The nature of ‘vision’ shifts from the imaginary to blinding. ‘Angels’ emerge as saviours and then disappear. Perhaps the work is a metaphor for utopianism being swallowed up by the wheels of political structures.

This particular url merges several centuries of protest and political romanticism, from protest-march to forced-march, questioning it’s autonomy and efficacy. But rather than decoding the meaning of the message – we can only ask a series of questions; the meaning may not be in the message, but in the question you ask yourself.

This text was written in 2008. Dr Ele Carpenter is currently a Research Fellow at HUMLab, Umeå University, Sweden.

References

Azzellini, Dario, and Oliver Ressler (2006). 5 Factories: Worker Control in Venezuela. DVD, 81 min, PAL, Spanish with English subtitles.
Begg, Zanny, and Oliver Ressler (2008) What Would it Mean to Win? DVD 40min. English with German or French subtitles.
Bey, Hakim (1985/1991). T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zones. Autonomedia.
Bromberg, Ava (2006) Along the Path of Revolution: Worker Control in Venezuela, Agency in Art.
de Certeau, Michel (1984/2002) The practice of everyday life. Translated by Steven Rendall. University of California Press: California.
Deleuze, Gilles. Felix Guattari (1987 / 2004) “Introduction: Rhizome.” In: A Thousand Plateaus London, New York: Continuum. p3-28.
George, Susan (1992) The Debt Boomerang: How third world debt harms us all. Pluto Press / Trans National Institute: Netherlands.
Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2000). Empire. Cambridge, Massachussetts/ London: Harvard University Press.
Ressler, Oliver (2007) Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies. Wyspa Institute of Art: Gdansk.
Wikipedia, (2008) Hugo Chavez, Wikipedia.

Oliver Ressler: The time between Chris Gilbert’s invitation to produce a new piece on Venezuela and the exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum was actually quite short. It was only slightly more than half a year. This is actually one of the shortest periods I’ve had to produce a new piece in the recent years. But this was also an exception, as the invitation came along with a quite generous production budget and the invitation for a solo show.

TP: How were the five factories selected? Did you visit a range of factories before you decided which five to work with?

OR: Dario and I were interested in focusing on those factories that had already introduced models of workers’ self-management or co-management (“cogestion”). So the film presents a selection of factories that had functioning structures of workers’ democracy at the time when we recorded the film [fall 2005]. One of the factories we already knew from our previous film Venezuela from Below; the paper factory Invepal, located in Morón, appears in both films.

Dario, who at this time had already been living for several months a year in Venezuela, found further interesting examples of forms of co- or self-management. When we arrived in Caracas for the production of 5 Factories—Worker Control in Venezuela, we participated in a congress on occupied factories in Latin America where we made important contacts with workers in occupied factories in Venezuela and got some hints about specific factories in which interesting experiments were going on. So we chose “our” factories quite carefully in advance, as we had limitations in shooting time and budget. We filmed only six factories, and in the editing process we decided finally to use the material of five factories for the video installation.

TP: As a matter of curiosity, what materials or goods were produced at the sixth factory that was not included in the final production?

OR: It produced diapers. The factory had an owner, who was also the director, and it was run in a kind of co-management together with the workers. After carrying out the interviews, our impression was that the director had decided on a form of co-management because it gave him access to cheap public credit he wouldn’t have got otherwise. But the workers did not seem to be involved a lot in the major decision-making processes. The factory did not inspire us, and this is why, even when we were still traveling around in Venezuela, we decided not to include the factory in the final project.

TP: Has the piece been exhibited as an installation since it was shown at the Berkeley Art Museum?

OR: No, the six-channel video installation 5 Factories—Worker Control in Venezuela has not been presented since its launch in Berkeley. But some months after the opening of the exhibition, Dario and I finished an eighty-one-minute, single-channel version and produced a DVD with three language versions (English, Spanish, and German). This film was shown a lot and is still being shown in art institutions, cinemas, film festivals, and local TV channels, as well as in hundreds of screenings organized by the Bolivarian circles all over the world. Several unions and workers’ organizations use the film for educational purposes, and through California Newsreel the film is now also widely distributed in the U.S. In the meantime Korean and Turkish versions of 5 Factories—Worker Control in Venezuela have been issued. It is one of the most successful and well-known pieces I ever did.

TP: In his introductory remarks to the MATRIX booklet that accompanied your exhibition, curator Chris Gilbert wrote, “The Projects in the yearlong MATRIX cycle Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process will operate in solidarity with this process. They are not only or even primarily representations of or reflections on this process, but, as our title indicates, along the path itself.” How did the curatorial lens of the exhibition (the idea to create works in solidarity with a social process) affect your creation of it?

OR: Not at all. I assume Chris Gilbert chose Dario and me for the show because we already did one film in solidarity with the Bolivarian Process in 2004. Venezuela from Below focuses on different grassroots efforts in Venezuela that have in common support for the Bolivarian Process and defense of it against its enemies. This first film already thematizes (besides many other aspects) occupied factories, and in 5 Factories—Worker Control in Venezuela we concentrate on this aspect and observe the changes, which developed two years later. When Chris Gilbert contacted us, Dario and I were already discussing a second collaborative film on Venezuela, and Chris’s invitation meant for us that this second project got developed and produced much faster than it would have otherwise.

The invitation to do the first exhibition of the MATRIX cycle Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process led in any case to the development of the format of the six-channel video installation, where all five factories were presented on individual projections with benches and headphones in front of them, and the management meeting of the aluminum plant Alcasa was presented on the sixth projection at the end of the installation.

TP: One of the facets of the work that struck me was how it drew on histories of democratic processes being introduced into media production, blending ideas of the “Cinema of the People” with pedagogical concepts drawn from the ideas of Paolo Freire. Can you speak about the models that you were drawing on in the creation of this piece?

OR: I had already done a couple of films focusing on protagonists of social movements. In the case of the self-managed factories it was very important for Dario and me to present the protagonists directly in their work environment. The speaking workers are in the center. As the workers manage to run the production on their own, they are being recorded directly in their workplace, which increasingly seems to be for them a place of self-determination and less a place of exploitation. It is important for the concept of the film not to interview only the press spokesmen or engineers in the factories but average workers who are usually not interviewed. Very often our audience overlooks the fact that most people we interviewed spoke for the first time in front of a camera. The workers are capable of speaking in such an eloquent manner about modes of organization because they are used to discussion with their colleagues in the workers’ assemblies. It would be almost impossible to carry out similar thoughtful interviews with average workers in the U.S. or Europe.

In comparison to many other films on Venezuela, we did not focus on Hugo Chávez but tried to highlight the interesting processes that became possible through the political changes, which in the dominating media discourse are usually hidden behind the charismatic president. In the film only workers speak and there are no commentaries. The idea is to develop arguments and provide information about the factories through the protagonists only, and not to talk about them.

TP: Can you describe the “preparation” for your filming in each of the factories? Did you meet with the workers as an assembly to outline the project, or were the interviews the first time that you engaged with them? Were the individual workers self-selected?

OR: With one exception we were in contact with one worker at each factory who knew that we would come filming. When we arrived we usually discussed with a small group of delegates, outlined our concept, and told them about the variety of different workers we wanted to film. We asked these people for advice about which of the workers had something interesting to say. We tried to make sure that employees from different departments would participate, that there was a kind of a gender balance, and that we represented people who have been working in the factory for many years and those who just started.

In the case of the ketchup factory we did not find a phone number. So we just drove to the city and convinced the janitor to allow us to get in touch with some workers. Half an hour later we were in their office talking to five or six delegates of the workers about the concept of our film, which they obviously seemed to like. They allowed us to talk to anyone we liked, to stay as long as we wanted, and they invited us for lunch in the factory canteen. They were very proud having a film team from Europe in their factory. By the way, self-management seems to make the procedure of getting in touch with workers and filming much less complicated than it would be in hierarchically structured factories.

TP: While we have focused our discussion on the project and the political ethics that you brought to its production, it is also significant that events around the exhibition project caused a storm of controversy within the art world, coinciding with the resignation of MATRIX curator Chris Gilbert during the exhibition. Can you comment upon those events and perhaps contextualize the place of your work within them?

OR: Chris Gilbert got the job as the MATRIX curator with his proposal to initiate a year of MATRIX exhibitions in 2006 dealing with the political situation in Venezuela. The first in this cycle of exhibitions titled Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process was our project. Chris’ concept was to produce the exhibitions “in solidarity with Venezuela,” and also to use this phrase. But the former director of the Berkeley Art Museum and some people from the staff and the Board of Trustees wanted a more neutral political positioning of this cycle, and tried to change Chris’s curatorial texts several times. When they saw our installation with revolutionary workers talking about how to take over businesses, I think they still had a hope that maybe the next exhibition would be a little less radical and less direct. This hope of the administration immediately vanished when they read his curatorial text for the second exhibition in the cycle, a wonderful commissioned piece from the alternative TV station Catia TVe in Caracas, which was presented in Berkeley while our exhibition was still on display in the museum. The conflict and mobbing became tougher, and as it is not very effective trying to work in a museum against the museum, Chris decided to resign. His success was that he produced two exhibitions how he wanted them to be, without any compromises. The prize for his thoroughgoingness was that he had to give up his job as MATRIX curator, which he had started only months before; unfortunately, his position within the museum was too weak for him to continue working on the remaining exhibitions of the cycle. His public resignation letter got a lot of attention in the art world internationally. It raised inspiring and controversial questions within progressive art circles about the meaning and potential of formulating a radical critique from the inside of art institutions, which are not politically radical at all.

TP: Now that there is distance of several years on the exhibition itself, I am most interested in understanding the internal political ethics of the work, and the way that work has continuously negotiated its “movement” within the globalized art world, rather than the immediate politics of its debut. You produced the film very much from a position of co-creation and solidarity with its “subjects.” As a final question, I am curious to know if there has been an opportunity to “return” this work to its original site of creation in Venezuela? Has there been any chance for the film’s protagonists, those whose voices it channels, to comment on its conclusion?

OR: Yes, there have been numerous presentations in Venezuela. Even though the two films had been produced primarily for a European or North American audience, there has also been a lot of interest in Venezuela in presenting the films. As Dario is living around half of the year in Caracas, he has also had the chance to organize several screenings. In summer 2006, a big screening was organized of 5 Factories—Worker Control in Venezuela at the Teatro Teresa Carreño in Caracas, and the interviewees from all around Venezuela were invited. A great discussion with the workers took place after the film, which was transcribed in excerpts by Michael Fox for venezuelanalysis.com and can be read on my Web page, www.ressler.at. Usually the film is very well received by the workers. Some people even distribute bootleg DVDs of the films in the black market in Caracas, which obviously means there is a continued interest in watching them.

Ted Purves, Now-Time Venezuela, Part 1: Worker-Controlled Factories, in: Elizabeth Thomas (ed.), Matrix/Berkeley: A Changing Exhibition of Contemporary Art, 2009

Question: How do you select the works for the exhibition you are curating for the current Taipei Biennial? What can be the standard for your choices?

Oliver Ressler: All the invited artists focus in their exhibited works on the so-called counter-globalization movement. They don’t do their work from a neutral perspective, but they are active in the movement or identify with its main goals. In choosing existing videos, photographs, slides or installations from 12 international artists, I tried to cover some of the most important stations of this movement of the movements, which starts with the protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999, leads over to Prague, Genoa, Buenos Aires, Gleneagles in Scotland, St. Petersburg and then to Heiligendamm in Germany.

Q: Why do you call the counter-globalization movement, “the movement of the movements”?

O.R.: “Counter-globalization movement” is actually a quite strange term, even though most people currently use it. The movement is not against globalization in general; for example, it is for the globalization of human rights, labor rights, indigenous rights or high environmental standards. In addition, this movement appears at these international summits of the World Bank, IMF, WTO or G8. Therefore, this movement is active on a global level and tries to globalize its resistance. The only globalization it definitely counters is the globalization of capitalism, and there are many reasons for that. The term “movement of the movements” refers to a horizontally organized movement of loose groups and individuals with no leaders.

Q: Outside of street protest, what other methods enhance communal understanding?

O.R.: The movement consists of ten thousands of groups and individuals all over the world, and most are active on a local level; for example, in community centers, squats, exchange rings, schools and much more. However, of course, the highest visibility is gained in these international demonstrations, because they occur at events with thousands of journalists from all over the world.

Q: What do you think is a better solution to global issues if Leaders Summit Meetings such as G8 is not considered legitimate for determining global policy?

O.R.: That is a quite a difficult question without a simple answer. The globalized capitalist societies have such a deep political, economic and ecological crises that problems cannot be solved, for example, by simply enlarging the states that define the main shapes of this world from a group of 8 to let’s say 30 states. I think our societies have to be changed in a way that guarantees a much more direct involvement of people in decision-making processes in those aspects that influence their lives. And then, there must be various levels of international meetings, where democratically elected delegates (not representatives) from smaller communities work on shaping the principles of how international relations should be organized. I think the system of representative democracy completely failed; at least how it exists nowadays, which is corrupted through the interests of the economic and political elites.

Q: In your video work “What Would It Mean To Win?” you try to discuss the possibility of using the term “we” in a social movement. What is your attitude to those who have different ideas? Is there a possibility of democracy on a global scale?

O.R.: One exciting thing about participating in an art biennial is that many people from different backgrounds come together. I am very interested in presenting some viewpoints from the movement of the movements; for example, to an audience that is not familiar with these political ideas. In order to make such a movement more influential, it must become much bigger, so it is good to try different strategies to get allies in current and upcoming struggles. Still you have to define a precise border: people with nationalistic, sexist, racist or homophobic viewpoints have to be excluded from any progressive movement.
A real functioning democracy on a global scale would be an ideal thing, but I even doubt that those states usually called democracies are real functioning democracies. Therefore, it will be a long, long struggle until we reach democracy, be it on a national or on a global level.

Q: What is your wish for the New Year?

O.R.: I am not a big fan of wishes… If we want something, we have to fight for it, otherwise it will not happen. The progressive social movements urgently need to get much, much stronger in the next year. It hurts to see that while huge financial crises fundamentally challenge the continuation of business as usual, no strong movement exists to not only criticize or kindly ask governments, but also that would simply force them to reboot this whole corrupt system and to free the way for social movements seeking to create a new system from below. No movement is yet strong enough to hinder nation-states from socializing the financial losses of banks and insurance companies. Unfortunately, in the upcoming decades, all people will have to pay for private financial losses of gamblers.

Marko Stamenkovic: In his most recent project entitled ‘La Buena Vida’ (The Good Life), a New York-based artist Carlos Motta (born 1978 in Colombia) developed a set of interviews that he filmed in the last few years across Latin America. In an attempt to investigate and construct the public opinion on the idea of freedom across the continent of his own origin, Motta travelled to twelve cities all over Latin America during the three-year period (2005-2008): the result of such a nomadic approach is the variety of perceptions on democratic ways of government, as expressed by the citizens – being different by their various professional backgrounds and social statuses. All of them are united at least at one point of concern, that has been fundamental for Motta’s project: they are the subjects belonging to a common territory (of Latin America), whose experience of life has been shaped under the constant interventionist pressures by the United States. In that regard, and instead of giving any direct answer to your question, please let me draw your attention to a statement as formulated in one of the interviews in the project, so I quote it here in the following way: “For Democracy there must be Love”.
Once I heard this sentence, it brought me immediately back to Derrida’s way of thinking: in one of his seminal works about the concept of democracy (The Politics of Friendship), Jacques Derrida approaches the issue of friendship in its analogy with politics. Being aware of the difference between the (apparently marginal) status of friendship in the hierarchy of fundamental political concepts (such as government, sovereignty, or citizenship), Derrida draws back to Montaigne and Aristotle in order to introduce – in a proper way – the figure of the friend onto the contemporary intellectual stage: for him, friendship plays ‘an organising role in the definition of justice, of the political experience, of democracy even.’ This is why, in his addressing of political questions, the concept of friendship has been granted a privilege. And this is also why I want to believe that in the current constellation of powers, the social relations (being always dependent upon many different sources of influence, including the neoliberal economic logic, as you have properly noticed) need to maintain the power of resistance. And this power comes only as a result of hospitality, where the concept of solidarity and mutual accommodation of each others’ viewpoints, long-term trust and sharing of common beliefs and ideals, participate in the processes of silent, but never-ending (either physical or virtual) construction of powers.

Marco Baravalle: Setting a value to social relationships is one of the distinctive characteristics of current capitalism: to it we associate giving value to knowledge, languages, feelings and creativity. Contemporary art is based upon these elements, and one of its priorities could be that of reflecting on the theme of the greediness of capital towards social relationships. It is not a matter of democracy (a term that seems to be getting emptier and emptier in the current crisis panorama, and in need to be refilled with meaning), but it’s about the possibility for art to subvert its production relationships when – as I gather from your question – it shares its own instruments with what we generally address to as cognitive work. The interlocking between contemporary art and cognitive work seems to be not only a viable alternative, but a full of potential one.

Elvira Vannini: I recall two quotes from Godard’s films. The first from ‘Made in U.S.A.’, where Anna Karina says “I have no words to say how much I hate the police”, and the second one from ‘British Sound’, where “more strike, more strike” is often repeated. Is it possible to live in a world of non-parallelisms to gain freedom, despite knowing that democracy is based on parallelisms?

Marco Scotini: Our democracies are rather bizarre objects. Their most ordinary forms are the militarization of the police, the gated communities, the bulletproof cars, the autovelox placed at every second kilometer, the surveillance cameras every square meter, the more and more technologically improved biometric devices of control. As Hobsbawm recently stated, it is a world where the economy, instead of being a provider of mutual services, it is more and more a system of reciprocal inspections. Perhaps only a Martian could see this society as “democratic”.
Let me recall a recent example. Not by chance, it is an example taken from the art system. Hans Ulrich Obrist – for Frieze Art Fair – called upon a series of great artists and intellectuals for a two days Manifesto Marathon, and invited them to rethink the tradition of the modernist manifesto. I mean that tradition which includes even Marx and Engels in its founders. All of this opposite the Serpentine Gallery, under a glass and wooden temporary pavilion, open on all sides – as designed by Frank Gehry – and surrounded by large numbers of bodyguards. The event was far from being a picket of artists and theorists. Rather, it was just another example of security device, of the art’s rule, staged by the new alliance between culture and market!! I believe that only today we can carry on naming ‘democracy’ this progressive convergence of modern democracies and totalitarian states, not by chance, from the biopolitical grounds of contemporary sovereignty, and the fact that the capitalist production sphere has by now extended from the ‘working time’ to the ‘living time’: there is no imaginable outside, no possible exterior. Once Lazzarato affirmed that until 1968 the work was the form of exploitation and surveillance; communication and language assume the same form for today’s capitalism. Thus, the production and circulation of images play a big role in all of this. I would like to add that this role could eventually transform into a freeing function, producing subjectivity. We must agree on what this role can be, though.

Marko Stamenkovic: A Flemish friend of mine told me once (while we were discussing the very same subject somewhere in Antwerp earlier this year): “Don’t be so naïve – resistance is only a word, a phrase on a T-shirt”. I got mad, of course… although I must admit I understand his point of view. But still, let me answer to you: it IS possible to live in such a world – otherwise you could have never posed such a question, and I would have never been able to give you this answer, I guess. The powers I mentioned before are those that belong to the multiplicity of subjects involved in the common efforts (sometimes even without knowing each other, they are capable of recognizing each other); they are the powers taking place at the multiplicity of geopolitical points around the globe, simultaneously and with the same fervor NOT to accept the given, NOT to subscribe to the dominant order (without having a voice to put it explicitly into question), NOT to pretend and NOT to forget. And, of course, NOT to allow oneself to be easily appropriated, ‘adjusted’ and consumed. For me, it is the question of constant nomadism (here understood as a way of being critically engaged with the multiplicity of subjects, places and contexts around the world, as opposed to the ways of being a mere “cosmopolite” urban dweller and traveller, or even worse – a cultural tourist) and also the question of multiplicity (and multi-layered, polyvalent, hyper-engagement on a daily basis), that produce the possibilities for change, within our own fields of interest and our own ways of being – either secluded or extremely open, from time to time, but always persistently present (as even the absence of presence – the shadows, so to say -reveals the power of Potentiality, in Agamben’s terms, for example).

Elvira Vannini: As part of your artist’s practice you organise ‘theme-specific’ exhibitions, with interventions in the public space. You work across a variety of media (video, documentary, inquiries) criticizing capitalist systems and neo-liberal economies, while creating platforms for resistance and offering social alternatives, together with the anti-globalisation movements. If the cultural activities reflect the dominant economic system, is this the right time for an alternative? What’s your point of view on democracy, and how does your art practice intersect it?

Oliver Ressler: Nowadays it is not very special or radical anymore to say that the system of parliamentary democracy does not work in a way that it guarantees a fair involvement in democratic decision-making processes for the masses. It is rather working in favour of the political and economic elites and guarantees that the existing power-relationships and the unfair distribution of wealth are not being questioned. In my opinion, it is essential for progressive political movements not only to criticize the existing capitalist system, but to concentrate on visions for alternatives as well. Even when unfortunately in Europe the progressive social movements are far away from being strong enough to achieve a systemic change, I think at this point it is still very important to discuss different possibilities of how a non-capitalist economy and a more democratic society could be organized. In my project Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies I try to create a kind of archive installation, in which a variety of interesting models and theories for a radical systemic change can be listened to. As the people in their struggles will at some point in the future have to decide through which institutions and structures they would like to replace the capitalist order, it is important for me to present a variety of different concepts and models in my non-hierarchical archive. In the exhibition people get the possibility to choose among several different concepts according to their interests, combine them and make something new on the basis of this new knowledge, and are not being lead to one particular concept, which I chose for them.

Elvira Vannini: The relationship between art practices, resistance movements and activism entails, at a radical level, the production of dissent as a new form of political representation. How can an artist (or a curator) play an active role in the society and in the cultural debate, how can he produce new forms of subjectivity, new leaderships, instances of resistance, and activism? Do you think the definition of a possible space for dissent, and for the initiative of those movements criticizing the economic globalisation, could be achievable? Which is the relationship between artistic practices and social transformation processes? Could you tell me, please, about your experiences?

Marco Scotini: I believe the ‘artist’ has its own radical responsibility. It is amusing to think of a cynical artist, who, for self-defence, follows the commercialization creed despite being aware of its ideological nature. I think this type of artist – a now widespread product of the Eighties – is fundamentally pathetic, as much as those who shield artists from the market, even knowing that the market’s capitalistic economy is extended to all fields, none excluded. It is manifest how both positions intend to protect an archaic version of the artist that no longer can be valid: it would be only a capitalistic mystification of character. I am convinced that nowadays we should no longer talk about the ‘artist’, but think of a collective ‘artistic function’, well familiar to those working on the boundary between art and contemporary activism. Refusing the role of expert, the artist becomes a sort of catalyst, not offering technical solutions, but pointing out the possible way to find them. This constant call to self-organisation, to individual activities, to auto-representation, should now be read in this sense. A sense meeting – in the Foucaultian acception – the production of subjectivities in an era of biopowers, as ours is. It is no longer a matter of creating alternative realities – as Adorno could have thought, when an ‘outside’ was still possible – but production processes alternative per se. A large number of these artists or activists aim to transform the spectators in producers, and to break the existing barrier between the expert creating culture and its passive consumer. At this point, we could observe that Agamben refers also to this, when talking about the ‘desecration of devices’. So, it is not entirely erroneous to think of the ordinary man – of the new subjectivity – as a ‘potential terrorist’ for sovereignty.

Marco Baravalle: There is a multitude of possible answers to this question. My experience is, especially now, strongly connected to the Venetian space S.a.l.e.-Docks: a space entirely dedicated to contemporary art, but started by a group of people with experience in community centres. An experience that we haven’t dismissed: S.a.l.e. is, in fact, part of a network of social spaces, extremely varied in their nature. This offers us a complexity degree still missing in all those spaces that, despite being extremely lively, concentrate their activities only in the artistic or cultural field. This allows to interlock – it is not by chance I am using this word again – our specificity of artistic space at work with the battles and discourses of subjects different from us, but propelled by the same need to create free and communal spaces within the metropolis.

Elvira Vannini: In 2001 you participated in a rally against the World Economic Forum in Salzburg. In the video “This is what democracy looks like!” (2002), you show how this demonstration was stopped by the police, the demonstrators cordoned off, held captive and how the whole event was being manipulated not only by the media, but also by the police and politicians. A critique to globalised capitalism and false democracies, a lucid insight into human right’s violations, collective action and participative phenomena, spontaneously grown out and self-arranged on an international level. A similar critique applies also to your last film, “What Would It Mean To Win?” (2008, with Zanny Begg) on the protests against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm (and earlier “Disobbedienti” with Dario Azzellini in 2002). Marco Scotini talks of a “grey area” between art and politics, moving within which means exposure and activism. In such cases, which are the relationships between art and activism in a perspective of political militancy? Are they interchangeable? How does an artist express himself, and how can he play an active role in the debate about society and in the critical discourse?

Oliver Ressler: I believe it makes a lot sense as an artist to focus on diverse activist practices, for the field of activism and for the field of art. Artist’s videos dealing with activist matters might add some interesting levels of reflection, could be used to address people who are not part of the inner circle of activism, and can inspire and mobilize people in other regions. Activists all over the world frequently present my videos for these or other reasons. The videos also make sense for the field of art, because they politicise it and expand it towards the borders of activisms. My hope is that the reason for the inclusion of political art works in major exhibitions has less to do with the continuous wish of the art system to absorb new things in order to renew itself and legitimize itself through this tendency, than that the majority of those curators who invite political art projects really see the potential to use the space of art as a space for a political debate and action. Therefore I am not so much interested in defining the distinctions between art and activism, but in making a small contribution to dissolve these borders.

Elvira Vannini: Deconstructing histories, politics, institutional historic and artistic narrations: which is the regime of visibility for a so-called ‘political’ exhibition, for example what does Disobedience tell us about how art shows itself nowadays?

Marco Scotini: I believe to think of an art exhibition today with such assumptions means to create platforms for a kaleidoscope of interventions, not recognisable even within the modern genealogy of art. While conjuring a multitude of possible formats, I am convinced contingency, and a precarious arrangement of an archive, could represent one of these platforms. From this point of view we can also understand the deconstruction of the neutrality of the exhibition space, and the narrations accompanying it, as well as the discursive spaces that founded it. Now we have to think of the image as ‘constituent image’, an heterogeneity of images slotting in the corporate media, cropping out from all the fields power penetrates into, beyond any juridical model of known sovereignty. There is a continuous and growing proliferation of this type of images that do not want to be counter-information, do not intend to deconstruct the mainstream imagery, but operate on a different level, intervening directly in the process of auto-production and auto-circulation of the images. The current exhibition should give voice to this pluralism of practices. ‘Disobedience’ is an attempt in this direction.

Elvira Vannini: In the discourse on production systems connected to post-fordist capitalism, Lazzarato locates the potentiality of some artistic practices for the deconstruction of the art system: the means of declaration and distribution of specific roles (the artist, the work, the curator, the viewer) and of the infrastructure of governance (museums, festivals, biennials) that reimpose the concept of property in art (borrowed from processes of capitalistic development). Which is the action field to undermine these power dynamics? In a perspective of political militancy, how can art and activism interweave?

Marco Baravalle: Maurizio Lazzarato highlights a peculiarity in the artistic field. In art, he states, the distribution of specific roles and the governance infrastructure (intended as the molar dimension, according to a definition he borrows from Deleuze and Guattari) are useful elements towards the capitalistic development processes of art itself. This molar dimension should oppose to the molecular one, or the capability of a piece of work, an artist, a critical discourse, to generate new subjectivity, to change the way the spectator looks at himself and at the world. A revolutionary power. You will note that, to clarify the concept of molecular dimension, I have decided to apply molar categories; this because – and here is the important intuition by Lazzarato – when talking about art, the molar dimension and the molecular one cannot be put in a dialectic relationship, as the first is not antithetic to the second, and viceversa. This means that the molecular level, despite remaining effective and maintaining, in the best cases, a truly revolutionary potential, could never mutate the production relationships in the artistic realm. Despite the readymade, the avant-garde, the conceptual, et cetera, art remains a field strongly linked to the concepts of propriety, collecting, luxury, status quo celebration. Which way out can we foresee on the basis of these considerations? It is hard to tell: certainly we are very far from roles disappearance and traditional devices. As I already mentioned before, I believe nowadays it is becoming more and more necessary to highlight similarities between the artist and the cognitive worker as a worker of the contemporary. In the past there has never been a parallel situation, with such a similarity in technologies and (social) instruments between the fields. The effort should be organising and producing political subjectivity out of this similarity. Without nostalgia or a return to the past.

Elvira Vannini: I would like to talk about the section “A World Where Many Worlds Fit” you curated for the Taipei Biennial 2008, which is dedicated to the movements against globalisation. The biennial curated by Vasif Kortun and Manray Hsu was centred on a thematic constellation in response to “the chaotic state of things in the age of globalisation”, examining the very concepts of resistance, neo-liberalism, frontiers and borders, divided countries, war situations, and so on. Thus, “A World Where Many Worlds Fit” is a political exhibition: in this case, what is the format of display? Could you talk about the project for Taipei?

Oliver Ressler: At the beginning of 2008 Vasif and Manray invited me to present some of my videos on the counter-globalization movement in the biennial exhibition, which give some insight into certain aspects of the movement. After a couple of Skype conversations Vasif and Manray expanded the original invitation and asked me to curate a section within the biennial, in which I could invite further artists dealing with the movement of the movements. I liked the idea from the very beginning on, developed a concept and finally chose twelve artists. As it is a global movement, which is in particular visible when the demonstrations or blockades at the summits of the G8, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or the WTO take place, I decided to focus on these events. The decisions made at these summits affect the lives of all people in the world, but still take place behind fences and thousands of police, that became a symbol for the undemocratic and illegitimate formation of global capitalism. The artists I invited focus on these events from an inner-perspective of the counter-globalization movement. The artists are usually activists themselves and consider themselves as part of the movement.
Through the art works the exhibition ‘A World Where Many Worlds Fit’ makes visible how the strategies of the global movement changed after 911 and the intense level of repression at the G8 summit in Genoa – both incidents took place in 2001 and affected a lot the appearance of the movement in the coming years. Till 2001 a quite masculine, militant concept of direct confrontation with the police seemed to predominate. The crowed tried to gain access into the red zones directly through the police lines. The tactics of resistance somehow became smarter and elaborated over the years. Pink blocks and clowns question these forms of male-dominated direct confrontation with the police, and as the activities against the G8 summits in Heiligendamm and (with less success) Gleneagles proofed, with elaborated, smart concepts such as the ‘five finger tactic’ it is still possible to achieve the same goal – namely to block a summit and create a symbol for the illegitimacy through it.

From: Around Photography 14, 2008

My name is Alain Dalotel. As a historian, I work in the field of social history with a special interest in all the questions related to ruptures: wars, revolutions, strikes, feminism, which also implies ruptures, and, in particular, the Commune. By the way, this is the latest book I’ve written on this subject, about André Léo, a manuscript which was used for the making of Peter Watkins’ film La Commune de Paris.

We are now in front of the Fédéré wall, where a number of Communards are buried.

The question of the origins of La Commune is always a subject of debate. Some think that it was born out of a set of circumstances: the war of 1870 opposing the Second Empire and Prussia. Others find answers in the revolutionary movement which was very important, since the First International had already been founded in 1864 in London, by Karl Marx and others. Also, a very strong revolutionary movement builds up in Paris during the last years of the Empire as this liberal Empire had authorized public meetings. Various revolutionary groups then managed to take control of this free public speech, well before the Commune, since these thousands of public meetings took place from 1868 to 1870. Then, the war broke out, and this movement of democratic and free speech continued throughout the Paris Siege with the birth of the “Red Clubs” which were the direct descendants of the previous public meetings which had finally been banned.

There was an extraordinary democratic outburst during the siege affecting all types of individual liberties. But what made this siege special was that the population was armed in the National Guard, alongside the regular troops. Approximately 300,000 men were enlisted and armed with Chassepot rifles, guns, and cannons. This quickly led to popular uprisings since the so-called Government of National Defense was accused of treason and capitulation. So, here are some other causes. Some causes are military; others are social… or revolutionary. The situation rapidly deteriorated under a very harsh siege which led to widespread destitution… and especially to the humiliation of this capitulation which took place at the end of January 1871. That’s when a new organization is created: the Federation of the National Guard, which will lead to a new uprising, the 18th of March 1871.

The Commune starts on the 18th of March 1871, the day when the power is seized by the Fédérés (the National Guard) and Blanquist groups, and ends on the 28th of May 1871: 72 days for a revolution is a very short time indeed. The Commune passed a certain number of social measures, which were all geared towards the same generous aim. Towards children, etc., measures taken in favor of wage increases, they were all in the same vein. The most interesting social measure and the one, which most frightened the bourgeoisie, was the decree taken on the 16th of April concerning the workshops abandoned by the employers. These workshops were supposed to be handed over to the workers’ trade union committees. This really scared people, it is the truly socialist measure adopted by the Commune. It explains the strength of the repression, which will follow. On the other hand, one must remember that this is a time of civil war. Some trade unionists who are fighting in the ranks of the Fédérés are against the establishment of socialism because they believe the time is not ripe. What matters for them is the fight against Versailles. Don’t forget, that the fighting is taking place to the west of Paris, just outside the ramparts, against a Versailles army, which is rapidly building up its strength with, after a while, the help of Prussia.

The Commune is associated with the idea of direct democracy.

So what does that mean?

At the time, there were numerous elections, everywhere and all the time, almost too many. For all kind of reasons, inside the National Guard, for example, to dismiss the leaders who are deemed unpopular, etc. This direct democracy is linked to the instantly revocable mandate. That is the central idea: an imperatival mandate. A program is defined and then someone is sent to defend it; if he doesn’t do just that, he’s liable to be dismissed, as I was saying earlier. Having said this, elections took place on the 26th of March; which brought to power at the Town Hall a certain number of revolutionaries. Those who weren’t elected, left quite quickly. Then the debates started. We speak of debates but more often it was just shouting abuse. They would just shout at each other for weeks and weeks. Furthermore, it appears that these elected members had a difficult relationship with the neighborhood people, who would very often fume against their flabbiness. Very quickly the people become angry, they invade churches and organize “Red Clubs” where they come to present their own programs and list their criticisms. These types of relations make things more and more difficult. Towards the end of the Commune, it seems that there developed a complete divorce between the representatives and their constituency. This situation went as far as to lead some Communards towards suicide. So this direct democracy led to quite a dramatic situation towards the end. In any event, during the Commune no one obeys anyone.

One has to be very careful, although several people, along with Karl Marx, have stated that the Commune had abolished the state, I think that is not really the case. The Commune had a government, a weak one, which functioned through commissions and was called the Executive Commission. Later on, after the military setbacks, old models were sought like the Committee of Public Safety, two of which were set up but never functioned. So one has to be very careful, the Commune isn’t a lack of government; it’s a weak government. Weak because of discussions, conflicts, debates and no one knows exactly in which direction the Commune is going. Especially, there are the people down below who just don’t want to be governed. The word anarchist doesn’t exist or has a different meaning at the time. All the same, the Commune has a very strong libertarian aspect to it. As a matter of fact, Marx, in his pamphlet “Civil war in France”, presented an almost anarchistic picture, which was a slight distortion of the truth. Inside Town Hall, there was more tradition than most people think. And there was also a significant Jacobin element, which always advocates the need for a government and even of a dictatorship. And the debate between the majority and the minority showed that some people wanted to decide in the place of others. The only difference is that during the Commune, this doesn’t function anymore. That’s what is very new on a political level.

Most of the civil servants had fled to Versailles; for the postal services, for example, it was quite a big problem because everything had to be started from new. They had to find skilled people. The Commune was able to do all that and replace the people who’d left. The police force also left. Towards the end of the Empire and during the siege, the police were very unpopular. So it was totally unthinkable that a single cop might remain in Paris. To take this example, the Communards abolished the police. In fact, they renamed the police administration quarters, “the ex-police headquarters”. Constables and policemen were replaced by National Guards. They managed to find the necessary people to run the public services: sewage system, etc. However, that’s not a specifically revolutionary characteristic. One can only say that the Paris working class proved that it had the skills to run public affairs. But, once again, the most revolutionary aspect of the Commune cannot be found in this capacity for administration. They were capable of handling it, that’s true. But things had to move much further than that. All the same, the Commune tried its best to associate the working class to the administration of the city.

It has been said, by Marx, for example, that the Commune was the government of the working class. Engels spoke of dictatorship of the proletariat. For sure, the workers played a central role in this revolutionary episode. However, to think that the Commune gave place to generalized economic self-management is a bit far-fetched. The attempts, which had taken place during the Empire and the siege, to establish and develop cooperatives were pursued on a larger scale and in a more optimistic environment during the Commune. But the problem remained the same, that is to say the funding, which meant dealing with the banks. Furthermore, not all the economy was run on a socialist basis during the Commune, far from it. A certain number of employers or contractors stayed in Paris. The big bosses fled to Versailles as well as the main financial players. All the same, many people from the Bank of France stayed put and got along rather well with several elected members of the Commune, for example, Charles Beslay. The Bank of France was indeed threatened by some revolutionary battalions, but the Communards never took over the Bank. That would probably have happened had the Commune lasted a bit longer. In any case, the bank was safeguarded.

In terms of economy, what was needed was a wartime economy, since we were in the middle of a civil war. Therefore, a certain number of contracts were renewed with the existing employers and contractors. A certain number of important examples of self-management did take place in certain workshops like in the Louvre or in certain neighborhoods where abandoned workshops had been seized. Trade unionists and internationalists worked hard to run these self-managed businesses in a radically democratic environment, which was not always very productive. We know from Avrial who was an elected member for the 11th district, who had told Rossel, a military officer who had rallied the Commune, that it was very difficult to make this new socialist economy function. One reason it didn’t function that well was also that there was a very big debate around this issue. I wrote an article in a popular magazine, and gave it the title “The Cooperative Trap”. This issue was indeed the heart of a very harsh debate between the revolutionaries who wanted to start by taking political power, seize the political arena, and then provoke a socialist revolution and those who thought it was possible to gradually gain ground using the arena of economic revolution by developing these cooperatives. But the financial problem remains and also the question of organization. What’s more these cooperatives were denounced by some revolutionaries as recreating exploitative links between the real cooperative workers and auxiliaries who were generally younger and not given the same wages. So this was a real debate, which actually lasted all through the twentieth century, and goes on today. One could organize a seminar called “the difficulties of self-management” or the degree of phantasm in self-management.

One of the most interesting characteristics of the Commune is the development of a vast women’s movement. For some reason or another, the women were involved. One historic defeat – which was best forgotten – was that of the French revolution where the woman’s movement had been eliminated by the Jacobins. Once more, we see women rise up during the Commune, in the midst of a relatively macho revolutionary world. We talked about the soldiers; well, they didn’t like the idea of women asking to participate in the armed struggle against Versailles. They finally didn’t receive weapons, at least some of them, until the days of the bloody week to defend Montmartre. Which was quite an incredible thing to do, since they asked a group of only 50 women to save the Commune by defending Montmartre, which was the symbol and birthplace of the Commune. So they put up barricades, and along with the men they fire on the enemy. Some die and others are massacred. Some managed to survive and bear witness.

After the fall of the Commune or its “failure”, the revolutionary movement followed a different path and logic: to establish an organized party of the working class. This leads towards the Bolshevik party… and others. The commune, which hasn’t been forgotten, becomes a negative reference: Don’t do what they did. And now that all these parties and countries have failed to establish socialism and that the Berlin wall is down, once more people from all over the world look towards this Paris Commune to try and find its secrets. What made its strength, what were its weaknesses? Well, its strength is part of its weaknesses and its weaknesses are part of its strength: Direct democracy, this way of speaking out, and taking time for debate. In the light of the current events – they were in the middle of a civil war – the time wasn’t necessarily best suited to organize debates and quarrels. But this also means that we dream of a Commune that never existed. On a military level, things were of course very complicated, since neither the elected members of the Commune nor the officers of the National Guard obeyed. The “Ministers” or war delegates were completely ignored. In fact, a whole series of those officials fell one after the other. So, it must be said that the Communards were totally opposed to all forms of hierarchy. Even when they did nominate leaders, it was only to be able to disobey them. So, here again we find this libertarian element, even if the word didn’t exist at the time, which characterizes the Commune and makes it very specific. It remains a reference today; as on the one side, socialism is disintegrating or has disintegrated in the East, and, on the other, neo-liberalism doesn’t work. So what should be done? Well, let’s study the Commune, that’s the best way to identify the value of those ideas and the way to put them into practice.

The Commune has simultaneously been a negative and a positive reference. As the revolutionary movement took another path, the only heritage was that of the actual armed seizure of political power by the Commune. That was true for the Bolsheviks, as well as for the Spartacists, and all other revolutionary movements, even if there aren’t that many left nowadays. The Commune has always been remembered in a commemorative way. It also had other aspects, a purely patriotic one. The Commune wasn’t used as a model and quite soon even the French workers’ movement and event anarchist groups distanced themselves from this model. There would no longer be any insurrections in France. We did have direct action by anarchist groups who did things like throwing bombs in various places. But, on a more general level, the strategy adopted by the workers’ movement will be the weapon of the general strike even among the libertarians, since they were the ones to establish the main trade unions like the CGT. So, the Commune remained something quite sympathetic but globally negative. Nowadays, things have really changed, as there are more and more people who are really interested in the Commune. One thing for certain is that this wall of the Fédérés has seen all sorts of things. All the world’s revolutionary movements have come to this place of pilgrimage. I once met a Chinese man from Shanghai who told me about the proletarian Cultural Revolution. He knew about the Commune. He said that in Chinese schools the Commune was taught even though it was totally unknown here in France because it was illegal to bring that subject up in schools.

From whatever angle you prefer to take it: The Commune is, first of all, an armed revolution. So, in terms of the means, it’s already very specific. A Communard newspaper once stated: “Every citizen is a soldier”. That’s the basic idea of the Fédération; you can’t enjoy full citizenship if you are not armed. And that’s a big difference compared to the current situation in our societies where the people are defenseless against the state. One thing that must really be stressed is that the Paris Commune of 1871 is a direct democracy and this particular direct democracy has nothing to do with participatory democracy. The Commune is not about reforming the public services; it’s about changing society, not adapting it. In 1871, people want revolution and think they have the capacity to make it happen with guns and cannons.

André Léo (alias Léonide Champseix), who was one of the most important women of the Commune, probably more important than her friend Louise Michel, wrote a very good article in her review La Sociale called “The Soldiers of Ideas”. First and foremost, that’s what the Commune is about: people speaking out, discussing issues and debating about the revolutionary utopia. Because resistance can’t exist without utopia; lest it fall into the trap of near-sighted nationalism. Revolutionary socialism and communism as a whole, even in its libertarian tendencies, is built on a corpus of ideas and especially on debate. And if the Commune is able to teach us anything, it would be that we must get together, discuss, debate and when possible, unite.

My name is Salomé Moltó. Since 1977, I have been a member of the national confederation of workers. I still work for the trade union today and I am in charge of different areas.

On 14 April 1931, Spain was proclaimed a Republic. The king stepped down and society began to form itself differently from what the Spanish people had been used to. There was a period of right-wing government followed by a leftist government; the former was referred to as the “two black years,” a two-year period in which the right wing governed. In 1936, when the Spanish voted for the Frente Popular, the left-wingers returned to the government, triggering off military revolts and uprisings, which began on 18 July 1936. At first the economy was quite fair, but afterwards the right wing boycotted the whole economy and only rarely participated in economic investments. Consequently, the factories were not working at full capacity and there was an enormous reduction in the economy as the population worked less and earned less. This process began in 1936, when the Frente Popular took over the government. This was the Republic of the Left Wing as we call it, yet the population continued to be in quite a depressed situation.

In 1984, I did a study on workers’ collectives and nationalization in Alcoy. This book explains what I studied because it was a journalistic matter, whereby I interviewed many different people to know exactly what their experiences reveal. On 18 July, a general strike was called and a controlling commission was established. The controlling commission was organized by the trade union CNT holding the majority in Alcoy and by the OGT, which participated as well. Although in terms of percentages, its participation was far lower, it was also part of what was called “The Control.” The Control was a type of committee in which all trade unions were united and which took charge of the economy. What did they do? They nationalized transport, and the metal, textiles and paper industries. It was in this building, which is emblematic of that time, that paper was produced. From that moment on, the Control governed Alcoy.

What happened to the economy? The collective reunited the whole transport system, even hair salons, banks, that is to say everyone had a job and received 10 Pesetas per day. It was the same as a soldier would receive if he voluntarily participated in the war to stop the fascist movement. Alcoy experienced a very dramatic moment because there were barracks full of soldiers. The soldiers were the sons of the men who were in front of the barracks waiting for the decision of the armed forces: whether they would support the fascist rebellion or if the nation would form an alliance. After long negotiations, the barracks opened their doors and fathers and sons could embrace each other. Without a doubt it would have been a dramatic situation if there had been bloodshed. Alcoy remained a Republic and a great number of volunteers united to fight and stop fascism in Alcoy.

In Spain, there were many national formations. Catalonia was nearly completely nationalized, also many provinces of Aragon and, in particular, Alcoy. Alcoy was emblematic because of the way in which the communist party had brought about the downfall of the collectives; in Alcoy, they could not do it. They ordered the SIM, which was a task force of the military, to remove the collectives but they could not do it. First of all, they could not do it because the metalwork industry produced war material and they had to respect their war material or the people of Alcoy would have sabotaged the whole process. Second, there was the textile industry, which produced the military’s clothes. So how did they carry out nationalization? The controlling commission marched off to the Ministry of War in Madrid and asked for permission to make arms for the Republic. The ministry of war accepted their plea so the people of Alcoy could work 24 hours a day in eight-hour shifts. Everyone started to work; people even came from far away as there was a lack of workers due to the number of men who had left to fight at the front. So how did they carry out the nationalization? First, the system was divided into the jobs which were necessary to produce the things they wanted to produce. Workers received the same amount of money for simple jobs as for jobs which required more responsibility. I talked to someone who was affected by this, he was a technical worker in the production of bombs, and he told me that his boss, who was an engineer and the owner of the factory where he worked, had the same status as the other workers. So that’s how the work was structured.

The collectives in Alcoy were complete. They included all of the metalwork industry, the whole textile industry, the hair salons, the cafés, all of the banks, everything was united. Everyone did his/her job and the assembly determined what had to be done at a specific moment.

The economy, at that time, did not aim at personal enrichment. People simply had their salary, which was nearly the same as anyone else’s. From the bottom to the top, income could increase to a certain extent due to the fact that there was a war. Many people were day laborers earning ten Pesetas a day, which was a good income and stayed like that during the entire period. First, they made use of the stores to get hold of material and cover their needs. Second, there was a need for exchange. Alcoy, for instance, sent machines to produce oil or similar utensils to neighboring villages and received vegetables, meat, and other necessities in return.

No one was forced to join the collectives but everyone was eager to do so because it signified a higher income, your needs were covered and apart from that, if a system of that kind is afoot, it is not a small percentage of the population which supports it but 99 percent of the nation. One part of the patrons were either at the front, had disappeared or had stayed at home. The CNT went to their homes and gave them an identity card and a job. As far as repression was concerned, they did some crazy things with regard to personal affairs; but, in general, there was no bloodshed in Alcoy. There was only one incident where a man, who the day before had been the manager of a firm, was given a different job in the same firm.

What is important is how those people organized themselves. First of all, taking responsibility for the firm, they decided what the firm produced: Whether the firm produced war material or machines – before war material, Alcoy had produced wine presses and oil presses, which they had sold abroad. There was a complete change. The firms would not produce oil anymore, so Alcoy stopped producing presses and instead started making war material. What united the people was the order. They were asked to produce a certain amount of a material; for example, buses or grenades. They would all work and rebuild the machines so that they could carry out the order. Everyone had to take responsibility for their specific job. What was unusual about those jobs was that they were not permanent, but each person was directed or directed someone else. Usually when you got to work, they asked you to volunteer for a job. If nobody volunteered, they were urged to take responsibility. However, those posts were revocable at any time. If a worker did not fulfill expectations, he or she immediately left the post and started to work in a new post. Consequently, workers were versatile; they could work in any position and that was important. They were able to work on the milling machine as well as adjust things or work as a packer. That way the workers did not concentrate only on their specific job but were also prepared to learn new functions in order to produce the desired goods.

If you compare our present-day society to the one I have studied, it becomes apparent that there is a big difference. First, the value ascribed to a person has changed. Nowadays we have some specialists but the majority of the people are proletarianized. In other words, workers are automated. They understand neither why they are doing something nor the mechanism which lies behind it. In former times, workers not only understood their own jobs but also their colleagues’ jobs. Consequently, they could switch their jobs at any time and occupy different posts without any difficulties. This was the structure at that time. In regard to difficulties, there are always some people who are opponents and people who cooperate with each other. But if a person knows about the importance of their work, they will automatically take on an opponent and collaborate; so that in the end, the result of the joint effort is positive. I think that this was a type of strength, which gained acceptance with those men – to know that the work of each person was important and necessary to achieve the common goal.

One very important thing was that every section of the controlling commission had significant representation and the responsibility to administer the whole of society. There was the metalwork industry which produced war material, the textile industry and the paper industry. This building was emblematic with its offices on top and, on the ground floor, the workrooms for the production of paper, for instance, the famous cigarette paper “Bambú.” I think that everyone has heard of “Bambú.” What is important is that, they not only maintained the factory for the three years of war, providing them with food; but, at the end of the war, they had a profit of 5,000 million Pesetas in the bank. This is significant. Moreover, all of the workrooms were completely renovated and the machines were in perfect order. When the patrons returned to their firms, they had a hard time closing the doors of the safes because the banknotes were pressed so tightly against them.

The situation for women changed a little bit. At that time, women had a secondary position. It was through this revolution that women realized their situation; they became more independent and more active, not only in the factories where arms were produced, but also in other collectives such as administration or nurseries. A radical change commenced with great intent. At that time, Frederica Montseny was the health minister. Women obtained the right of divorce and abortion and they carried out many projects to eliminate the enormous disadvantages women had experienced until that time. It was through war that the situation of women changed; because, before that, the Republic had not cared much about them.

For me, the most important factors in an alternative society are solidarity, equality, and mutual respect. This clearly would put an end to rivalry and it would contrast the belief that every single person regards him/herself to be more important and talented than the rest. We are multifold and diverse and this diversity has to be consolidated in support, solidarity, and mutual respect. If not, living together in society becomes virtually unbearable. In reality, life continues to be defined by egoism and thus we have the results we have. In a society defined by solidarity, a person who has the ability to do something can help someone who has difficulties fulfilling a task and thus they express their solidarity. This would steadily lead to the elimination of egoism, envy, and restlessness, which dominate society today, make us confront each other and result in people violently destroying each other. I count on a society which is peaceful, progressive, and respectful.

How would we structure a new society, an anarchist society? First of all, the most important element is to analyze the territory, the climate, what it can produce and the number of people this region can maintain. For the administration of this region and what it is able to produce, those men and women who live in a specific region need to know how to manage themselves, not only to create wealth but also how to manage it. Politically speaking, there would be federations, regions that would be united. The trade union is organized in the following way: Each scope of work is divided into sections and each section occupies and is responsible for their field. This way, each region would really have to take responsibility for their reality and their problems, which they would have to solve. If they were not able to deal with their problems, they would have to ask another region for help in order to get over their crisis. In this way, every region could compensate for the shortages they have.

It is true that the period we have looked at – the period from 1936 until 1939 – was a very violent period because we were at war. But the people who were in charge of the collectives were not violent. They carried out the collectives without violence, thus demonstrating that with good organization and with moral and ethical values and solidarity it is possible to achieve the same or even more than with weapons. I would say that you can achieve much more. This is my opinion. So that a small group, which gets together, is able to have the same rights, the same obligations and the same solidarity between each other. That is what this society is trying to destroy, not only the human being, but also the human being within a social group.

Yugoslavian self-management was a modern system in its time. It was a hybrid of various forms of economic organization. It was not planned socialism like in the Soviet Union, but also not a pure market economy. It was something in between. Yugoslavian socialism was an economy with social property, but also many other forms of property. This system was very popular in its era, not only among the left, but also among the other political powers. There were quite diverse organizational elements. In Yugoslavia there was a relatively strict cadre administration, a party cadre administration, on the one hand, but on the other, direct democracy, especially in factories: on the one hand, party control – on the other, worker control. Naturally, they were not always opposed to one another, as the ruling party and the worker shared the same ideology; that was the communist, the left ideology. But there were several conflicts between these powers.

The real, direct democracy took place only at the lower levels. This is where there was actually a democracy, where everyone participated in decision-making. But like all other communist countries, there wasn’t much democracy at the upper levels. It was a hard cadre party that controlled this direct democracy down below. That was one way it was a mixture. The other was the mixture between planned and market economies. Especially after 1965, there was a relatively liberalized market economy in Yugoslavia. That was an answer to the Soviet Union. The entire ideology of Yugoslavia’s self-management was a kind of third way, which the Yugoslavian socialist functionaries constantly emphasized. It was not planned socialism but also not capitalism. We are between these opposites; we are not an extreme; we are a true self-governed democracy. And this ideology of the third way also enabled a very flexible foreign policy, which was of concrete benefit in the East and also the West.

The decisions in the production plants were made independently; the workers’ councils were sovereign. But, on the other hand, they were under the auspices of the ruling party. One should differentiate several issues, those where the workers’ councils were sovereign, and the others, where they were dependent on the decrees from above. In the distribution of income in the firms, the workers’ councils – in which all workers were present, not only the skilled ones – were sovereign in their decisions: How much income should be distributed? How much should be put aside for other purposes? Etc. But, in the production plants, there were also several expert questions, where the worker controls were not sovereign. These were the purely technical questions, engineering issues, technology, etc. There, the experts were sovereign. It is possible to say that there were three areas: one concerning the questions for experts, a second area for the distribution issues within the plant, and the third area was the cadre question. There, the party committee always decided, and there were no sovereign decisions from the workers’ councils. You could say that it was a multi-layered and mixed direct democracy.

But compared with the state of present Yugoslavia, for example, where a type of wild capitalism reigns, it was a relatively well-functioning democracy. The working class and the poor people had a type of sovereign right, which they do not have today. One cannot reject Yugoslavian self-management, as a whole, as totalitarianism. But one must also not romanticize this issue of socialism. The truth lies somewhere in between, like in all other areas. The truth lies between two extremes: It was a one-party system, but we also had direct democracy at the lower levels. At the worker level, for example, workers couldn’t lose their jobs without the workers’ council being activated. The director couldn’t make the decision alone. The workers’ council, in which the common workers were present, decided whether or not a worker was good. Today, only decrees are valid. Also, in other social issues, such as apartments, vacations, and distribution of income, the workers’ councils were sovereign.

Naturally there were many problems. Here I want to speak only about a few structural problems. The Yugoslavian system of self-management arose in a relatively underdeveloped Balkan state. That was mainly relevant for the work force. There was a very underdeveloped rural populace in the 1950s when self-management began. First, it was necessary to create a modern working class, which was not so simple because many workers were tied to their villages. The farmers had to work in industry. This was a key problem, but it was not only related to an industrial culture, but also an immature political culture. The Balkan area was burdened by war and dictators; and, we did not have a long tradition of political culture. That was also very important for self-management. It is logical that self-management can function only in a cultural environment. Without culture, without education, without schools, without qualifications, there is no self-management. The second problem that I mentioned was the contrast between direct democracy and the control by the cadre: this inner cleft between party control and the workers’ striving to create their own space of democracy. And the third, important, structural problem was the contrast in Yugoslavia between the rich and the poor areas, the rich and the poor republics, which later became the rich and poor nations. Since the beginning of the 1960s, a latent struggle between the rich and the poor has taken place. Tito had to constantly arbitrate between rich and poor. It was about a battle for the distribution of the federal income. This structural contradiction impeded the functioning of Yugoslavian self-management.

In my opinion, Yugoslavian self-management was most developed in Slovenia, our most developed Republic. In Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, where ancient tribal structures ruled, there could never be true self-management and democracy. It is necessary to know that previously, Yugoslavia was a federal state with very diverse areas. There were differences in the cultural, confessional, and also in the industrial level of development. It was very difficult to coordinate all of that. But, it was possible; it worked for almost forty years. Also, Tito was very important for that in his role as leader of such a contradictory, explosive state.

Yugoslavian self-management was a social as well as a national laboratory. In a social sense, it was an experiment in which many groups of ideas were influential: the legacy of the Paris Commune, the legacy of Serbian social democracy at the end of the nineteenth century, the legacy of anarchy, which was later very important for the critique of Stalinism. These anarchistic and some Trotskian elements were components of the ideology of Tito’s party, because they were useful in critiquing Stalinism. On the other hand, as I said, the system of Yugoslavian self-management was also a national, and even a transnational laboratory. That was a regime where very different nations had lived in peace, where a transnational economy functioned, where a transnational leader was very popular – from Macedonia to Slovenia. Tito’s charisma, although he was authoritarian, also had a clearly cosmopolitan function. I once compared it with the Alexander the Great’s charisma: He was an authoritative leader, but he united many diverse peoples. That also holds true for Tito. I also want to say that it is important to consider this history of Yugoslavian self-management from an extreme perspective. It is necessary for us to keep our eyes open to the past and then judge just how authoritarian this system was. It was an enlightened, authoritarian, direct democracy – although these terms might sound very contradictory at first glance. But my opinion is that everything was very contradictory. It is impossible to grasp this state in unambiguous terms and categories.

That building opposite [Editor's note: of interview location] was the Central Committee of the Yugoslavian Communist Federation. The sessions took place there. This very beautiful modern building was built in the 1970s and bombed in 1999. It was quite ruined then. Later, a private businessman bought the building; he repaired the former Central Committee building and now wants to use it for private purposes. Here you can see a historical turning point. This square, on which the critique of capitalism was very strong, has developed into a commercial, capitalist square.

I think that self-management is an evergreen. It isn’t about mere romanticism, also not a type of totalitarian democracy like today’s liberals claim. In my opinion, it is a full democracy, which unfortunately, is impossible in today’s globalization. Similar to every other idea, self-management needs its era in which social contrasts are mature enough to create this type of democracy. This situation existed in Yugoslavia in the 1950s and 1960s, when the contrast between Stalinism and liberal capitalism was very strong. I don’t believe that the time is ripe today for a possible self-management in a globalized capitalism, where everything that is private is normalized.

My vision of a desirable society is also multifold. Every historical epoch creates its own desirable vision. In my opinion, that can never be wild capitalism. One must always have a mixture of various forms of property, and mainly, the peaceful coexistence of nationally and socially diverse societies. Without social peace, without national peace, which is something that we know very well on the Balkans, there are no visions, no utopias, and no mature critiques of what exists. Therefore, my vision is outside of today’s normalized capitalism.