![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/1.jpg\")
Detentions for anti-war actions by year, first half of 2025, according to OVD-Info.
\nAcross three decades, Russia has been at the forefront of the worldwide descent into authoritarianism. Vladimir Putin’s government has suppressed opposition in ways that aspiring autocrats like Donald Trump are still striving to emulate. Yet despite widespread repression, there is still resistance in Russia, and as Putin’s model proliferates, people everywhere around the world stand to benefit from learning about it. Likewise, we should support Russian anarchist and anti-war prisoners, both because resistance within Russia offers hope for the eventual end of war and totalitarianism and because, should autocrats consolidate power where we live, we will wish for people to support us, as well.
\n\nThe following text is based on a presentation Antti Rautiainen offered at the Baltic Anarchist Book Fair in Tartu on May 30, 2026. You can watch a video of the presentation here or listen to it via Spotify. The above photograph shows the consequences of an action carried out by the anarchist Ruslan Sidiki.
\n\nIn Russia, street protests against the war were crushed in 2022, the first year following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the human rights organization OVD Info, 18,901 arrests for anti-war protests in year 2022 were followed by 274 arrests in 2023, 41 arrests in 2022, and just 13 arrests in first half of the year 2025. The reason for this sharp decline was the “Ilya Dadin” law of 2014, according to which “repeated offenses in following the established organization of protests” across a period of 180 days can result a prison sentence of up to 5 years. Thousands of people were arrested once or twice for taking part in anti-war street activities in 2022 and received either a fine or a prison sentence of a few days—but few risked being arrested for a third time.
\n\n Detentions for anti-war actions by year, first half of 2025, according to OVD-Info.
\nRussian polls have been unreliable since spring 2022. After the criminalization of anti-war opinions, some polling companies reported that up to 60% of people queried refused to give answers. Before the polls became unreliable, 58-71% of Russians indicated a pro-war sentiment in various polls. However, opinions were intensely polarized between different groups. People in major cities were more anti-war than those in other locations; younger people were more anti-war, as were women. The greatest division was between people who watch television, the chief propaganda tool of the state, and people who do not watch it. Among people less than 30 years old who do not watch television, 80% were anti-war.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/2.jpg\")
\nThe general impression among critical Russians is that the majority of those in Russia still share a pro-war sentiment. However, a shift is visible even in officially tolerated opinion polls. According to polls by the Levada Center, over the past two years, the share of Russians supporting the continuation of the war effort has dropped from around 41% to around 28%, and share of those who support peace talks has grown from 51% to 62%. At the same time, the number of those who support making concessions to Ukraine is at 24%: people want peace, but on terms favorable to Russia.
\n\nOf course, this may simply reflect what people are willing to say to anonymous pollsters.
\n\nAnother difference is that now, people in small cities and rural localities are expressing more anti-war sentiment than those in major urban centers. Moscow is the most pro-war city. The likely explanation is that most of the frontline casualties are from small, peripheral communities.
\n\nWhy, after more than four years of war, with more than a million Russian soldiers wounded or dead, is anti-war sentiment still confined to a minority?
\n\nAs the saying goes, “It’s the economy, stupid.” During the first years of the war, salaries were growing even with high inflation rate. Starting in 2004, the Russian ruling class hoarded huge profits of the oil and gas trade in a fund currently known as the “National Wealth Fund.” Instead of raising the standard of living by investing in healthcare, social benefits and services, and the like, the money was stashed to be spent on wars and militarization. Now these billions are finally flowing into the economy in the form of wartime investment. The unemployment rate is negligible; in some cases, salaries have multiplied at factories in regions that were previously economically depressed. Generous monthly payments for contract soldiers are up to five times the average salary in poorer regions. At the same time, payments to widows and orphans are shifting the economy in the most destitute areas of the Russian federation, from which most of the enlisted soldiers come.
\n\nDuring the first months of 2026, the Russian economy contracted for the first time since the beginning of the war; but now, once again, it is on a growth trajectory, due to the oil price hike following the war in Iran. The Russian state budget is running on a deficit due to the costs of the war, but there are plenty of ways to solve that issue, such as tax increases, using what remains of the National Wealth Fund, cutting social spending and education, and forcing oligarchs to buy state obligations. The Russian economy will likely be able to sustain the war for several years yet, although the standard of living is stagnating now and drone strikes are causing increasing inconvenience.
\n\nAnother factor explaining Russian support for the war is the situation on the frontline. Russia’s advances have been very slow for years, but most weeks, Russia is still gaining more territory than it is losing. The traditional dream of socialists of all stripes is that soldiers will turn their rifles against the ruling class and finish the war. But throughout world history, this usually takes place in a situation in which a war has already been lost, as in Russia in February 1917 and Germany in November 1918. It is not certain that Russia will win this war, but as long as the chances are high, many people would like to be on the winning side.
\n\nThe third factor is that for a random person, the risk of ending up in the war remains low. The independent media project Mediazona, originally established by members of Pussy Riot, has been tracking Russian losses by monitoring social media and other sources, and they have been able dig up information about 239,000 dead at the front. Of these casualties, the service branch of 22.5% of the casualties is unknown. 36.7% are volunteers, 11% are inmates, 21.5% are contract soldiers, and only 8.3% are mobilized soldiers. Some of the volunteers, inmates, and contract soldiers have not signed their contracts voluntarily; inmates and conscripts are pressured to sign contracts. But the vast majority of them had a choice, and even those mobilized often had the option of not appearing in the enlistment office and leaving the country or dodging the draft by other means. Few people who have died in the front have genuinely used every means at their disposal to avoid this.
\n\nAlso, many of those who would otherwise have opposed the war have left Russia. The exodus that took place in 2022 involved up to 700,000 people. Many of them have returned due to the difficulties of life in emigration, but emigration is continuing.
\n\nAt the same time, the intensity of the repression targeting anti-war opinion is without precedent since the beginning of Perestroika in 1986.
\n\nYet there are still protests and social movements. Activatica is a project monitoring protests in Russia, and they are tracking several hundred protests and direct actions every month. The most popular topics are environmental issues; anti-repression events, such as letter writing events for political prisoners, are still tolerated. Activatica lists much fewer anti-war protests, and those are usually direct actions. In a few cities, lone pickets of stubborn pensioners are still occasionally tolerated without a resulting prison sentence, such as the pickets by Viktor Gilin in Perm.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/3.jpg\")
Protests and direct actions by type, monthly, year 2025, according to Activatica.
\nThe number of anti-war direct actions actually appears to be growing. In 2024, Activatica recorded 145 actions; in 2025, 233 actions. Activatica tries not to count actions provoked by Ukrainian internet scammers, who hack the bank accounts of (usually elderly) persons, then blackmail them into carrying direct actions, which often result in severe sentences. The internet scamming industry is widespread in Ukraine, and it is contributing to the war effort in this dubious way, perhaps also as a consequence of its links to Ukrainian security services.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/5.jpg\")
Direct actions by region, 2024, according to Activatica.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/6.jpg\")
Direct actions by Russian region, 2025, according to Activatica.
\nHowever, Activatica does not attempt to differentiate between actions carried out by activists and Ukrainian secret services—which is challenging in any case, because the secret services occasionally masquerade as activists. One may assume that actions involving explosives that occur not far from the Ukrainian border, or professional-level assassinations of Russian officers in major cities, are unlikely to be the efforts of activists, whereas small-scale Molotov cocktail attacks far from the frontline are probably the work of activists. Often, it is difficult to be sure who is behind what. Moreover, it is possible that people who genuinely oppose the war are contacting Ukrainian secret services in order to solve their own financial problems, or in order to combine their financial and a political interests. The model of Ukrainian secret service hiring civilians for money might be described as “Sabotage as Service”—the same model that is widely used by the Russian secret services in Ukraine and around Europe.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/7.jpg\")
Oil storage facilities burned in Kandry, Bashkokorstan, in an action claimed by Rospartisan on May 26, 2026. Rospartisan has a big-tent policy of covering any anti-war direct actions, from anarchists to the far-right.
\nThe vast majority of small-scale sabotage actions are not claimed by any group. During the first years of the war, the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK) succeeded in conducting several major sabotage actions. BOAK was established before the 2022 invasion; it represents the direct continuation of the wave of insurrectionary anarchism that occurred in Russia from 2008-2013, inspired by the uprising in Greece in December 2008 after the police murdered Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Among the founders of the organization was Dmitry Petrov, an anarchist from Moscow who was killed by Russian forces while defending Ukraine in 2023.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/8.jpg\")
The logo of the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists.
\nNo one that the authorities have caught has been proven to be a BOAK activist. In one case, the authorities claimed that they had arrested a BOAK member for carrying out direct action, but an anarchist political prisoner who was held in the same prison confirmed that the activist had nothing to do with BOAK or anarchism. The case of another person who was arrested last year and accused of being a BOAK member still awaits confirmation or refutation, due to the secrecy of the court materials. BOAK cannot confirm or refute such claims because it does not preserve the personal details of its contacts.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/9.jpg\")
A photograph from a BOAK action.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/10.jpg\")
A photograph from a BOAK action.
\nBut although BOAK members have been able to evade the Russian authorities, several have been forced to flee Russia or to tone down their activities. This has largely reduced BOAK to a propaganda organization promoting direct action and anarchism.
\n\nAnarchists have established several organizations to support anarchists facing repression. Currently, the oldest is the Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow, established in 2003. For more than two decades, ABC Moscow has supported repressed anarchists, anti-fascists, anti-authoritarians and their supporters. As of now, ABC Moscow lists 23 anarchist and anti-fascist political prisoners in Russia, of whom 14 are in prison for alleged actions against industry or the military. Most of the rest were imprisoned prior to the full-scale invasion in 2022. During the first years of the war, ABC Moscow spread information about and supported diverse anti-war direct-action prisoners, but lately, their efforts have been confined to supporting anarchist and anti-authoritarian prisoners, due to the sheer number of anti-war prisoners.
\n\nIn 2025, ABC Moscow (and all the other ABC groups) were declared “undesirable” in Russia, which means that donating to them can result in a three-year prison sentence. Eventually, ABC Moscow moved all of its activities and members abroad; today, it focuses on spreading information and raising funds outside Russia. News about ABC Moscow activity appears regularly on the Avtonom website and via the group’s own Telegram channel. ABC Moscow can receive donations via Paypal and cryptocurrencies.
\n\nAs ABC Moscow’s activities inside Russia have become impossible, another organization has emerged to support anarchist and anti-authoritarian prisoners, named Fires of Freedom. You can follow its Russian-language Telegram channel here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/12.jpg\")
Fires of Freedom.
\nSolidarity Zone is another initiative started by anti-authoritarians to support anti-war direct action prisoners of various political convictions (excluding the far right). It was established in 2022, at a time when mainstream human rights organizations were not willing to support those sentenced for arsons and “terrorist” charges. Since then, the situation has changed; now, Russian opposition and human rights organizations have a more positive attitude towards direct action. However, Solidarity Zone is still providing support for 15 prisoners serving lengthy sentences for allegedly carrying out direct action, and the organization is following the cases of many more.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/13.jpg\")
Solidarity Zone.
\nAlthough the mainstream democratic opposition has become more supportive of prisoners accused of direct action, in practice, the sheer number of prisoners has overwhelmed all prisoner support structures. The most significant Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has declared 1715 prisoners to be political, of whom 674 are anti-war prisoners. It has also listed 5608 people with “politically motivated charges.” Their process of identifying political prisoners has been slowed down severely by the number of cases. For example, Memorial designated the anarchist Alexandr Snezhkov as a political prisoner only two years after his case was submitted to them. In reality, the number of political prisoners in Russia is probably twice as many as they list.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/14.jpg\")
The growth of the number of political prisoners in Russia from 2012-2025, according to Memorial. Graph by Riddle.
\nIn the first half of 2026, 1234 people were sentenced for “terrorism” (including incitement)—an increase of 38% compared with the first half of 2025. The median prison sentence was 13 years. By the end of 2025, there were 5412 prisoners in Russia with “terrorism” charges, an annual growth of 40.9%. This number includes Ukrainian prisoners of war, who are routinely charged with ”terrorism,” sabotage as a service, provocateur victims etc. Motivations may also overlap.
\n\nAltogether, 21,600 people are listed as “terrorists and extremists” on the blacklist of the Rosfinmonitoring, the Russian Federal Service of Financial Monitoring. In addition to prisoners, this list includes people whose sentences expired long ago, and people who have emigrated. Ending up on this list means a lifetime ban on receiving almost any bank services. In practice, those on the list can only earn a living in cash.
\n\nAlthough supporting political prisoners has been a top priority for the Russian opposition, the avalanche of cases has caused prisoner support structures to collapse, and political prisoners have been reduced to statistics. More and more political prisoners have to face court without any financial support or lawyers.
\n\nAt this point, it is also worth asking what the point of such support even is, as no charges against political prisoners have been thrown out as a consequence of the efforts of lawyers, no matter how skillful. The outcome of every case has been decided long before they make it to the court. Nonetheless, lawyers provide a critical—albeit expensive—means of communicating with prisoners during the periods of investigation. Often, the authorities have stopped torturing prisoners after lawyers have become involved in their cases.
\n\nLegal work sometimes secures some minor victories. For example, in summer 2023, Ivan Kudryashov, who was supported by Solidarity Zone while imprisoned for putting up anti-war posters in his hometown of Tver, won a hunger strike after 40 days, gaining the promise that he would have access to vegan food and vitamins sent to him in parcels. Viktor Filinkov, who was arrested in January 2018 and sentenced to seven years in prison on the accusation of being a member of a supposed underground anarchist “Network,” was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement in his prison colony. But with help of lawyers, he managed to challenge these policies and spent last years of his imprisonment in general population.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/15.jpg\")
Ivan Kurdyashov.
\nDmitri Syutkin is a young anarchist, and as many of the younger anarchists, encountered with anarchist ideas online and was rather isolated from the anarchist movement. He is from a small city in the Sverdlovsk region, and he maintained a small telegram channel advocating anarchism and independent Ural region. Three years ago, at the age of 17, he was entrapped by the FSB, who deceived him, claiming to represent Russian volunteers fighting in Ukraine. Anarchist prisoner support groups only became aware of him this year. Accused of terrorism and other charges, he may face up to 10 years in prison.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/16.jpg\")
Dmitri Syutkin.
\nAnother anarchist prisoner who was discovered relatively recently is Alexey Grigorev from Novotroitsk in the Orenburg region. Accused of planning to burn an FSB building and military recruiting center and of having contact with the Ukrainian authorities, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2025, before any prisoner support group learned of his case.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/17.jpg\")
Alexey Grigorev.
\nPerhaps the most successful of the lone anarchist partisans is Ruslan Sidiki, who, unlike the prisoners listed above, had connection with the anarchist movement, having been active in a small and longstanding anarchist rural commune in the Leningrad area, close to St. Petersburg. He attempted to use drones to destroy strategic bombers, but failed as a consequence of electronic jammers. A second action against freight train was more successful, completely derailing a train transporting chemical ingredients. However, due to a small mistake, Ruslan was caught following a massive manhunt and sentenced to 29 years in prison in May 2025. This year, Ruslan’s lawyer was arrested, but Fires of Freedom managed to raise funds to pay for new lawyer to file his appeal.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/18.jpg\")
Ruslan Sidiki visiting the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in better times.
\nAlexey Rozhkov, another lone anarchist partisan, was one of the first people to attack military enlistment offices. He attempted an attack with Molotov cocktails on March 11, 2022, just two weeks after the war began. He was soon arrested, but because minor sabotage did not yet result in automatic terrorist charges during the first months of the war, he was released pending court and escaped to Kyrgysztan. Unfortunately, he was kidnapped there, brought back to Russia, tortured, and charged with terrorism. In May 2026, he received a sentence of 16 years in prison.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/19.jpg\")
Alexey Rozhkov
\nEventually, this and other actions against enlistment offices inspired a massive wave of arson attacks. Mediazone listed 94 such attacks during the first year and a half of the war. During that early phase of the war, many enlistment offices did not have their files digitized, so burning an office could protect everyone from an urban neighbourhood or rural region from being sent to war for several months. Eventually, the authorities began a hurried effort to digitize all the conscript files; although actions against enlistment offices still occasionally take place, the value of the target is now doubtful. Currently, most anti-war sabotage is targeted against transport and energy infrastructure such as railroads.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/20.jpg\")
Alexey Rozhkov with Molotov Cocktail. CCTV camera footage, scan from print of the court documents.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/21.jpg\")
Arson attacks against military enlistment offices and other administrative buildings during the first year of the war, according to Mediazona. Blue signifies before the August mobilization, orange signifies after.
\nCurrently, the most significant case against anarchists is the Tyumen case, which is still in court. Six anarchists from Yekaterinburg in the Ural region and Tyumen and Surgut of Siberia are accused of establishing a clandestine anarchist organization. In August 2022, Kirill Brik and Deniz Aydin were arrested in a forest in Tyumen, allegedly while attempting to test explosives. Arrests followed in Yekaterinburg and Surgut. All of the arrestees were brutally tortured; they confessed, but eventually all of them except Kirill Brik recanted their testimony. Still, with a cooperating witness, the situation of the others accused is dire. Nikita Oleynik, the founder of the anarchist library Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel”) in Surgut, is accused of being “a leader of a terrorist group” and is in a danger of receiving a life sentence.
\n\nThe life sentence was introduced in Russia in 1992 as a replacement for the death penalty. For 34 years, no one with a life sentence has ever been released in Russia. The other defendants in the Tyumen case face up to 25 years in prison each.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/23.jpg\")
Deniz Aidyn.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/24.jpg\")
Yuri Neznamov.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/25.jpg\")
Danil Chertykov.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/26.jpg\")
Nikita Oleynik.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/27.jpg\")
Roman Paklin.
\nAleksandr Snezhkov and Lyubov Lizunova were arrested in Chita in the far east of Russia in October 2022, while only 19 and 16 years old. Allegedly, they painted graffiti reading ”Death to the regime.” They were also suspected of administering a Telegram channel with anarchist and anti-war messages. Snezhkov was sentenced to six years in prison and Lizunova to three and a half years in April 2024. This year, Aleksandr received an additional sentence for “incitement” because he allegedly read his legal papers to other prisoners; he has been sent to a stricter prison for the remaining two years of his sentence.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/28.jpg\")
Lyubov Lizunova and Aleksandr Snezhkov.
\nSolidarity Zone tracked down the anarchist Roman Shvedov in the court system in autumn 2024. He was accused of anti-war arson. However, he refused the support that Solidarity Zone offered, insisting that there was nothing that could be done for him and emphasizing that he would prefer for the resources to be directed to other victims of repression. After being sentenced to 16 years in prison, he committed suicide in a Rostov jail in December 2024. The face of this fallen anarchist comrade remains unknown to us. Solidarity groups do not even have a proper photograph of him, only a pixelated face from Russian mainstream media.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/29.jpg\")
Roman Shvedov.
\nThe most straightforward way to act in solidarity with Russian prisoners is by spreading information—for example, translating news and carrying out banner drops, graffiti, and other forms of direct actions. A great deal of news about Russian anarchist prisoners is available on the English section of the website of Autonomous Action, the former Russian Libertarian Communist federation, which is now working as a media project.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/09/09/30.jpg\")
The logo of Autonomous Action.
\nWith automatic translation tools available for free online, it is easy to write letters even when the prison censors only allow prisoners to receive letters in Russian. It is possible to write to a number of anarchist prisoners via the prisonmail.online service at a small cost; the service also provides the opportunity to receive replies. It is possible to write other prisoners via snail mail. A full list of addresses is available via the ABC Moscow website.
\n\nPrisoner solidarity groups are in constant need of funds to pay for lawyers and other costs of imprisonment. You can donate to fundraising campaigns and projects that support prisoners—Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow, Fires of Freedom, and Solidarity Zone.
\n\nIt is also possible to donate to direct action initiatives such as BOAK using cryptocurrency. Last but not least, you cansupport the anarchists of Belarus (such as the Anarchist Black Cross of Belarus and Pramen) and Ukraine (such as Solidarity Collectives). All three countries are now locked in a common struggle against war and Russian authoritarian imperialism.
\n\n" }, { "id": "https://crimethinc.com/2026/08/17/you-are-under-surveillance-2026-a-sticker", "url": "https://crimethinc.com/2026/08/17/you-are-under-surveillance-2026-a-sticker", "title": "You Are Under Surveillance 2026 : A Sticker", "summary": "As a movement against Flock cameras gathers momentum, we have reprinted a sticker attacking surveillance.", "image": "https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/17/header.jpg", "banner_image": "https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/17/header.jpg", "date_published": "2026-08-17T12:08:00Z", "date_modified": "2026-08-24T20:04:57Z", "tags": [ "surveillance", "flock" ], "content_html": "As the movement against Flock cameras gathers momentum, we have reprinted a sticker attacking surveillance.
\n\nAround the country, momentum is growing against Flock cameras. People are disabling these cameras in their communities—for example, someone sawed off and removed every Flock license plate reader operated by the Winona Police Department. This is laudable, civic-minded activity.
\n\nNow that resistance to surveillance systems and data centers is gaining popularity, even far-right pundits like Tucker Carlson are selling merchandise cashing in on public opposition to Flock cameras while admitting that, as obsequious toadies of the capitalist class, they “do not endorse vandalism or the destruction of property.” In other words, they do not actually want to do anything about mass surveillance, they just want to exploit this backlash against it financially and politically, channeling popular rage toward support for the same elites that impose and benefit from surveillance systems.
\n\nThe conflict inside the movement against Flock cameras, which has already escalated to physical clashes at some anti-Flock demonstrations, represents a microcosm of the contest over what will succeed the Trump era: will it be an even more bigoted and violent strain of far-right populism in the service of elites, a milquetoast liberalism that uses rhetoric about “rule of law” to justify preserving the structures of oppression, or an ungovernable movement for liberation?
\n\nFlock is not the only surveillance company, and cameras are not the only form of surveillance. There are many other corporations waiting to fill the role that Flock cameras are playing, and many other means by which those who aim to dominate us seek to monitor and control our activities. It is good to compel local governments to cancel Flock contracts or directly disable Flock cameras, but the movement against Flock must become a movement against all of the interlocking structures of domination or it will only function as a pressure valve as those structures tighten their grip on our lives.
\n\nMany people use a discourse about “privacy” to explain their opposition to surveillance cameras, as if the problem were simply that the cameras interrupt the isolation of the atomized individual—casting light on what would otherwise take place in obscurity. But anyone who reflects for a moment can see that the real problem is that the cameras enable the powers that be to impose an authoritarian order that benefits the wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Ubiquitous surveillance is only “necessary” in a social order that concentrates power in the hands of an elite class while impoverishing everyone else. A profoundly unequal society requires continuous policing and violence to maintain the gulf between the wealthy and the poor, and surveillance cameras are just one aspect of the control apparatus.
\n\nThe danger is not only that rogue police officers will use Flock cameras to stalk their ex-partners, but that the state itself will be able to consolidate the abusive relationship that it imposes upon all of us.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/17/you-are-under-surveillance_front_color.gif\")
The sticker.
\nIn March 2004, we announced a sticker addressing the cause of mass surveillance. It remains relevant today:
\n\n\n\n\nWherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you are, you are under surveillance because you are a potential criminal. Perhaps you secretly doubt the sanctity of corporate property, or the validity of laws made by the rich to govern the poor, or the soundness of capitalism itself—we can’t afford to assume you don’t. That’s why there are video cameras pointed at every cashier and police cars circling every block. Left to itself, a state of disorder and inequity returns to equilibrium; our job is to perpetuate this one indefinitely.
\n
We have reprinted this sticker for today’s context. Put them up everywhere that they could help those who do not wish to be subjected to surveillance identify the root of the problem.
\n\nYou can order these stickers here.
\n\nWe will be sending out copies with all orders from our online store.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/17/1.jpg\")
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/blinding-the-cyclops/blinding-the-cyclops_front.jpg\")
Click the image for a zine version of this text.
\nOn January 27, 2026, at the height of Operation Metro Surge and in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Alex Pretti, Dylan Alverson, the owner of a south Minneapolis café known as Modern Times, took to Instagram to make an announcement. He explained that Modern Times was changing their name and their business model. From that day forward, “until this occupation is over,” the newly named Post Modern Times would be “free to all.” The purpose of this change was to enable the café to refuse “to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy.” Not long after, “border czar” Tom Homan announced the drawdown that came to pass in February, precipitating a decline in both ICE and partisan activity; yet the Post Modern Times continued in this capacity for a further six months.
\n\nThis retrospective is aimed at elaborating the lessons the Post Modern Times experiment has to offer aspiring revolutionaries. We examine the experiment’s successes and limits in building dual power economically and counteracting what we will call the viscosity of race, in order to explore what it shows us about the meaning of partisanship.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/13/5.jpg\")
\nIn the winter of 2026, the federal ICE occupation known as Operation Metro Surge met immense and widespread resistance. This insurgency is described in detail elsewhere; here, it suffices to say that one element contributing to its apparent strength—as well as its limits—was the emergence of a cross-class alliance. This tenuous coalition saw many business owners make crucial contributions, from the simple act of posting signs barring entry to federal agents to donating to “mutual aid” organizing and supporting\ntheir employees when they clashed with ICE directly. While revolutionaries should examine the limits that this alliance introduced into the movement, that is not the purpose of this text. Here, we aim to examine the successes and limits of a much-lauded yet under-analyzed situation that emerged as a consequence of this cross-class alliance, a singular action taken by one small business during Operation Metro Surge: (Post) Modern Times café changing their business model from regular pricing to functioning entirely on donations in order to stop paying taxes to the government oppressing their community.
\n\nThe decision to shift business models represented a significant experiment in economic resistance to state power. It offered us a glimpse of what it could look like to engage seriously in “re-organizing economic [life],” albeit one clouded by the experiment’s failure to spread.1 In a moment of significant upheaval in which private property went largely unquestioned and unchallenged, the refusal of a business to charge for meals in order to cease to pay sales tax could be understood as a kind of proto-communist measure. While obviously not without its limits, it anticipates communist social relations by setting the price of commodities at zero, at which point they cease to be commodities at all.2
\n\nOn July 24, Alverson announced the temporary closure of the café and the end of the business model he had introduced in January. While the difficulty of relying on donations from the public alone to fund the longstanding operation may have played no small role in this decision, it is far from the only factor. In fact, hardly a month prior to the announcement, the New York Times ran an article on the\ncafé, reporting that surprisingly, the model had provided a certain amount of financial stability. A subsequent report from the Star Tribune advanced a different narrative: despite the supposed altruism of the café’s usual customer base and surrounding homeowners, the influx of poor, racialized, and in many cases homeless people proved to be too much for their delicate sensibilities. In the Star Tribune article, one neighbor said that this experiment had created the “first time I don’t feel safe” in the same neighborhood where the state murdered George Floyd and Renee Good.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/13/2.jpg\")
\nOpened in 2011, Modern Times has long been humorously referred to as the place “punks bring their parents.” The fusion of hippie and punk aesthetics that define the café has cemented its place in the southside Minneapolis subcultural scene. In view of this, it should be no surprise that the customer base has been predominantly white. That makes it all the more noteworthy that the experiment succeeded in breaking through that relative homogeneity to some extent.
\n\nArun Saldanha, in his writing on trance festivals in Goa, India, developed the term viscosity to describe the racial dynamics within the festival. The accumulation of shared practices, aesthetics, and knowledge created a dense interiority that was difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Saldanha refers to examples such as the clothing they wore and the drugs they shared together as demarcating those who were habituated to the scene and those who weren’t. In the case of Goa, race shaped the differential access to these habits which created de facto forms of exclusion. Without any explicit or overt discrimination, viscosity tends to produce spaces of relative racial homogeneity.3
\n\nWhile the specific practices, aesthetics, and choice of drugs may be different, it is not difficult to recognize a similar pattern in punk and many left-wing social milieus. Subcultural spaces like Modern Times in south Minneapolis have accumulated a relatively dense racial viscosity and largely continue to retain it, including in organizing spaces. Addressing this problem is of vital importance to revolutionaries if we are to contend with the extreme alienation of capitalist society. For that purpose, the experiment offers us useful insight.
\n\nOver a long enough period of time, a material shift in structure, such as removing prices from the menu, could help to break down these racial barriers. The results at Post Modern Times were not immediate, but as word spread, the prospect of quality meals offered for free began to counteract the viscosity of race.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/13/3.jpg\")
\nAs this viscosity was challenged in one direction, it was reinforced from the other. As Post Modern Times began to bring in more racialized and homeless people, its familiar customer base started to disappear. While owner Alverson suggests that this new influx may have been “crowding out paying customers,” the café was notorious for long wait times well before any of this. The “crowding out” that seems to actually have occurred was the breaking of subcultural—and therefore racial—homogeneity within the space.
\n\nIt would be easy to chide the prejudices of café-goers and neighboring homeowners for their reactions to this demographic shift. However correct, that would be a moralistic critique, whereas this essay is concerned with the strategic possibilities that experiments such as Post Modern Times could point towards. Those who express existential fear at the mere sight of a person who does not have a home are likely uninterested in revolutionary horizons, but it would be a mistake to accept the narrative that this was the dominant reaction, or the only possible one.
\n\nPost Modern Times represented the possibility of creating a space of encounter between many different social worlds in a time marked by increasing stratification and alienation. There is no question that the experiment introduced new challenges and conflicts for workers and neighbors, but such challenges are an inescapable aspect of constructing a new society, even in the most embryonic forms. In response, rather than embrace this opportunity, many found themselves withdrawing from it. The explanations vary—wait times, racist biases, or moralism—but the consequences were the same.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/13/1.jpg\")
\nWith the removal of prices, Post Modern Times became a popular restaurant for those who could not otherwise afford a good, hot meal. As more and more homeless people joined the lines to be seated, the restaurant took on a dynamic that is familiar to anyone with any experience in “mutual aid” organizing in the Twin Cities and beyond.
\n\nThis dynamic is not mutual at all: the organizing is done by those with means for those without them. Pointing this out is not intended to dismiss how helpful those programs can be, nor how many lives they have improved or even saved. Yet as the turbulence of our era continues to intensify and dual power institutions become essential to sustaining all of us, it becomes more and more crucial to distinguish between these programs and geniunely mutual aid.
\n\nThe idea that some people (defined by their predicates, whether by their proximity to whiteness, financial stability, or something else) are less deserving of free food than others (e.g., the unhoused) is a purely moralistic argument. Not only does it vacate the mutuality of “mutual aid,” it also deprives us of any possibility of direct encounter across the barriers these predicates impose that isn’t mediated by a service relationship.4 It does not take a stretch of the imagination to conclude that many people can’t conceive of what a relationship across lines of difference could look like that doesn’t rely on service to mediate it.
\n\nWhile some aspiring white allies may have chosen to avoid Post Modern Times in a noble attempt to avoid crowding out its supposedly more deserving customers, they actively foreclosed the chance to make connections with the very people they claim to support. And now Post Modern Times is literally closed.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/08/13/4.jpg\")
\nOur takeaway from Post Modern Times is twofold. On the one hand, it was a reasonably successful experiment in the reorganization of the economic sphere, though admittedly at the scale of only a single restaurant. Refusing to charge for meals—and thus refusing to pay sales tax—proved not only to be possible for an extended period of time, but also to be a valuable effort towards solving certain challenges posed by revolutionary organizing. Of these challenges, the racial viscosity of organizing spaces is perhaps the most salient.
\n\nOn the other hand, this experiment also revealed how much further we have to go. Any success in diluting the racial viscosity of the space precipitated retreat in equal proportions. Whether this was due to thinly-veiled racism or to the valiant calculations of moral activists, the outcome was the same. What was comfortable won the day.
\n\nFor revolutionaries, this underscores the importance of partisanship. For us, partisanship means fidelity to revolution; it is our belief that whatever it takes to build towards a revolution that abolishes capitalism and the state is worth it. This includes, for example, the perhaps uncomfortable experience of making earnest and unmediated connections with people unlike ourselves. It also includes, in a context in which many businesses were satisfied to put up “no ICE allowed” signs, the refusal to charge money for service at a restaurant in order to subtract taxes from the government’s income stream.
\n\nAs with all experiments, the result was never likely to be unqualified victory. The important thing is to subject the outcome of such experiments to rigorous analysis and learn as much as we can from each one. We do not intend this essay as the final word, but rather a contribution to a broader understanding of the situation.
\n\nSee the analysis of dual power in Connor O’Callaghan, “Revolution, Dual Power, and the Twin Cities Rapid Response Network,” Ill Will, July 1, 2026. While the essay neglects to problematize the emergence of dual power—in particular its policing function—it is right to note the insurgency’s relatively tame interventions into the economic sphere. ↩
\nIt’s important to remember that Modern Times is owned by an individual whose employees’ labor is inherently exploited for surplus value. Refusing to charge for meals does not change the totality of capitalist society they operate within, either. Ingredients still cost money, as do wages, and it is unlikely that the business refused to pay property taxes as well as sales taxes. Post Modern Times relied on donations from generous customers and others to stay afloat, with unknown results due to a lack of public financial information—although a New York Times report vaguely suggested some amount of success. Of course, for measures like this to become truly sustainable and spread, a more general assault on capitalist social relations would be required. See Brett Anderson, “This Restaurant Stopped Charging for Food. And Profits Are Up.” New York Times, June 8 2026. Online here. ↩
\n“In basic terms, viscosity pertains to two dimensions of a collective of bodies: its sticking together, and its relative impermeability. At that Dolce Vita party, at 8 a.m. on January 6, 2000, there was a viscosity of predominantly white ravers. They stuck together in time and space because they all saw each other regularly, smoked chillum together, danced to Goa trance, wore flashy clothing, and had money to spend on LSD and Ecstasy. Others, especially domestic tourists, weren’t habituated to all this; they didn’t have the cultural or economic resources to join in. When the sun came up, most Indians felt visible and out of place between so many white bodies. The denser the collective, the more difficult to cut through it: these are the two dimensions of viscosity. There is no downright exclusion… still, the net effect is that there is a strong tendency of dancers to be white.” Arun Saldanha, Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race, 2007, pg. 5. ↩
\nAmong the endless list of missed opportunities that follow all moments of social unrest is the dream of a Powderhorn Park encampment commune that would not have been exclusive to the unhoused, but to all who might choose to continue fighting for revolution in the aftermath of the largest uprising this country has experienced in several decades, à la Gota Go Gama Village in Sri Lanka. ↩
\nOn July 4, 2025, roughly a dozen people participated in a demonstration at the Prairieland Detention Center, a facility serving Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the conclusion of the demonstration, a participant named Benjamin Song saw a police officer aim a gun at a participant named Nathan Baumann and fired warning shots at the ground in response. Since then, police have arrested 22 people on widely publicized conspiracy and terrorism charges, subjecting many of them to long-term solitary confinement and other pressure tactics. The first eight of the 17 non-cooperating defendants went to trial in March; they were found guilty and sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison each, with one of them receiving a 30-year sentence simply for having moved a box of zines.
\n\nThe Prairieland prosecution is a flagship effort intended to criminalize opposition to fascism per se in line with the Trump administration’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7. The prosecution’s approach hinges on the idea that the defendants constitute an “antifa cell,” despite many of them not knowing each other at all.
\n\nThis is not unprecedented. On the contrary, it is a strategy of repression that is familiar elsewhere in the world, under even more authoritarian regimes. In Russia, for example, it has become common for officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, to use electrical shock torture to attempt to coerce arrestees suspected of anarchism into signing false confessions affirming the existence of invented conspiracies.1
\n\nThe playbook is to fabricate an association, then pressure defendants to plead guilty, manufacturing evidence of the supposed conspiracy. In Russia, they do this with cattle prods; in the Prairieland case, they are attempting to accomplish the same thing via less flagrant means, including solitary confinement and threats.
\n\nIn the year since the demonstration at the Prairieland facility, federal agents have tried to expand on this precedent. Prosecutors continue to indict new defendants in the Prairieland case; federal agents continue to raid houses. In May 2026, three people in Spokane, Washington were convicted on felony conspiracy charges for protesting against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. On June 16, federal agents carried out aggressive house raids across the Twin Cities, arresting twelve people and indicting fifteen on federal conspiracy charges.
\n\nWhat is possible in Texas will not necessarily work in Minnesota. In parts of Texas, far-right and outright fascist state officials control much of the judicial bureaucracy and police, and have the support of much of the population; in Minnesota and other parts of the country, ICE and other elements of the Trump administration are so unpopular that even grand juries, long known as a tool that prosecutors can use for any purpose, sometimes refuse to indict arrestees. The local culture that prevails within the judicial infrastructure of different districts, the amount of leverage that local social movements exert, and the perspectives of the available jury pool all make a significant difference in the outcome of cases like these.
\n\nThe outcome of the first Prairieland trial should not intimidate us out of organizing and taking action; rather, it shows how high the stakes are. Both direct support for the defendants and general efforts to organize, popularize, and legitimize resistance can play a role in blocking federal efforts to normalize the Prairieland model. Even if the appeals courts show themselves to be just as corrupt as the courts that have convicted and sentenced Prairieland defendants, if we build a strong enough movement, whoever succeeds Donald Trump in power could be compelled to commute their sentences.
\n\nIf we withdraw from organizing, if we shrink from resistance, this will embolden the Trump administration and its supporters and they will intensify their attacks. Rather than permitting them to frighten us out of trusting each other, we must build deep personal ties and widespread community support in order to endure campaigns of repression. We can win this fight.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/07/07/5.jpg\")
\nThis bears repeating over and over: Never talk to police or the FBI. They wouldn’t ask you in the first place if they didn’t need your assistance to ruin your life and the lives of others. Remember: “I am going to remain silent. I would like to speak with an attorney.”
\n\nWhat follows is a statement from Fire Ant Movement Defense. Fire Ant has revised it since the original publication. You can read a response Eric King wrote to the original version here.
\n\nOn June 23, witnesses across the country watched in horror as the non-cooperating defendants in the Prairieland trial were given staggering sentences in the most blatant case of political persecution in a generation. Like the Haymarket trial, the Red Scare, and the repression of the Black Panther Party before it, the Prairieland case has come to define a new era of state terror intended to crush dissent.
\n\nIt is critical to understand the conditions under which this trial took place. The defendants were humiliated, denied medical care, and repeatedly tortured by state officials throughout the duration of their custody. They were wheeled into court rooms shackled to chairs, forced to clean human feces off of cell walls, subjected to vile human rights offenses that reflect the complete immorality of the American judicial system. The point of these violations was both to punish and to coerce, in hopes that the defendants would turn on one another and abandon their values—the very existence of which this trial was designed to condemn. The majority of the defendants resisted these efforts, demonstrating incredible resilience in the face of overwhelming violence. However, others chose to forsake their values, reject their communities, and betray their comrades in acts of cowardly self-preservation. Without these cooperators, it is entirely possible that the Prairieland trial would have ended with almost all of the defendants winning their freedom.
\n\nMuch of the state cooperation in the Prairieland trial was manufactured through torture and motivated by fear. It manifested in different forms, occurred in different degrees, and, like all matters of political importance, resists simple moral categorization. Of the nineteen defendants facing federal charges, five of them—Seth Sikes, John Thomas, Nathan Baumann, Lynette Sharp, and Susan Kent—took the stand at trial and condemned others to years in prison for their own benefit. Two additional defendants—Joy Gibson and Rebecca Morgan—took plea agreements. While these were non-cooperating pleas, the text of the deals affirmed the existence of a fictional “North Texas Antifa Cell,” which some in the movement have characterized as potentially damaging to other defendants. One other defendant, Meagan Morris, initially gave hours of testimony to federal agents, before rejecting cooperation, refusing a plea agreement, and standing trial with her comrades.
\n\nAll of these cases are materially different from each other. Taking the stand in a courtroom is not the same thing as giving an interview immediately after arrest; full-fledged cooperation is not the same as taking a plea deal that affirms the state’s fabricated narrative. We reject simplistic generalizations that frame all mistakes as unforgivable, rendering it impossible for those who have previously cooperated with the state to change course and restore their commitment to struggle.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/07/07/3.jpg\")
\nWe believe that Meagan Morris made an indefensible choice in giving hours of testimony to federal agents. By corroborating John Thomas’s testimony, she contributed to the arrests of Rebecca Morgan, Benjamin Song, and Autumn Hill. After that, she ceased cooperation. She did not take a plea deal. She did not take the stand against her codefendants.
\n\nDespite her initial cooperation, the state was happy to punish her alongside the non-cooperating defendants after she chose to change course. For months, she has faced harassment, starvation, and humiliation like the other defendants. Other cooperators who continued betraying their values received sentences as short as 22 months—but she, rediscovering her courage, rejected that possibility. This does not erase what she did. The depth of her betrayal will be measured by the days, years, or decades that those who once called her a comrade spend in cages.
\n\nMorris has made the strongest course correction that is possible in her position. Her refusal to cooperate further landed her a fifty-year sentence. If we cannot offer those who have begun to cooperate any incentive to stop doing so, that all but ensures that once someone starts cooperating, they will become a permanent addition to the state’s arsenal against us.
\n\nThere are lines that, once crossed, render return impossible. Baumann, Thomas, Sikes, Sharp, and Kent chose their side long ago. There are revolutionary contexts in which totalizing zero-tolerance policies are necessary. But at this moment, thousands of inexperienced new participants are flooding into the fight for liberation. We probably won’t be able to educate all of them before they find themselves in confrontations with the state. Some of them will experience intense repression designed to scare them into cooperating before they fully understand the political implications, the options available to them, or their basic rights. When they find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun, some may well say something they shouldn’t. If we immediately make permanent enemies of everyone who do so, this may further endanger others.
\n\nWe face a serious question: do we make demands of those who cooperate, or simply cut them off immediately? Do we attempt to intervene and try to alter their behavior, or do nothing?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/07/07/4.jpg\")
\nTwo defendants accepted pre-written plea deals confirming the state’s fictions. The text invents a fictional antifa cell, takes for granted that antifascist activity is “terrorism,” and argues that wearing black is proof of criminal intent, among other absurdities. After the defendants had spent months in torturous conditions, the state pushed a deadline for agreeing to the pleas under threat of still worse federal indictments. Both Rowan Gibson and Rebecca Morgan, who signed those pleas without giving interviews, have been sentenced to 15 years each.
\n\nOn an individual level, signing the pleas limited their options. Their potential defenses in regards to their state charges are weakened, and they could be more vulnerable to certain kinds of targeting in the lead up to the state trials, since the state views them as more pressurable.. The pleas could also be damaging for their codefendants. Some argued that the pleas would be levied against the defendants at trial, cited as proof that some participants agreed to language describing the fictionalized “antifa cell” and supposed plans for an “ambush.” As it turned out, at the federal trial, prosecutors relied more on the testimony of cooperating witnesses, but the pleas remain available to introduce when the state-level charges go to trial.
\n\nIn addition, the pleas are a liability for the movement as a whole. It has been clear since the Department of Justice’s first press release on July 8 that their chief goal is to use this case to set a precedent and establish a narrative. This is the core of their strategy, and these pleas help them to advance it. However, these deals came after the cooperating witnesses signed their initial pleas, which make the same claims. Undeniably, Baumann’s testimony furthers the fiction more than Rowan or Rebecca’s signature ever could.
\n\nRowan Gibson and Rebecca Morgan took these deals, despite the bleak outcomes, primarily because of vile jail conditions, mental and physical health problems, and pressure from their lawyers. In a desperate situation, with cops and feds lying to them and coercing them, they remained principled. They did not give up information, or agree to take the stand. And as of yet, their pleas have not furthered the state’s agenda. Their deals show what can happen in the worst circumstances when defendants do not have enough collective legal support. If their lawyers had been willing to work with the defense committee, take advice from legal experts with a better understanding of the politics around the case, or enter joint defense agreements, these pleas could have been avoided. Rowan’s and Rebecca’s plight demands that we reckon with the weaknesses in the legal infrastructure of our movements.
\n\nThe five testifying witnesses sold out their friends at their most vulnerable. They endangered people in their community who remain free for now, people who lie awake at night, fearing the crash of officers breaking down their doors. They damaged the precious faith built and tenderly guarded by all those brave enough to fight for a new world. They deserted the war against ICE as emboldened goons watch blood pool beneath their boots in the streets. At once shocking and mundane, they have thrown themselves in with all the despicable traitors that history is lucky to forget. Nothing more needs to be said about their morals, as there are no words that would make their ethical depravity and the depth of their betrayal clearer to the world than their actions already have.
\n\nHow the state rewarded them tells us something new. All five of the testifying witnesses have now been sentenced. Thomas and Sharp got just over nine years, Sikes and Kent got six, and Baumann got less than two. Across both of the courtrooms, on both sentencing dates, the conservative judges spoke explicitly about sending a message. As for the nine defendants who went to trial, their total of 500 years of prison time represents a clear threat: associate with this ideology in any way and we will bury you. But what message can we read in the disparities among the sentences of the five defendants who testified for the state?
\n\nSentencing for cooperating defendants has traditionally been based on the criminal acts they’re accused of, the timing and extent of their cooperation, and the amount of new and actionable information they provided. This case diverges from the historical precedent.
\n\nThomas was not present in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025. He began cooperating very early in the investigation after his house was raided, and consistently provided evidence following his arrest. His interview on July 12 led to Sharp’s arrest on the 13th, and his subsequent interview on the 14th led to the arrests of Song and Morgan on the 15th, as detailed in the criminal complaints against Rebecca Morgan and Susan Kent. Thomas’s cooperation also contributed to the arrest of Dario Sanchez. Thomas and Sharp pled to one count of material support for terrorism for sheltering Song. Ordinarily, harboring a fugitive can land someone up to a year in prison.
\n\nIn contrast, Sikes was present at the demonstration, armed, and lit fireworks, which the state argued are explosive devices. He began cooperating with the state in October or November 2025. Based on the timing of arrests, it seems unlikely that Sikes’ cooperation provided much additional actionable information.
\n\nBaumann was present at the demo, stayed through the arrival of police lieutenant Thomas Gross, admitted to bringing spray paint, and is the only person on video damaging any property. He agreed to cooperate very early on, but knew none of the participants and could provide very little identifying information.
\n\nPrecedent would suggest that Baumann would get the heaviest sentence, while Sikes and Thomas would get less. In fact, the reverse occurred. Their sentences set a precedent overwriting the old norms, replacing the old criteria with a loyalty test. In testifying, both Thomas and Sikes willingly betrayed their values. Yet Thomas contradicted the state’s narrative under cross-examination, and Sikes held back on even the most basic key elements, such as the definition of anti-fascism. Baumann didn’t betray his beliefs; he apparently had none. Nor did he betray his comrades—he apparently had no comrades, either. Instead, he proved himself to be an enthusiastic vessel for the state’s most poisonous lies.
\n\nThe state’s legal argument for terrorism hinges on the property destruction that Baumann alone admitted to. In their flagship NSPM-7 test case, they were willing to let him off easy because he helped them to advance their agenda. NSPM-7 creates a carveout in the judicial system where thought crimes are more important than material acts.
\n\nEffective repressive strategies are designed to target specific tactics of resistance, such as the emphasis that our political movements place on refusing to cooperate. This era of authoritarianism introduces a form of repression in which action is practically irrelevant, for it is ideology that is on trial. Previous judicial norms, flawed as they were, are being abandoned in favor of litigating the thoughts, beliefs, and orientations that the Trump regime believes pose a threat to its reign of terror. In this legal purgatory, action becomes irrelevant, evidence becomes optional, and cooperators are not rewarded for contributing to investigations so much as for their readiness to affirm outrageous lies.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/07/07/2.jpg\")
\nThe pages of revolutionary history are full of ordinary people who chose to embody courage, fortitude, and commitment, no matter the cost. They are equally full of people—like the cooperating defendants in this trial—who once claimed to believe in freedom, liberation, and struggle, but later proved that they cared more for themselves than for justice.
\n\nWe are enduring some of the worst authoritarianism that this country has seen in the past fifty years. The actions that people have taken in Prairieland, the Twin Cities, Los Angeles, and elsewhere remind us that even in the midst of killings, torture, and life sentences, radicals across this country will continue to choose the path of resistance, rejecting fear, even if it means risking everything. We recognize that experiencing repression is an inevitable consequence of striving for freedom in a social order that is tightening its grip on us.
\n\nThe Prairieland trial has shown us the very best and worst of our communities. Benjamin Song could die in prison for potentially saving Nathan Baumann’s life. Baumann will soon walk free for betraying Song’s. Neither one of these things had to be. We must hurry to adapt to this new era of repression. We must educate as many people as possible about the crucial importance of refusing to answer questions from police or federal agents; we must build awareness about grand juries and how to resist them; above all, we must establish stronger legal support infrastructure, including media outreach, to put at the disposal of everyone who may end up in the crosshairs of the state.
\n\nFinally, we must continue to support the Prairieland defendants. This case is far from over; the appeals process remains ahead, and how that goes will shape state and federal policy. Repression destroys lives and rips apart families; it is designed to break us. But make no mistake—at its core, their system of violence relies less on what it can do to us than on what it can make us do to each other.
\n\nThis statement has been slightly edited for clarity and in response to appreciated feedback. In the interest of transparency, an archive of the original version of the statement before the edits can be found here.
\n\nFire Ant Movement Defense is an anti-repression collective made up of former political defendants and members of defense committees. We believe in mass defense strategies and advise defendants and their supporters on how to fight their cases from a political angle.
\n\nWe are not lawyers. Through repeated experiences, we have gained skills in media work and in synergizing political and legal strategies. In every case, we work towards building a response to repression that approaches the judicial system as an arena where we can fight—and win.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/07/07/1.jpg\")
\nIn August 2025, a powerful uprising shook Indonesia and spread rapidly throughout the region, helping to catalyze a revolution in Nepal. Yet even as it set off further explosions from the Philippines to Morocco, this momentum hit a wall everywhere as governments counterattacked with repression specifically targeting anarchists—in what some in the region have called the “black scare.” In the following analysis, Simoun Magsalin draws on the events in the Philippines to outline the challenges confronting today’s revolutionaries and explore what it will take to overcome them.
\n\nYou can read a full account of the confrontation that took place in Manila, the Philippine capital, on September 21, 2025 here.
\n\nYou can support the black scare detainees and defendants from the Philippines who were arrested at Mendiola on September 21, 2025 through Durian Distro, which is handling international donations via Ko-Fi. Please include a message noting that your donation is for the 9/21 prisoners. Salamat po!
\n\nYou can support Indonesian prisoners via Serikat Tahanan or the Serikat Napi Lintas-Lapas / Inter-Correctional Prisoner Union. Please use the “Donasi” button on their website. Terima kasih!
\n\nThis line of inquiry is equally relevant in North America, as anarchists confront intensifying repression from Prairieland to Minneapolis.
\n\nOn September 21, 2025, a host of leftists, socialists, and pro-revolutionaries marched at the fateful site where the Spanish colonial government executed José Rizal on December 30, 1896. Rizal was executed under false charges for an anti-colonial insurrection he had little to do with but which had proclaimed him as its north star. In 2025, a march of more than 80,000 Filipinos assembled by the monument where his remains are interred to express outrage in response to a massive corruption scandal involving the graft of funds designated for flood control infrastructure projects—the plunder of which through fraudulent projects caused numerous deaths across multiple tropical typhoons.
\n\nFor months before the march, the outrage had led nowhere, as the Philippine left was at an almost-historic nadir after years of opportunism, repression, and dynastic restoration from the previous Duterte presidency and the continuation of Dutertismo in the current administration headed by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. Morale was so low that a leftist attempt to organize a general assembly in an urban poor community facing demolition apparently drew almost no one. At a factory strike, the workers self-managed their picket to limit and pacify their own actions.
\n\nYet the insurrection that broke out in Indonesia at the end of August 2025 inspired something in Filipinos. Militants from National Democracy organized limited direct action at the beginning of September, involving publicized vandalism and minor street fighting. They hoped to arouse “the masses” from slumber and invoke spontaneity. Alas, such energy did not arise—at least, not at first. Then the insurrection in Nepal bloomed and then withered, and morale rose once again. To know that power is vulnerable elsewhere is to see that it is vulnerable everywhere.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/6.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nSeveral groups announced a mass mobilization for September 21 at Luneta and at EDSA.1 The Catholic Church was one of the biggest forces that organized mobilizations, followed by various right-wing, liberal, social democratic, National Democratic, and socialist groups. Anarchists of various persuasions were there, too, in our own fashion. Banners of all kinds were on display: the National Democratic Mass Organizations (NDMOs) and Makabayan, the bloc of Sanlakas-PLM-BMP-Oriang, Akbayan, Kilusan, Kamanggagawa, Partido Sosyalista, the Spartacists, Partido Manggagawa, Manibela and other workers’ associations, and university fraternities. The right-wing Duterte Diehard Supporters (DDS)2 were there too, some projecting phrase-mongering into the military base to spontaneously induce a kudeta (Tagalog for “coup d’état”3) among the generals in a vain attempt to oust President Bongbong Marcos, catapult Vice President Sara Duterte to the highest office, and (somehow?) bring former president Rodrigo Duterte back home from his incarceration at the Hague by the International Criminal Court.4
\n\nOn the margins of all these parties was another: the party of anarchy.5
\n\nAfter the protest march program of the Makabayan bloc ended on the way to Mendiola, black-clad youth initiated violent direct action, attempting to set fire to a freight truck used as a police barricade and then lobbing rocks at the police. The police struck back with their own rocks, trapping the militants from Makabayan in the crossfire. At that moment, another wing of the party of anarchy revealed itself, opening up another front in the Philippines just as had occurred in Indonesia and Nepal. The same sigils of the One-Piece straw-hat skull-and-bones flag flew again, raised by those in anarchistic black attire.
\n\nThe spontaneous movement of September 21 (or 9/21) was no party of anarchists, much as we might wish they were. Neither were they self-identifying National Democrats, Maoists, socialists, or communists—nor fascists, though fascists want to appropriate the symbolism and significance of the 9/21 events.6
\n\nThe party of anarchy is not a particular organizational formation, but a spontaneous emergence that cohered at a time of high morale among our class. As in Indonesia and Nepal, it emerged outside the milieu known as the “left.” But how the self-ascribed left relates to this party of anarchy is of crucial importance, especially in view of how quickly some on the left sought to denounce the militants as “anarchists,” fascists, Dutertistas, or (Chinese?) saboteurs.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/7.jpg\")
\nThe party of anarchy that emerged at the battle of Mendiola was small. The majority of the (at least) 277 detainees at Mendiola were not involved in the direct action at all or else were not anarchists. Many were innocent bystanders, some of whom were colonized minorities within the Philippine nation-state who didn’t even speak Tagalog and were in Manila for less than a week. Another was a student journalist who just happened to wear black to the protest and was illegally detained only because he looked vaguely like an anarchist. Around or at least 91 of the Mendiola detainees were legally minors. All were beaten on the streets and then systematically tortured, denied legal representation, denied food and medicine, and denied access to their families.
\n\nYet despite not being partisanos of the party of anarchy, they were red-tagged7 (black-tagged?) as “anarchists.” By then, this was a familiar refrain, coming as it did on the heels of the black scare in Indonesia that saw the open hunting of anarchists by Prabowo’s decree, as well as Trump’s criminalization order targeting so-called “antifa” in the United States and the accusations of Nepali politicians that anarchists had “infiltrated” the insurrection there. In September 2025, security forces were conjuring whole parties of anarchists out of the air to explain various riots and insurrectionary episodes across the world, each imagined conspiracy more fanciful than the last. If only such revolutionaries could be born fully armored and ready to fight, like a hundred thousand Athenas born from the mind of Zeus!
\n\nConspiratorial baiting of this kind is not new. In the wake of October 7, 2023, whole battalions of Hamas were identified all across the world. Paragliders in the middle of Britain? Hamas. Students occupying campuses to protest investments in the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine? Hamas. Jewish anti-Zionists? Hamas. Random people on the train who don’t look like me and aren’t bothering anyone? Hamas! As with earlier waves of red-baiting, “Hamas-baiting” and the current black scare serve to delegitimize and criminalize protest and organizing, whether in response to the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza or the brazen corruption scandals in Asia and elsewhere.
\n\nWe’ve seen how black-tagging and the black scare has been deployed in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines in much the same way that red-baiting was used in the past. It didn’t matter whether you were an anarchist or a social democrat—you will be red-baited and deported or imprisoned as a filthy godless communist! Non-state actors including liberals and yellow unions have used red-tagging to delegitimize their ideological rivals in the electoral or labor-union arena. Now, in a similar way, just being some kind of leftist, wearing black, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time can get you black-tagged as an anarchist and threatened with subversion charges. We saw this in Indonesia and Nepal and again at Mendiola. In a consistent, predictable way, the party of order uses the black scare strategy to suppress not only the party of anarchy, but all who criticize the prevailing order.
\n\nWhat is the party of anarchy, really? It is not something that can be constructed the way you construct a formal party. It is constituted and coheres on the basis of a social insurrection, or at least the beginnings of one. It is on this basis that the party of anarchy is not merely a threat to the dominant wing of the party of order—the caucus of the existent—but also to the caucus of the false critics, who conduct a two-line struggle within the party of order but remain its loyal opposition. The black scare, then, works slightly differently than the red scare in terms of how the caucus of the false critics uses it to target the party of anarchy.
\n\nIn the immediate aftermath of the police repression at Mendiola, another parallel narrative began to form. The direct actionists and the Mendiola detainees were at the pay of foreign agents, or of Sara Duterte—or so many commenters said. Liberals and leftists alike repeated this ad nauseam. The caucus of the false critics is constantly negotiating their place within the party of order and within the broader effort to reimpose normalcy. The black scare is used by these false critics to dissolve the party of anarchy in order to achieve that purpose. We have seen this before: for example, in the peace police who branded direct actionists “agent provocateurs” and handed them over to the police during the George Floyd rebellions in 2020. Through such actions, the false critics position themselves as a legal, legitimate, and loyal opposition within the prevailing order.
\n\nIn addition, the false critics also use the black scare to legitimize their own activism and organizations at the expense of the insurrection and the party of anarchy. They do this by tagging the party of anarchy as “saboteurs,” “provocateurs,” Dutertistas in disguise, and so on, but also by taking advantage of the efforts of the partisanos and insurrectos of the party of anarchy to build their own organizations using pragmatic pacifism and legalism.
\n\nThe black scare represents a dual threat: the obvious threat from the dominant caucus of the existent of the party of order, but more dangerously, an additional threat from the caucus of the false critics.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/8.jpg\")
Photograph from the report “Mendiola, September 21, 2025,” written by Kenneth Roland Guda and published by AlterMidya.
\nNormalcy is what we have today—the regime of work, gender, money, capital, the state, racism, ad nauseum. The party of order imposes and maintains normalcy by keeping our class dependent upon its functioning. If, as The Communist Manifesto proclaims, the workers of the world have nothing to lose but their chains, why do we cling so hard to them? The prospect of our chains loosening opens us to immense risk because normalcy renders us dependent.
\n\nWe all have material interests in maintaining normalcy and much to lose from its rupture. This dependence on normalcy constrains many from becoming active pro-revolutionaries. My own disabilities, for example, tie me to normalcy, forcing me to have a material interest in the stability and predictability of medicine and healthcare. Millions of people and their families likewise have similar material interests that ties them to normalcy. Even something as basic as access to food can be disrupted by the interruption of normalcy. Such dependence on normalcy constrains us in what we can do.
\n\nUnder these conditions, we can talk of revolution and insurrection all we like, but any act of violence against the party of order means risking harsh repression. Those partisanos who cling to illegality and illegibility find refuge in the rebel peripheries. On the margins of society, they cannot intervene in the heat of the class struggle, and must instead strive for revolution from their peripheries.
\n\nThose outside the rebel peripheries operating where the imposition of normalcy is most coherent often find that they can still do some good work through the framework of legalism. Legalism pushes the left and anarchists towards “pragmatic pacifism.” As pro-revolutionaries, we refuse to affirm pacifism as a principle of the class struggle, yet we find we must be pragmatic in our relationship to violence, and even in the extent to which we publicly endorse it. This is why, when we march, the leaders of marches must meet with the police to negotiate time and space for their protest, regardless of permits.8 Even without protest permits, the police understand that informal allowances for such illegal assemblies are pragmatic in the long term. This negotiation is part and parcel of the imposition of normalcy. If we don’t negotiate, we risk repression that will drain vital resources that will have to go towards prisoner support, driving away those with lower appetites for risk, and (perhaps most importantly) being identified as an enemy of order at a time of a lull and retreat in the class struggle. This is not a value judgment: it is merely the reality of normalcy.
\n\nOutside the milieu of leftists, militants, and anarchists, normalcy takes the form of mass apolitical passivity.9 Many a Marxist would cite ideology or hegemony to explain this—yet beyond the ways that commodity relations obscure and alienate the source of the power of our class, our class is not made of sheep, nor are we passive recipients of burgis10 ideology. Nor is this merely a matter of disinterest in politics. People know the world is fucked. This condition of mass apolitical passivity is not merely ideological, but material. Being apolitical is not so much a choice as a condition—the material and ideological imposition of normalcy. Reformers, activists, militants, and pro-revolutionaries establish themselves as such by overcoming the particular material and ideological limits that this condition imposes. But even overcoming these limits does not necessarily mean that one can overcome normalcy itself—hence the necessity of pragmatic pacifism.
\n\nThrough pragmatic pacifism, reformers and leftists can negotiate their position within normalcy and the party of order. This is how the struggle for reform galvanizes many to overcome their passivity. Circles of militants become movements, movements become political parties and NGOs, and political parties run for election while NGOs support reform, and—if all goes well—these parties and NGOs win reforms for their mass bases. This process of reform legitimizes these leftists and ties them to the reigning order. To remain legitimate, they must remain within the bounds of the law, and to do so, they must continue to be pragmatically pacifist. This is how the legal and legitimate left establish themselves as false critics to the party of order, as the “permitted left” and left wing of capital.11
\n\nTo retain this status, it often becomes necessary to denounce the party of anarchy and engage in the black scare.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/9.jpg\")
Photograph from the report “Mendiola, September 21, 2025,” written by Kenneth Roland Guda and published by AlterMidya.
\nThe party of anarchy has constituted itself many times over the centuries of the modern era, from the Reformation to the great revolutions in England, America, France, Russia, Germany, China, and elsewhere. Over the past decade, we have seen it emerge in the Yellow Vest movement in France, in Hong Kong, in the George Floyd Uprising in the United States, and most recently in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Madagascar, and here in the Philippines.
\n\nYet the party of anarchy is dissolved through the imposition of disorganization, by churches, liberals, self-appointed vanguards, the permitted left, social democracy, and other factions within the caucus of the false critics. In the People Power Revolution of 1986 (EDSA Uno), the church and the liberal oligarchs led the Filipino workers to support the kudeta plotters and install the liberal oligarch Cory Aquino as president. In the events of May 1968 in Paris, the Communist Party of France and several other left institutions demobilized the workers and radical students. In the Iranian revolution, the clerics undermined the shura councils of the working class until the Ayatollah was able to consolidate power. In Poland, liberals who wanted to negotiate a place within the Polish state apparatus undermined the self-organization of workers in Solidarność. In the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong himself rushed to co-opt and demobilize the very forces he unleashed to regain and retain control over the Party-state.
\n\nThe caucus of the false critics is fearful of mass spontaneity and self-directed activity, rushing to co-opt and demobilize the party of anarchy in order to arrange the resumption of normalcy under their rising caucus. Politicians target the party of anarchy so that the caucus of the false critics can be reconstituted as the new caucus of the existent and ultimately reconstitute the party of order.
\n\nThe logic of this organized disorganization is the crystallization of legality and legitimacy as tamang proseso. Literally meaning “correct process” or “due process,” tamang proseso is invoked in the Philippines as the “right way” or a “legitimate way” to do things, usually in the context of engaging with bureaucracy or procedure. This affirmation of legality and legitimacy permeates all under normalcy, even outside the reach of the state’s law, police, and courts. Harm, for example, has to be demonstrated and proven, if not in a court of law, then via the adjudication of peers. According to the apostles of tamang proseso, “both sides” have to be heard—and this obscures the inherent power relations, whether they be the gender dynamics of rape culture or the hegemony of Israel and Zionism over Palestine before October 7.
\n\nEven in civil war, there must be tamang proseso, with guerrillas both communist and Bangsamoro bowing to the legality and legitimacy of the peace table. The negotiations at the peace table fulfill two functions. First, they represent the negotiated merger and legitimation of a faction as it ascends into the party of order. Second, they serve to demobilize the force of arms of their own faction and delegitimize any participants in the struggle who refuse to accept the compromise. In this context, tamang proseso suggests that there are only two routes to reform: negotiated integration into the party of order, or armed struggle for the purpose of negotiated integration into the party of order. The possibilities of social insurrection, rupture, revolution—much less anarchy and communization—are excluded altogether.
\n\nTamang proseso is the “correct” and “legitimate” way of doing protest, organizing, and politics. It is the mediation and management of the energies that would otherwise have cohered into the grand party of anarchy and communism. The week after the events of 9/21, former presidential candidate and outspoken socialist Ka Leody de Guzman released a solidarity statement affirming the legitimacy of the anger, yet calling for the recruitment of disaffected urban poor into his particular tendency of organizations. Most notably, this statement implied a dichotomy between the organized and the supposedly not-organized—or, to be more precise, those organized under their command and those organized outside it. Never mind that the direct action against the police forces took place outside the command of legitimate left parties, while all parties at Luneta and Mendiola did not intervene to elevate the riot into an insurrection.
\n\nEven the Maoist insurgency of the Communist Party of the Philippines–New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) is structured within tamang proseso, despite the overt illegality of their insurgency. To mamundok (go up the mountain) and join the guerrillas is seen as the “highest form of struggle” within the Maoist milieu. To criticize the brave guerrilla is cowardice—what have you sacrificed that gives you the right to critique them? If they are fighting a guerrilla war, then they must be right! Never mind that the funneling of committed militants to mamundok drains the cities of cadres who could have intervened in the class struggle (setting aside, for now, the problems with Stalinist interventionalism).
\n\nArgumentum ad guerrilla, or the appeal to the guerrilla, frames ideological issues as beyond question because the guerrilla are making a costly, sometimes ultimate, sacrifice. This cult of action takes for granted that the correctness of a strategy can be proven through dramatic deeds and mass recruitment. Yet conservative forces such as Daesh also wage such guerrilla wars—shall we consider them correct because they managed to establish the so-called “Islamic State”? The argumentum ad guerrilla is the other side of pragmatic pacifism: the fetishism of “revolutionary” violence is the inevitable reaction to the timidity of such pragmatism.
\n\nIt is this argumentum ad guerrilla that constrains the choices of those who desire social change to a choice between reformism and armed reformism, between social democracy and social democracy out of the barrel of a gun. Only these options fall within the boundaries of tamang proseso. But when we conceive of revolution merely as one apparatus against another, the notion of class power constituted for the abolition of all classes disappears.
\n\nConsequently, while the Communist Party of the Philippines recognized the events at Mendiola as legitimate albeit badly channeled violence, they called for these partisanos of anarchy to be funneled into its New People’s Army. Similarly, the legal and legitimate left called for the recruitment of the angry partisanos and insurrectos into their organization—simply to build their membership. The idea that the solution to our woes is to “organize”—or even to “mamundok“—is the slightly more radical equivalent of the liberal mantra that the solution is “to vote.” The outcome is the same: the demobilization and dissolution of the party of anarchy and the subordination of its alumni to some apparatus of the caucus of the false critics—mediation, management, and integration into political life.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/2.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nPolitical life and its notions of legality, legitimacy, and tamang proseso is the very lifeblood of normalcy. Negotiation for reforms or for a place within the hierarchy of normalcy is managed and mediated by political life. The party of anarchy, as a party outside all integrated political life, is resolutely anti-political. As such, the party of anarchy must be red-tagged, black-tagged, and subjected to the cruelest black scare because it is through the anti-political that the party of anarchy acts outside the bounds of legality and legitimacy, as it is the greatest threat to normalcy. The social insurrection and revolution abolish legitimacy, that ideology of hierarchy and class society.
\n\nIn this sense, the black scare takes place on three levels, all of which are intended to demobilize the party of anarchy. We have already discussed the first two levels. The first is repressive: the use of force to suppress the party of anarchy and in some cases opportunistically repress the caucus of the false critics as well. The second level is mediative: having dissolved the party of anarchy, to integrate its alumni into the caucus of the false critics under the general management of political life.12 The third level of the black scare is reimpositive: the restoration, resumption, and reimposition of normalcy under the old or new party of order. This reimpositive aspect of the black scare is the most insidious, for it emerges as a consequence of fear of anarchy on the part of the party of anarchy itself, which loses its coherence when the party fails to overcome the limits of insurrection.
\n\nThe repressive black scare is the task of the party of order, specifically under the dominant caucus of the existent. The mediative black scare is the task of the caucus of the false critics through their two-line struggle to become the dominant caucus. The reimpositive black scare emerges from within the party of anarchy themselves, as a consequence of the real material and ideological limits to the insurrection, limits that the insurrectos must overcome if they are to transform an insurrection into a social revolution that engulfs the whole world.
\n\nTamang proseso is the motor of the imposition and reimposition of normalcy. Against the reimpositive black scare, the insurrectos must struggle against the very power to legitimize, developing an anti-politics that rejects even (or especially) the democratic form and the legitimacy and citizenship it implies.
\n\nAside from the obvious repressive function of policing deployed against our class and the party of anarchy, policing serves the tamang proseso. The flood control scandals in the Philippines are being investigated by the Marcos-formed Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI). Such mechanisms affirm the legitimacy of the party of order. The state’s apparatus for policing corruption persuades citizens that the system works. This is how the state manages class antagonisms. That is the ultimate limitation of corruption discourse, via which citizens are reproduced and reaffirmed as such with all the passivity that implies under the regime of democracy. The abolition of legitimacy and tamang proseso starts with the failure of this discourse, the seeds of which can remain dormant for decades; there has been abject wanton corruption for a very long time, but its contradictions did not reach a breaking point until September 2025.
\n\nThe party of order proactively carries out the mediation and management of political life to prevent the party of anarchy from cohering. At crucial turning points within burgis politics, such as political revolutions or major elections, the reconfiguration of the caucuses and sub-factions of the party of order creates new avenues for mediating and managing political life. The People Power Revolution and the EDSA Republic brought segments of the Philippine left into engagement with the ruling liberal oligarchy. Consequently, the laundering of land grabbing under the administration of Noynoy “PNoy” Aquino (2010-2016) by those who called themselves popular democrats led to mass disillusionment, which contributed to the election of Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. In Nepal, the dissolution of the people’s governments by Prachanda’s decree and Prachanda’s own ascension to the premiership of Nepal led to the integration of his and other communist parties of Nepal into the caucus of the existent, while the official Maoists enriched themselves. In Indonesia, the contradictions and antagonisms that remained from the Reformasi gave way to the restoration of a son of the New Order through the election of Prabowo Subianto.13
\n\nThe party of anarchy coheres as the abject failure of tamang proseso becomes harder and harder to ignore. More and more become disillusioned, not only with the tamang proseso of the existent, but also of its false critics. Like the church invisible (a church of elect or future converts known only to the true believers of Christ), the party of anarchy first coheres as a party invisible, as affinities form between militants who recognize each other as elect but do not yet even know they are comrades and kasamas in struggle. Then, eventually, the pressure ruptures the dam. The police murder of Affan Kurniawan launched the August–September insurrections in Indonesia; the banning of Nepali social media (and therefore of criticism) launched the September 2025 insurrection in Nepal; and the long-simmering discontent from the flood-control scandals combined with the high morale from seeing insurrections elsewhere inspired the battle at Mendiola on September 21 in the Philippines. The failure to mediate and manage brought together the party of anarchy in all of these countries.
\n\nMarches overcome the limits of pragmatic pacifism and escalated into individual acts of illegalism. Acts of individual illegalism overcome the limits that block the way to collective acts of illegalism, and the riots of collective illegalism give rise to mass illegalism, then to insurrection, revolution, communization, and the unification of humanity. Each level of escalation must overcome its particular limits.
\n\nFundamentally, insurrection and revolution open the horizons to possibilities beyond the world we currently inhabit. Once we catch a glimpse of the possibilities beyond, why should we remain where we are? To remake what has been unmade? Yet our class does not make that choice, or if we have had to, we chose so with grief in our hearts as the ultimate limits of the insurrection broke up the party of anarchy.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/3.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nReaction is inevitable. Revolution is not. As the party of anarchy coheres as a consequence of the failure of politics, pro-revolutionaries struggle to reconfigure themselves in relation to the party of anarchy. The repression from the party of order and mediation from the caucus of the false critics are not the only threats. The reimposition of normalcy becomes inevitable when insurrectos fail to communize social life within the insurrection and are unable to escalate towards revolutionizing the whole world.
\n\nThere will not be an invisible hand of the insurrection like there is an invisible hand of the market—or at least, not initially. Market forces are driven by the invisible hand of the totalizing logic of capital. In contrast, the logic of the insurrection emerges embryonically, as a seedling in an entire hostile ecology. Workers who become insurrectos and partisanos of anarchy stand to lose much by breaking with normalcy. Yet what we gain through that insurrectionary logic can reorganize social life during the rupture. That insurrectionary logic must fight to the death against the totalizing logic of capital, or else be smothered in counterrevolution. This is where the pro-revolutionaries must intervene to nurture and cultivate that seedling of insurrectionary logic of anarchy and communism. This is where revolution creates the revolutionaries.
\n\nIn Indonesia, the insurrection led to mass looting and mass arson of government buildings. Pro-revolutionaries convened parliaments of the streets, creating spaces for insurrectos to talk revolution. Yet they did not seize the arms before burning the police armories. In the end, the insurrectos could not defend themselves, their campuses, and their homes from goons from the party of order or opportunist looters and rapists. The insurrection did not expand into the countryside, nor did pro-revolutionaries link the different sites of insurrection together in a meaningful way. With neither the means to defend nor feed themselves, the insurrectos across the vast archipelago arrived at the same calculus with little coordination: to pacify themselves, to continue to mobilize but in a non-violent manner, to appeal for a compromise with the party of order. Self-pacification was driven by fear of reaction and counterrevolution. Yet the reaction was inevitable regardless. It was Prabowo’s reaction that became the vanguard for the global black scare.
\n\nMany in Indonesia who didn’t intervene or intervened only in a defensive manner found themselves stuck waiting for conditions to ripen, for the insurrection to develop into a feasible scenario for revolutionary intervention. Such attentisme, a “wait-and-see attitude,” is yet another form of tamang proseso—as if the proper order of operations is to consolidate a revolutionary organization before a revolution. In fact, ideal conditions do not exist, but opportunities do, and opportunities for revolution arise regardless of readiness or level of organization. Attentisme traps pro-revolutionaries in an endless loop of waiting for ideal conditions, endlessly organizing and building the movement—patience for patience’s sake. But our class is not weak because it is disorganized, our class is disorganized because it is weak. Patience and prudence were not rewarded at all, for the reaction was inevitable once the horizon for revolutionary action closed.
\n\nIn Nepal, the insurrectos armed themselves as they burned down the old order. The almost-total integration of the various official communist parties into the party of order ensured that virtually no organized pro-revolutionary force (or at least no legible force) intervened in the insurrection. Yet the insurrectos seized arms as they burned down the government, overcoming a crucial limit that the insurrectos in Indonesia had not overcome.
\n\nAfter the dust settled, it was alleged by many, including The New York Times, that a shadowy conspiracy had organized the mass arson. In political revolutions, like the one that occurred in EDSA Uno in 1986, the most organized and coherent political forces have the legality and legitimacy to take state power.14 Had a conspiracy to commit mass arson existed on the scale that many implied, that conspiracy would have been powerful enough to seize state power directly. Yet no such kudeta took power, nor did a Bakuninist-Tiqqunist invisible collective dictatorship prevent the resumption of normalcy. Nor did General Ashok Raj Sigdel use the moment to brazenly impose armed rule or restore the monarchy as many feared might occur. In the absence of a legitimate civilian government, nothing could have stopped Sigdel, not even the party of anarchy, which had failed to overcome particular limits and was in retreat.
\n\nBut while the party of anarchy in Nepal was able to pass from individual acts of illegalism to mass collective acts of illegalism, it failed to transcend the limits of legalism and legitimacy itself. Thus, when Sigdel and the army restored legality, law, and order, the army offered to confer legitimacy upon the infamous Discord election. Simultaneously, the de facto military government used the black scare to suppress the party of anarchy, shooting partisanos in the streets. The anti-political revolution became deeply untenable. How could it be otherwise?
\n\nAnti-politics may burn down the parliaments and the great mansions of the official Maoists, but how are insurrectos supposed to burn down the entire state apparatus without feeding themselves? Looting is only a temporary stop-gap solution, after all. Both Vladimir Lenin and Peter Kropotkin understood (and agreed with Karl Marx) that for the revolution to survive, it must feed itself, overcoming the distinctions between town and country. For Lenin, the solution was the great alliance between the proletariat (and the state) and the peasantry. For Kropotkin, it was free exchange between urban and rural workers. When the Bolsheviks could no longer appease and persuade the peasantry to participate in their class alliance, they resorted to open coercion, thereby triggering countless revolts by so-called “green armies.” The party of anarchy—whose primary weapons are not guns and force of arms, but the subversion of society through the “suicidal” rejection of themselves as men, as citizens, as workers—have no such army to coerce the extraction of food. Many anarchists and communists suggest that the revolution can only succeed only when it is international in character. They are correct—but how can revolution become international if cannot overcome the nearer divisions between town and country?
\n\nSo while normalcy was interrupted, as a consequence of the insurrection’s failure to sustain and socially reproduce itself, insurrectos found themselves with little choice but to seek a political solution in the restoration of the party of order. Sigdel and the army, functioning as a bastion of law and legitimacy, gracefully conferred legitimacy upon the greatest Discord poll the world has ever seen yet. Insurrectos found themselves satisfied with being citizens again, and normalcy returned, along with all the social reproduction that implies.
\n\nMany of the prisoners who escaped in the insurrection in Nepal, finding their squalid cells burned to ash, dutifully reported to other squalid cells elsewhere, for legality within the prison cell was preferable to a life of fugitivity under the weight of the party of order. The prison, including the prison that makes up the whole of society today, can only be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of the law and legitimacy. Without those, how could it even be conceivable to report back to prison? To the resumption of democracy and the order it maintains? Normalcy will be preferable to the harshest reaction. Citizenship will be preferable to uncertainty. And precisely because compulsion under capitalism is the freedom to work or starve (rather than the naked coercion of slavery or death), the grace conferred to legitimize the greatest Discord election is a wholly understandable choice. For the proletariat is revolutionary or nothing, and they are not revolutionary precisely when they reproduce themselves as workers, as proletariat, as the class of capital, persuaded to continue being loyal citizens of the party of order.
\n\nWithout overcoming these particular limits—the reimpositive black scare, reaffirming tamang proseso—things could not have turned out any other way. A grand secret conspiracy to burn down the physical manifestations of government is always insufficient—for the state, much like capital, patriarchy, and other hierarchies, coheres not in locations but in social relations. A parliament can burn down, but its legitimacy will remain intact. Reconstituted as citizens, the former insurrectos rebuilt the parliament on Discord. At that point, under the ever-watchful eye of the Nepali armed forces, the choice was clear.
\n\nHad we faced the same choices, would we be like the maquis who continued the fight against Francisco Franco after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution? Would we go on, like the Sabaté brothers who hid in the forests and mountains and persisted despite the victory and consolidation of Spanish fascism? Individual acts of illegalism, even small collective acts of illegalism—and especially such acts in the peripheries—rarely challenge normalcy enough to inspire mass collective outbreaks of illegalism like what we saw in Indonesia and Nepal.
\n\nInevitably, normalcy is reimposed. This is the result of the material and ideological limits that constrained the growth of the insurrection and smothered its embryonic logic. Tamang proseso triumphs, along with all the legality and legitimacy it embodies. The black scare takes place and insurrectos become citizens, prisoners, fugitives, or guerrillas—it matters little which as long as the party of order reigns supreme. The false critics reconfigure themselves within the new normalcy. The anti-politicized either become politicized or retreat back into passivity. “God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/4.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nThe emergence of the party of anarchy at Mendiola on September 21, 2025 revealed the impotence of all the factions of the left and post-left in the Philippines, including this author. Even without a party conspiracy, urban poor youth took action where many others could not. It is the greatest irony that those involved with party conspiracies (some of which involve armed wings) remained limited to rebel peripheries or pragmatic pacifism. Militants and cadres from National Democracy had engaged in delimited acts of vandalism and light skirmishes with the police at the beginning of September, but it was only weeks later, on 9/21, that the so-called unorganized acted autonomously. In the intervening weeks, between the beginning of September and 9/21, the permitted left shifted from limited violence to pragmatic pacifism, while these direct actionists shifted from apolitical obscurity towards openly-legible violence.
\n\nIt is not a simple thing to demand of those who were present at Luneta and Mendiola last September that they should have thrown themselves into the fray of a riot in order to escalate it into an insurrection. Instead of asking what those on the ground that day could have done differently, we could ask—what would have been required to create a situation in which they could not have acted otherwise? That is to say: what constraints shaped what actions they could take? What material and ideological limits prevented them from intervening to elevate the riot beyond its limits?
\n\nThe skirmishes and vandalism by National Democracy in September 4 involved militants who understood the risk and committed to it. At Luneta and Mendiola, during the events of September 21, the composition of the crowd was different. Many had less appetite for risk, and indeed, were ordered to disperse by those who had convened the marches.
\n\nLegality has its uses. The National Democrats who marched under the banners of the Makabayan bloc acted as the permitted left. Had they made the decision to join the riots at Mendiola, their seats in congress could have been forfeit. To lose their position within normalcy would mean forfeiting their planned reforms. Again, this is not necessarily to pass judgment on their inaction, nor to call their socialist credentials into doubt, but to recognize the limits that normalcy imposes us and to recognize when we have been tied to preserving it.
\n\nNaming our demons is the first step towards exorcising them. We cannot overcome material and ideological limits that go unnamed or unrecognized. Studying why insurrections failed, we can arm ourselves with the knowledge of what to avoid. Intentionality is impossible without cognizance. Our revolutionary forebears provided us with the language to identify various limits: the division between town and country; feeding the revolution, or the Conquest of Bread; breaking with burgis ideology, whether that be workerism, the affirmation of proletarian identity, citizenship, legalism, or legitimacy; securing the logistics of healthcare and medicine; overcoming various divisions of labor, especially the gendered division of labor and social reproduction; defense and the military question; accountability and safety; overcoming peripherality and revolutionary isolation; overcoming ideological and sectarian divisions; overcoming separations, identities, and bigotry in the working class; expropriating the expropriators; dealing with the state; resolving the “crisis of revolutionary leadership”; and many more.
\n\nThe legitimacy of the party of order has its material basis in the smooth reproduction of normalcy: simple things like the logistics of food and medicine, keeping the lights on and the hospitals open, keeping homes and dignities safe from violation. Legalism flows from this, and tamang proseso from that. Experiencing the insecurity of rupture and insurrection, how else would one imagine engaging with the state other than through the legitimate processes? To break with the party of order, then, means to challenge the material basis of its legitimacy and legality—for the logic of the insurrection to answer the hard questions of how to overcome specific limits, communizing food, safety, and care.
\n\nUnder normalcy, yes, we are pacifist because we are pragmatic. But when does pacifism cease to be pragmatic? When the time comes, will our pragmatic pacifism have become so deeply ingrained in us that it is no longer pragmatic? Will we become so used to deferring to limits that we miss the chance to transcend these limits? Our relationship to pragmatism must never be raised to the level of a principle. Pragmatism is not a “value” to uphold or defend, precisely because it is merely pragmatic. It is tautologically true that pragmatism is not principle. Pragmatism itself becomes a material and ideological limit in the insurrectionary process.
\n\nPrevious revolutionaries have made a virtue of necessity and raised pragmatic proposals to the realm of ideology. “We had to do this” on the grounds of contingency and pragmatism became “we have to do this” on the basis of principle. That is ideologization. Many such cases exist: secret police and concentration camps (whether Gulag or Laogai) were justified as pragmatic in a given context, but now pro-revolutionaries have ideologized these and raised them to principle, arguing that the repressive functions of a revolution must necessarily be carceral. Similar examples of ideologization can be found in the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein, the vulgarization that is socialism-in-one-country, the dogmatism of democratic centralism. Ideologization is the legitimization of contingency becoming tamang proseso.
\n\nIt is also not the case that the “revolution,” “anarchy,” or “communism” will “solve” issues like the liberation of women—issues that some people wish to put off addressing until after power is won or the burgesya is defeated. This is because capitalism is an alienated system built on our own alienated agency. Market forces and the totalizing logic of the capitalist mode of production both structures our agency and depends on it. It is in this sense that revolution, anarchy, and communism are still conceived in capitalist terms, as alienated agency rather than the reclaiming of our own collective agency.
\n\nThis is why revolution will not “solve” anything, nor will anarchy and communism “eliminate” domination because we will be the ones in charge of our own fate. Revolution, anarchy, and communization are our agency no longer separated from us. The revolutionary process can and will fail if we ourselves fail to overcome the material and ideological limits we face. The revolution will not “liberate” women; women and all who are gendered must liberate themselves and abolish the gendered division of labor and gender itself—to name a single example—or else the revolution will degenerate. Rather than an invisible hand of the insurrection, our own hands will be very much visible in revolution. Consequently, we must have clarity on the mechanics of the material and ideological aspects of each limit we confront, so that we can overcome and surpass them.
\n\nIt is often said that “the end justifies the means.” To this, we reply, “But what if there never is an end? All we have is means,” to quote Ursula K. Le Guin. The distance of the end we desire—nothing less than the full revolutionizing and communization of society and the end of all forms of domination—and the unimaginable gravity of what we are up against forces us to consider that “all we have are means,” at least during periods of normalcy.
\n\nIf all we have are means, then our means ought to be prefigurative15 and generative, helping us to develop agency, autonomy, and ability for self-directed militancy. These tasks are not “revolutionary” in the sense that they can trigger rupture, insurrection, or revolution by themselves, nor achieve the ends we want during periods of normalcy. Rather, they are revolutionary in that they can enable us to organize, resist, fight, and build powers and capacities that will be of use in insurrections and revolutionary situations. The fact that these capacities were severely underdeveloped explains why the recent insurrections in Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, and Madagascar ended with the demobilization of the party of anarchy and the reimposition of normalcy. In this sense, certain kinds of pragmatism—such as the pragmatism of appealing to a different faction of the ruling class, as occurred after 9/21—are self-defeating, as they accustom us to subordinating ourselves, deferring our desires, and appealing to power.
\n\nFor the ends we want, maximalism is in order—fighting for a “maximum program,” for a maximum amount of change, for anarchy, communism, and the end of all domination. Maximalism is a muscle that we must continuously practice using. As means, maximalism allows us to strengthen our capacities for thinking beyond the current moment. If the ends we seek are not ambitious—if we merely call for reforms (reforms from whom?), for accountability (accountability according to whom?), for vague unities with a different section of the oligarchy—then whatever means we build will not be able to transcend the current moment. During periods of normalcy, maximalism is a practice of political imagination that challenges us to think beyond capitalism, the state, gender, patriarchy, and hierarchy. When normalcy breaks down, it is the clear-sightedness of maximalism that enables pro-revolutionaries to resist the return to normalcy. In this sense, maximalism embodies one of the demands of the French revolutionary episode of May 1968: “Be realistic, demand the impossible.”
\n\nAlongside maximalism, we must also cultivate bravery. In the sense that it is used here, bravery is the means by which our class becomes capable of participating in insurrections and revolutions. Bravery is the impetus that overcomes the material and ideological limits of pragmatic pacifism, that enables the party of anarchy to cohere beyond a riot in order to precipitate a social insurrection. Safety in an insurrection is obviously an illusion—it is not a dinner party after all. But like a dinner party, an insurrection must be a time and space for us to finally be ourselves—our rewilding, our self-abolition as proletarianized, alienated, gendered, and separated beings.
\n\nMaterially speaking, normalcy is legitimized is through our collective dependence on its reproduction. Ideologically, this manifests as mass apolitical passivity. The permitted left and the false critics politicize members of our class by cultivating their bravery only to channel it towards seeking meager reforms. Bravery enables our class to demand more and more from the party of order. Bravery is also necessary in escalation, enabling our class to break with the party of order and the imposition of normalcy.
\n\nTo raid an armory before burning a police station can carry greater penalties than arson. What kind of bravery would be required to take up arms at such a moment, rather than reveling in mere destruction, as in Indonesia? And when the reaction inevitably comes, what kind of bravery could enable our class-in-abolition to keep our arms raised against opportunists and goons rather than surrendering them to the party of order, as former partisanos did in Nepal? The assault on our class is what drives our class to yearn for the reimposition of normalcy for some semblance of safety. Cultivating bravery also means keeping food supplies and healthcare openly available while defending ourselves from opportunists and reactionaries. Inevitably, insurrectos will also have to find the bravery to forego money and division of labor altogether.
\n\nThis bravery has to be cultivated under normalcy. One deeply pervasive constraint on bravery under normalcy is rape culture, which forces countless women and queer people out of movements. Ableism and bigotry also drive people away and break up the unities required for more bravery. Will it be our insurrection, the unleashing of our agency, if it cannot include us dancing in it?
\n\nSimilarly, when militants and insurrectos become caught up in the repressive black scare, it is crucial to support them, lest the bravery of all shall be constrained if we see that we will not be supported when reaction comes. Likewise, the fight for carceral abolition, for defunding the police and decarcerating prisoners, is essential to cultivating the bravery of our class.
\n\nA similar capacity for bravery is required in food and goods. It is abundantly clear that solidarity economies and alternative institutional arrangements (so-called dual power) cannot and will not challenge normalcy nor overcome the totalizing logic of capital. But the partial manner of these alternative lifeways can still provide us bravery and foundations for generalization under a revolution. Our intentionality in such matters, then, requires us to be cognizant of the limits of what we can do under normalcy.
\n\nInsurrection will come again, just as it has ebbed and flowed since even before the Reformation. Intentionality, maximalism, and bravery will be required for the next to come.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/5.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nWe are in a state of world war—from the Russian war on Ukraine to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon, the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Gulf, the Horn of Africa, the conflicts in the Sahel, the civil war in Burma and West Papua, and the threat of war on Taiwan and the Southeast Asian sea. All of the sides in all of these conflicts are united on the black scare. In the war on Iran, we have seen a new mode of imperial counterinsurgency, in which the imperialists preemptively bomb revolutionary Iranians to ensure that a revolutionary movement cannot cohere. World war signals two possibilities ahead: either the opportunity for rupture and insurrection, or an even more violent imposition of normalcy throughout the world. All governments belong to the same party of order, albeit as competing and even contending factions and caucuses. Our class is not of the party of order; ours is the party of anarchy to come.
\n\nAs partisans of the party of order organize international anti-antifa conferences and intensify the black scare, our task as pro-revolutionaries is to recognize our role in the struggle ahead. Despite the deficiencies of military analogy, one reference might still be useful. In military theory, the vanguard is not the commander of the forces in a field, but the unit that scouts ahead to meet the enemy, delay them, and lay the groundwork for the main forces to advance. In this analogy, the party of anarchy is that main force, but we can open the way by scouting the metaphorical terrain. Laying down the groundwork means cultivating the bravery we all need. But the class struggle is not a war between fronts or apparatuses; it is the proletariat struggling to abolish their roles as proletarians, as men, and women, as whatever identities normalcy imposed upon us.
\n\nAs the current world war intensifies, internationalism will be crucial. Yet, as the insurrections of 2025 have shown, if the insurrectos and pro-revolutionaries have been unable to interlink struggles between town and country—or even to feed themselves—how much more difficult would it be to interlink struggles across de jure borders and states? It is in bridging and partially uniting these various separations and peripheries that pro-revolutionaries can be most effective during periods of normalcy. “It’s not up to the rebels to learn to speak anarchist; it’s up to the anarchists to become polyglot.” It is our task to speak different languages of struggle and translate these into one another. It is in our struggles interlinked that the party of anarchy coheres, from the forging of solidarities before and during the insurrection. The grand unification of various peripheries cannot be done under normalcy, but the intention and bravery to pave the way for it may be possible, so long as we do not succumb to attentisme.
\n\nHere in the Philippines, the situation is critical. There may not be enough electricity to power the most economically productive parts of the national grid in this summer. Summer is expected to be particularly brutal as it is an El Niño season, so droughts, crop failure, and heat strokes may be common. Adding in a fertilizer and fuel oil crisis, the coming crisis could signal a breakdown of normalcy on a larger scale than the COVID-19 pandemic. The black scare in response to the events of 9/21 is still ongoing, with many of those detained that day still facing charges. Yet the party of anarchy can still cohere again. If the answers remain uncertain, we can at least be certain which questions we must ask.
\n\nI cannot presume to prescribe a mode of organization, whether formal or informal, to meet the tasks of cohering the party of anarchy at a point of insurrection. To argue that we must understand the black scare and other material and ideological limits is not necessarily to argue for formal or informal models of organization.16 Here, we have simply reviewed what it will require to overcome the particular limits we have encountered. How to build the organization to fulfill those tasks without being subsumed into normalcy again is up to the coming insurrections.
\n\nThe task of overcoming limits is one that all pro-revolutionaries must undertake as the self-conscious elect of the party invisible. As pro-revolutionaries, we can see this party invisible, the coming party of anarchy, everywhere we look—the jeepney chupers, the mambubukid, kadamay, kamanggagawa, kababaihan, kabaklahan, and kasama.
\n\nAll under heaven is in chaos; the situation is excellent for anarchy.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/30/1.jpg\")
Photograph by Philippine Collegian.
\nAll writing is autobiographical, more so with political theory. Dedicated to lovers, comrades, kasamasa, kaoomchies, and kaibigan—to all who persist. D—, K—, P—, T—, H—, N—, H—, I—, R—, H—, I—, A—, A—, M—, R—, B—, J—, K—, P—, A—, M—, A—, P—, L—, G—, J—, I—, M—, A—, A—, V—, A—, 1—, R—, R—, PM, ISE, BI, TDP, A!, PS, MF, and many more.
\n\nOn the wave of uprisings that spread from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh, then from Indonesia to Nepal, Madagascar, Morocco, Peru, and elsewhere:
\n\nMore material on the Philippines:
\n\nEDSA, pronounced “Ed-Sa,” stands for the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the same avenue where the First and Second People Power Revolutions, or EDSA Uno and EDSA Dos respectively, took place. Similar to Luneta, marching and mobilizing at EDSA is highly symbolic. ↩
\n“DDS” originally stood for the nickname of then-mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s private army, the Davao Death Squad, which Duterte is accused of using to terrorize the urban poor of Davao City. During Duterte’s campaign for president, the fascist Dutertista movement co-opted and embraced the acronym DDS as Duterte Diehard Supporters. ↩
\nWhere appropriate, Filipinisms (words specific to the dialect of Philippine English) are used in this text. ↩
\nFormer president Rodrigo Duterte finished his term of office without much fanfare, having been constitutionally barred from running for president again as a consequence of finishing his term of office. Political dynasties in the Philippines routinely endorse family members and allies to keep power within their circle. The Duterte and Marcos dynasty colluded to run for office, with Bongbong Marcos (the son and junior of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.) running for president and Sara Duterte (the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte) running for vice president as a tandem. It is highly rare for tandems to win, as a president and vice president are elected separately, yet both won. Nonetheless, the two dynasties began quarreling in public, with Marcos ordering the extraordinary arrest and extradition of Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court. ↩
\nThe term is borrowed from Karl Marx, who first used it in what became Class Struggles in France; in this text, we play on his meaning. See Marx’s most famous usage of the terms “party of order” and “party of anarchy” in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. ↩
\nThe Kilusang Setyembre Bente Uno (KS21) is a fascist entryist group that appropriated the symbolism of 9/21. We know they are fascist entryists because they are platformed by the usual fascist Telegram channels while claiming to be some kind of patriotic united front. Some of their members were arrested while challenging a Manila ordinance designed to prevent another 9/21. ↩
\n“Red-tag” is a Filipinism somewhat equivalent to “red-bait.” The use of “black-tagging” is a play on words, though that phrase is already sometimes used to refer to baiting or tagging individuals and groups by alleging connection to Daesh-aligned groups (the so-called “Islamic State”) like the Maute group. It goes without saying that I am not using the phrase to refer to Daesh. ↩
\nIn the Philippines, permits are required for most protests. ↩
\nThis discussion on apolitical passivity (which I term “apolicity” elsewhere) is also an intervention into the discussion in the Philippines about the notion that working-class people are “apolitical” and “passive,” which reduces individual agency to a choice rather than recognizing that individuals orient themelves in the context of their material and ideological conditions. ↩
\n“Burgis” is a Filipinism for “bourgeois,” and “burgesya” is a Filipinism for “bourgeoisie.” ↩
\nTaken from “izquierda permitida” (permitted left) discourse used in Bolivia to describe the transformation of MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo) and other ruling left electoral parties from being a radical left (izquierda radical) to a “permitted left” (izquierda permitida). ↩
\nCompare with Phil A. Neel’s notion of an “anti-party” in his works such as “Theory of the Party.” ↩
\nAlmost literally so, since Prabowo is the son-in-law of Suharto, the old dictator of the New Order period, and Prabowo is an advocate of a return to New Order-style of governance. ↩
\nIn EDSA Uno, this force was the liberal-democratic oligarchy organized by the Church and the political-dynastic opposition to the dictatorship. The Communist Party of the Philippines failed to intervene at this crucial moment and lost the momentum for insurrection in what is now called as the “boycott error,” now understood by ideologues as a problem of “ultraleftism.” ↩
\nWhile I no longer believe in the theory of change that prefiguration and its adherents put forward, I still believe it has a place somehow, as suggested in the following paragraphs. This is not the place to expound on the subject in depth. ↩
\nNeither is informalism an inherently superior mode of organization in counterrevolutionary times. We have seen in the Philippines how informalist organization can constrain bravery no less than transmisogyny or manarchism. The dichotomy of formalism versus informalism (as also framed as pro-organizationalism versus anti-organizationalism) is a false dichtotomy. People have repeatedly raised the point against Murray Bookchin that so-called lifestylists (his referred term for informalists/anti-organizationalists) still take part in formal organizations. ↩
\nWhat can today’s rebels learn from the Stonewall riots? Why did the uprising have such an impact? To answer these questions, we explore the previously unacknowledged significance of anarchists in the rebellion and the movements that emerged from it. Along the way, we trace a queer genealogy of anarchist organizing methods in North America from the Stonewall Uprising through the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 to today.
\n\nThis is a massive, meticulously researched historical investigation. It’s a deep dive! For a shorter introduction to the subject, see our previous article, “Stonewall Means Riot Right Now.”
\n\nYou can order a zine version of this article here in order to read it in print.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/1.jpg\")
This image designed by the artist Bum Lung appeared in a book collecting the works of the Mary Nardini Gang in 2019. In fact, it repurposes the same Thomas Nast cartoon as a flyer that the anarchist group Up Against the Wall Motherfucker made in the 1960s. This connection gives us a glimpse of a subterranean relationship between queer subversion and criminal anarchism that spans decades.
\n“Be gay, do crime”? Let’s be more ambitious!
\n\nIn 1969, gays and gender rebels were already criminals. At Stonewall, they became revolutionaries.
\n\nAnd if you’ve ever participated in an affinity group at a mass protest, you’ve got them partly to thank.
\n\nHere, we revisit the Stonewall Uprising and its aftermath to trace a queer anarchist history of riots and horizontal organizing. Despite Stonewall being the most famous moment in LGBTQ history in the United States, few have explored the anarchist dimensions of the uprising, nor its influence on subsequent radical organizing and tactics. Until now, queer anarchists who have invoked Stonewall have usually focused on it simply as an anti-police riot, an example of “queer ultraviolence” in which a wide range of sexual and gender rebels including trans people, people of color, and street youth fought back against their oppressors. This is accurate, of course, and were it only that, it would still be worth celebrating. But there is a specifically anarchist legacy at the heart of the rebellion, posing strategic and tactical lessons of interest to contemporary anarchists.
\n\nThe history of queer anarchism has yet to be told. This is one of its riotous chapters.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/2.jpeg\")
Queer anarchists around the world march to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising—let’s actually remember and learn from it.
\nIf you, dear reader, are a queer and/or trans anarchist, we hope you’ll find particular pleasure in this account. But there are no identity-based limits on this legacy. All anarchists and rebels should find useful insights in the story that follows. Looking back through this history, it’s surprising how much of it—the discourse about outside agitators, identity, and local knowledge in riots, the debates about leadership and representation versus spontaneity and affinity, the counterinsurgency methods—resonates directly with our own experiences in more recent rebellions across a wide range of contexts.
\n\nRadical history should go beyond simply cheerleading our ancestors and trancestors; we owe it to them to learn concrete lessons from their successes and failures. The best way to honor the courage of the Stonewall rebels is not by putting their images on our walls or social media feeds, nor by squabbling over the proper version of identity politics to govern our thumbnail accounts of history.
\n\nIt’s by drawing on their experiences to revolt more and better today.
\n\n—some queer anarchists
\n\nWe’ve researched this article using a range of primary materials (documents and accounts from 1969) as well as other historians’ writings about the events, plus interviews years later with folks who witnessed them. Where possible, we’ve included links to online sources that you can read yourself; otherwise, we have included footnotes to materials you can access in libraries. Many of the sources appear in the excellent anthology The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary Reader.
\n\nSome of the accounts directly contradict each other. We’ve done our best to sort through the various sources to pull together a well-supported overall narrative, acknowledging the limits of what we can know.
\n\nObjectivity is impossible. Yet our revolutionary aspirations will not be served by upholding mythologies that are emotionally satisfying but neglect the available evidence. A “usable past,” as we see it, isn’t an uncomplicated and inspiring fable full of hero/in/es to celebrate. It’s an analysis of history that offers lessons we can use to realize our own revolutionary dreams in the present.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/27.jpg\")
Yes honey, we know. But what can it teach us about revolt?
\nStonewall wasn’t simply a night when the cops raided a bar and people fought back. The Stonewall Rebellion spanned three nights of intense rioting throughout Greenwich Village over the course of six days. This is critical to understanding why it made such a difference then and why we still remember it today.
\n\nIt has become common to point out that Stonewall wasn’t the first queer riot. Commonly cited incidents include Cooper Do-nuts in Los Angeles (c. 1959) and Compton’s Cafeteria (1966). We can add to the list the Black Nite Brawl of 1961, also known as “Wisconsin’s Stonewall,” the gay community response to the Black Cat raid in 1967 Los Angeles, and various other pre-1969 rebellions.
\n\nYet our hunger for a usable riotous queer past may exceed what we can actually document. The Cooper Do-nuts incident might have happened, but novelist John Rechy is the only person who claims to remember it (and wasn’t even sure what year it took place). More people claim to remember a tussle at Compton’s, but neither police files, organizational records, media coverage, nor gay nor trans periodicals from the time offer any mention of such an incident. It may have happened, but the details and even the date remain hazy—some time in August 1966 is the best guess. While inspiring to recount as an early example of collective trans and queer resistance, whatever impact such a disturbance may have had at the time was limited.
\n\nOther instances that are better documented, while locally significant, did not spread beyond their immediate geographic or tactical limits. The Black Nite Brawl, while fierce, was essentially a bar fight on a single night. When the Black Cat was raided in 1967, the gay community didn’t riot, though they did organize a nonviolent protest. None of these were widely discussed outside the communities where they took place.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/3.jpg\")
After the Los Angeles Police raided the Black Cat bar in Los Angeles in 1967, the gay community assembled to protest… but didn’t riot.
\nSurely there have been many times when queer and/or trans people fought back against oppression, regardless of whether they were documented in traditional archives or community memory. But before 1969, none of those directly catalyzed a deeper transformation in the queer/trans world beyond the immediate participants.
\n\nStonewall was different. One of the reasons why is that it lasted so much longer. The entire neighborhood around the bar became ungovernable for nearly a week, with multiple escalating clashes that centered gay, trans, and/or gender non-conforming people but grew to include a range of neighbors, street kids, and political radicals. By sustaining the disorder for many days beyond the initial bar raid, the rioters shifted what it meant to be gay in the Village—and eventually, the world.
\n\nHad the 2014 riots in Ferguson died down after one night, they would not have catalyzed the international reckoning with police violence that became known as the Black Lives Matter movement. In the years before a police officer in Ferguson murdered Michael Brown, many one-night riots took place in response to police murders—but none lasted long enough to expand into a generalized rebellion. In Ferguson, locals kept coming back to the streets; this afforded supporters time to arrive, helping to sustain the intensity. The prolonged disorder caught the attention of the public, which eventually caused the protests to spread, making Michael Brown and Ferguson into household names. This is a useful analogy for what happened in the Stonewall riots.
\n\nNowadays, people love to debate who “threw the first brick”1 at Stonewall. Actually, the question of how the rioting continued is at least as important as how it started. While the courage of those who resisted on the first night is admirable, it was the persistence of collective militant defiance in the streets over the following week that transformed it from a disturbance into a revolutionary upheaval.
\n\nOne night, however fierce, could be a fluke. Stonewall was an uprising. Let’s see how it unfolded.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/4.jpg\")
The Stonewall Inn before everything exploded.
\nThe basic story of the first night of rioting at Stonewall is widely known, though certain details about who did what remain contested.
\n\nFriday, June 27 was an ordinary night at the Stonewall, a trashy gay bar on Christopher Street in the West Village run by the Genovese organized crime family. The door was staffed by Ed Murphy, an infamous Mafia tough, pimp, blackmailer, and police snitch who later rebranded himself as a gay activist. A mixture of mostly young gay men and trans/gender-nonconforming folks sipped watered-down drinks from dirty glasses and danced, while outside the bar, more queers (including many too young to get in) congregated in the park and on the streets, laughing and camping and cruising.
\n\nShortly after 1 am, police entered the bar and announced that they were raiding the premises. It was the second raid of the same bar that week, in addition to raids on other gay bars and the destruction of trees in a popular cruising area of a park in nearby Queens. As police sorted patrons for release or arrest, targeting trans people in particular, some begin to protest and physically resist. A crowd gathered outside, grumbling at the police and cheering and camping it up as people exited the bar.
\n\nWord spread through the neighborhood. As the police exited and began loading arrestees into a paddy wagon, tension built. A trans woman smacked an officer with her purse; a butch lesbian, struggling against her captors, yelled at the crowd to do something. From the swelling crowd, people shouted, threw pennies (a pun: “dirty copper!”), beat upon the police vehicles, pulled up cobblestones from the streets, and tussled with the officers. Losing control of the situation as the crowd grew larger and angrier, the officers retreated into the bar.
\n\nThe crowd tossed bottles, stones, trash, garbage cans, and whatever they else they could find. They smashed windows, unarrested some prisoners, and pulled up a parking meter to use as a battering ram. Rioters attempted to set the bar on fire. Cops pulled their guns. More police arrived; as riot cops squared off, the crowd camped it up, chanting and dancing a kick line. For hours, the crowds clashed with police, dispersed and reassembled, set trash cans on fire, chanted, cruised, and milled around discussing their previous experiences with police.2
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/5.jpg\")
Friday night: the police raided and queers fought back.
\nAs Martin Boyce recalled of the morning after:
\n\n\n\n\nMorning came on Christopher, and those broken windows and pieces of cloth inside and diamondlike glass all over. It was a riot, no doubt about it, and there were just exhausted survivors looking dazed. We knew what happened. We all did it… There was a certain beauty to the aftermath of the riot. It was a very extraordinary kind of beauty, something to make art out of later… The beauty of shattered glass and certain kind of fag decorations being blown in the wind, by the window. It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay and, you know, this was our street.3
\n
For all of the ink spilled debating who played what role on the first night, all accounts agree that there were no leaders. No organizations, no formal structures, no representatives: the rebellion was a spontaneous collective outburst of rage and joy. Even attempts to chant slogans such as “gay power” or to sing civil rights anthems like “We Shall Overcome” didn’t take hold in an atmosphere of arch camp irony and fury. While efforts to take control of the riot’s legacy and bend its meaning to serve different political agendas began soon after, the first night expressed an organic, unmediated defiance. An observer writing in the countercultural newspaper Rat remarked on the absence of any effort to exert leadership as the uprising unfolded: “Strangely, no one spoke to the crowd or tried to direct the insurrection. Everyone’s heads were in the same place.”4
\n\nMany of the statements that established activists made early in the rebellion focused on the bars themselves, lamenting the system of mafia control and police payoffs. Craig Rodwell of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop circulated a flyer on behalf of his organization Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN) that declared, “The only way this monopoly can be broken is through the action of Homosexual men and women themselves. We obviously cannot rely on the various agencies of government.” Despite this anti-state sentiment, the demands asserted—for gay businessmen to run bars with “competitive pricing,” a boycott of Mafia-controlled establishments, and an investigation by the mayor’s office—suggested a limited imagination.5 While these conditions created frustration and vulnerability for many adult gay people, young queer people—ironically, precisely the constituency that HYMN claimed to speak for—were excluded regardless of who owned them, and trans/gender-nonconforming people of all ages faced additional legal and social harassment both inside and outside of them.6
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/7.jpg\")
Craig Rodwell stands in front of the Oscar Wilde Book Shop in 1969.
\nHad the riots died down after one or two nights, such demands might have remained the thinkable horizon for many participants. However, the unrest persisted across many days despite the efforts of cops, politicians, and community representatives. The prolonged antagonism with police occupying the neighborhood and the ongoing congregation of angry, rebellious queers on the streets defying authority and sharing their experiences expanded the meaning of the uprising. Over the course of the week, what had begun as a grievance related to the bars became a window into a totally different world.
\n\nIn addition to expressing being fed up and determined to resist, participants began to articulate sophisticated political analyses. One young gay rebel explained to a reporter the function of anti-gay oppression: “We strike at the family, and we undermine all the bullshit about virility that keeps most men in line.”7 These insights emerged collectively in real time as the rioters chatted and developed a shared political consciousness. An observer of the first night recalled:
\n\n\n\n\nPeople hung around till after 4 am talking in little groups. People were excited and angry. In talking to a number of kids who had been inside, it was evident most understood at least rudimentarily what was happening to them. What was and should have always been theirs, what should have been the free control of the people was dramatized, shown up for what it really was, an instrument of power and exploitation. It was theatre, totally spontaneous. There was no bullshit.8
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/6.jpg\")
Day one: the raid and the riots left the bar wrecked.
\nIn a 2019 interview, Jim Fouratt, a longtime gay activist and former Yippie who was present for the entire Stonewall Uprising, recalled a detail that hasn’t made it into the published accounts of the riots. In his account, few radical groups participated on the second night of the uprising, but the Motherfuckers were there:
\n\n\n\n\nDo you know about the Motherfuckers? Straight anarchists, black flag kind of group… I did a lot of community organizing with the East Side Yippies and that kind of stuff. And my friend Ren de Antonio called me and she said, “I want you to know that the Motherfuckers are gonna come tonight and they’re gonna try to start a confrontation with the police.” And I said, “How do you know that?” She told me that there was a closeted gay man that she was good friends with in the Motherfuckers named Superdrill… she said Superdrill told me they’re gonna come.9
\n
Did the Motherfuckers participate in the Stonewall Uprising? If so, what impact did they have?10 We may never be able to confirm with certainty what role the Motherfuckers played, but Fouratt’s recollection suggests a throughline connecting the forms of anarchist organizing on the streets of New York City in 1969 with the organizational forms that emerged out of the Stonewall Uprising. In any case, as we shall see below, multiple witnesses confirm that at least one other anarchist group was definitely involved in the riots.
\n\nWho were the Motherfuckers? Up Against the Wall Motherfucker (UAW/MF), also known as the Motherfuckers, emerged in the late 1960s out of organizing involving Dan Georgakas, Ben Morea, and several others. Inspired by Dadaism, Spanish Civil War veterans living in exile in New York City, and the Living Theater, Morea had launched a zine called Black Mask in 1966, turning the radical message of the avant garde against the corporate art world that had defanged it and reduced it to a spectacle. Over the months that followed, he and his companions carried out some of the boldest confrontational direct actions of the late 1960s while modeling a new form of horizontal organization.
\n\nMorea had attended meetings with Murray Bookchin at which they discussed how the Spanish anarchists of the FAI (Federación Anarquista Ibérica) had organized in grupos de afinidad during the revolution of 1936. Bookchin went on to circulate influential proposals about affinity group organizing through the writings and lectures of the Anarchos Group at spaces like Alternate U, a countercultural free school in Greenwich Village in New York City. At the same time, UAW/MF began to put a similar model into practice, organizing as a “street gang with an analysis,” forming cells that participated in confrontational actions against the art establishment, the police, and the military-industrial complex.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/26.jpg\")
Ben Morea of the Motherfuckers, c. 1968.
\nIn a leaflet titled “The Brown Bag Theory of Affinity Groups,” UAW/MF laid out their philosophy:
\n\n\n\n\nThe affinity group is the seed/ germ/ essence of organization. It is coming together out of mutual Need or Desire. Cohesive historical groups united out of the shared necessities of the struggle for survival, while dreaming of the possibility of love. For man’s nature is not bounded by necessity alone — Desire appears in all its forms & man desires to desire — he seeks to fulfill himself on every level of his complex life. & it is in this psychological sense that the affinity group is a pre-organizational force, it represents the drive out of which organization is formed & in so far as it fulfills men’s desires it becomes the post-revolutionary form, the organization of satisfaction.
\n
It is striking that the Motherfuckers articulated the logic of the affinity group not only as a response to political necessity or as a way to embody anti-authoritarian principles, but an expression of desire and the longing for love. Establishing collective living spaces, working together intensively, and sharing the risks and pleasures of life in revolt, UAW/MF formed a network they called “the family,” which, as Morea recounted, “shared a tribal outlook and lifestyle.” Deconstructing and replacing bourgeois structures of kinship was part of the group’s prefigurative vision. As the radical historian Caitlin Casey explains, “The Motherfuckers saw the nuclear family as a hopelessly outdated concept but their new family as presaging the postrevolutionary society.”
\n\nMorea later recalled, “The fact that we rejected the nuclear family model and lived collectively was never arrived at in a polemical fashion or laid out as a blueprint. We just had a sense that there were other roots to living other than what the West had to offer.” In this rejection of conventional family values in favor of new models driven by desire, love, and a vision of social transformation, the Motherfuckers—despite being a mostly heterosexual formation—promoted an anti-authoritarian vision that paralleled the queer practices that were emerging a few blocks west, where networks of street queens, queer teenagers, cruisers, and gay couples were building alternative worlds.
\n\nWhile these prefigurative models of alternative kinship overlapped with social realities in the Village, UAW/MF’s tactics were a far cry from any means of protest that organized gay groups had undertaken. Pre-Stonewall organizations such as the Mattachine Society of New York employed conventional hierarchical organizing models and limited their tactics to polite advocacy, which was undoubtedly bold for a time when same-sex sex was criminalized and police harassment bedeviled the community. The MSNY’s negotiations with Mayor Lindsay’s administration and the police department had managed to secure a reduction in anti-gay arrests in the years leading up to Stonewall. But while some individual gays and lesbians such as Jim Fouratt participated in more confrontational New Left or anarchist projects, the organized gay movement remained tactically conservative through 1969.
\n\nAt a time when a broad social consensus, particularly among young people and marginalized communities, strongly opposed the Vietnam War and the US military machine, the first gay protest to take place in the city had been a 1964 picket outside the US Army Building advocating for the inclusion of gay men and lesbians in the military. The famous 1966 “sip-in” at Julius’s Bar in the Village involved men in conservative suits identifying themselves as homosexuals and then politely asking to be served in order to challenge State Liquor Authority policies that rendered gay bars vulnerable to closure. While courageous and in some cases effective, the homophile movement showed little tactical innovation. Younger activists’ efforts to propose even minor changes in the scope of actions—such as relaxing the conservative gender-conforming dress code imposed on participants in the “Annual Reminder” picket at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia—provoked fierce backlash.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/9.jpg\")
The famous “sip-in” at Julius’s Bar in the West Village, 1966. Dick Leitsch, president of the Mattachine Society of New York, is at center, addressing the bartender.
\nBy contrast, on the Lower East Side, the Motherfuckers were pushing the boundaries of protest with near-constant confrontations, property destruction, and street marches. As former Motherfucker Osha Neumann recalled,
\n\n\n\n\nWe would riot, throw rocks through the windows of the bank, and run through the streets chased by beat cops from the precinct reinforced by the Tactical Patrol Force. Those of us they caught got dragged to jail. Those of us who escaped rushed to our new storefront to churn out fliers calling for new demonstrations, which would invariably result in more riots and more arrests.
\n
UAW/MF organized their own protests, but also appeared wherever social tensions presented opportunities for insurrectionary escalation. According to Morea, “We didn’t operate from any plan, we just saw situations and took our chances. We were edge dwellers.” When entering into a conflict, they did not confine themselves within tactical limits: “Our response would include everything from peaceful protests to not peaceful battling depending on the situation. We were extremely volatile and it often depended on how hard we were pushed.” The city presented ample opportunities for escalation, especially as the temperature rose; as a Motherfucker communiqué titled “Liberation in the Streets” declared, “While the rest tremble, we look forward to the heat of summer.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/10.jpg\")
Black Mask, antecedents of Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, c. 1967.
\nYet as summer of 1969 set in, few straight radicals anticipated that the most successful confrontation with the city’s notorious riot squad would come not from seasoned movement “heavies” such as Motherfuckers, Yippies, or SDS militants, but from young gay people in Greenwich Village. Many tough radicals from the New Left viewed the latter with contempt or amused indifference.
\n\nIn fact, all accounts agree that in the Stonewall riots, it was specifically effeminate gays, street queens, and trans/gender-nonconforming people that took the most prominent militant roles. “People are beginning to realize,” one New York Post author quoted the doorman at the Stonewall Inn as saying, “that no matter how ‘Nelly’ or how ‘fem’ a homosexual is, you can only push them so far.” The author continued: “With a battle cry of ‘gay power,’ the Nellies, fems, gay boys, queens—all those who flaunt their homosexuality—have been demonstrating that they have indeed been pushed too far.”11
\n\nDick Leitsch, president of the Mattachine Society of New York, noted, “The ‘butch’ numbers who were around the area and who participated peripherally in the action remained for the most part in the background. It was the ‘queens’ who scored the points and proved that they are not going to tolerate any more harassment or abuse.”12 A graffito on the sidewalk in front of the Stonewall: “BUTCHES, WHERE ARE YOU NOW THAT WE NEED YOU?”13
\n\nAs word spread after the first night of rioting that a rowdy group of street queens and campy young gays with no formal protest experience had successfully squared off against the riot police, militants flocked to the Village to learn from their experience. As gay activist Bob Kohler recounted:
\n\n\n\n\nThe big thing on everybody’s mind, especially the police and movement people, was that these were the only rioters that had gotten the best of the police. So that gave them a special strangeness. I mean, people just [wondered], How could that happen? Because there’d been riots with Yippies and there’d been riots with the SDS and Abbie Hoffman, but nobody had ever gotten the best of the police before. The police were never put on the run, and suddenly they were put on the run by the fairies, so those people were very curious: did this really happen?14
\n
As the day unfolded, radicals and countercultural people of various sexualities and genders converged on the Village, mingling and discussing the events. One lesbian recalled, “Hippies joined the queers & straight places turned gay for the week-end—it was complete madness in NYC.”15
\n\nIn addition to the likely presence of the Motherfuckers, multiple participants confirm the presence of the Crazies, an anarchist cell based in Lower Manhattan that participated in street theater, confrontational protests, and—as came out a few months later—bombings of targets connected to United States militarism.
\n\nAuthor Edmund White reported, “A mad left-wing group of straight kids called the Crazies is trying to organize the kids, pointing out that [Mayor] Lindsay is to blame.” John O’Brien, a Marxist activist with links to various radical groups experienced in street confrontations with police, reached out to the group to ask them to come on Saturday.16 While it is not known which individual Crazies were at Stonewall that night, participants in the group included Robin Palmer and Sharon Krebs, who went on to join the Weather Underground, and Sam “Mad Bomber” Melville. Five months after Stonewall, Melville was arrested en route to a planned bombing due to information passed by George Demmerle, an FBI snitch involved with the Crazies. Melville became a leader in prison organizing at Attica; he died at the hands of police and National Guard troops in the massacre that concluded the Attica Rebellion.
\n\nAs night fell on June 28, the second night of the Stonewall riots, the crowd swelled to include thousands of people. The vibe was at once angry and festively campy. Participants surged into the streets and blocked traffic, chanted, confronted vehicles, and began to throw things. At the nearby Women’s House of Detention, which confined many Black and Latina lesbians and transmasculine folks, detainees cheered and dropped burning pieces of toilet paper out of the windows of the jail to show their support.17 Angry gay and trans people began attacking police cars. Marsha P. Johnson reportedly climbed a streetlamp and dropped something heavy on a squad car, smashing its windshield, while someone else tossed a bag of wet garbage into the face of an officer in another vehicle.
\n\nAfter 2 am, the TPF riot police arrived to reinforce the badly outnumbered officers, advancing in wedge formations in an attempt to clear the streets. Queer demonstrators confronted them with taunts and kick-lines and, when forced out, escaped along side streets to disperse and then reassemble elsewhere. Setting fires in trash cans, attacking police outnumbered by the crowds, and successfully unarresting and freeing some of those snatched by the riot squad, queers continued to flood the streets until after 3:30 am.
\n\nThe success of the crowd in evading police, holding the streets, and sustaining the confrontation for hours likely stemmed from the combination of different demographics that converged on the second night. Gay residents and street queens drew on their intimate knowledge of the local terrain to find escape routes around police blockades, enabling rioters to disperse and reconverge, outflanking police efforts to re-establish control. Anarchists and other militants drew on their experience in street protest to escalate confrontations and defend against police violence and arrests. The gays, Motherfuckers, and Crazies proved a formidable coalition.
\n\nFouratt was thrilled about how the second night went:
\n\n\n\n\nWe learned through the end of it when I, when our little group met again, full of ourselves because it had been more successful than we had expected, many more people came out, it was just wonderful. I remember marching across Waverly Place in the wrong direction, going by Julius’s and shouting, “Come out! Come Out! Come out!” And they’re all raising their drinks, but not coming out! … I don’t claim to be the first person to say, “Come out! Come out!” But on the second night, that was the mantra, the cheer that you heard.
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/11.jpg\")
Saturday night: Stonewall belongs to the kids on the streets.
\nOn the third night, Sunday, June 29, large crowds once again turned out, but the fierce confrontations that marked the first two nights did not take place. As David Carter explains, the police had learned
\n\n\n\n\nthat in the aftermath of Friday night’s raid it would take many more police officers than were initially deployed on Saturday to discourage gay men and women and their allies from attempting to seize the area around the Stonewall, which the homosexual citizens saw as their turf; that the police needed to arrive early in large numbers to preempt the gay citizenry from seizing the initiative; and that such a maneuver must be executed in a low-key manner or their mere presence might precipitate the outbreaks they were hoping to end. (At least the police used this approach on Sunday night and it worked.)18
\n
A gay activist writing in the Berkeley Barb also claimed that activists from SDS had promised to lend their support, but failed to show up on Sunday night.19 If the Motherfuckers returned, their presence was not felt. Other factors contributed to muting the rebellion:
\n\n\n\n\nThe second factor working in the police’s favor was that the weekend had passed. Friday and Saturday nights’ events had begun late and lasted until the early morning, something most people could not do on an evening before a workday, especially if they had already done so on the previous night or two. Thirdly, some of the demonstrators felt that they had already made their point and nothing more was to be gained by again repeating what was becoming a predictable scenario. Was it worth risking more injuries and arrests, as well as damage to the neighborhood that gay people were fighting to claim as their own?20
\n
Furthermore, earlier in the day, Mattachine activists had met with representatives of the mayor and police department and attempted to dissuade the gay community from continuing the rebellion. At the Stonewall, MSNY members encouraged people who turned up to go home, posting a sign reading: “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE—MATTACHINE.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/12.jpg\")
An attempt at counterinsurgency. It didn’t work.
\nMSNY’s actions reflect a familiar pattern of co-optation and counterinsurgency, in which the self-appointed representatives of an oppressed group attempt to pacify their constituency in order to maintain their status as intermediaries with the dominant power structure. This model is familiar from Ferguson to Standing Rock to Minneapolis; it represents one of the most serious threats to the revolutionary potential of social movements.
\n\nHowever, at Stonewall in 1969, the elation at the possibilities opened up by the riots, the limited influence that the Mattachine Society had upon the street youth who comprised the front line of the rebellion, and the hatred that the vast majority of the community felt towards the police combined to limit the effectiveness of this strategy. The crowds remained large, if less rebellious than the night before, and an array of defiant actions took place. As Carter recounts,
\n\n\n\n\nSeveral gay youths took daring advantage of the heavy police presence in the Christopher Street area to make a guerrilla raid on the Sixth Precinct’s headquarters. They went to the police station and slapped Day-Glo blue and fuchsia bumper stickers reading “Equality for Homosexuals” on the police cars, a patrol wagon, and the personal cars of cops who had left their vehicles parked while on duty.21
\n
While the crowds did not march and clash with police as on the first two nights, the attitude remained militant and defiant. One furious young queen tore into a well-meaning straight ally who attempted to defuse the crowd’s anger:
\n\n\n\n\nThe hell you say! You don’t impress me. You are straight and you are my enemy! Don’t give me that phoney liberal bull. You made the laws. Nixon’s silent army. Now we are gonna get you! I was in Vietnam, man, how does that grab you? Huh? Huh? And, man, I’ll screw your daughter. But I’ll screw your son first! 22
\n
While some non-gay radicals did join the rebellious crowds, queer participants remained skeptical of dogmatic leftists whose humorless attempts to impose their analysis on the situation attracted little sympathy. Several sources have remarked on a joke in circulation among the gay youth participants in the uprising: “I’ve become a left deviationist.” 23 The quip picks up on a common authoritarian leftist epithet that Stalinists and Maoists used to condemn a variety of positions, particularly those that promoted more freedom than the party apparatus trusted people with, as well as the Cold War term “sex deviate,” used to denote homosexuals. This rather niche pun indicates the extent to which leftist lingo had saturated youth subcultures and how an anti-authoritarian gay sensibility used humor to mock the pretensions of both homophobes and rigid leftists—groups that overlapped considerably in 1969 New York City.
\n\nWhile full-scale riots did not break out the following two nights, tensions remained high and continued building as riot police stalked the neighborhood, taunting gay residents with homophobic slurs. An observer recounted:
\n\n\n\n\n“Start something, faggot, just start something,” one cop kept telling people. “I’d like to break your ass wide open.” After saying that to several dozen people, one man turned and said, “What a Freudian comment, officer!” The cop started swinging and hauled the guy off to a waiting wagon.24
\n
One officer fell victim to the trolling of “a wildly ‘fem’ queen,” who “sneaked up behind him, lit a firecracker and dropped it between his feet.” The cop squealed and flailed at the crowd with his nightstick; in the succeeding mêlée, a gay rioter made off with his badge. Leitsch recalled:
\n\n\n\n\nThe next day, the badge turned up hanging on a tree in Washington Square Park, stuck into a string of pickled pigs’ feet. When the cops found the badge-stuck pigs’ feet, they didn’t take them down from the tree—they beat the pigs’ feet to the ground, then picked up the badge.25
\n
This mutual taunting reflected the war between gays and police that was generalizing throughout the neighborhood and beyond. The tension ratcheted up further on Wednesday when an offensive article penned by Lucian Truscott appeared in The Village Voice, mocking the protests and the gay community. As night fell on the Village and the crowds swelled, the tension once again reached a boiling point.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/13.jpg\")
Despite the lull, queers remained in the streets—and another explosion was soon to come.
\nWhile the early nights of the rebellion and the days of lull had involved anger leavened with wit and cheerful banter, the mood had turned ugly by Wednesday night. Days of homophobic police occupation, injuries and arrests, mocking news coverage, and efforts by respectability-oriented activists to defuse anger engendered a cold fury among the crowds that assembled on the night of July 2. Likewise, the police were even more brutal: one observer noted, “The cops, who had been caught off-guard and were on the defensive before, had taken the offensive and massive retaliation was their goal.”26
\n\nBy 10 pm, between 500 and 1000 people were seething in the streets. The arrival of a police motorcade to Christopher Street prompted a wave of shoving and bottle throwing. Shortly after, gay and trans/gender-nonconforming participants began to light fires in the street. The crowd discussed burning down the building housing The Village Voice in retaliation for its offensive coverage. Throughout the neighborhood, riot police attempted to snatch members of the crowd, who fought back fiercely, looting shops and smashing windows. A handful of people were arrested; a large number of people were injured, including some officers.27 Although the clash lasted a short time compared to earlier nights—the fiercest fighting lasted around an hour—its ferocity struck all onlookers. One participant concluded, “The word is out. Christopher Street shall be liberated. The fags have had it with oppression.”28
\n\nWhat makes a riot queer? One dimension involves the rupture of gendered expectations about who participates and how. Rioter Ronnie Di Brienza summed this up in a local paper a week later with an elegant audio metaphor: “Revolution is being heard on Christopher Street, only instead of guttural MC-5 voices, we hear it coming from sopranos, and altos.”29
\n\nThe MC5 were a Detroit-based rock band popular among militant New Left activists and Yippies; their manager John Sinclair had founded the White Panther Party and worked with the anarchist newspaper Fifth Estate. On tour the previous year, the Motherfuckers had started a riot at an MC5 show at the Fillmore East, leading to the band’s being banned from a range of venues. By invoking the gruff swaggering masculinity of the MC5 and the street militants associated with them and contrasting it to the effeminacy of the frontline rioters at Stonewall, Di Brienza showed how the uprising not only asserted gay and trans grievances, but deconstructed the entire notion of who could be a revolutionary.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/14.jpg\")
“Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad”—despite the mockery of local media, the effeminacy of the rioters stunned police and butch revolutionaries alike.
\nIn the US today, many leftist commentators presume that people who are disproportionately vulnerable to state violence need to be sheltered from it in militant protest. This can lead to contradictory conclusions. Some assert that those insulated by some degree of privilege should take the front lines and actively participate in militant resistance in order to absorb the brunt of confrontations; others claim that those who have more privilege should refrain from participating in escalatory activity because its effects will disproportionately impact those who have less privilege. Critics of the latter approach respond that only by taking collective risks to defy state power can we do away with the conditions that render targeted communities vulnerable to state violence in the first place. Even well-meaning efforts to police the scope of militant tactics are generally premised on the patronizing assumption that targeted communities have no agency to resist on their own behalf. Ultimately, this framing supports the state monopoly on power.
\n\nThese issues were the subject of strident debate surrounding the Stonewall Uprising, focusing most acutely on the night of July 2. Commentary on the final day of conflict focused on the demographics of the participants, and specifically the relationship between (presumably or predominantly) straight rioters from crews based outside the Village, such as the Motherfuckers and the Crazies, and the gay/trans/gender-nonconforming rebels in the streets. As Dick Leitsch from the Mattachine Society of New York observed shortly after,
\n\n\n\n\nThe composition of the street action had changed. It was no longer gay frustration being vented upon unsuspecting cops by queens who were partly violent but mostly campy. The queens were almost outnumbered by Black Panthers, Yippies, Crazies and young toughs from street gangs all over the city and some from New Jersey. The exploiters had moved in and were using the gay power movement for their own ends. A lot of them were looking for a fight, and had the police not come, they probably would have started the old game of street gangs everywhere, “beating up a queer.” The blacks and students who want a revolution, any kind of revolution, were there to exploit. They swelled the crowd and tried to recruit, but “graciously” let the queens take all the bruises and suffer all the arrests. (If they have no more courage than they displayed on Christopher Street, their revolution is a long way off.)30
\n
This narrative bears uncanny similarities to the accusations lobbed at (and within) many 21st-century North American social movements. An array of presumed outsiders—if white, coded as political radicals, and if Black, coded as apolitical criminals—are portrayed as a threat to whatever demographic is presumed to bear authentic political grievances and entitlement to local terrain. Note the invocation first of the Black Panthers and then of “young toughs” from “New Jersey.” It is almost certain that Leitsch did not interrupt rioters to ask them where they lived and that New Jersey residents were not visually identifiable as such. On the heels of the Black-led Newark riots of 1967, invoking “New Jersey” in contrast to the residents of the almost entirely white Greenwich Village neighborhood served as a racial code for white gay readers.
\n\nIn an effort to prevent people from interpreting diverse participation in the rebellion as an expression of solidarity, Leitsch even concocts a fantasy of gay-bashing gang members so intoxicated by violence that they temporarily forget to attack gay/trans/gender-nonconforming people and instead attack the police alongside them. While anti-queer street violence was a reality in New York City at this time, Leitsch rejects the far more plausible explanation that a wide range of young people, including Black and brown kids, political radicals, and others, had suffered at the hands of the police and came together to fight back against them on account of shared interests and desires.
\n\nObservers who were more connected to the city’s marginalized communities and social movements, while noting the less visibly queer composition of the streets that night, arrived at different conclusions. Bob Kohler, a white gay radical and active supporter of the civil rights movement and the Black Panther Party, agreed that the crowd was different, but framed this in a broader context:
\n\n\n\n\nYes, there was a difference in the makeup [of the crowd on July 2]. There were more people rioting that could not be easily categorized, and a lot of that had to do with people that came over from other areas. The straight movement moved in heavily that night as a support. I’m assuming it was as a support. They were, of course, using it for their own ends, too… You had, for lack of a better word, provocateurs who were seeing an incident that could be used for the good of their movement or a different movement or a coalition of movements. This was one more. It was the last. There was nobody else left to riot, so people with some foresight, more foresight than I [had] at the time, could see that this could again strengthen the radical movement, that people they hadn’t really thought about were now up there in the front. 31
\n
Although referring to presumably non-gay rioters as “provocateurs” (while questioning his own use of the word), Kohler recognizes the broader participation in the night’s events as a form of solidarity oriented towards building a broader radical coalition that could resist the forms of oppression that multiple targeted communities experienced.
\n\nNeither activist specified how they knew that the rioters on July 2 were not “queens” or members of the gay community. For Leitsch, race certainly played a role, as well as gender presentation; to his credit, although not a “queen” himself, he insistently named and praised the role of effeminate gay/trans/gender-nonconforming people on the front lines of the uprising. Kohler was more familiar with the landscape of multiracial activism in the city; he may have recognized people from elsewhere. But both appear to have relied on a narrowly gendered, and to some extent racialized, interpretation of identity in reading the crowds.
\n\nAt a time when gay identity was still publicly associated with effeminacy and functioned for many as a specific subculture with distinctive cultural styles, many homosexually active men did not register to other gay people as “gay” in a cultural sense. John O’Brien, a white gay left-wing activist who was present from the first night of the uprising, remarked that his more masculine presentation aroused suspicion that he might be a provocateur or police informant when he participated in gay demonstrations.
\n\nAs one commenter on more recent queer riots has argued, one of the radical possibilities of street rebellion lies in how it can open up new ways of being in the world, weaponizing otherwise static identity categories as tools for revolt. We will never know exactly who comprised the crowd around Stonewall on July 2. Rather than asking who they had been, it might be more interesting to ask what they were becoming. Leitsch crafts a narrative in which the most marginalized members of a rebellious mass disproportionately bore the brunt of physical violence and legal consequences due to the combination of escalatory provocation and cowardice on the part of outsiders or more privileged participants. But there is another way to tell the story.
\n\nWith the benefit of historical hindsight, it is clear that the participation of non-gay radical rioters in the Stonewall Uprising constituted a vital act of solidarity. By adding important tactical knowledge, swelling the crowds, helping to free arrestees, escalating and sustaining confrontational energy, and spreading word of the uprising beyond the confines of the Village, they helped to transform the events from a fleeting expression of long-suppressed rage to a rebellion with world-historical significance. Had the Motherfuckers, the Crazies, and other anarchists and rebels subordinated themselves to the prescriptions of contemporary identity politics and stayed home, the riots might have petered out sooner and with less impact. The Stonewall Uprising illustrates the meaning of the slogan solidarity means attack.
\n\nSetting aside the question of whether observers such as Leitsch and Kohler could infallibly read the sexual and gender identities of the rioters, we must ask—were those identities fixed and static? Should those identities have been primary in determining the rioters’ relation to the rebellion? Even in Leitsch’s paranoid fantasy of otherwise homophobic “toughs” temporarily turning to fighting homophobic police in order to slake their thirst for destruction—wouldn’t that be a good thing? Instead of “be gay, do crime,” the Stonewall rioters inverted the script: by doing crime together, regardless of what previous desires they felt or sexual subcultures they frequented, people across a wide range of identities made it easier to be gay. We might even say that they invented a new way to be gay together. What affinities, erotic and otherwise, might previously unconnected people have discovered in the streets? What new possibilities might the ostensibly heterosexual participants in the riots unlocked within themselves?
\n\nThis destabilization of identity through revolutionary struggle became a hallmark of the emerging gay liberation movement, if only briefly. The earlier homophile movement’s major conceptual innovation lay in seeking civil rights for a “minority” by means of interest group politics. In that framework, a more-or-less fixed number of homosexuals existed alongside “other” minorities with their own distinctive issues (rarely, in those pre-intersectional times, did the implicit whiteness of this framework trouble white gay or lesbian activists). However, as one Gay Liberation Front activist explained in 1970 at a gathering of radical movements, gay people were coming to understand gay liberation not “as an oppressed minority fighting for rights but more the process of [creating] a society in which people can come out and be all that it’s possible to be” while rejecting “the false categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality.”32
\n\nAt Stonewall, rioters put this into practice: rejecting the false categories that divided them, they fought side by side against the police who oppressed them, and in the process changed history.
\n\nWith the Fourth of July weekend pending, both gay residents and police anticipated that crowds would be massive and the riots would intensify. Riot police continued to assemble in the Village, redirecting their attention from the Motherfuckers’ usual rebellious turf, as a local left-wing newspaper observed:
\n\n\n\n\nThe calling in of the TPF had the incidental benefit of taking the heat off the Second Avenue and St. Marks Place area of the Lower East Side, the TPF’s usual stomping grounds, allowing street people there an unusually relaxed July 4.33
\n
However, although large numbers of people assembled in the streets of the village and sporadically confronted police, major clashes did not break out. As Leitsch described the following days:
\n\n\n\n\nSporadic efforts were made to start trouble—by people who can best be described as “outside agitators,” by gay people, and too often by uptight cops who tried to start trouble to give them an excuse to start bashing heads again. Despite those efforts, no major outbreak erupted. It was almost as if everyone had decided that the point had been made and any further action would only bring on a backlash.34
\n
It is not surprising that Leitsch, as a white moderate, adopted the “outside agitator” language first deployed by white supremacists in the South against civil rights and labor organizers and later generalized to target all forms of protest. During the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s, this language was so widespread that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent much of his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” addressing it.
\n\nFollowing another half century of seeing this language weaponized to divide and discredit radical social movements, it is easy to recognize such rhetoric as purely reactionary. We should understand that Leitsch’s subsequent accounts of the uprising were shaped by his experience of being marginalized by the younger and more radical participants. Rejecting his attempts to position his own organization, the Mattachine Society of New York, as the head of the gay movement in the uprising’s aftermath, radicals went on to found the Gay Liberation Front, which continued to pursue a confrontational approach and worked to form alliances with precisely the radical groups Leitsch had condemned as “outside agitators.”
\n\nBearing this in mind, let’s consider Leitsch’s description of the looting that unfolded on the night of July 2:
\n\n\n\n\nObviously, little of it was done by people who live in and frequent Christopher Street and environs, because all the most unlikely places were looted. The first shop to get hit was the “Gingerbread House,” a toy shop run by a delightful little lady who is a friend of everyone on Christopher. The other shops broken into were also run, for the most part, by nice people, sympathetic to the gay cause and the plight of the street queen. The really likely places, the “fag shops” that overprice their wares and bleed the gay market for exorbitant prices, were left alone. Shops whose managers complain the loudest about the cruising and swishing in the neighborhood were also, surprisingly, left alone. Observers in the know doubt if the looting was done by gay people.35
\n
Leitsch did not condemn property destruction or looting out of hand; rather, he criticized the looters for the specific targets they chose. His response includes a critique of the economic exploitation of the gay community and the petty bourgeois norms of respectability preached by business owners. While stopping short of validating property destruction as a tactic in service of these critiques, he cites the pattern of which businesses were attacked as evidence that looters lacked intimate knowledge of the neighborhood’s gay geography and the grievances that might prompt radical action.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/15.jpg\")
Queer rioters’ intimate knowledge of the West Village helped to sustain the revolt.
\nLeitsch’s critique anticipates the debates over property destruction and “diversity of tactics” that have saturated the anarchist movement over the past three decades—particularly during the mobilizations of the so-called anti-globalization era, from Seattle to Miami to Adams Morgan. On occasion, anarchists who have become exasperated with these debates have dismissed valuable good-faith critiques of confrontational actions. Perhaps, had the Motherfuckers and other rebels who converged on Stonewall taken the time to confer with local gay residents, they might have been able to pick their targets more thoughtfully, thereby achieving an even more seductive riot.
\n\nBut was Leitsch’s representation of the looting of July 2 accurate? Lacking other sources that comment directly on which businesses were attacked and how, it is difficult to say. His rhetoric reflects a common pattern in moderate critiques of property destruction during times of widespread unrest. Knowing that the rebellion was widely popular and reflected deeply felt anger, Leitsch identified the righteous fury that queer residents felt at their economic exploitation, at the scorn targeting femme and gender-nonconforming people, and at the repression of cruising and public sex—but he attempted to redirect some of this fury against imagined “outsiders.”
\n\nPerhaps, then, we should not uncritically read the looting as poorly targeted militant action, but as an expression of outrage so popular that it forced even committed opponents of militant action to frame their critiques as a matter of targets, not tactics. Today, we need not look far to find pundits eager to defuse and recuperate popular anger by praising “our right to resist” in the abstract while criticizing every concrete action as the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong target.
\n\nLeitsch himself and other homophile groups had been organizing for years without qualitatively shifting the sense of possibility in the Village or beyond. Without downplaying their accomplishments, which included a significant decrease in police harassment and entrapment from 1966 forward, we can see that it took a dramatic break with existing forms of activism and the norms governing queer people’s relationship to public space to make the quantum leap into the era of gay liberation. Only by defying the demands of city officials, police, and established gay activists—by remaining in the streets and fighting back over an entire week while refusing to accept the tactical limits that leaders attempted to impose—did young queer people and their comrades render a deeper shift possible.
\n\nWhatever so-called “outsiders” participated in the rebellion, it is clear that the gay, trans, and other assorted members of the community around the Stonewall were ready to embrace more militant tactics. As Ronnie di Brienza, a self-described freak who participated in the first night’s riot, put it:
\n\n\n\n\nI have had a lot of shit thrown my way, but until Friday night, June 27, I was basically a pacifist. However, pacifism is fast going out the window. How many times can one turn the other cheek. There is a limit, and Friday night was it… Poof, it starts. The fags have gone revolutionary… The fags, like the true revolutionaries, have become resigned to fighting for their cause, if necessary by force and with heavier weapons.36
\n
Members of the established homophile groups reacted with ambivalence to the militancy of the riots, which many younger gays saw as a harbinger of their irrelevance. The Insider, the newsletter of the Mattachine Society of Washington, exemplified this discomfort in their coverage of the riots:
\n\n\n\n\nThe Insider does not see this exhibition of militancy as a fluke. Militant open defiance has become the most characteristic mark of the sixties’ protest movements. First used by the blacks in irrational riots, and later used more systematically by hippies and campus protestors who shut down their own universities, militancy has never been characteristic of the homophile movement. Militant protestors rationalize their destructive methods by pointing out that knocking on doors is useful only to a point. When it becomes clear that the doors are never going to open and that door knocking is only a pacifier for the masses, then it is time to knock the doors down. In these terms, the homophile movement is behind the times. It is quite possible that the homosexuals in the streets may well make obsolete much of what the present homophile is doing. For better or worse, militancy is here.37
\n
The conventional racist characterization of Black revolt as “irrational” and anxiety about the “destructive” methods of militants reflected the racial, class, and generational positioning of many homophile activists. Self-described “gung-ho right-winger” homophile activist Foster Gunnison, Jr. lamented, “It is common knowledge that the Commie-pink-anarchist fringe tries to take over any minority cause it can latch on to, and for us it had to come sooner or later.”38
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/16.jpg\")
Conservative homophile activist Foster Gunnison, Jr. condemned the “Commie-pink-anarchist fringe.”
\nWhile less reactionary, Don Jackson of the Los Angeles Advocate scolded the rebels and urged activists to rein them in:
\n\n\n\n\nHomosexuals simply cannot afford rioting and violence. Such incidents solidify straight opinion against them and will surely bring a reaction… It is essential that rational leaders appear who will redirect the anger into more peaceful and successful methods. Otherwise, history and sociology indicate, gay riots on a vast scale with needless loss of life and property damage may occur. This is not the road to equality. Such disturbances will increase the irrational hatred the straights feel toward homosexuals. Every educated reasonable member of the gay community must aid in redirecting the anger and frustrations of the more violent and emotional members.39
\n
In historical hindsight, Jackson could not possibly have been more wrong. In fact, the rioting and violence at Stonewall catalyzed an international militant movement that helped transform the lives of millions of queer and trans people, and remains better known and more widely praised than any other act of protest or resistance in United States LGBTQ history. Yet today, self-proclaimed leaders across a wide range of communities persist in saying the exact same thing.
\n\nOthers, however, broke free from the constraints of homophile timidity and enthusiastically embraced the riots. Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, a prominent gay activist couple who had participated in Mattachine organizing since the mid-1960s, penned a column in Screw that offered a full-throated endorsement of militant gay resistance to police:
\n\n\n\n\nThe revolution is taking to the streets, and it is high time that it did… We were thrilled by the violent uprising in Sheridan Square in which homosexuals put police on notice that they’d no longer accept abuse. For many decades gay people have been afraid to stand up for themselves and have allowed policemen to run over one of their most basic civil rights: the right to assemble in public. Today, however, a new generation is angered by raids and harassment of gay bars, and last week’s riots in Greenwich Village have set standards for the rest of the nation’s homosexuals to follow.40
\n
Over the years that followed, Nichols and Clarke continued to radicalize, while remaining critical of authoritarian leftists who they described as “just as unbalanced on the gay issue as is the far right. Gays get it from both ends, so to speak.”41 By the 1990s, Nichols would be authoring a column titled “The Homosexual Anarchist.” Through the crucible of Stonewall and gay liberation, some homophile activists developed a far more radical critique of the existing world.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/28.jpg\")
Jack Nichols: from polite homophile… to “homosexual anarchist.”
\nThe energy unleashed by the Stonewall Uprising produced a wave of organizing that quickly rendered the existing gay activist infrastructure irrelevant. Under pressure from fired-up radicals, Dick Leitsch agreed to form a Mattachine Action Committee, and flyers circulated for a meeting on July 9, one week after the last night of rioting. Around a hundred people, mostly younger gay and lesbian radicals, turned up and made plans to organize a march against police harassment.
\n\nAt the next meeting, a week later, the young radicals made a definitive break with the old guard. When Leitsch attempted to lecture the angry crowd about the importance of pursuing progress slowly via accommodation with the straight establishment, Jim Fouratt denounced him:
\n\n\n\n\n“We have got to radicalize, man! Be proud of what you are, man! And if it takes riots or even guns to show them what we are, well, that’s the only language that the pigs understand! All the oppressed have got to unite! The system keeps us all weak by keeping us separate.”42
\n
His speech received wild applause. Leitsch’s attempts to regain control of the meeting failed. The radicals agreed to form a new organization that would sustain the energy of the Stonewall Rebellion. This became the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).
\n\nOver the years since, the GLF has often been described as “anarchic” or “anarchistic,” but little attention has been paid to the role that anarchists and anarchist ideas in its founding. The founders who assembled in late July 1969 at Alternate U were radicals from across the left-wing spectrum. As Karla Jay recalled, the crowd of around forty at the first meeting included “drag queens, bar dykes, street people, feminists, radical students, leftists, socialists, Marxists, Maoists, anarchists, libertarians, hippies, and former Yippies.”43 As gay liberation organizing blossomed across the city over the following years, regardless of whether its participants used the language of anarchism to describe themselves, the movement relied on anarchist infrastructures, engaged with anarchist concepts and tactics, and adopted a distinctly anti-authoritarian ethos.
\n\nThe location of the GLF meetings is revealing. Alternate U was a radical educational project that hosted a wide range of workshops and teach-ins, classes on a variety of radical topics, social and cultural events, and activist meetings. Located on the second floor of a warehouse at West 14th Street and 6th Avenue, it sat on the northern edge of the West Village, a short walk from Stonewall and the core of the gayborhood where the riots had occurred.
\n\nFounded in 1965 as the Free University of New York, as the Interference Archive explains, it had been launched as “a free university, with no exams or degrees, where they could learn about social struggles and everyday life,” whose participants “strove for a revolutionary experience in education.” By 1969, it had changed its name to Alternate U and was attracting participants from a wide range of movements, from radical psychologists to media collectives to women’s theater groups. The project was coordinated by a collective of radicals that included anarchists and Marxists; the space hosted the Anarchos Group and featured talks by Murray Bookchin and other anarchist thinkers.
\n\nStonewall rioter John O’Brien—a Marxist who had been expelled from the Socialist Worker’s Party’s Young Socialist Alliance for his homosexuality—served on the project’s board; this provided the initial connection that helped enable the GLF meetings to find a home there. After the GLF’s founding meetings in the space in July 1969, Alternate U continued to host many of the group’s activities, including their gay dances, the most popular and widely attended GLF project. The weekly gatherings offered the first public alternative to Mafia-controlled bars at which same-sex couples and trans/gender-nonconforming people could dance freely; this, in turn, provided a critical source of revenue for the fledgling group. Holding meetings and dances at Alternate U brought a wide cross-section of activists and the gay population at large into contact with anarchist and radical ideas.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/33.jpg\")
GLF members prepare for a gay dance at Alternate U, 1970. A poster from the May 1968 uprising on the wall behind them reads “Borders = Repression.” A message for all movements based around identity.
\nPolitical differences emerged within the GLF from the beginning, but a loose anti-authoritarian consensus determined the organization’s structure and culture. A political scientist who interviewed many of the group’s members and offered the closest early reading of the group’s politics characterized the GLF as dominated by “radicals” who “championed anarchy.” These participants coexisted with doctrinaire “revolutionaries” who “looked forward to socialism,” with whom the radicals sometimes collaborated and sometimes found themselves at odds.44
\n\nThese values were reflected in the group’s decision-making practices. According to an observer of the early meetings, “When a decision had to be made, voting was unpopular. After sufficient discussion, a “consensus” was arrived at—the membership, undivided, coming to an agreement. Time-consuming often, but solidarity-building.”45 There were no officers and no formal leaders, though informal hierarchies did solidify around those who were popular, perceived to have revolutionary cred, or sometimes, as critics noted, simply spoke loudly. While the exhilaration of being together exploring radical ideas carried the participants through the early meetings, as more political differences surfaced, clarifying the group’s structure and priorities became urgent.
\n\nMost of the participants in the GLF were gay men, but a few lesbians played prominent roles. One of them was Lois Hart. In her thirties, Hart was older than most members; she had left her life as a nun to explore lesbian identity, radical politics, and alternative spirituality. In the months before Stonewall, she had participated in courses on feminism and anarchism at Alternate U, where Murray Bookchin had spoken about anarchist organizing and affinity groups.46
\n\nIn the fall of 1969, Hart proposed that the GLF adopt a decentralized structure in which the GLF weekly meetings would serve as spaces for autonomous groups to report on their activities and coordinate efforts, while individual cells retained the freedom to work on projects independently.47 The group agreed to adopt this anti-authoritarian structure; separate clusters formed to organize the weekly dances, publish the newspaper Come Out!, study gay oppression through a Marxist lens, and pursue other goals.
\n\nJohn Lauritsen, who brought a dogmatically Marxist approach to gay organizing, dismissed the cellular structure as “some Murray Bookchin inspired notion.”48 Indeed, Bookchin had been a direct influence on Hart through Alternate U. As a gadfly critical of the authoritarian turn of SDS and the New Left, Bookchin represented an anarchist alternative that appealed to many in the feminist and gay liberation movements who were critical of traditional organizing models.49
\n\nOver the following year, fifteen cells developed under the auspices of the GLF. Some eventually broke away to become fully autonomous groups, including Third World Gay Revolution, Gay Youth, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.50 Some of these groups outlived the GLF itself, which ceased to function by early 1972. While the GLF proved short-lived, its influence rippled out across time and space, as the model of horizontal autonomous organizing based in cells and affinity groups generated new collectives and spread around the country.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/32.jpg\")
Murray Bookchin, who helped translate the concept of affinity group organizing from anarchists in the Spanish Revolution to the GLF’s cell structure.
\nGLF participants reflected critically on the model as it unfolded, arriving at different conclusions about its efficacy. In January 1970, Hart explained in the GLF newspaper Come Out! that “the many mentalities, dispositions, and persuasions of GLF activists and dissenters are finding expression in small groups structured after the needs, goals and philosophies of the participants.” The cell structure, she explained, reflected a commitment to direct action and active participation that necessarily required breaking with the conditioning into passivity that hampered radical movements: “In the knowledge that growth and change occur within individuals and that individuals develop only through active involvement in projects and goals of their own choosing, GLFers chose the rocky road of fluid cellular organization rather than perpetuate older, oppressive structures of Follow the Leader and passive participation by voting.”51
\n\nAs the group grew, attracting a wider range of participants beyond its initial radical core, some who were accustomed to more centralized forms of organizing became frustrated when they could not dictate the activities of the entire group according to their own ideological or tactical preferences. This became particularly pronounced with the arrival of more “well-meaning establishment types who could not conceive of something democratic that did not involve everyone being controlled by the consensus of a voting membership.” As Hart explained, “For them GLF was the Sunday Night Meeting, not groups of activists for homosexual liberation. They did not realize that we are a movement, not a static organization.”52
\n\nThose of us who participated in the Occupy movement may smile with rueful recognition here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/31.jpg\")
Lois Hart (second from right) prepares to participate in a “Lavender Menace” action at the Second Congress to Unite Women with her fellow Radicalesbians, May Day 1970.
\nNot all participants agreed that the flexibility and autonomy of the cell structure served to build the movement for gay liberation—indeed, not even all of the anarchist participants did. One such critic, Arthur Evans, became famous in the late 1970s for his book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture, which called for a gay anarchist revolution in which decentralized affinity groups would use witchcraft and direct action against patriarchy and the military industrial state. In 1970, however, his frustration with the group’s chaotic structure and dispersed focus led him to join with others seceding from the GLF to form the Gay Activists Alliance, a resolutely single-issue organization with a more traditional structure.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/29.jpg\")
Arthur Evans lets the straight world know exactly what he thinks.
\nRalph Hall, an artist who was to author a series of gay anarchist zines in the following years including Faggots and Faggotry and Revolutionary Limpwristed Faggot, wrote in late 1969 that the GLF’s “structureless structure” granted too much power and influence to unscrupulous authoritarians. Criticizing the members of the 28th of June cell, which took over the publishing of Come Out!, as “a flighty crop of revolutionary dogmatists,” he took them to task for glorifying authoritarian communist regimes (“What does the sexual revolution in Cuba have to do with homosexual oppression in Amerika?”) and for taking advantage of the loose consensus process to “shrewdly manipulate and brainwash the membership.”
\n\n“I thought,” Hall lamented, “we had no leaders or followers, but all participants.”53
\n\nDespite the challenges of the cell structure and participants’ internal critiques, the model spread to other cities. Dozens of GLF chapters appeared across the country over the following months; while not all of them modeled their internal structure on the New York group, many did. As NYC GLF participant Bill Weaver recalled, “There was a real struggle to establish cells. New York went through this ‘cellular’ struggle, and now, when Washington GLF or Walla Walla GLF has it, they assume at the very beginning that they’re going to have cells.”54
\n\nThe Washington, DC GLF’s adoption of the cell structure proved influential far beyond its members—indeed, beyond the entire gay liberation movement—because of the role its participants played in what was to be the largest mass mobilization in US history up to that time, the 1971 May Day protests.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/17.jpg\")
A Gay Liberation Front meeting at Alternate U in 1970.
\nThe centrality of gay organizing within the 1971 May Day anti-war mobilization did not come out of nowhere. From its inception, the nascent gay liberation movement had overlapped with the movement to end the US war in Vietnam. The pre-Stonewall homophile movement had largely remained silent on the war, while advocating for an end to the US military’s ban on homosexual service members. By contrast, gay liberationists donned T-shirts reading “Suck Cock to Beat the Draft,” joined anti-war marches, and, according to an account from the notorious queer performance troupe The Cockettes, hung out outside of military induction centers offering blowjobs to draftees in order to help them secure deferrals.
\n\nAfter Stonewall, members of the newly formed GLF took an active role in the anti-war movement. The first non-gay-organized action that members participated in with the GLF banner was an anti-war, anti-draft protest late in the summer of 1969 at Central Park. Television cameras circulated images of the group’s members and materials nationwide.55
\n\n“Through a lot of 1970,” recalled Perry Brass, a member of the GLF cell that produced the newspaper Come Out!, “I must have gone to at least six different antiwar marches where we [gay people] were all joining hands and marching up Fifth Avenue or marching in the park.”56 In the months following Stonewall, gay liberationists in California circulated a flyer riffing off of a famous quote from Muhammad Ali, titled, “No Vietnamese Ever Called Me a Queer.” The flyer advertised a performance by the Berkeley-based Gay Liberation Theatre, putting both the US military and the homophobic anti-war movement on notice:
\n\n\n\n\nSo we’re not going to fight in an army that discriminates against us, fucks us over, sends us to the front lines or jails us and throws us out dishonorably when we are ourselves and love our brothers. Nor are we going to fight for a country that will not hire us and fires us when we are ourselves and loving our brothers, that puts us out of and puts us down in every phase of its every institution. Nor are we going to fight in a revolution that puts us down.
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/34.jpg\")
“No Vietnamese Ever Called Me a Queer.”
\nAs the gay liberation movement blossomed in 1970, activists in the anti-war movement were beginning to question their model of holding mass marches in Washington, which attracted large numbers of participants and ample media attention but appeared to have little impact on the war machine. In fall of 1970, a range of anti-war groups assembled under the umbrella of the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice began coordinating plans for actions in the nation’s capital the following spring. While members of the PCPJ timed a lobbying week for the end of April to plead with politicians to end the war, more radical participants assembled in an informal coalition dubbed the May Day Tribe, including a range of Yippies, anarchists, and other radical protesters determined to shut the city down. The May Day Tribe adopted the slogan, “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.”
\n\nAs the mobilization approached, a small core of DC-based activists who staffed the office and worked on coordinating logistics for the demonstration began calling themselves the Gay Mayday Tribe. Participant John Scagliotti recalled, “There were about five of us who were gay, and we sort of ran the office. We immediately became very close and out of that was Gay Mayday.”
\n\nThe group functioned partly as a political collective, partly as an underground cell undertaking a range of illegal activity, and partly as a polycule—with participants organizing, partying, and sleeping with each other. At a time of rampant FBI infiltration of radical groups, the Gay Mayday crew remained impervious to snitches because of its emphasis on queer sexual as well as political affinity. As Scagliotti explained, “They couldn’t infiltrate it, because we were all sleeping with each other. And we were doing a tremendous amount of illegal things, that they could have gotten us all for.”
\n\nBe gay, do crime indeed!
\n\nLike the Stonewall rioter who analyzed the roots of homophobia in the threat that gay men posed to a social structure based in rigid masculinity and the nuclear family, the DC organizers framed gay opposition to the war not in a paradigm of identity politics, but in a broader analysis of how patriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism form a single interlocking system. As L.A. Kaufman explains:
\n\n\n\n\nThe Gay Mayday Tribe viewed its participation in the 1971 antiwar action as more than just a matter of mobilizing gays as a constituency or contingent, along the lines of “schoolteachers against the war” or “physicians for peace.” Instead, it sought to draw connections between militarism and social constructions of gender. One Gay Mayday leaflet called the Vietnam War “a straight man’s game,” created by “men who need to gain their masculine identity through the killing of women, children, and their own brothers.” A call to participation elaborated, “We know that the men running the country are very deeply sexist—they relate to each other and to situations in an uptight straight male way. These men make decisions in order to satisfy their male egos and their needs for competition with other men.” The Gay Mayday Tribe offered up an expansive radical vision, in which gay liberation could not only transform laws or lifestyles, but also undermine the very foundations of war. For, they promised, “an army of lovers would not fight.”
\n
The loose collective included members of the Washington GLF, which had adopted the New York group’s horizontal cellular structure. Kaufman attributes the GLF’s structure to the influence of the women’s liberation movement: “The radical feminist influence was also felt in the GLF’s ‘structureless’ organizational form, comprised of decentralized collectives (called, in this case, ‘cells’) with no formal decision-making process, membership requirements, or bylaws.” While Lois Hart, whose proposal had played a significant role in shaping the GLF’s structure, was certainly a feminist and active in the women’s movement, Hart also named anarchist ideas, in particular the notion of affinity groups emerging from the Spanish anarchist movement conveyed via Murray Bookchin, as central in shaping her approach to revolutionary organizing.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/30.jpg\")
Members of the Washington, DC Gay Liberation Front, 1971.
\nThe GLF’s approach represented one of the two major influences on the affinity group structure adopted in May 1971. The other had reached the New Left via the Motherfuckers. Kauffman connects the dots:
\n\n\n\n\nMorea and the Motherfuckers soon introduced the idea of affinity groups as teams for street combat to Weatherman, the faction of SDS that aspired to be a revolutionary fighting force and to “bring the war home” to the United States. It was during the October 1969 “Days of Rage,” perhaps Weatherman’s most notorious action, that affinity groups made their true American debut.
\n
The Days of Rage had turned out disastrously, owing in part to the centralization and authoritarianism of the Weatherman leadership. Yet activists who rejected vanguardist militarism but remained intrigued by the possibilities of decentralized and mobile formations at mass demonstrations revisited the approach in the 1971 organizing. As Kauffman summarizes:
\n\n\n\n\nBy the time the Mayday Tribe put out its call to protest, the concept of affinity groups had begun to blend with the other small-group forms that were rapidly growing in countercultural popularity: collectives, communes, cooperatives, consciousness-raising groups. “Affinity groups at Mayday,” recalls John Froines, another Chicago 7 defendant centrally involved in the action, “were both a tactical approach in terms of the street and also something more, connected to people’s linkages to one another.”
\n
In an effort to prevent the demonstrations from completely paralyzing Washington, DC, police and National Guard troops mass-arrested 12,000 people across three days of disorder—the largest mass arrest in US history. In addition to partially shutting down the city and damaging the Nixon administration’s standing, the format of decentralized affinity groups acting autonomously in coordination with each other proved enormously influential. Afterwards, it remained the preferred means of organizing mass direct action from the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s to the queer-led civil disobedience of ACT-UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in the 1980s to the global justice movement that exploded onto the world stage with the protests that shut down the Seattle summit of the World Trade Organization in 1999.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/18.jpg\")
An affinity group blocks traffic near the Washington Monument, the week of May Day 1971.
\nThe fact that anarchist ideas and models rapidly proliferated in the movements that emerged from the Stonewall uprising lends weight to the hypothesis that anarchists played a meaningful role in the uprising itself.
\n\nThe GLF and the Motherfuckers both drew on the affinity group organizing model that they had absorbed from the Spanish exiles and Murray Bookchin, but each employed it in their own way. Setting out to create a new way of life on the chaotic Lower East Side, the Motherfuckers devised insurrectionary approaches to social conflict while seeking to prefigure a revolutionary society by exploring new conceptions of the family. Gay liberationists, operating in a criminalized sexual subculture involving people linked by desire rather than shared politics, also developed alternative modes of kinship, networks of mutual aid, and flexible organizational formats that facilitated horizontal collaboration across lines of difference.
\n\nOver the course of a week in the hot summer of 1969, they collided with each other as they fought the police side by side. While the Motherfuckers dissolved shortly thereafter, gay liberation exploded and spread around the country. At the 1971 May Day protests, the two threads that converged at the Stonewall Uprising—gay liberation and anarchist direct action—came back together to transmit the affinity group model to posterity, setting the template for affinity group-based mass mobilizations for decades to come.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/25.jpg\")
A march in 1970. Marsha Johnson is holding the trans sign at the left.
\nEvery June, queers around the world celebrate Pride—the co-opted consumerist shell that remains of the celebrations in memory of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969.
\n\nThe first “Pride” was the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, launched in 1970 by radical gay and lesbian activists intent on breaking with the moderate homophile movement of the 1960s. Thousands of marchers convened in Greenwich Village and marched north through the city, chanting “Gay power! Gay power!”—”Gay, gay, all the way!”—”Out of the closets, into the streets!” The march was non-commercial, open to everyone, trans-inclusive, and radical, concluding in a massive “Gay-in” in Central Park. As lesbian historian Lillian Faderman summed up the day, “Never in history had so many gay and lesbian people come together in one place and for a common endeavor.”’
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/19.jpg\")
Christopher Street Liberation Day March, 1970—the first “Pride.” Yes, there was a black flag there!
\nToday, looking out over the landscape of contemporary Pride, we could say that rarely have so many LGBTQ people come together in one place while managing to accomplish so little. Depending on where you live, you may be charged admission for the privilege of wandering around and spending more money in a sea of commercial vendors, corporate sponsors, and tables of polite community groups. Despite the waves of resistance to racism and police violence in the late 2010s and early 2020s, you’re likely to see cops marching in the parade. In some states, organizers’ pre-emptive compliance with drag bans has gutted even the playful apolitical entertainment that we used to have.
\n\nOf course, the anti-LGBTQ and specifically anti-trans backlash of the past decade has caused many corporations that opportunistically sought out gay consumers via Pride sponsorships to dial back their efforts. Should we be nostalgic for the days when we had the luxury of complaining about being a target market rather than a target for bigotry, scapegoating, and violence?
\n\nThe history we have explored here offers a different perspective on the legacy of Stonewall, pointing to a long-running cross-pollination between anarchist organizing and queer culture and sexuality. Consulting this, we see that queer anarchism is not just an intersection of discrete identities, but a transformative force that has played a central role in half a century of direct action and revolutionary ferment. Looking at Stonewall through this lens, we see how the queer riots of 1969 offer lessons that are directly applicable to today’s movements for liberation.
\n\nThis account of the Stonewall Uprising leaves no room for consumerism, cops, or hierarchical leaders. According to this version of the story, we celebrate the rebels of June and July 1969
\n\n\n\n\nWhen we help to push riots beyond a single night of disturbances into an ongoing rebellion against the ruling order;
\n\nWhen we resist the efforts of community representatives to defuse our anger and send us home;
\n\nWhen we mingle in the streets against the instructions of riot cops, politicians, and official activists, communicating and finding common cause;
\n\nWhen we evaluate our strategies and tactics to find ways to revolt more effectively and joyously;
\n\nWhen we organize horizontally, rejecting representation and leaders, making space to collaborate while insisting on autonomy;
\n\nWhen we form affinity groups to undertake our creative and destructive projects;
\n\nWhen we prefigure the horizontal worlds we desire beyond the workplace, the party, and the nuclear family in the ways we organize, riot, party, and fuck.
\n
When we do these things, we are truly honoring the legacy of Stonewall.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/20.jpg\")
The spirit of Stonewall: gays smash City Hall during the White Night Riots in 1979.
\nFor oral histories with Stonewall participants and GLF members, see The Gay Liberation Front Foundation and the LGBTQ History Project. Some elders are still living—reach out and talk to them!
\n\nYou can find digital uploads of the GLF’s newspaper Come Out here.
\n\nAdam Nagourney Dudley Cleninden, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America—This is largely anti-radical and obnoxiously transphobic, but includes some useful material.
\n\nHugh Ryan, The Women’s House of Detention: The Queer History of a Forgotten Prison—A queer abolitionist history of the jail a few blocks from the Stonewall.
\n\nFor more about the Motherfuckers, see:
\n\nFor more about the Crazies, see Leslie James Pickering’s Mad Bomber Melville.
\n\nOur analysis of the 1971 May Day actions draws considerably from the brilliant research of L.A. Kauffman in the article “Ending a war, inventing a movement: Mayday 1971”.
\n\nFor a narrative account of May Day 1971, see Lawrence Roberts, Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America’s Biggest Mass Arrest. You can also consult the 1971 May Day protests tactical manual.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/22.jpg\")
Gay Liberation Front Marches on Times Square, New York City, 1969.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/23.jpg\")
Marsha P. Johnson Hands Out Flyers in Support of Gay Students at New York University, 1970.
\nAs Jim Fouratt, a young gay radical who participated in the riots, later pointed out, the question itself betrays a lack of awareness about the material conditions of the bar and its surroundings: “And who threw the first brick? Where would you find a brick on Christopher Street, unless you brought it in your purse, you know?” Danny Garvin, another participant in the riots, recalled finding a construction site on Seventh Avenue South where retreating rioters found a stack of bricks; in any case, brick throwing was not among the first acts that catalyzed the rebellion. See Carter, Stonewall, 155. ↩
\nThis summary derives from a range of accounts, including Carter, Stonewall, Duberman, Stonewall, and several primary sources. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 181. ↩
\n“Queen Power: Fags against Pigs in Stonewall Bust,” Rat, 9 July 1969, 6; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nHomophile Youth Movement, “Get the Mafia and the Cops Out of Gay Bars,” ca. 29 June 1969, Craig Rodwell Papers, Box 5, New York Public Library; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nAccording to Jefferson Fuck Poland of the Sexual Freedom League, NYC police claimed that when they raid bars, “they are not picking on homosexuals,” but focused on bar employees and on trans/gender-nonconforming patrons: “generally men dressed as men, even if wearing extensive makeup, are always released; men dressed as women are sometimes arrested; and ‘men’ fully dressed as women, but who upon inspection by a policewoman prove to have undergone the sex-change operation, are always let go.” Poland called for direct action against cross-dressing laws through a “Switch In,” in which “a large group of males and females, of all sexual orientations, should appear in clothing unmistakably of the opposite sex. Daring the cops to bust.” Jefferson Fuck Poland, “Lady Inspectors,” Berkeley Barb, 16 July 1969, 17; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nJohn Gabree, “Homosexuals Harassed in New York,” National Guardian, 12 July 1969, 14; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\n“Queen Power: Fags against Pigs in Stonewall Bust,” Rat, 9 July 1969, 6; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nInterview with Hugh Ryan, 2019. ↩
\nIn discussion with the authors in June 2026, Osha Neumann, one of the few living New York Motherfuckers, wasn’t sure: “I have no recollection of any MF being involved with Stonewall. That doesn’t mean some folks didn’t go there, but I somehow doubt it. By June 1969, I believe the core of the MFs were already heading to New Mexico.” But digging a bit deeper, it’s clear that the question is still open. In 2006, Motherfucker Ben Morea explained that the Motherfuckers were not a membership organization, but a network of affinity groups that acted independently and a label that any of them could employ: “We never called ourselves Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, although we signed our posters and leaflets UAW/MF, which anyone in the group could produce, with that name… It was essentially a loose confederation of affinity groups.” In fact, a wide range of people, from Mark Rudd and Spain Rodriguez to the Jefferson Airplane, dallied with both the organization and its tag line; there appear to have been autonomous chapters of Up Against the Wall Motherfucker as far away as Austin, Texas. Some people outside Motherfucker circles likely used the term to describe a wider range of people than Osha Neumann did. All of this is squarely within the anarchist tradition of informal organization. Regardless of whether members of the affinity groups specifically associated with Morea or Neumann directly took part in the Stonewall Uprising, it is certain that anarchists took part, and probable that some of them overlapped with the crews that identified—or were identified—as Motherfuckers. ↩
\nJay Levin, “The Gay Anger behind the Riots,” New York Post, 8 July 1969, 36; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nD. L. [Dick Leitsch], “Gay Riots in the Village,” Mattachine Society of New York Newsletter, Aug. 1969, 1–2, 4; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nBob Kohler, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” Come Out! 1, No. 2, (January 10, 1970). ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 202. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 183. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 302, note 21. ↩
\nHugh Ryan, The Women’s House of Detention: The Queer History of a Forgotten Prison. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 196. ↩
\nLeo E. Laurence, “Gays Hit NY Cops,” Berkeley Barb, 4 July 1969, 5; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 196. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 197. ↩
\nTom Burke, “The New Homosexuality,” Esquire, December 1969, pp. 178, 304–18. ↩
\nLucian Truscott IV, “Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square,” Village Voice, 3 July 1969, 18; John Gabree, “Homosexuals Harassed in New York,” National Guardian, 12 July 1969, 14; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History ↩
\nD. L. [Dick Leitsch], “Gay Riots in the Village,” Mattachine Society of New York Newsletter, Aug. 1969, 1–2, 4; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nLeitsch, “Gay Riots in the Village.” ↩
\nLeitsch, “Gay Riots in the Village.” ↩
\n“Cop Injured 5 Seized in Village,” New York Post, July 3, 1969. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 205. ↩
\nRonnie Di Brienza, “Stonewall Incident,” East Village Other, 9 July 1969, 2; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nLeitsch, “Gay Riots in the Village.” ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 201-205. ↩
\nKiyoshi Kuromiya quoted in Marc Stein, City of Brotherly and Sisterly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945–72, 334. ↩
\nJohn Gabree, “Homosexuals Harassed in New York,” National Guardian, 12 July 1969, 14; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nLeitsch, “Gay Riots in the Village.” ↩
\nLeitsch, “Gay Riots in the Village.” ↩
\nDi Brienza, “Stonewall Incident.” ↩
\n“Gay Power Explodes,” The Insider: Newsletter of the Mattachine Society of Washington, Aug. 1969, 1–3; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nDonn Teal, The Gay Militants, 95. ↩
\nDon Jackson, “Reflections on the N.Y. Riots” The Los Angeles Advocate, Oct. 1969, 11, 33; in The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. ↩
\nLige [Elijah Hadyn Clarke] and Jack [John Richard Nichols], “Pampered Perverts,” Screw, 25 July 1969, 16. ↩
\nClarke and Nichols, I Have More Fun With You Than Anyone, 147. ↩
\nCarter, Stonewall, 216. ↩
\nKarla Jay, The Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation, 77. ↩
\nToby Marotta, The Politics of Homosexuality, 90. ↩
\nDonn Teal, The Gay Militants, 101. ↩
\nMarotta, The Politics of Homosexuality, 87. ↩
\nDudley Cleninden and Adam Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, 43. ↩
\nTerence Kissack, “Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York’s Gay Liberation Front, 1969-1971,” 116. ↩
\nLate in life, immediately before renouncing anarchism, Murray Bookchin published a screed excoriating what he described as “lifestyle anarchism,” even sneering, in passing, at “gay faery circles.” Ironically, the queer liberation movement did more than any institution to spread what is useful in Bookchin’s contributions to anarchist practice. ↩
\nDavid Eisenbach, Gay Power: An American Revolution, 127. ↩
\nLois Hart, “GLF News,” Come Out 1, no. 2 (January 10, 1970), 16. ↩
\nHart, “GLF News.” ↩
\nRalph Hall, “Gay Liberation News,” Gay Power 1, no. 9 (1969), 8. ↩
\nDonn Teal, The Gay Militants, 101. ↩
\nDonn Teal, The Gay Militants, 52. ↩
\nL.A. Kaufmann, “Ending a War, Inventing a Movement: May Day 1971.” ↩
\nStarting on May 22, a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey catalyzed daily demonstrations outside the facility, creating the most visible flashpoint in the fight against the brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since the fight in Minnesota in early 2026. Here, we offer an appraisal of the tactics that protesters have employed outside Delaney Hall, anonymously provided by participants, followed by two interviews exploring the events in detail.
\n\nPhotographs by Talia Jane.
\n\nThe struggle to free the detainees from Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey has become the most significant sustained inside/outside protest movement at a detention center of Donald Trump’s second term. On May 22, 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike to demand their release. Supporters immediately mobilized outside to support them. For days, people rallied yards away from the building in which GEO Group holds approximately 1000 detainees captive under contract with the Department of Homeland Security. On May 27, viral videos showed ICE and private GEO Group security bludgeoning protesters outside Delaney Hall and pushing one man under an 18-wheeler, crushing his leg. Nonetheless, protesters bravely pushed back. Over the following days, more people rushed to the facility.
\n\nFor the first week of demonstrations, state and local law enforcement kept their distance. The weekend of May 29-31 marked a shift in the struggle at Delaney Hall, when New Jersey Democratic politicians Governor Mikie Sherrill and Mayor Ras Baraka deployed State Troopers and Newark Police Department to assist ICE and corral the protest. The collaboration of state law enforcement with ICE and GEO Group led to a much larger police presence outside the facility, coinciding with the largest protests outside Delaney Hall yet. In the following analysis, participants in that struggle recount the experiences on the ground Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, offering tactical reflections on how the protesters moved that weekend, followed by strategic reflections for the movement in general.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/3.jpg\")
Chinga la migra. Fuck Border Patrol.
\nFor the first seven days of the hunger strike, a combination of ICE agents and GEO Group employees policed Delaney Hall. On Friday, May 29, Newark Police Department and New Jersey State Police were deployed to manage the protest. Early in the day, Newark Police Department established vehicle checkpoints at the north and south intersections of Doremus Avenue, limiting car traffic to commercial trucks and ICE vehicles. Protesters could access the front entrances of Delaney by foot. By nightfall, the crowd had grown to about 150 people.
\n\nShortly after 9 pm, New Jersey State Police issued the first dispersal order. Ten minutes later, a line of fifty riot police advanced toward Delaney Hall. Protesters dragged steel barricades into the street; state troopers immediately absorbed these and tossed the barriers behind their advancing line. Riot police deployed tear gas in an effort to push back the crowd. From the main driveway, two dozen ICE agents shot pepper balls into the crowd.
\n\nThe riot line parted to let a half-dozen mounted officers into the crowd; they successfully used the horses to push protesters onto the sidewalk and past the south gate, away from the facility. It became clear that this maneuver was preparatory: shortly thereafter, eight ICE vehicles drove through the crowd, past the riot line and into Delaney Hall.
\n\nState police and protesters then entered a stalemate. Police held the road without deploying munitions; the crowd stared them down, but took no new initiatives. After about twenty minutes, once ICE completed its shift change, police covered their retreat by firing flash-bang grenades, tear-gas canisters, and pepper balls into the crowd.
\n\nWith the riot police dispersed, protesters quickly returned to the front of Delaney Hall. A few individuals dragged steel barricades in front of the active driveway. ICE agents immediately emerged, shot pepper balls into the crowd, and dragged the barricades inside the gate. Further up Doremus, protesters erected more steel barricades and reinforced them with paving stones. Despite these efforts, ICE successfully escorted four vehicles out of the facility.
\n\nThe night concluded with no further intervention from state police. One protester used a paving stone to crush the windshield of a parked ICE SUV. A brief skirmish broke out between protesters and a far-right TikTok influencer, after which armed security escorted him inside Delaney Hall. ICE agents stayed behind the retractable driveway gates. The crowd spent the final hours milling about.
\n\nBarricades: Protesters repeatedly deployed barricades with little forethought as to how to make use of them. In some cases, the consequence was that the State Police or ICE were able to immediately seize them. Only later, after failed attempts to deploy barricades directly in front of Delaney, did some people erect a reinforced steel barricade further up the road, out of the direct reach of ICE agents. However, as the crowd remained concentrated by the driveway, several ICE vehicles were able to clear that obstacle with ease.
\n\nIdle Time: Ideally, one should arrive at a protest equipped to take action, with the goal of altering the course of events for the better. Instead of merely attending the demonstration, individuals or crews should actively intervene and inspire others to do the same. The attempts to make barricades, the damage to the ICE vehicle, and the confrontation with the TikToker were gestures in that direction. However, aside from those few instances, which did not galvanize the crowd to action, most of the evening’s activity could be described as “milling around.” The abundance of idle time, especially in the absence of law enforcement, suppressed the crowd’s potential and momentum.
\n\nProximity to Delaney Hall: We should not take for granted the opportunity to be able to get within feet of a facility like Delaney Hall. The detention center sits along a sidewalk accessible to protesters, moderately protected by chain-link fence. After the State Police retreated, there was a multi-hour window during which people could have modified the façade of Delaney Hall. This opportunity diminished after Friday night: new fencing was installed around the driveway, state and local LEO began guarding the facility, and for two days, access to Delaney was blocked altogether.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/5.jpg\")
A barricade protesters built in the days before the local and state police established control around the facility.
\nSaturday night began with a scuffle. By 9 pm, approximately 250 protesters had assembled; the majority of them were equipped with gas masks, goggles, and helmets. They initiated a ten-minute tug-of-war with New Jersey State Police by pushing up against the steel barricade perimeter that had been constructed in front of the facility’s main gate. Eventually, protesters broke the barrier into two sections. The police retreated into the facility’s driveway, but the crowd did not advance on the building. Instead, it stepped back onto the sidewalk.
\n\nSome protesters re-appropriated the barriers to form a barricade in front of a line of riot police forming just south of the facility. As they had the night before, police quickly removed the barriers and shot tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades. The crowd fell back immediately. As the riot line advanced, protesters took up the remaining barricades and managed to push the police line back a few feet by shoving the barricades against the shields of the riot police. This was the only point in the night when the crowd was able to advance. The police broke the barricade at its weakest point—as there were only about a dozen people on the front line and they were spread thin—by bludgeoning protesters and deploying more flash-bang grenades.
\n\nAt the same time, a new unit of riot police marched in via the railroad tracks south of Roanoke Avenue. Filling in behind the existing riot line, they increased its depth by two to three officers and expanded it across the entire road. The rest of the night is best described as a rolling retreat.
\n\nTwo hundred riot police deployed a combination of pepper balls, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas canisters, both tossing the tear gas canisters and shooting them behind the front lines of protesters. Some protesters equipped with traffic cones and water bottles extinguished the canisters and kicked them back at the police; in one instance, protesters redirected the tear gas at the correctional officers loitering in the Essex County parking lot. The crowd continuously threw up barricades—dragging together jersey barriers, planks of wood, and abandoned trash—but were not able to fortify or defend them. Protesters maintained an average distance of 100 feet from the police line.
\n\nAt one point, a convoy of five vehicles was allowed through the checkpoint on Roanoke. The majority passed through the line of riot police without issue. The crowd swarmed the final car, which was tinted out with California plates. It accelerated forward; the police barely opened their line in time to let it through. There was a splash of glass as it passed.
\n\nDuring their final advance, the police line parted to let nine mounted units out into the crowd. They spread down Doremus in a flanking formation, rotating to push protesters onto the sidewalk. Two individuals leaped into the street to disorient the horses by waving makeshift shields and flashing bright lights in their eyes. This worked, albeit only temporarily. The crowd scrambled, then continued in slow retreat.
\n\nThe crowd retreated for ten minutes before the riot line assumed the stationary position that it maintained for the rest of the night. The crowd was spread out and thinning, 100 to 200 feet away from police. Fifteen minutes into this standoff, about 100 feet behind the line of protesters, someone ignited a flaming barricade assembled from tires, traffic cones, and debris. The majority of the protesters dispersed around 12:30 am. Mayor Ras Baraka retroactively instituted a curfew.
\n\nTear Gas: The prevalence of gas masks and goggles prepared the crowd to endure chemical dispersants. The crowd generally succeeded in tracking and neutralizing tear gas canisters. A small team with traffic cones and water bottles reliably followed the canisters and extinguished them; many other people kicked tear gas canisters back at police or away from the crowd. However, the crowd fell back at least 100 feet nearly every time officers deployed tear gas and flash-bangs, as the officers surely intended. It would have been preferable to remain close to the front line in order to retain offensive capacities.
\n\nProtester Barricades: We should appraise the value of a barricade by what it renders possible. Protesters threw up at least three barricades, but none of them significantly slowed the police line, nor were they ever fortified enough to do so. To accomplish that, protesters would have needed to maintain the initiative after deploying the barricades and immediately launch a new offensive. Instead, the protesters hung back after deploying them. Every moment spent in a staring contest with law enforcement is momentum ceded, enabling the state to determine the next move.
\n\nFlaming Barricade: The bonfire was an act of initiative on the part of the demonstrators. However, it occurred too late in the protest, which was essentially over by the time the fire was lit. At that point, the protesters had been pushed as far back as they would be by riot police and had been in a stalemate of inactivity for fifteen minutes. Because this took place at the end of the evening’s events, during a lull in activity, and with a dwindling crowd, it could not regenerate momentum. If fires had been lit earlier, they might have strengthened barricades against riot police and galvanized the energy of the crowd during the peak of the skirmishes.
\n\nProjectiles: The only way to push back a police line is to advance on it. It would have been possible for a few people to collect a few boxes of rocks from the nearby railroad tracks, encourage the crowd to tighten up, and then throw projectiles at the riot line. The crowd likely wouldn’t have regained much ground, but this would have slowed its retreat. Better prepared demonstrators might have packed fireworks.
\n\nFalse Dispersal Order: Near the end of the night, when the fire was burning lower, one individual took a megaphone and informed the crowd that they were being kettled from the rear. This was not true: nothing had changed at the north entrance. A few protesters fact-checked this detail and updated the crowd, but the announcement still induced panic. A number of people chose to disperse, including all of those marked as medics. A basic scouting system could have decreased the crowd’s susceptibility to fear and false information.
\n\nArtwork: Saturday’s activities amounted to a slow, rolling retreat, but the imagery that circulated was evocative and inspiring to those watching the struggle from elsewhere. At one point, anti-ICE graffiti appeared on the corrugated metal wall of a nearby business. Because artwork that appears in situations like this is often immediately broadcasted across the country, it offers an opportunity to offer slogans providing strategic direction.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/4.jpg\")
Clenched fists versus police batons.
\nSunday was the first night that the curfew was in effect. The police expanded the vehicular checkpoints of the previous days, reinforcing the Roanoke entrance with multiple squad cars and portable vehicle barriers and blocking off the entire length of the Wilson entrance with zip-tied steel barricades. Foot traffic on Doremus was prohibited.
\n\nAt 8:50 pm, there were roughly 100 protesters gathered at the Wilson intersection. The medics began packing up their supplies. A few individuals spread fear in the crowd, attempting to persuade everyone to disperse. At 9 pm, the police issued a dispersal order. It was unclear whether the intersection lay inside or outside of the half-mile curfew “zone.”
\n\nAround 9:15, a mounted unit of ten state police horses deployed out of the New Jersey Transit parking lot west on Wilson. The crowd rushed towards them. At the same time, riot police deployed from farther down Doremus to form a line across the intersection. The combination of these two forces pushed protesters onto the sidewalk at the southwest corner.
\n\nA third of the crowd dispersed down Wilson, followed by low-flying drones. Officers in vehicles with tinted windows shone bright flashlights at outbound traffic to intimidate the occupants. Police set up additional checkpoints along the exit routes, at first stopping drivers for violating curfew. Ultimately, they permitted these cars to leave.
\n\nRiot police kettled the 64 protesters who remained at the intersection. They were booked at Essex County Correctional Facility, adjacent to Delaney Hall within the curfew zone.
\n\nDispersal of the Medics: A handful of people demobilized the crowd by announcing that medics were leaving the scene. It was not clear whether the medics were speaking for themselves, how or why they made that call, or what their relationship was to those seeking to persuade people to leave. In any case, it is odd that a support role would be treated as a de facto tactical lead: the idea was that if the medics retreated, we should retreat, too. It makes sense that some people would feel less resilient without medics after experiencing everything from chemical munitions to bone-breaking beatings at the hands of GEO Group, ICE, and State Police. Regardless, it is worth considering whether the decisions of medics should determine what everyone else does.
\n\nKnowing When to Call It: It was immediately apparent that the balance of forces was not in the protesters’ favor. When officers issued the dispersal order, less than a hundred people lingered by the barricade, a significant proportion of which were press. The State Police behind the barricade matched the protesters almost one to one. When a bus of riot police arrived farther south, seizing the space behind the protesters, and mounted State Troopers descended from the west, there were limited options. A police force twice the size of the protest took over the whole intersection and announced a dispersal. Police cars started forming perimeters further up the street to close and monitor traffic. While it always feels disempowering to leave, protesters probably should have done so at that point. All other things being equal, when one has the opportunity, it is better to stay out of the bureaucratic legal process in order to keep one’s hands free to fight another day.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/9.jpg\")
\nAbove, we suggested tactical improvements that the crowd could have implemented during the specific events of each day. Below, we offer strategic proposals based on recurring dynamics across the days of struggle outside Delaney Hall.
\n\nParticipants in protests should sensitize themselves to the difference between actions that feel productive and actions that advance towards desired outcomes. We should always strive to influence our environment and learn faster than circumstances change. Doing so requires participants to communicate simply and effectively with each other, to take and maintain the initiative, and to take responsibility for maintaining the cohesion of the crowd. So far, the protests outside Delaney have not been able to metabolize lessons rapidly enough to keep up with events. The mis-application of barricades, the repeated slow retreats, and the lack of cohesion in stopping vehicles highlight this.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/6.jpg\")
A barricade protesters built in the days before the local and state police established control around the facility.
\nThe implicit objective of the crowd has been to prevent ICE vehicles from entering or exiting the facility. One of the early efforts to break the strike involved transferring suspected leaders out of Delaney Hall to other detention facilities; blocking vehicular traffic presented itself to protesters as an effective response. This same tactic was employed last summer in New York City as part of an effort to prevent the removal of detainees from 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Protesters attempted to create chokepoints by throwing debris into the intersections surrounding the immigration courts as ICE vans were leaving.
\n\nDespite the persistent desire to block traffic, it is not clear what the larger goal is besides making ICE operations more costly in general. The crowd has been largely unsuccessful at blockading entry and exit to the facility. When protesters have surrounded ICE vehicles, they have usually simply banged on the car; on a handful of occasions, they have broken a window. Otherwise, the crowd has been ill-prepared to disable vehicles despite the apparent desire to do so. The crowd’s inability to pivot on the ground is symptomatic of a broader strategic vacuum.
\n\nOne sometimes whispered-about, but largely unspoken desire is to breach the facility and liberate detainees. The appetite for this is apparent, but unrealized; desired, but doubted. It is worth identifying this horizon outright. So long as it remains unspoken, it will be impossible to determine the level of organization that it would take to make this happen or to acknowledge the concrete limits of the current protest tactics.
\n\nJohn Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry; the liberation of Assata Shakur; the siege of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis; the March 5, 2023 raid that damaged the Cop City construction site in Atlanta—such actions remind us what we are capable of. It is our duty to make daring plans together. One year ago, detainees inside Delaney Hall did just that when four people broke through the walls and escaped. It is humbling to fight at the site of a recent jailbreak; it is our responsibility to bring down the walls.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/8.jpg\")
Love your neighbor; free the captive.
\nOur movement has more strategic opportunities when we face a disunified adversary. This was the case for about a week as the movement outside Delaney Hall grew. During that time, New Jersey Democrats and DHS agents were openly hostile to each other. Democrats were routinely denied entry into Delaney Hall; they were surprised that ICE treated them as protesters, not colleagues within the ruling class. ICE arrested Mayor Baraka for trespassing, charged Congresswoman LaMonica McIver with assaulting a federal officer, and pepper-sprayed Senator Andy Kim point-blank.
\n\nDuring that time, New Jersey police were not deployed to Delaney. For a week, protesters clashed directly with ICE and GEO Group without interference from state or local law enforcement. A similar tension between state and federal agencies offered a key opportunity for resistance to the ICE to accelerate during the first two months of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. While the New Jersey governor and mayor did ultimately unite with ICE against protesters for the weekend, they have since wavered due to popular backlash.
\n\nDenouncing New Jersey state police, the Minnesota 50501 chapter posted a graphic on social media reading, “Republicans sent ICE. Democrats sent police. They shoot us all the same. Different states, same mistakes.” Shortly after, the mayor of Newark admitted to excessive and even “unconstitutional” use of force against protesters and suspended the curfew. By June 4, Baraka announced that Newark Police would further scale back their presence at Delaney, stating “It is not the responsibility of the Newark Police Division to secure a private facility. It is a clear contradiction to the City’s position with GEO group to remain there.”
\n\nDemocrat collaboration with ICE is not a foregone conclusion. It is unevenly expressed, occasionally delayed, and takes place despite the opposition of much of the party’s voter base. Any further fractures in the Democratic coalition, especially if they cause even a brief absence of law enforcement, will expand our opportunities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/11.jpg\")
\nAfter the major metropolitan ICE surges of Midway Blitz and Metro Surge, the battles inside and outside of Delaney Hall have once again directed countrywide attention to the struggle against ICE. For now, however, resistance movements lack strong organizational models to enable us to metabolize lessons, strategize, and launch stronger attacks. In the absence of those, people simply converge on spaces where they see combative actions occurring on a regular basis.
\n\nHundreds of people outside Delaney Hall and tens of thousands around the country have demonstrated tremendous courage by confronting ICE directly. Yet just as militants should not arbitrarily limit ourselves to on-the-ground tactical interventions while leaving larger political and organizational tasks to NGOs, we should not let the way that spaces of conflict currently stand in for forms of organization lock us into narrow territorial struggles. Rather than letting pitched battles over specific spaces stand in for collective strategizing, we need to create opportunities for those who have been transformed by this struggle to develop more audacious strategic goals and find the tactics to match them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/2.jpg\")
Protesters conducting a car check early in this wave of protests, before local and state police got involved and shifted the balance of power. The only thing we can ask for from any institution of authority is to stay out of the way.
\nWe interviewed Talia Jane, a journalist who has witnessed many of the protests outside Delaney Hall.
\n\nA year ago, riotous demonstrations took place outside of Delaney Hall as an uprising inside the facility enabled several detainees to escape. What has happened since then?
\n\nOver the past year, volunteers have worked around the clock to provide support to people newly released and the families of people detained at Delaney Hall. Those advocates have been attempting to raise awareness of conditions inside the facility, with little support. It was people detained inside self-organizing in protest against their conditions that set the spark that led to a surge in support.
\n\nThat support soon shifted toward direct action (attempting to block entering and exiting vehicles), which led to ICE agents attacking demonstrators, which sparked an even bigger surge in support. All of this organizing has been happening with a backdrop of growing discontent with ICE’s violent, fascist attacks on neighbors across the country.
\n\nThat served as a powder keg. People had been waiting for things to cross a certain line until the conditions outside Delaney Hall matched scenes they had been seeing in Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
\n\nSeveral hundred people at Delaney Hall launched a work and hunger strike. Tell us what you know about the strike and how people have been responding on the outside.
\n\nThe strike has been a point of fixation for DHS, which continues to insist there is no hunger strike. This is intentionally dishonest. The hunger strikers avoided eating as much as possible. I observed one ambulance wheeling someone out, who smiled but looked frail, at day five of the hunger strike.
\n\nThe hunger portion of the strike has now ended, and I’m told that ICE has threatened to pursue charges against those refusing to eat, which would jeopardize their immigration cases. Since then, many more people have been wheeled out into ambulances. Volunteers have speculated that this is due to physical abuse committed by guards and ICE agents.
\n\nOver the past two weeks, hundreds of people have been mobilizing in solidarity outside of Delaney Hall. We’ve seen blockades of ICE vans and barricades. A few days ago, the removal of Martin Soto, one of the detainees on hunger strike, was temporarily halted. Tell us what has been happening in the streets outside of Delaney Hall.
\n\nOutside of Delaney Hall, there has been a battle between the state and the people in a multitude of ways: Demonstrators organically began attempting to block vehicles and barricade access to the facility.
\n\nWith access now barricaded by DHS/GEO Group, demonstrators continue trying to add friction to ICE operations. DHS and FBI agents were documented inside a white tent that volunteers use to provide aftercare to newly released people and families visiting their loved ones. The tent was trashed, with mace reportedly sprayed all over medical supplies—a war crime. Volunteers are continuing to try to clean and repair the space for family and aftercare support.
\n\nAlongside that, people continue to show up around the clock to bear witness, rally in opposition to ICE, and impede vehicles. Initially, ICE was primarily engaging protesters. After they pushed someone into a moving 18-wheeler, New Jersey State Police came in, and immediately escalated to using tear gas, flash-bangs, and horses. One of them stole a photographer’s backpack after breaking her knee and ditched it outside his house. They appear to have plotted to kettle and mass arrest demonstrators, preventing press who didn’t have specific credentials from leaving the kettle. Everyone detained was held for at least 14 hours, some more than 24 hours total.
\n\nAfter that, Newark Police Department was sent to play nice with everyone. They ended up arresting people. Then NPD was pulled out and it was decided that the situation at Delaney Hall was a federal and GEO Group issue, not one that local police should be involved with. GEO Group took to chasing people around, beating them with batons in the street, macing people, and accelerating cars into people. One person remarked, “If they’re doing this in broad daylight, what are they doing to the people inside?”
\n\nTell us more about what you’re seeing out in the streets from ICE agents.
\n\nThe violence isn’t isolated to ICE. It’s like every state or private agency associated with ICE feels emboldened to engage in excessive use of force or plainly outrageous violence because they are collaborating with or acting on behalf of ICE.
\n\nNew Jersey State Police broke a photographer’s knee and stole her gear. GEO Group hit my colleague with a car. People have been singled out, grabbed, and brutalized by ICE for doing nothing. I watched and reported when ICE decided, for no reason other than they felt like it, to escalate from simply sweeping people into the street to dumping tons of mace to using batons and aggressively shoving. NJSP appears to have simply wanted to unleash hell on people, absent any notable instigation, after ICE’s escalations. Now GEO Group is beating people in the street. ICE sets the precedent, these other agencies follow.
\n\nAs the demonstrations have been heating up, we’ve seen a wave of Democratic politicians arrive at Delaney Hall, including the Governor and a Senator, who was maced by police. Talk about this dynamic and how has it impacted the demonstrations.
\n\nThe demonstrators are split into two camps. One camp feels completely indifferent to all politicians, on the premise that the politicians are showing up for their own benefit more than they are for others. The other camp is enamored with the celebrity of politicians, interpreting their visits as a means of advocacy and building power.
\n\nDespite Governor Sherrill appearing outside the facility, she conveniently showed up on a holiday where visits were not allowed—and she has not returned since. Delaney Hall strikers are demanding Sherrill visit them inside the facility. This has become a litmus test for Sherrill that she continues failing.
\n\nThe dynamic is a classic case of spectacle. The prominence of those who visit raises awareness and can generate support among people who support those politicians.
\n\nBut spectacle can serve multiple masters. Speaking of which, far-right streamers have been on the ground more in the last few days, as you have been reporting. Tell us more how that is playing out.
\n\nFar-right streamers have been getting in people’s faces, eagerly documenting people who prefer not to draw attention to themselves. They’re there to generate propaganda, to agitate fascists, and to bleed support for the growing uprising by slandering and mischaracterizing it.
\n\nSome demonstrators ignore them; others try to buffer them; others take more aggressive measures. I suspect the latter will become more common as the streamers increasingly get caught filming things that they know will upset those they’re filming. One of the streamers—I’m not going to name him, because his whole grift relies on name recognition—had his phones taken and broken after he was running up close to people’s faces trying to identify them while verbally boasting about collecting intel in order to dox people. He was boasting aloud while surrounded by protesters, mind you! He and other far-right propagandists have also been desperately trying to infiltrate organizing and support chats in order to slander those involved. It’s annoying and stupid noise that, unfortunately, has the president’s ear.
\n\nPeople are split, as seems to always be the case, between those taking opsec precautions to stay safe and those eschewing them completely in a blend of arrogance and what they seem to believe is a strategic defiance or apathy regarding potential consequences.
\n\nThere’s been a lot of mutual aid organizing and infrastructure popping up at Delaney Hall. Tell us about what’s going on beyond just the protests and confrontations with ICE.
\n\nCosecha New Jersey and the broader Eyes on ICE coalition have been organizing to support people detained at Delaney Hall, advocating for the closure of the facility since it first opened. Their infrastructure grew rapidly as protesters surged to express support, but the foundation was built long ago. People are working to connect newly detained people with legal support and help families meet facility dress code for visitation. They are advocating for detainees to receive proper medical care and serving as a megaphone for the voices locked inside.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/10.jpg\")
\nThey’ve raised funds for people’s commissary accounts and for their families. The volunteer network has stepped up to meet every possible need that may arise, whether that be finding missing paperwork or bandaging up a paper cut. People are coming together to figure out how they can be helpful.
\n\nThe recent confrontations in New Jersey represent one of the largest flash points of anti-ICE resistance since the explosion in the Twin Cities. What do you anticipate in the coming days and weeks?
\n\nI see the state making stupid choices that further intensify the call to resist. I see support networks maturing from uncertain vulnerable spaces to highly functioning machines. I see many, many people becoming radicalized in a way few ordinarily experience. I see those with a greater depth of radical knowledge welcoming in those less informed and raising them up, not gatekeeping or judging. I see people learning a lot of awful lessons about how to withstand a waking nightmare and figuring out how to remain soft and kind despite it and because of it.
\n\nHow can people follow your work and support you?
\n\nYou can support the strikers and their families here. You can find my links here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/1.jpg\")
Celebrating a birthday outside the facility. ICE separates children from their parents. Resistance is a way of reestablishing our shared humanity.
\nTo include information about the events outside Delaney Hall up to the time of publication, we interviewed an anarchist who has participated in the protests in June. The protester chose to remain anonymous.
\n\nCan you describe what has happened at Delaney Hall in June?
\n\nOn June 1, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a press conference outside of Delaney Hall in response to what he admitted was “unconstitutional” use of force by officers over the previous nights. A few people tried to disrupt the press conference, but Baraka closed it to the public. Newark police established hard checkpoints leading into the facility, completely closing access to foot and vehicle traffic. He announced that he would lift the curfew from Delaney Hall.
\n\nOn Wednesday, June 3, about fifty protesters gathered in front of Delaney Hall. A “free speech zone” was set up in front of a driveway to the facility that had been closed. Newark PD guarded the other two driveways. NPD facilitated the entry and exit of ICE vehicles, getting into petty shoving matches with protesters who sought to stop cars from entering.
\n\nAt some point, protesters noticed that ICE vehicles were leaving through a back exit. About fifteen people moved to the back of the facility to try to obstruct vehicles there. The back of the facility is a dimly lit street with no foot or vehicle traffic. Suddenly, six unmarked SUVs pulled up on the protesters and fully kitted-out agents leapt from the vehicles barking “GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!” They did not identify which agency they were from. Several people escaped; the others were briefly detained and then shoved down the road and told to leave. ICE and Essex County Sheriffs arrested one person. Another was repeatedly slammed to the ground by ICE, causing an injury to the protester’s arm. An ICE agent reportedly pulled that protester’s mask back, said “Are you a fucking girl?”, and spat in their face.
\n\nOn Friday, June 5, Mayor Baraka scaled back NPD presence outside Delaney Hall, having officers mostly monitor vehicle checkpoints at the north and south entrances to Doremus Ave. At 7:30 pm that night, the mayor instituted a “ban” on those wearing face coverings or carrying backpacks passing the police checkpoint to protest in front of Delaney Hall.
\n\nOn Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, with Newark PD having scaled back, a few dozen protesters clashed directly with ICE and GEO Group private security outside of Delaney Hall. On Saturday night, a few dozen protesters stood out in the rain and attempted to block ICE cars entering the detention facility. A few protesters have been followed by plain-clothes officers who photograph and occasionally handcuff protesters. These men do not identify themselves with any agency; they have not arrested anyone, only briefly detained those in masks as they leave.
\n\nWhat other strategies besides gathering outside Delaney Hall have supporters of the hunger strike employed?
\n\nTo date, there have not been many other strategies apart from the demonstrations outside Delaney Hall. A few noise demonstrations have been called, one at the Attorney General’s office and one at Mayor Baraka’s house, though the latter was called off after the curfew was lifted.
\n\nThe Democratic governor used the language of “outside agitators” to delegitimize demonstrators outside Delaney Hall, even though people are held there who have been arrested around the region. How have local participants in the grassroots organizing against Delaney Hall related to demonstrators from outside Newark?
\n\nThis has not been a tension on the ground outside the facility. The charge of “not being from here” would be tone-deaf to levy outside a migrant detention center. A handful of people active in the anti-ICE struggles in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis have come here to share lessons from those fights. This has been useful and appreciated by the crowd. We are in a nationwide struggle against ICE.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/10/7.jpg\")
\nIn the following analysis, Ayman Makarem of the From the Periphery media collective reviews a century of colonial violence in Palestine and Lebanon to illuminate the current Israeli occupation and what it would take to resist it.
\n\nYou can watch a video version of this essay here.
\n\nFor the third time in my relatively short life, Israel has invaded my country. They have made it clear that they want to establish a long-term occupation of Southern Lebanon. This is not the first time that this has happened; several\nmedia organizations and social\nmedia accounts have published timelines of Israeli invasions and attacks on Lebanon. These timelines usually focus on major flashpoints like the 1982 or 2006 invasions, but fall short of demonstrating the full breadth and continuity of Israeli violence targeting Lebanon. Lebanon’s encounter with Zionism goes much further back than most know, predating the establishment of the state of Israel itself.
\n\nLet’s start with Moshe Dayan.
\n\nMoshe Dayan was an early Zionist leader, born to settler parents in Palestine in 1915. He was present at practically every major landmark event in the Zionist colonization of Palestine. He joined the Haganah—a Zionist militia in Mandatory Palestine—at the age of 21, participated in crushing the Palestinian Revolt of 1936, and fought in the 1948 war, expelling swathes of Palestinians during the Nakba. From the 1950s until his death in 1981, he moved between high-level positions within the military and then within successive Israeli governments, serving as Minister of Defense in the late 1960s.1
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/14.jpg\")
Moshe Dayan as Minister of Defense, circa 1967.
\nDayan encapsulates a lot about the state of Israel. A number of quotes attributed to him indicate considerable self-awareness about what he and his colleagues were doing. The words of early Zionist leaders like Dayan cut through the smokescreen of contemporary Zionist propaganda. Here, he describes the foundation of the state of Israel:
\n\n\n\n\n“We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish state here. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”2
\n
He said this as a person proud of his accomplishments. For those who know the history of Palestine and its encounter with Zionism, that story is very familiar—it’s just notable that it’s coming from a Zionist leader. However, Dayan also said things that reveal parts of the history that are more obscure, parts that are muddied by the tendency to focus on major flashpoints like the Nakba or the Six-Day War.
\n\nFor instance, in the early 1950s, when he was a Commander of the Southern Command, Dayan developed a policy of dealing with what they called “infiltrators”—in some cases, expelled Palestinians trying to return home or collect things that were left behind when they were forced off their land; in other cases, unorganized Fedayeen militants who would “infiltrate” their own homeland and carry out operations against the nascent Israeli state. This is how he described his policy:
\n\n\n\n\n“Retaliation is the only method that has proved effective, not justified or moral but effective, when Arabs plant mines on our side. If we try to search for that Arab, it has no value. But if we harass the nearby village… then the population there comes out against the infiltrators… The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective… There are no other effective methods.”3
\n
There’s another term for what Dayan describes: terrorism. Or still another: war crimes. Dayan’s words shine a light on the periods between the major ruptures, a history that is often forgotten. Between 1949 and 1956, there were tens of thousands of “infiltrations” every year, and Israelis carried out hundreds of bloody retaliatory raids in other parts of Palestine, specifically Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon.4
\n\nIn 1955, to put an end to the returnees and attacks from the north, Moshe Dayan, then Chief of Staff under Moshe Sharett’s government, proposed a plan that shocked even his Prime Minister:
\n\n\n\n\n“All that is required is to find an officer, even a captain would do, to win his heart or buy him with money to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and create a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will fall into place.”5
\n
This is precisely what the Israelis did 23 years later in 1978, when Dayan himself was Foreign Minister. A few years earlier, in 1974, Moshe Dayan had summarized his goals thus:
\n\n\n\n\n“We will make all life impossible in South Lebanon.”6
\n
Moshe Dayan speaking to the press as Minister of Defense in 1974.
\nIt is difficult to not see the parallels with what the Israelis are saying today. It has now been two and a half years since the start of the genocidal war in Gaza, and Israeli leaders have made statements like this over and over again. Since March 2 of this year, Israel has displaced\nover a million people, claiming\nthey will never be allowed to return, destroyed\nwhole villages, invaded with ground troops, destroyed hospitals and schools, killed\nentire families, killed\nmedics, and journalists, and academics. Put these together and they spell out one word: genocide. Their main targets are Shia Lebanese.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/5.jpg\")
Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, killed by Israel on April 22, 2026 in a double-tap strike.
\nWith full US backing, the Israeli government is pursuing a policy of genocide in Lebanon. In the last two months, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has issued not one, but two red-flag warnings of genocide in Lebanon.
\n\nThis is an existential war on Lebanon. It has been going on for decades, but now it is reaching its logical end. The Israeli government aims to tear Lebanon apart, to dismantle its capacity to exist. To understand any of this, we have to examine the joint history of Lebanon and Zionism.
\n\nThe term Lebanese Entity many not be as familiar as the term Zionist Entity, but it emerges from an analysis of the formation of the state of Lebanon that recognizes the colonial relations that formed it and its many structural and exclusionary flaws. These aspects make Lebanon particularly vulnerable to exploitation by the Israelis as well as other regional powers. They have kept Lebanon in a state of perpetual crisis since its foundation.
\n\nHere, we will outline a chronological history of the two entities and how they intersect. As an aid, we offer this timeline, which includes Israeli attacks on and invasions of Lebanon alongside key regional events throughout the period that are essential to understanding this history.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/israels-long-war-on-lebanon.jpg\")
Click on the thumbnail to access the timeline at full scale.
\nWhat Lebanon is experiencing today is not just the consequence of Hezbollah’s actions or the Iran War or the presence of Palestinian resistance in Lebanon; it is the culmination of decades of continuous assaults by the state of Israel on our sovereignty itself. We must understand Lebanon as a key vector of the European colonization of this entire region, which the state of Israel has extended and expanded.
\n\nWe begin this story in the midst of the First World War with the secretly drawn up Sykes-Picot\nagreement, which mapped out Britain and France’s ambitions in case of a victory over the Ottoman Empire—a victory that came to pass a few years later. What followed remains one of the classic examples of white men carving up Indigenous land in Asia.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/7.jpg\")
The French mandate of Lebanon and Syria.
\nBoth the Lebanese and Zionist entities emerged out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Both had previously existed as ideas but only became manifest at this point. Lebanon as a state was devised in this period by the French. Palestine, for its part, was taken over by the British, who openly declared their intention to create a Jewish Homeland in Palestine for European Zionists. The key document here is the Balfour\nDeclaration, which was drafted the same year as Sykes-Picot.
\n\nThe region that the two colonial powers carved up had been known for centuries as Bilad al Sham, which is often translated as “the Levant,” but more precisely translates to “the countries of the left.” If you consider the Arab Hejaz [the western coastal region of Saudi Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located] to be the center, which it was for centuries of Islamic rule beginning in the 7th century, when you look east towards the sun, Bilad al Sham will be on your left, and Yemen (from the Arabic word Yameen, “right”) on your right. Colloquially, al Sham is also an Arabic name for Damascus, as it was one of the most important cities in the region.
\n\nFor hundreds of years, Bilad al Sham passed from the hands of one ruler to another. Then, in 1918, European forces conquered the land for the first time since the Crusades. This is where our story really begins.
\n\nIn 1920, in collaboration with local Maronite elites in Mount Lebanon, France created what is known as Greater Lebanon, a colonial state under French supervision. Before this, the name “Lebanon” referred to the Mount Lebanon range. To this day, older British people sometimes call Lebanon “The Lebanon,” like “The Ukraine” or “The Gambia.” It’s because those names referred to a geographical location rather than a state.
\n\nGreater Lebanon was an expansion of Mount Lebanon to include areas around it, specifically the coastal cities of Beirut, Saida, and Tripoli, as well as Akkar to the north, Bekaa to the east, and Jabal Amel to the south. The idea was to separate Lebanon from Syria and the rest of Bilad al-Sham in order to create a viable state led by a majority Christian Maronite population, as the latter was friendly to the French. Annexing those other territories ensured enough farmland, access to ports, and surplus populations for this new state. It also meant access to key water sources such as the Litani River.7
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/23.jpg\")
Lebanon was created as an expansion of Mount Lebanon via the annexation of the coastal cities—Akkar to the north, the Bekaa to the east, and Jabal Amel to the south.
\nThe British Historian, Patrick Seale, summarizes thus:
\n\n\n\n\n“[Greater Lebanon] was intended as a haven for the predominant Maronite community, France’s main clients, but, in terms of geopolitics, it was also conceived as a French fortress in the eastern Mediterranean, which could be used against European rivals as well as against Arab nationalists of the Syrian interior.”8
\n
This is the origin of the Lebanese entity. A Maronite Christian state built to advance the strategic interests of France in the region.
\n\nDuring this same period, another ethnostate was slowly being constructed south of Lebanon. But instead of allying with an existing local community, the British opted for settler colonialism, aiming to make European Zionists the dominant force in Palestine.
\n\nThe contempt that these white, colonial Europeans felt towards Indigenous populations was clear not just in these actions but also in how they described what they were doing. For example, in response to objections to using the new technology of aerial bombardments against civilian populations, Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922, is reported to have said
\n\n\n\n\n“We must reserve the right to bomb ni**ers.”9
\n
Those were the people who were now in charge of Mandatory Palestine. At that point, Zionist colonists had already been settling in Palestine for almost 40 years, though very slowly. With support of the British, that migration increased dramatically, and it soon became evident to the local Palestinian population that the British were giving favorable treatment to the new European Jewish communities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/16.jpg\")
A newspaper cover from Palestine with a cartoon depicting Balfour supporting Jewish migration and industry in Palestine, as well as the disenfranchisement of local populations.
\nExamining maps from 1918 and 1920, we can see the beginnings of the conflict over the southern part of Lebanon. The first map broadly depicts the future state of Israel, as well as Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria, without any defined borders whatsoever.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/22.jpg\")
A map from 1918. Those red lines are actually train lines; there are no borders on this map. Though hundreds of miles of railway once ran through Lebanon, they were rendered inoperable by the Lebanese Civil War. The last trains ceased running in the 1990s.
\nThe map from 1920 shows three lines that could define the northern border of the future state of Israel. The first is the Sykes-Picot line; the second is the “suggested” border, extending into Southern Lebanon; the third represents a “Maximum Demand” border engulfing all the territory up to and including the Litani River.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/21.jpg\")
A map from 1920.
\nSykes-Picot wasn’t the final agreement between the French and the British. In 1923, the two powers drafted a more detailed accord, the\nPaulete-Newcombe agreement, defining the borders between Mandatory Lebanon and Palestine more precisely. This agreement moved the borders, placing several Lebanese villages under the authority of the British Mandate. Britain took over about 20 Lebanese villages—including Malakiyya, Saliha, and Hunin, all of which were inhabited by Shia Muslims.
\n\nOver the next twenty years, the colonization of Bilad al-Sham met ongoing resistance. The largest effort to oppose the colonial process during this period was the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936-1939. The British, alongside Jewish settler militias such as the Haganah, employed a tremendous amount of violence to crush the revolt. Yet the rebellion was so powerful that in order to crush it, the British stationed more troops in Palestine than they had in the entire Indian subcontinent.10 Afterwards, they expelled its surviving leaders to neighboring countries.
\n\nWar gripped the region over the following years; it was one of the theatres in which the European powers contended in the Second World War. Lebanon was one of the few places where the British and French fought each other directly. During this period, Allied Forces armed and trained Jewish militiamen like Moshe Dayan; this ultimately left them far better equipped than the national armies in the region.11
\n\nIn the midst of the war, in 1943, after the Vichy Government was defeated in Lebanon, Lebanese elites declared independence from France. But it wasn’t a bitter breakup; they maintained a very friendly relationship with their former colonizers.
\n\nJust after the end of the Second World War, Zionist militias stepped up their own campaign for independence in Palestine. They did so by carrying out terrorist attacks against the British, most notably the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.12 By May 1948, when the British Mandate of Palestine was set to expire, the British were eager to wash their hands of the conflict they had been instrumental in creating.
\n\nThis led to what Arabs call the Nakba, the Catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Palestine, with at least 100,000 heading to Lebanon. The villages mentioned above—Malakiya, Saliha, and Hunin—were among\nthe destroyed villages whose entire populations were expelled into\nLebanon.
\n\nLebanon participated very little in the war that ensued, known as the first Arab-Israeli war. In most locations, even within Lebanese territory, the Lebanese army withdrew, refusing to fight the Zionists. The only town that saw the Lebanese army resist was Malakiya, a Lebanese village with a predominantly Shia population that had been turned over to British Occupied Palestine. The Lebanese army successfully fended off assault after assault in Malakiya, lost the town, recaptured it, and thereby demonstrated that fighting back was possible. In the end, the Lebanese army only withdrew from Malakiya after intense international pressure.13 An Israeli kibbutz has stood in its place ever since.
\n\nThe Shia Lebanese inhabitants of Malakiyya, like those of the other permanently cleansed villages, became refugees in Lebanon. In fact, they had the\nsame legal status as Palestinians in Lebanon until the 1990s. To both the Zionists who perpetrated the Nakba and the bureaucrats of the Lebanese entity, the Shia of Jabal Amel were no different from the Palestinians.
\n\nZionist forces also carried out attacks in Southern Lebanon, notably during Operation Hiram. Not only did they invade the country, they also committed numerous massacres against Lebanese civilians, such as the\nHula massacre in November 1948, in which they killed approximately 60 civilians. Their forces reached deep into Lebanese territory, as far as the Litani river. Finally, in 1949, Lebanon agreed to an armistice with the state of Israel, which brings us to our first ceasefire.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/13.jpg\")
A memorial in the Southern town of Hula with the names of all the martyrs of the Hula Massacre.
\nThe state that was founded through this ethnic cleansing, known to many as the Zionist entity, went on to be an expansionist, ethnonationalist, armed garrison state. This is clear to a lot of people today. But not as many people understand the nature of the state of Lebanon.
\n\nThe defining feature of the Lebanese entity is the political system of sectarianism. In 1943, the ruling Christian Maronite and Sunni elite drafted the\nNational Pact, stipulating that Lebanon should have a Maronite Christian President, a Sunni Prime Minister, and a Shia speaker of the house—an agreement that remains to this day. At the time, the President had tremendous executive power and the Speaker of the House was largely symbolic. Other posts in the government were likewise divided up along sectarian lines, with a majority going to Christian Maronites.
\n\nIt is a mistake to imagine that Lebanon has this sectarian system because of its many religious communities. The sectarian system is not simply an organic expression of the sectarian divisions in the country. It is a system that enabled the local elite from the main sects, with the Maronite elite on top, to become mediators between the colonial powers and the local populations. The Lebanese Marxist intellectual Mehdi Amel offers a concise description of this system:
\n\n\n\n\n“Sectarianism is the particular historical form of the political system through which the Lebanese colonial bourgeoisie exercises its class dominance within a relation of structural dependency on imperialism.”14
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/12.jpg\")
Mehdi Amel, Lebanese Marxist intellectual, 1936-1987.
\nThat might sound like Marxist word soup, but in fact, it is incredibly precise. This system means that different posts in the Lebanese state are divided among the sectarian elite—whether Christian or Muslim—with a disproportionate number of those positions going to Maronite Christians. That elite politics offered continued access to European finance, which came to form the backbone of Lebanon’s economy to the detriment of local productive economic activities like industry and agriculture.15
\n\nAt the level of everyday life, it means that, as citizens, we only exist to the state as members of one sect or another. When I vote in elections, I have to go to my father’s village, and I can only vote for Druze or Christian candidates, because they are the main inhabitants of my area. I don’t exist as a citizen, as an individual, but as a Druze from a specific area. This is somewhat similar to the current system in the state of Israel, where universal citizenship does not exist and the state reduces people to their ethnicity. Ultimately, this system disenfranchises the vast majority of people; it is not even representative.
\n\nThe sectarian system in Lebanon went through several crises in the 1950s and 1960s. But the greatest threat to its existence emerged a decade later: the Lebanese National Movement of the 1970s.
\n\nWe can divide the chief obstacles to the fulfilment of the sectarian system into three distinct aspects of Lebanese society. First, the existence in Lebanon of an entire sect, comprised predominantly of agricultural communities in the South and East, that had practically no representation within the sectarian or oligarchic system: the Shia. Located mostly in the South of Lebanon, in a region known as Jabal Amel, these communities also suffered an economic blow following the creation of the state of Israel, as their economy relied heavily on trade.
\n\nSecond, the real divisions between people were not based on sect, or religion, but on class—and the sectarian elite had no serious plan to deal with the contradictions of colonial or capitalist class divisions, let alone the feudal divisions that still existed.
\n\nMehdi Amel summarizes these first two issues in the same text quoted above:
\n\n\n\n\n“The foremost obstacle was the mass of toilers who belong to the downtrodden ‘sects’ and live either in the countryside or in the clutches of poverty in the capital. As their voices were raised, so did their acts of resistance. They demanded the system be changed, whether by putting an end to sectarian hegemony without destroying the system itself, or by putting an end to the system entirely.”16
\n
And the third major obstacle to the system was the introduction to Lebanon of over 100,000 Palestinian refugees who had been forcibly expelled from their country, most of whom were Sunni Muslim. Not only did this mess up the carefully arranged demographic balance within the country, it also forced Lebanon to reckon with the fact that it is not an island separate from the rest of the region.
\n\nAlmost immediately after their expulsion, unorganized Palestinian Fedayeen militants began carrying out operations against the nascent state built on the ruins of their homeland. Palestinian refugees also tried to return to their homes.17 In Lebanon, the army moved quickly to block these attacks and returnees, fearing Israeli reprisals. They did this by placing\nPalestinian refugee camps under what amounts to martial law, controlling movement and political activity.
\n\nThis was the context in which Moshe Dayan made the statement quoted above about annexing Lebanon up to the Litani river to put an end to these cross-border raids by Palestinian militants. In the end, they didn’t have to do that, as the Lebanese armies proved quite effective in suppressing Palestinian efforts.
\n\nAt the same time, Israel was occupied in conflicts with Egypt, Syria, and the Palestinian territories they had failed to capture in 1948.
\n\nA few key events led to the Israelis focusing more on Lebanon. The first was the Palestinian\nRevolution of 1965, which saw the creation of Fatah, the first serious attempt for Palestinians in exile to unify and organize around armed struggle. The largest organization was the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was mostly based in Jordan at that time but had a strong presence in Lebanon too.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/17.jpg\")
A rally involving Palestinian fedayeen militants circa 1965.
\nThe next major development was the defeat of the Arab armies in 1967, and with it, the crushing of the hope that Arab nationalist regimes would liberate Palestine. Then, in 1970, Black September in Jordan saw the Jordanian army wage a war against Palestinian militants and expel them to Lebanon. That was when Israel really turned its focus to Lebanon. Wanting to quell assaults from the north, the Israelis begin implementing a multi-pronged strategy.
\n\nFirst, they attacked targets in the areas from which they suspected that assaults might emerge. This went hand in hand with indiscriminate bombing campaigns that did not differentiate between civilian and military targets.
\n\nSecond, Israel intentionally carried out attacks on civilians in order to try to turn them against Palestinian militant groups. For instance, in 1974, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire called the “Olive Truce” in hopes of enabling Lebanese farmers to harvest their olives. Israel violated it after just three days, carrying out ground raids and aerial bombardments.18
\n\nMoshe Dayan had summed up this policy of collective punishment in the 1950s:
\n\n\n\n\n“We could not prevent every murder of a worker in an orchard or a family in their beds. But it was in our power to set a high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying… It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce ‘the policy of strength’ toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.”19
\n
And the third strategy that the Israelis implemented in Lebanon was to court Lebanese Maronite collaborators—both in Southern Lebanon and in Beirut. Already in the early 1970s, the Israelis were arming the Phalange, or Kataeb, a far-right Maronite party founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936 in the image of the Nazi party in Germany.20
\n\nIn response to these conditions and contradictions, in 1969, leftists in Lebanon formed what became known as the Lebanese National Movement. This proved to be the greatest threat to the sectarian system to date. The Lebanese National Movement was an explicitly anti-sectarian, pluralistic movement with strong socialist currents; it was allied with the PLO. They understood that the Lebanese struggle against the sectarian oligarchal system had to be connected with the struggle for Palestinian liberation against Zionism.21
\n\nThe Maronite elite, organized mostly within the Kataeb Party, hated all of this because they had a lot to lose. They blocked any change to the system. The first efforts to change it took the form of political maneuvers; when those failed, armed struggle erupted. This was the backdrop of the civil war in Lebanon, which ignited in 1975. As future president Amin Gemayel put it,
\n\n\n\n\n“We have tried to save institutions from any change. Although violence leads nowhere, it has helped us at least to save what could be saved. It was violence to conserve the system.”22
\n
For its part, Israel had already been supporting the Phalange for years, hosting meetings with their leaders, training their soldiers, and sending them weapons. They preferred the continued domination of the Maronite Christian elite to anything else: not only because of their mutual antagonism to the Palestinians, but also because in many ways, the sectarian system that elevated the Maronite elite to power mirrored their ethnonationalist system more than the pluralistic, leftist, and pro-Palestinian tendencies represented by the Lebanese National Movement.
\n\nWhen war broke out in Lebanon in 1975 while all other fronts functionally closed, Israel turned its full attention to Lebanon. They continued to fund the Kataeb, even though—or because—the Kataeb were massacring Palestinians. In 1976, Israel created what they called the “Good Frontier” in Southern Lebanon as a buffer zone.23 There, they installed Saad Haddad, an officer who defected from the Lebanese army to serve as Israel’s viceroy in South Lebanon. In this collaboration with Saad Haddad, the Israelis could finally fulfill the fantasy that Moshe Dayan had described twenty years earlier.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/18.jpg\")
The collaborator Saad Haddad on a tank in Southern Lebanon with Lebanese and Israeli flags.
\nThree years into the war, in 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon in what they called Operation Litani. The Foreign Minister of Israel at the time was Moshe Dayan himself. Many people think of this as the beginning of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon—a period that saw Haddad’s forces commit numerous massacres in the South and solidify his hold in this newly-created buffer zone.24 But Israel’s presence in the rest of the country was short-lived. On October 10, the United States, then under Jimmy Carter, forced a ceasefire deal on Israel, which withdrew. Yet the occupation of the South continued, and so did the resistance against it.
\n\nThat ceasefire played out exactly like the ones we’ve seen more recently. Israel continued bombarding Southern Lebanon and arming their fascist Maronite Christian proxies across the country, while both the Lebanese people and the PLO acted with restraint. Eventually, this became unsustainable. On July 15, 1981, the PLO finally began firing rockets into Israel; Israel responded by carpet-bombing populated areas in the south, attacking Tyre’s port, and setting fire to an oil refinery.
\n\nOn July 24, the US brokered another ceasefire. Again, the PLO abided by it, while Israel violated it repeatedly. Then, on June 6, 1982, when the ceasefire had been in place for almost a year, the Israeli military invaded Lebanon. This time, their excuse was an assassination attempt targeting the Israeli ambassador to the UK, even though the group behind the attempt was openly opposed to the PLO. In fact, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had already been planning the invasion for months.25
\n\nThe 1982 invasion took place on a much larger scale than previous Israeli assaults. It was the first time they crossed the Litani River. The Israelis besieged Beirut and, after bombarding the city and cutting off electricity and water, managed to force a ceasefire on the PLO.26 As part of that ceasefire, the PLO agreed to evacuate Beirut, fulfilling the primary stated aim of the Israeli invasion. But the Israelis didn’t withdraw, because another aim of the invasion was to ensure the election of Bashir Gemayel, the head of the Kataeb Party, as president of Lebanon.
\n\nOn August 23, with Israeli tanks in the streets, Bashir Gemayel was elected president, a terrifying prospect for the Palestinians and the Lebanese left. Two weeks later, Gemayel was assassinated in a car bombing outside his headquarters. The assassin was later identified as a Lebanese Maronite, Habib\nShartouni, a member of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party.
\n\nNonetheless, many who were loyal to Gemayel quickly blamed Palestinians. Christian fascist militias under the protection of the Israelis committed the most notorious massacre of the war, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which the Israelis aided their Christian allies in killing over 2000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.
\n\nFollowing this horrific massacre, resistance against the Israeli occupation increased dramatically. Alongside other pressures, this compelled Israel to withdraw from Beirut in September 1982. This was the first time an Arab\ncapital liberated itself from Israeli occupation through armed struggle.
\n\nDuring this period, the Americans created the Multi-National Force, which entered to enforce the ceasefire between the PLO and Israel. In September 1983, the US sent 2000 marines into Lebanon to ensure the success of the Lebanese government under Bashir’s brother, Amine Gemayel.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/15.jpg\")
A badge of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) with flags of all the participating powers.
\nOn October 23, 1983, two truck bombs targeting the headquarters of the US marines and the French battalion center inflicted many casualties. The former was the single largest loss of life for American marine forces since the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. The attack was claimed by a group nobody had heard of at the time, which later revealed itself as Hezbollah, the party of God.27 The US and the rest of the Multi-National Force were forced to leave Lebanon the following year, in large part because of these attacks.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/4.jpg\")
The aftermath of the bombing of US marine barracks in Beirut, 1983.
\nIn 1985, Israel “withdrew” from Lebanon; in reality, the buffer zone in the South remained, where Israeli soldiers and settlers could move freely. This continuing occupation led to the rise of Hezbollah, whose guerilla fighters carried out attacks targeting Israeli troops and their proxy militia.
\n\nIsrael’s first major attempt to crush this\nresistance took place in 1993, when they unsuccessfully attempted to push them north of the Litani river. They attempted the same thing with a 17-day assault in 1996, “Operation\nGrapes of Wrath.”
\n\nThe Lebanese civil war went through many phases, ending in 1990 with the signing of the Taif Accord. But the core issues that ignited the war were never addressed, nor the issues that arose during the fifteen years of fighting. What started as a demand to end the sectarian system descended into sectarian chaos, and was ultimately resolved with some shifting of sectarian quotas and power divisions among the sectarian elite. The chief losers of the war, the Palestinians, were blamed for the war and lost almost all of their political and military presence in the country.
\n\nThe occupation of the south ended in 2000, after the resistance forces that emerged in response to that occupation—most notably Hezbollah—made it untenable. But one territory became a major sticking point, the Occupied Shebaa Farms, which the Israelis captured from Syria in 1967. Hezbollah claimed that this territory was Lebanese, arguing that the Israeli withdrawal remained incomplete.28 Others saw this as an effort to continue to validate Hezbollah’s existence as an armed resistance group after the withdrawal of occupation forces.
\n\nThus began a six-year low-level cross-border conflict, culminating in the 2006 July War. Israel once again invaded Lebanon, destroying infrastructure including oil depots, vital bridges, and the country’s only international airport. They were demanding the demilitarization of the entire region south of the Litani river. The conflict ended with a ceasefire deal brokered by the UN, stipulating that UNIFIL forces should expand their deployment as far as the Litani river.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/1.jpg\")
The destruction of a bridge in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes in 2006.
\nThe intervening period saw a relative calm between Lebanon and the state of Israel, with few clashes and attacks. At the same time, Israeli jets, reconnaissance planes, and later drones flew over our heads continuously. Between 2007 and 2022, Israel violated\nLebanon’s airspace over 22,000 times—about four flights a day.
\n\nThis was also a period of uprisings and violence in Palestine, specifically in Gaza. After the election of Hamas in 2006, Israel blockaded Gaza. Every few years, the Israelis bombarded Gaza—what they called “mowing\nthe lawn.” Israeli settlements in the West Bank expanded throughout this period. Israelis focused on consolidating hegemony over the territories they had occupied since 1967 while making threats against Hezbollah and Lebanon.
\n\nFor their part, Hezbollah expanded from simply being an armed resistance group to become a player in the Lebanese political scene and regional affairs—for example, getting involved in the Syrian Civil War.
\n\nThat was the climate leading up to 2023. Three years after the United Nations declared that Gaza was on the way to becoming uninhabitable, Hamas’s armed wing carried out the October 7 attacks, igniting the regional war that continues today. Hezbollah responded the following day by opening up what they called the Support Front, firing rockets into northern Israel.
\n\nThis fighting simmered until September 2024, when Israel dramatically escalated its attacks on Lebanon, beginning with the notorious pager massacre. In the weeks that followed, Israel displaced over a million people, massacred civilians, killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, and targeted weapons depots belonging to the group. On September 30, they invaded Lebanon, again with the claimed intention of pushing Hezbollah back behind the Litani River. On November 27, they reached a ceasefire agreement stipulating that Hezbollah will disarm below the Litani River and tasking the Lebanese government with overseeing this. Israel remained in five\npositions in the South, claiming that it would withdraw if Lebanon fulfilled its obligations.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/2.jpg\")
The destruction of homes by Israeli attacks, 2024.
\nDuring this ceasefire, the UN estimates that the Israelis violated the ceasefire\nover 10,000 times, while Hezbollah violated it once—a single time—in response to Israeli attacks. The Israeli violations included near-daily air strikes, assassinations, demolitions of homes, and ground raids.
\n\nThen, against the backdrop of the US/Israeli war on Iran, Hezbollah fired six rockets into Israel, precipitating the new escalation that we are witnessing today. There are many theories as to why they did this. Initially, Hezbollah claimed it was to avenge the killing of Ali Khamanei the previous day, and that it was a response to fifteen months of daily Israeli bombardment during the supposed ceasefire. Some suggest that the decision to resume bilateral hostilities offered a way for them to break out of the dynamic in which Israel treated Lebanon as a free-fire zone with zero deterrence from Hezbollah, the Lebanese state, or the so-called international community. Others argue that it was a reckless attempt to reclaim legitimacy after the defeats that Hezbollah suffered in 2024.
\n\nRegardless, we are here now. The Israelis are in Lebanon and they aim to stay. They want to create a “yellow line” in Southern Lebanon, yet another\nbuffer zone. Many people see this as a land grab that could potentially establish permanent Israeli settlements there. Others believe that Israel is setting the stage for a massive resource grab—targeting not only the fertile agricultural area but also the waters of the Litani River. Based on the full-scale demolition of the villages they have captured, as well as the last two years of ecocide in the south—for example, Israel\nusing white phosphorus munitions to poison the land—it is safe to say that the Israeli military is trying to fulfil the threat that Moshe Dayan made in 1974: “We will make all life impossible in South Lebanon.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/19.jpg\")
Israel has regularly used white phosphorus munitions in Southern Lebanon.
\nThe Israelis are trying to ethnically cleanse the entire south. Although Lebanon and Israel agreed to a new ceasefire on April 16, the Israelis have not stopped their assaults. They are wantonly destroying whole villages, making sure that life is impossible, let alone return. This raises the prospect of a prolonged displacement crisis on top of the many other crises afflicting Lebanon at the moment. This is the familiar theme of Israel’s one-sided “ceasefires,” in Lebanon as in Gaza. For the Israelis, a ceasefire is a chance to recoup, plan, and establish new facts on the ground in the areas they’ve seized. They view this as a single, continuous war, now lasting the better part of a century.
\n\nIsrael aims to destroy Lebanon. That will not change if Hezbollah disarms. The situation is pushing the country towards civil war, especially with the current government being so focused on disarming Hezbollah—both as an end in itself and in hopes of somehow deterring Israeli aggression. Civil war in Lebanon will advance Israel’s aim of fracturing and weakening the Lebanese state.
\n\nWhat are people in Lebanon supposed to do? What are the propositions on offer? Is there any feasible way to end Israeli assault and enable displaced Lebanese people to return to their homes in the south?
\n\nLebanon is at a crossroads. Two camps are forming and neither is speaking to the other. One camp, led by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, is pursuing direct negotiations with the Israelis. They have committed themselves to the goal of monopolizing\narms in the hands of the state, while deferring anything to do with Israel to the so-called international community. The other camp, led predominantly by Hezbollah, is pursuing a course of armed struggle. Continuing on the path it set out over four decades years ago, its main strategy is continued reliance on the Islamic Republic of Iran and the military strategy of the so-called axis of resistance.
\n\nTo the former camp, the sole problem is Hezbollah: supposedly, once Hezbollah is disarmed, Israel will stop bombing us and pull its troops out of the country. To the second camp, the only recourse is directly resisting the invading Israeli army and continuing the military confrontation with Israel. Each is accusing\nthe other of treason for working on behalf of a foreign power.
\n\nThose critical of the current government accuse it of sacrificing Southern Lebanon for the sake of the rest of the country. Those critical of Hezbollah accuse them of sacrificing the rest of the country for the south. This division has a corresponding sectarian aspect as well. Added to the polycrisis in Lebanon, especially the grueling economic collapse which many claim to be one\nof the worst in a century, globally speaking, all of this is indeed a toxic recipe for civil war.
\n\nHow do we stop Israel from bombing us? How do we get them out of Lebanon? How do we reign in the militant fascism and brazen expansionism that has become mainstream in Israeli society and politics? How do we protect ourselves from the growing imperialist mania of the US empire? Apart from arming Israel to the teeth, the US has not yet gotten involved in Lebanon directly—but if history is any indication, it very well might at some point.
\n\nIt is difficult to answer these questions—not least because most of them have very little to do with us. Israel has become a deeply sick society, with poll after poll showing continued majority support for the genocide in\nGaza, the war on\nIran, the war on\nLebanon. Settlers backed by the army are conducting wholesale pogroms in the West Bank. There seems to be no internal or international mechanism to stop their expansionist and genocidal ambitions.
\n\nI left Lebanon in 2021. I left for many reasons, but the one that made remaining there unsustainable was that I saw this war coming. I was constantly terrified by the sound of Israeli warplanes overhead. I could see the growing fascism in Israeli society for what it was—a lust for domination and expansion. Israel has never declared its borders, and it’s been clear for a long time that they want to take over Gaza and the West Bank. Then what? Will they start demilitarizing their society? No. The dominant force in Israel, both politically and socially, is the need for an external enemy so they do not turn on each other. This is a recipe for violent expansionism with no internal brakes. Today, the fire that the Israelis lit in Gaza is spreading to Lebanon. Where it will stop?
\n\nI am on the record criticizing Hezbollah. The party has played a role in all of this. It has allied itself with reactionary and corrupt forces, both in Lebanon and in the region. Its military backing of the Assad regime—a significant departure from its stated goal of resisting Israel—made it unpopular in the region and may be the reason why the Israelis breached its security apparatus in the last two years. Its distinctly sectarian form of resistance and foreign backing contribute to significant strategic weaknesses.
\n\nHezbollah has proven unwilling or unable to make its case to the rest of the country. There are many valid reasons why a lot of people in Lebanon do not trust Hezbollah. A key event that contributed to this distrust, which is not well known outside of Lebanon, was the\nbrief civil war of May 2008, when Hezbollah and its allies turned their arms against pro-government parties, leading to weeks-long street battles reminiscent of the civil war.
\n\nYet in this context, I wonder about the utility of focusing on these issues. These are problems that must be discussed within the country. But the situation has changed, and we must update our analysis accordingly. Israel will not leave if Hezbollah is disarmed. History demonstrates that very clearly. The situation in Gaza shows that very clearly. The statements of Israeli leaders make that explicit.
\n\nThe fact is, Israel has been assaulting Lebanon since before Hezbollah existed. Hezbollah only exists because of Israel’s occupation. If they do successfully disarm Hezbollah, another group will form, because occupation breeds resistance.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/05/14/20.jpg\")
Israel’s Yellow Line in Lebanon, a so-called “security belt” where the Israelis have stationed troops and are systematically demolishing villages.
\nHow do we stop the Israelis from bombing us? This question grips me every single day. But the most sober-minded people I know are just as perplexed as I am.
\n\nTo attempt to understand logic of the Lebanese government and the shortfalls of its approach, we can consult an essay that was published in the Lebanese daily L’Orient–Le Jour on April 6, 2026. The title is “Neutrality,\na Viable Lifeline for Lebanon.” This paper reflects the perspectives of some of the commentariat in Lebanon are saying, and the article represents a rare elaboration of the strategy that the Lebanese government is currently pursuing
\n\nThe essay begins with this short preamble:
\n\n\n\n\n“The imagery of our army evacuating posts in the south while leaving behind villagers unwilling to abandon their homes in the face of Hezbollah-Israeli conflict and Israeli incursions raises an important question: what is the role of a state that cannot defend its borders from invasion and occupation?”
\n
This question summarizes the basic contradiction. The government’s plan is to replace Hezbollah in the south with the national army, with the idea that the latter will protect civilians—but the author takes for granted that in fact, the army cannot do this. As we saw last month, the army\nwithdrew immediately when the Israelis began invading. So in fact, there is no basis for the argument that monopolizing violence in the hands of the state will bring order and protection, even though that is the premise of the path that the government is taking.
\n\nThe writer continues:
\n\n\n\n\n“The reality is much simpler: no army in the region can win at war with Israel; no proxy group can sell victory beyond survival; and Lebanon cannot function as a governable country—no matter how sophisticated its military capabilities—unless we dislodge ourselves, entirely, from regional war.”
\n
But how could the Lebanese state dislodge Lebanon from the geopolitics of the surrounding region?
\n\n\n\n\n“… that requires adopting a policy too often misunderstood: neutrality. Neutrality is neither dismissing the Palestinian plight by throwing morals away nor equating anything with Israeli crimes. It is demanding that Lebanon no longer pay an enormous price for hosting the Arab-Israeli conflict, or in this more recent round, the Iranian regime’s survivability.”
\n
The phrase “hosting the Arab-Israeli conflict” is particularly confusing. What could that mean? Where should it be “hosted”? How do we change “hosts”? The closest thing to a historical answer is the events of Black September (1970-1971), when Jordan violently expelled Palestinian groups to Lebanon. After that, in a sense, Jordanians did stop paying the aforementioned “enormous price,” but they simply pushed that cost onto Lebanon. How could Lebanon offload that onto some other polity? Surely the author isn’t suggesting that the Lebanese government should expel both Palestinians and its own citizens into Jordan or Syria?
\n\nSpeaking of the “Arab-Israel conflict” as if it is a timeless abstraction makes no sense. The very language is the rhetoric of Zionists. Framing the war on Lebanon as the “Arab-Israeli conflict” ignores Lebanon’s particular history with Israel, presenting this war as the consequence of abstract Arab antagonism toward the state of Israel rather than a continuous, intentional, and carefully orchestrated expansion on the part of the Israeli state.
\n\nIt is arguably true, as the author claims, that “no army in the region can win at war with Israel.” The failure of Arab states and societies to develop different means of engaging with this problem over the last several decades is one of the reasons we have arrived here. But this war has been imposed on us. It’s not our choice. The alternative, as we have seen time again, is surrender, occupation, humiliation. Or rather, the alternative to war is war by other means.
\n\nArmed resistance liberated the south of Lebanon in 2000—specifically, a strategy of asymmetrical warfare. They didn’t need to defeat the Israeli army, just as the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in Algeria didn’t need to defeat the French Army,29 just as the Vietcong didn’t need to defeat the American army.
\n\nWhat could a “policy of neutrality” mean? The proposal implies that the Lebanese government has the agency to determine what happens, but also, that neutrality is both possible and desirable in the face of a genocidal force. What mechanisms would serve to assert this neutrality? Are there any historical precedents to suggest this is even possible?
\n\nThe writer’s sole example is the 1960s, when he claims that Lebanon was neutral and it worked. This claim is purely ahistorical. At the time, Israel was occupied elsewhere, fighting against Egypt. That was before the Palestinian revolution of 1965, before the crushing of Arab nationalism in 1967, before Black September in 1970, before the Arab-Egyptian peace treaty of 1977. It was only after those developments, when all other Arab states had been pacified and Palestinian militants had been expelled from those regimes, that Israel shifted the full force of its attention to Lebanon.
\n\nThe period the writer refers to as a period of neutrality was also a period of harsh repression targeting Palestinians in Lebanon. Until the Cairo Agreement of 1969, they were living under what amounted to martial law.
\n\nThis is a recurring theme throughout the region that the writer neglects to mention: neutrality comes at an internal cost. With substantial portions of the population opposing Israel, with many wanting to fight it militarily, the only way for states to prevent this is to crack down on their own populations via violent means. We can see this in Egypt’s authoritarian regime, in the Palestinian Authority, and in many other governments across the region. Instead of employing violence against the aggressor, Israel, these states turn that violence inward to repress those who would defend themselves as well as those who are moved to act in solidarity.
\n\nThose are in fact the stated ambitions of the current government in Lebanon. The president, Joseph Aoun, was elected on a platform of promising to monopolize arms in the hands of the state. However, it is clear that the Lebanese government cannot do that. The risk of civil war is too great.
\n\nSo the writer proposes that Lebanon should be occupied by a new international force that would replace the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL):
\n\n\n\n\n“Where UNIFIL is unable to deliver, an alternative security arrangement should fill the void. Greater powers must support Lebanon in its desired transition away from permanent war…”
\n
Without going into any detail about who those “great powers” might be, he confidently declares that they will ensure Lebanon becomes “neutral” and that “neutrality” will be:
\n\n\n\n\n“Lebanon’s shield—denying Israel a foothold on any single square meter of our geography. It remains our strongest defense.”
\n
Why does the writer believe this? How could anyone believe this? This is not dealing with the material realities at all. Look at Syria, where the Sharaa administration is attempting to demonstrate its “neutrality.” That hasn’t stopped Israel from occupying more Syrian land, bombing the country on a regular basis, and fomenting sectarian conflict.
\n\nThe writer’s only historical argument is that the siege of Beirut in 1982 ended after the expulsion of the PLO and the introduction of the Multi-National Force. He ignores the fact that it was popular armed resistance that liberated Beirut. He ignores the fact that even after the Israelis withdrew and the Multi-National Force remained, there was fierce resistance against the latter as well, eventually compelling them to retreat. He ignores the fact that even after the Israelis withdrew from Beirut, they continued to occupy the South of Lebanon for eighteen years, and that that occupation only ended after fierce and consistent resistance. Finally, he ignores the fact that the 1982 siege began as a violation of a 1981 ceasefire agreement. What would a new “international force”—inevitably, an American or European force—do to guarantee security for Lebanon when the Israelis violate international law day after day, year after year, decade after decade, with complete impunity?
\n\nThe idea that what Lebanon needs is more imperialism is absolutely ridiculous.
\n\nAfter what we’ve seen the “international community” do in regards to Gaza, trusting them like this is delusional. Yet this seems to be the plan of the current Lebanese government. That is the premise of the current direct talks between Lebanon and Israel, which presumes good faith on the part of Israel (and the US) where there clearly is none. Lebanon has no leverage in this context. This is asking too much of people who have no cause to trust the US or Israel or the so-called international community—especially now with the US under Trump, who has demonstrated a complete disregard for international law. Are we supposed to work with the Board of Peace—the same people who suggested turning the entirety of South Lebanon into the Trump Economic Zone? Is this the viable alternative to Israeli occupation?
\n\nThis type of thinking is pushing Lebanon towards civil war. It insults the inhabitants of Southern Lebanon, portraying them at best as deluded by Hezbollah or at worst as complicit in dragging the rest of the country into a conflict. Are they not Lebanese? Do _they_ not deserve sovereignty? Do they not deserve protection?
\n\nThere are no easy answers as to how to accomplish protecting them. But it is certain that the kind of wishful thinking represented by the article in L’Orient–Le Jour is removed from reality and history. It serves no one. It can only perpetuate the confusion of the current moment and deepen the rifts that are already tearing apart the thin fabric of Lebanese society.
\n\nThe government’s strategy is unpopular, dangerous, and doomed to fail. Resistance to the occupation is necessary; it is also a right under international law. Hezbollah is facing issues of legitimacy in the country, in many cases for very legitimate reasons. For example, one of the reasons that the author of the aforementioned article in L’Orient–Le Jour opposes Hezbollah is because Hezbollah killed his father. A lot of Lebanese politics boils down to longstanding sectarian conflict like this. That is the result of being ruled by a coalition of warlords for the last fifty years.
\n\nMany people are saying that there needs to be space to form a popular resistance movement similar to the Lebanese National Movement of the early 1970s. Such a movement would have to combine a program of anti-sectarian social cohesion, a revolutionary political program to overcome the sectarian oligarchy plaguing the country, a progressive economic program moving away from a financialized dependence economy, and an armed wing (whether of state or non-state forces) that could defend their communities from Israeli aggression. It would also have to stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation.
\n\nThis is another form of wishful thinking. Who would organize this? With what resources? Lebanon has been a playground for imperialist powers for so long now that it is difficult to imagine how any form of organizing could overcome that. Nonetheless, in view of the fundamental contradictions within the Zionist colonization of Bilad al-Sham and the colonial, capitalist, and exclusionary core of the Lebanese entity, nothing less will suffice. We can still attempt to think positively, to identify what we can fight for, not just against. That is the essential thing missing in this moment of despair and humiliation.
\n\nIsrael wants to destroy Lebanon. We must all resist that by any means necessary. That means setting our priorities straight, it means unifying, it means forming communities based on common struggle. It means aiming for liberation, not just sovereignty. It also means forming connections of solidarity with other communities across the region and the world.
\n\nThe beast that is setting upon Lebanon is global and our only hope is global resistance. The fire that started in Gaza is spreading now to Lebanon. But it will not stop there. It will consume all of us—all of you, as well—unless we extinguish it.
\n\nMoshe Dayan, Story of My Life, 1976 ↩
\nFrom an address given to Technion University students (March 19, 1969), a transcription of which appeared in Ha’aretz (April 4, 1969), quoted in The Question of Palestine (1980) by Edward Said, p. 14 ↩
\nBenny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, p. 177. ↩
\nIbid, p. 28. ↩
\nAvi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 146. ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 142. ↩
\nKamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions_,_ 1987 ↩
\nPatrick Seale, Post-colonial Syria and Lebanon, 2007 ↩
\nFrancis Stevension, Lloyd George: A Diary by Frances Stevenson, 1973 ↩
\nIllan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006, p. 15 ↩
\nIbid, p. 38 ↩
\nIbid, p. 25 ↩
\nFawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2007, p.113 ↩
\nMehdi Amel, On the Sectarian State, 1986 ↩
\nHisham Safieddine, Banking on the State: The Financial Foundation of Lebanon, 2018 ↩
\nMehdi Amel, On the Sectarian State, 1986 ↩
\nBenny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, p. 28 ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 160 ↩
\nPart of a funeral oration Dayan gave in 1956 for a soldier killed on the front. ↩
\nFawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2007, p. 102 ↩
\nIbid, p. 187 ↩
\nIbid, p. 191 ↩
\nIbid, p. 206 ↩
\nTabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 242 ↩
\nIbid, p. 260 ↩
\nIbid, p. 278 ↩
\nDavid Hirst, Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East, 2010, p. 192 ↩
\nJoseph Daher, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God, 2016 ↩
\nMahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria 1830-1987, 2002 ↩
\nWhat shared principles could serve as the foundation for a powerful movement against the persecution of immigrants? We suggest ten baselines for collective struggle.
\n\nThis text emerges out of discussion and organizing among partisans of color and others impacted by the violence of the border, synthesizing lessons from the past twenty years of resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These perspectives are informed by our experiences as people directly targeted by immigration, policing, and white supremacy and as aspiring revolutionaries involved in movements from Los Angeles and Chicago to the Twin Cities and the southern borderlands. Here, we attempt to articulate common principles for our movement, in hopes of working together effectively to create a future beyond borders, policing, and racial violence.
\n\nYou can download this text as handbill here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/29/ice-melts-in-the-spring_front.jpg\")
Download, print, and share PDFs.
\n1. We are in a fight with the federal government. This means taking risks, and the law will not always be on our side. Stopping ICE will require more than legal observing, reform, and other strategies that play within the rules of the existing order. We can only stop ICE through mass resistance that interrupts, prevents, and deters deportation operations. We should evaluate tactics and strategies according to how much they enable people to engage in this kind of resistance. For example, the mass distribution of whistles and other tools that equip people to intervene against ICE and police operations is a step towards the kind of resistance we need.
\n\n2. We do not police the actions of other protesters. No one way works. It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down. The mass resistance we need cannot be directed by any one group or limited to any one strategy. It will require many different approaches and experiments, filling different roles in the struggle towards abolishing ICE. We should seek to make our efforts complementary and collaborative rather than trying to control or denounce each other.
\n\n3. No one person or organization can speak for all immigrants or organizers. Anyone claiming to should be viewed with suspicion. No community is a monolith. Immigrant organizers themselves differ on what strategies are best, what the movement’s ultimate goals should be, and what tactics they support. We should not unthinkingly defer to any one organizer or group, but develop our own analyses, articulate our own proposals, and respectfully talk through our disagreements.
\n\n4. We keep us safe by fighting together. Though some will tell us to defer to the most cautious and “respectable” elements in this movement, we should follow the lead of those who demonstrate the most effective tactics. Immigrants have long been at the forefront of resisting the deportation machine: besieging ICE facilities, blockading highways and airports, organizing resistance from inside detention centers, taking the streets, and chasing ICE out of neighborhoods. Many immigrants believe that the greatest chance of safety and collective power is to be found in direct resistance.
\n\n5. There are no good pol/ICE; there are no bad immigrants and no bad protesters. All immigrants deserve the same access to a life with dignity and community that citizens do. All protesters who face attacks from the government and stand strong without turning on the movement deserve our support. The regime wants to divide us according to false dichotomies—respectable/criminal, documented/undocumented, upper class/lower class, guilty/innocent, civil/uncivil, violent/non-violent. This is a strategy to turn us against each other so they can defeat us. We want to de-escalate all conflict that isn’t with the enemy. We stand in solidarity with all who are disrupting ICE and resisting the criminalization of immigrants.
\n\n6. Turn to each other, not politicians. This violence did not begin with Trump. Entrenched politicians of all stripes have perpetuated it for decades. Across the country, local politicians claim to oppose ICE while sending police to suppress the resistance or making backroom deals with the regime. Politicians will not save us. At best, they are powerless; at worst, they are complicit. We must build the collective power and resources we will need to defend our communities ourselves.
\n\n7. Stop waiting for permission. We all have a responsibility to take the initiative in the fight against ICE. Our oppressors win by convincing us that we lack the power to act immediately for liberation—that we must wait for permission or guidance from authorities, leaders, or specialists. A culture of resistance emerges from the recognition that all of us have the ability to imagine different realities, the power to act to bring about those realities, and the responsibility to do so. The density of many different autonomous projects is what has made the resistance against ICE effective.
\n\n8. Build trust to defeat fear. A genuinely popular movement will require rapidly building new relationships and trust on the basis of shared values or shared experience taking action together. Taking small risks together today can prepare us to take bigger risks together tomorrow. There are many forms of action that do not require high levels of preexisting trust—for example, mass Signal chats enable rapid response work more effectively when they are open to everyone who needs to coordinate. Work with people you know and trust on projects that involve greater risk or sensitive information. Sometimes, moving at the speed of trust means moving at the speed you can chase off an ICE van.
\n\n9. Leave no one behind. We should not settle for empty promises or minor reforms intended to placate us. We don’t want to push ICE off our streets only to have local cops do their dirty work for them. We refuse deals that would make us choose between the freedoms of different communities, trading minor gains for some people for increased policing or misery for others. The unity of our resistance in the streets and our neighborhoods has taught us that none of us are free until all of us are free.
\n\n10. Be a good neighbor. We must overcome decades of division and exclusion that have turned us against each other, instilling fear of those who look different, speak different languages, practice different traditions, or have less wealth or property. Excluding people endangers them and weakens our communities. Let us build bridges across all lines of division, fostering a culture of neighborly love based on collective care and abundance. We need communities built on respect, understanding, and celebrating our differences—neighborhoods where people can root into relationships to each other without fear of being displaced at the whim of a landlord, corporation, or government.
\n\nOur lives and liberation depend on it.
\n\nYou can find more coverage of the fight against ICE here.
\n\nIn the waning phase of Donald Trump’s reign, opportunities will open up for profound social change. Here, we explore the nature of the difficulties besetting his administration and propose a few starting places for those who aim to do more than simply replace him with another politician.
\n\nIn less than a year and a half, Trump has completely used up the advantages with which he began his second term. He has passed from appearing unstoppable to flailing pathetically. Obsessed with presenting an image of strength, Trump is indeed—as Shakespeare put it—a poor player whose hour upon the stage will soon reach its end. The stream of falsehoods and threats issuing from his administration can be seen for what it is: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
\n\nThe fiasco in Iran is already Trump’s second quagmire this year. He began 2026 with a more or less successful stunt in Venezuela—but only four days later, the murder of Renee Good supplanted it in the headlines. For almost three weeks, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement mercenaries brutalized and murdered people in the Twin Cities, the entire Trump administration brazenly lied in contradiction of widely circulating video evidence. Having created a situation in which they could not risk looking weak, Trump’s cronies attempted to dictate reality by fiat as more as more residents of the Twin Cities joined the resistance to the ICE occupation. Finally, facing plunging polling numbers and the prospect of recurring general strikes, the Trump administration was forced to change course, firing Border Patrol “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino and trying to get Trump’s signature policy (“the largest deportation operation in American history”) out of the news.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-1-original.png\")
The mercenaries who serve the Trump regime have squandered any claim to moral authority.
\nBovino’s departure set the stage for the departures of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. The fact that Trump had begun his second term determined to avoid the continuous turnover of personnel that characterized his first underscores what a defeat this is for him. As his henchmen leave in disgrace, not only does that undermine the loyalty of his remaining underlings—who can see their own future in the ignoble fates of their colleagues—it also undercuts the narratives with which the departed lackeys sought to justify the administration’s deeds. Firing Greg Bovino and Kristi Noem is tantamount to admitting that the ICE operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota were simply ham-fisted attempts to terrorize the population of the United States into submission.
\n\nIn invading Iran a month after firing Bovino, Trump sought to repair his image by repeating his apparent success in Venezuela. Instead, as in Minnesota, he stumbled into a debacle from which he has yet to extricate himself.
\n\nEveryone associated with the Trump regime is known now for continuous, pathological lying.
\nAfter continuously changing his talking points about the goal of the offensive throughout March, Trump sought to bring the conflict to a conclusion at the beginning of April by threatening massive attacks on civilian infrastructure—technically, a war crime. On April 6, Trump was still insisting that Iran’s ten-point proposal for a ceasefire was “not good enough.” The following morning, he declared “A whole civilization will die tonight,” terrifying many people into believing that he was threatening to use nuclear bombs—and perhaps unwittingly repeating the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi, who told Croesus that if he went to war, “a great empire would fall,” not specifying that it was Croesus’s empire.
\n\nAn hour and a half before his own self-imposed deadline, Trump announced that, in dialogue with the Prime Minister of Pakistan—not with any representative of the Iranian government—he had arrived at a ceasefire, calling the ten-point proposal he had previously rejected a “workable basis” for negotiations.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-2-original.png\")
From Minnesota to Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, they have nothing to offer but death and destruction for the enrichment of a few tycoons.
\nThe Prime Minister of Pakistan affirmed that the United States, Iran, and all of their respective allies had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon.” Yet the next day, the Israeli military was still attacking Lebanon, and in response, Iran continued to close the Strait of Hormuz.
\n\nIt’s hard to imagine a worse outcome for Trump. He has achieved none of his express objectives in Iran, neither regime change nor suppressing Iran’s nuclear program. He no longer appears to be a credible negotiating partner. Both his threat to target civilian infrastructure and his claim to have negotiated a ceasefire have been revealed to be hollow. Neither the Iranian nor Israeli governments are adhering to the agreements he claims to have arranged. He is forced into tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the pressure on the global economy continues unabated.
\n\nIt remains unclear whether Trump was ever seriously considering a massive strike on civilian infrastructure—or even a nuclear strike—or if he was simply making empty threats for its own sake. Regardless, having to spend a day wondering if he would deploy nuclear weapons drove home for millions of people how dangerous it is to live under a senile autocrat—and at the same time, it did not make Trump any more frightening to his enemies. He appears at once volatile and weak.
\n\nWhatever happens next in Iran, the back-to-back defeats in Minnesota and the Middle East mark another turning point for the Trump regime.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/murderers-3-original.png\")
\nWhen Trump won the 2024 election, many of the debates about how to respond hinged on the question of whether he and his colleagues were evil geniuses or witless beneficiaries of historical forces. Much of the paralysis engendered by his return to power centered around this question. Liberals warned that any kind of resistance would play into Trump’s hands, enabling him to declare martial law; centrists cynically took advantage of the situation to argue that the Democratic Party should adopt far-right positions on immigration. Scarcely seventeen months later, it’s almost impossible to remember, let alone comprehend, the extent to which his adversaries talked themselves into giving up without a fight.
\n\nThe question has since been answered conclusively. Trump has one trick—pandering to what is basest in the most cowardly and hateful elements of society—which he repeats with inhuman consistency. In a social order that is itself debased, rewarding rapacious self-interest while punishing generosity and thoughtfulness, this strategy has gotten him far. But now he is hitting one wall after another.
\n\nAssembling a government on the basis of this strategy produced agencies filled with incompetent buffoons focused chiefly on cultivating a public image and competing for Trump’s favor. Conducting state policy on this basis has turned the majority of the population against ICE and even driven people back into the arms of the Democratic Party, one of the only institutions as unpopular as Trump.
\n\nOne of the most characteristic gestures of the Trump era is willful dishonesty as a form of intentional transgression signifying strength. When Donald Trump proclaims easily-debunked falsehoods, his followers interpret this as an expression of boldness; they can demonstrate the intensity of their loyalty by proclaiming their belief in these falsehoods, just as Stalin’s henchmen did. But one cannot make military decisions on the basis of falsehoods—sooner or later, there will be consequences.
\n\nMost of Trump’s strength is comprised of the fear that he has inspired in people. His initial rapid successes, like Hitler’s blitzkrieg attacks of 1939–1941, were due to the weakness of his adversaries—politicians, executives, and administrators who, like Trump himself, are driven only by avarice and entitlement. Only after he and the mercenaries who serve him came up against real resistance did it become possible to gauge their true strength. As Mikhail Bakunin put it in a letter to Maria Reichel, “It is only in combat that we see what a person can do.”
\n\nOr cannot do.
\n\nThe chief imperative driving the Trump administration’s decisions is the need to project strength. They have staked everything on building hard power rather than soft power, on intimidation rather than persuasion. Now that they have consumed most of their political capital, the field is opening up for others.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/2.jpg\")
A demonstrator endures chemical agents in Minneapolis to stand up for what is best in humanity.
\nAfter living through the Prague Spring, Milan Kundera wrote that the ideal form of government is a crumbling dictatorship.1
\n\nAll forms of government are based in hierarchy and violence. Political and economic inequality reinforce each other: the more wealth is concentrated in a few hands, the more vertical the political structures become, and vice versa. Yet this remains largely invisible so long as people perceive the governments that rule them as legitimate, or at least inevitable. Suffering alone does not make people desire change; people desire on the basis of what they are able to imagine. Only when a discredited regime begins to collapse—creating a tension between what people see around them and what they are able to imagine—do large numbers of people begin to ask questions about how they might wish to change the structure of the society.
\n\nToday, these questions are more urgent than ever, as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widens and politicians cut away the safety nets and concessions that once offset the impact of capitalism on communities and ecosystems.
\n\nRight now, Trump is historically unpopular, with little prospect of his standing with the public improving. Yet he still has nearly three years in office ahead of him. For millions of people, Trump’s rise to power and the uselessness of the institutions that were supposed to control him are calling into question the entire political system. We can see this rage and radicalization emerging, however confusedly, among the rank-and-file participants in the massive demonstrations that have taken place over the past year.
\n\nThis is an unprecedented opportunity for anarchists, abolitionists, and others who have concrete proposals to bring about structural social change. Right now, when no institutional forces are able to propose a solution to the problem, we should be making common cause across lines of difference, demonstrating the power of solidarity and the effectiveness of direct action, sharing what we have learned in the course of our efforts to resist the administration, and spelling out our vision of a better world.
\n\nThis window of opportunity will not last long. The closer we draw to the 2026 midterm elections, the more people will be focused on electoral politics, including many of those who are currently participating in grassroots initiatives. We might be in a stronger position to address people at this moment than we ever will be again in the course of the Trump era.
\n\nOften, the moment of greatest danger—for example, when fascists or ICE agents are murdering people in Charlottesville or Minneapolis—turns out to have been, in retrospect, the moment of greatest possibility. By the time the terror has subsided and we recognize the potential of the situation, the moment is already passing.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/3.jpg\")
Federal mercenaries gratuitously assaulting people in Portland. No amount of brute force will suffice to subdue an increasingly desperate population.
\nWe should remember this, because as Trump’s position weakens, he and his supporters will attempt more and more terrifying and outlandish schemes to maintain their grip on power. He and his adherents still have enough time to inflict a tremendous amount of suffering, both in the US and overseas. We should prepare for much more aggressive rounds of repression. Likewise, we have already seen that Trump will not leave office willingly.
\n\nIn all likelihood, the outcome of the mid-term elections will be determined by what happens in the months ahead—not by how successfully politicians campaign, but rather, by the extent to which grassroots resistance makes it impossible for the ruling class to imagine that Trump could continue to advance their interests and the extent to which elements of the ruling class are able to regroup around other institutional forces, such as the Democratic Party.
\n\nAs we plan for May Day and the summer, we should take a longer view. How will the tactics that we demonstrate during these events help to familiarize large numbers of people with the sort of tactics that they will need to employ alongside us to thwart Trump’s second attempt to carry out a coup? How will the narratives that we popularize position us to keep fighting against all the other proponents of capitalism and oppression after Trump is gone?
\n\nWe should hurry to lay bare all the connections between fascists, billionaires, militarists, Zionists and Christian nationalists, cryptocurrency hucksters, tech moguls, corporate and social media platforms, federal agencies like ICE and the police and sheriffs that abet them, and the centrists and Democrats who paved the way for the tragedies of the second Trump era by suppressing grassroots resistance at the conclusion of the first. We should establish red lines within the opposition to Trump, making it unthinkable to promote or excuse any of these forces, showing how toxic the compromises with them have proved.
\n\nHere are some concrete goals that our movements could adopt:
\n\nShut down all milquetoast proposals to make superficial reforms to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, arguing instead for all-out resistance with the long-term goal of abolishing them. Those who have joined or remained in those agencies under Trump have shown their hatred for the rest of the population, making it clear that these institutions exist for the express purpose of serving autocrats. Those who have been imprisoned or deported must be permitted to rejoin their loved ones.
\nConnect the fight against ICE to the abolitionist movements against police and prisons. If Democrat politicians had not put so much effort into suppressing these movements between 2021 and 2024, social movements would have been much better prepared for the second Trump era, and the regime would have had fewer weapons at its disposal with which to impose control.
\nOrganize to free prisoners and compel prosecutors to drop charges against defendants in all cases resulting from resistance to ICE and the Trump regime in general. We can build on the refusals of grand juries to indict and juries to convict those accused of resisting ICE. As it becomes apparent to more people that the law is a political instrument serving those who hold power rather than a neutral institution, many people will seek ways of addressing injustice that do not concentrate power in the hands of a Supreme Court comprised of extreme-right reactionaries.
\nConnect the fight against Donald Trump to the fight against Flock cameras and data centers and—more generally—to the resistance to profiteering techno-fascists like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
\nChannel anti-war organizing towards targeting arms companies responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
\nShow that the ways that racism, misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry facilitate the cutthroat practices via which billionaires are impoverishing our communities.
\nBuild mutual aid projects, grassroots education projects, and other forms of social infrastructure outside the state that cannot be gutted by government austerity measures or threatened by crackdowns on academic institutions and non-profit organizations.
\nThe collapse of radical social movements at the end of 2020 is a cautionary tale. We must come out of the second Trump era stronger than we entered it. This is especially important because the real battles are only just getting underway. A wave of fascist political victories is looming in Europe, though if Trump is defeated soundly enough that may sap their momentum. Artificial Intelligence is only just beginning to drive massive numbers of people into unemployment while intensifying state surveillance and militarism.
\n\nAs we have argued before, in the 21st century, when the state can do little to mitigate the impact of capitalism, state power is a hot potato that burns whoever holds it. The same conditions that are elevating far-right parties to power around the world are also rendering it difficult for them to hold onto control. But that goes for whoever will succeed Trump, as well: if Trump is driven from office, his base will split into Zionist and neo-Nazi factions, each more virulent than the last generation of Republicans, while whatever administration succeeds him will also provoke anger and disillusionment—likely mobilizing a new wave of momentum from the far right. If what happened under the Biden administration recurs, the backlash next time will be more horrific than anything we can imagine. This is why we must address the problems that capitalism is creating at the root, not simply protest its most noxious figureheads.
\n\nWe must make sure that it is easy for everyone to distinguish our grassroots projects from any government that holds power, and continue to expand and deepen them regardless of whether there is an incompetent demagogue propelling people into the streets. As we have learned over and over—sometimes through courage, sometimes through cowardice—it is safer in the front.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/1.jpg\")
A demonstrator returns a tear gas canister to the murderers who shot it during the demonstrations in Minneapolis in May 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd.
\nIn this text, when we speak about stupidity, we do not mean a lack of natural aptitude, but rather the question of whether one chooses to make use of one’s aptitudes or to actively suppress them. By now, it should be apparent to all that the people who paved the way for Trump’s rise—many of whom are strangely obsessed with the idea that they possess natural aptitudes that others do not—have been willfully, obstinately refusing to see what is right in front of their faces. Stupidity, in this sense, is not an intellectual condition, but a moral failing.
\n\nNo one puts this more clearly than the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who witnessed the rise of the Nazis:
\n\n\n\n\nStupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
\n\nYet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what “the people” really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly.
\n\n-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “On Stupidity” in Letters and Papers from Prison
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/04/08/4.jpg\")
Those who choose to serve tyrants may be able to suppress everything wise and beautiful in themselves, but they will not succeed in destroying wisdom and beauty.
\nThe header photograph was taken by Mark Graves on Sunday, February 1, 2026, at Portland’s ICE facility. It was the second day in a row that federal agents attacked demonstrators with chemical agents.
\n\n“In Prague we used to say cynically that the ideal political regime was a decomposing dictatorship, where the machine of oppression functions more and more imperfectly, but by its mere existence maintains the nation’s spirit in maximum creative tension.” ↩
\nIn the following analysis, Somayeh Rostampour shows how the repression that the Iranian government has carried out to crush protests, the monarchist attempt to co-opt opposition movements and push them to the right, and the military assault that the US and Israel are currently carrying out against Iran are all different fronts within a single counterrevolution, reinforcing each other and combining to suppress the possibility of real liberation.
\n\nSomayeh Rostampour is a Kurdish feminist activist from Iran who participates in an internationalist network and a feminist, anti-imperialist, leftist collective in Paris, founded in 2022 by exiled activists from Iran, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan after the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî uprising. The collective supports subaltern struggles in Iran.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/1.jpg\")
\n\n\n\nIn 2024, Donald Trump participates in rallies featuring slogans such as “be ungovernable” and “mass deportation now.” If fascists are our sworn enemies, it’s not just because their project is the opposite of ours. They’re our sworn enemies because they defend their project in revolutionary disguise, feeding off the impulses and aspirations of popular revolt while being the last resort of the centers. Putin, Meloni, Le Pen, like so many others, take advantage of the frustration and humiliation of the working class, undermined by the latest changes in capital, to consolidate their anti-establishment stance, so as to better defend the system. They claim to want to change everything so that nothing changes. Today, reactionaries are becoming more radical, while progressives flounder in moderation.
\n\n—Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto, The Peoples Want
\n
In late 2025, against a backdrop of economic crisis and a growing rejection of the theocratic regime, a new popular uprising erupted in Iran, rooted in the cycles of revolt that had preceded it. Since 2017, a combination of economic, social, ecological, and political crises has radicalized Iranian society beyond any reformist horizon.
\n\nOver the past decade, Iran has experienced at least five nationwide uprisings and thousands of mass protests. Rising unemployment, inflation, poverty, and inequality have made the country fertile ground for popular mobilizations from general strikes to social revolts. These recurring crises have fueled deep discontent, especially among the working class, students, retirees, and unemployed youth, who have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce these injustices. The lack of freedom and prospects—particularly for a generation facing unemployment rates close to 50 percent—has been one of the central catalysts of the uprisings. When 80 percent of workers survive on temporary contracts lasting less than six months, when retirees and public-sector employees often earn the equivalent of just 100 dollars a month, even as rents in Tehran reach levels comparable to those in European cities, it is hardly surprising that Iran has become one of the most turbulent and contentious countries in the West Asia.
\n\nAcknowledging these structural factors does not mean reducing these uprisings to mere economic revolts. That analysis, advanced by certain campist (which is to say, selectively “anti-imperialist”) currents, is both misleading and politically conservative: it frames popular revolt solely as a reaction to hardship while obscuring the ways that protesters intentionally choose to oppose authoritarianism, patriarchy, and the regime. By externalizing the cause of the crisis and centering sanctions or imperial aggression over the regime’s own forms of domination and repression, this normalizes and excuses the Islamic Republic.
\n\nThese mobilizations are profoundly political in both form and content. They challenge not only inequality and impoverishment, but the entire architecture of rule: authoritarian state power, gendered coercion, the denial of freedoms, the closure of democratic horizons. In addition to the demand for better conditions, they express a refusal of the order that produces those conditions, hence their recurring tendency to take the form of an open demand for the overthrow of the regime.
\n\nIn each cycle of protest, repression has transformed social anger into direct opposition to the regime itself. The January 2025–2026 uprising, which was broader than the previous ones, began in the Tehran bazaar and rapidly spread to students, the urban poor, workers, small shopkeepers, and marginalized peripheries, eventually reaching more than 210 cities across 31 provinces. The regime responded to popular anger with violence unprecedented in modern Iran, shutting down telephone networks and the internet and reasserting control through a repressive apparatus strengthened by authoritarian surveillance technologies and digital-control models associated with its allies, China and Russia. The regime killed thousands of people in the span of a few nights.
\n\nSix weeks later, on February 28, 2026, a US–Israeli coalition launched an aerial assault on the country. Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, was killed in the bombing of his compound by actors who are themselves genocidal. Yet well after the confirmation of his death, Tehran launched barrages of missiles at Israel, suggesting that its chain of command remained operational even in the absence of its highest authority. Iran also expanded its attacks to other countries, particularly Gulf states hosting US military bases, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
\n\nThis sequence of events raises an urgent question: in the aftermath of a revolutionary moment in 2022, how is it that the horizon of emancipation could be closed off in favor of a return to authoritarian order in 2026? We must explore how this is taking place not only as a consequence of state repression, but also via a more diffuse counterrevolution advanced by media narratives and new political alliances, cloaked in the rhetoric of “liberation.”
\n\nUnderstanding contemporary Iran requires more than an analysis of revolution—it also demands an analysis of counterrevolution. It is not enough to examine uprisings; one must also grasp the forces that seek to neutralize them, redirect them, hollow them out, or steer them toward an authoritarian outcome.
\n\nThe Islamic Republic’s repression of the January 2026 uprising and the US–Israeli military assault that began on February 28, 2026 are neither two separate events nor two opposing forms of violence, one “bad” and the other “liberating.” They must instead be understood as part of a single counterrevolutionary process, one that began well before it escalated to military action.
\n\nBefore the internal massacre and before the external war, an earlier phase had already opened: a political, media, and symbolic counterrevolution, driven in particular by the Iranian nationalist and monarchist right (especially within the diaspora), which sought to neutralize, distort, and appropriate the meaning of the slogan Jin, Jiyan, Azadî [“Women, Life, Freedom”] in order to reinscribe it within a chauvinist, authoritarian, anti-left, and ultimately militaristic agenda. Although the revolution that began in 2022 had profoundly eroded the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, the regime was able to restabilize itself after October 7, 2023 and, more decisively, after the first US–Israeli attack in June 2025.
\n\nThat renewed legitimacy was severely shaken by the January 2026 massacre. Yet only weeks later, a new assault by settler-colonial Israel and the imperial United States deepened the counterrevolutionary sequence, targeting Iran with the same machinery of violence already unleashed on Gaza and Lebanon and other parts of West Asia. Waged on false pretexts, this war has already destroyed schools and hospitals and killed hundreds of civilians in Iran. Despite the devastation, it has also restored a measure of legitimacy to the regime, particularly internationally and among sections of the global left. At times, that left has assigned greater weight to the massacre of Iranians by imperialist arms than to the massacre of Iranians by the regime’s bullets.
\n\nAs Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini repeatedly insisted during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), “War is a blessing for the Islamic Republique of Iran.” It functions to impose cohesion, silence internal dissent, and renew the regime’s legitimacy.
\n\nSo the 2026 war on Iran must be not understood as a rupture with the counterrevolution, but rather as its military fulfillment. Rather than precipitating the regime’s collapse, the war will likely only reinforce state nationalism and shut down the possibility of autonomous popular transformation. Even if the regime collapses, what comes next will be more reactionary as a consequence of this war.
\n\nThe war has already strengthened ethnonationalism and internal political cohesion. We can see this in the confirmation of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader. Internal repression and external war reinforce one another. Under such conditions, civil society is hollowed out, opposition is stigmatized, and any path out of the crisis becomes more difficult.
\n\nUnderstood in this way, the January massacre and the February war appear not as two ruptures, but as two asymmetric phases of the same armed counterrevolution—internal, through the Iranian state, and external, through imperialist powers—following the royalist attempt to push popular mobilizations to the right. In all three cases, what is being targeted is not just a regime or a population, but the very possibility of emancipatory transformation from below.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/3.jpg\")
\nTo understand the sequence that runs from 2022 to 2026—without tracing it back to decisive historical events such as the 1953 coup, the White Revolution of 1963, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979—we must recognize that the counterrevolution did not begin with the January massacre, nor with the war that started in February, but earlier, in the political, media, and symbolic spheres. The Jin, Jiyan, Azadî uprising didn’t just challenge compulsory veiling or denounce a state killing; it opened up a feminist, popular, and decolonial revolutionary horizon, making conceivable a transformation from below, driven by women, by marginalized peripheral peoples (especially Kurds and Baluchis), by youth, workers, and neglected regions. It also destabilized both monarchist and reformist narratives by exposing the ways that gender domination, class relations, and the state’s “internal colonialism” are all intertwined.
\n\nIt was precisely this horizon that became the target of the initial counterrevolutionary offensive, led not only by the regime but also by elements of the opposition, especially nationalist and monarchist circles in the diaspora. These forces sought to empty the slogan Jin, Jiyan, Azadî of its substance, replacing it with formulas such as “Man, Homeland, Prosperity” and rebranding it within a masculinist, centralizing, anti-left, and pro-war grammar. This inversion went so far as to make Jin, Jiyan, Azadî appear compatible with colonial violence—for example, when it was displayed alongside Israeli flags and inscribed on the ruins of Gaza to justify genocide.
\n\nIn 2023, Iranian right-wing leaders gathered at Georgetown University in the name of unity to discuss a post-Jina Iran. Although this attempt to establish an alliance ultimately failed, it deepened existing fractures and contributed to the withdrawal of progressive forces, in direct contrast to the solidarities that had been forged in 2022. The participants systematically attempted to discredit the uprising’s vanguard forces: they insulted critical feminists, vilified students with the label “Mojahedin” (a reference to the People’s Mojahedin Organization), accused Kurds and Baluchis of “separatism,” and reduced any demand for autonomy or pluralism to a threat against “territorial integrity.”
\n\nTheir orientation towards Nowruz (the Kurdish New Year celebration) crystallized this logic. Segments of the central elites and right-wing nationalists both framed this expression of popular culture as a separatist threat. An open letter to the state signed by 800 intellectuals from the “center” (politically, geographically, linguistically, and ethnically speaking), most of them Iranian republicans, offered a paradigmatic expression of this tendency. Three consequences ensued: the further exclusion of ethno-national groups, growing distrust toward the “center” (including its patriotic left), and reduced participation of these demographics in the 2026 uprising. At the same time, the left—already weakened as a force sustaining the horizon that had opened up in 2022—was becoming even more fragmented.
\n\nThe consequences of the reversal of the meaning of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî became evident in certain leftist circles, where people pathologized the agency of oppressed nations, particularly the Kurds. Much like the misogynistic logic that blames survivors of sexual assault for “provocative clothing,” some leftist analyses implicitly framed Kurdish or Baloch mobilization as a provocation that invited state violence or foreign intervention. This is both ethically and theoretically unsound, as it abstracts struggle from its material context, displaces the responsibility for suffering from the structures of domination to those who resist them, and inadvertently aligns itself with the very forces it claims to oppose. In this climate, even the memory of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî uprising became a battleground. Its radical promise was gradually replaced by a hegemonic order organized around militarized normalcy.
\n\nMeanwhile, the Israeli offensive and the propaganda disseminated by right-wing and far-right media outlets such as Manoto and Iran International helped neutralize the radical promise of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî, suppressing its challenge to ethnic hierarchies and its redefinition of sovereignty as a common good in order to promote a racialized, centralizing, and militarized order.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/4.jpg\")
\nGeopolitical realignments accelerated this shift. The “Twelve-Day War” Israel waged against Iran in June 2025 reinforced both nationalism and the state’s racializing power by making it easier to cast participants in the uprising (especially Kurds and Baluchis) as “separatists.” Gradually, the pluralist aspirations of 2022 gave way to a logic of security, exclusion, and discipline. Some former “patriots” helped legitimize state power as a “bulwark” against the external enemy; nationalism hardened, entrenching ethnic and gender hierarchies and lowering the political cost of Persian-centric and xenophobic discourse. The state campaign against Afghan migrants (including the forced expulsion of more than two million people) was supported both by regime proxies and by monarchist and nationalists, further normalizing racism within the social sphere. In this climate, the summary executions of Kurds and Afghans accused of spying for Israel met with little opposition.
\n\nThe production of Afghanophobia and Kurdophobia was not incidental. It was integral to the post-uprising order.
\n\nThis became especially clear in the case of the alliance of five Kurdish parties that was announced on February 22, 2026, which linked the fall of the regime to Kurdistan’s right to self-determination within a democratic Iran while foregrounding the values of democracy, women’s rights, ecology, and equality. The alliance was immediately branded “separatist” by both the monarchist “crown prince” Reza Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic’s media platforms. The former invoked a “national duty” to defend “territorial integrity,” while the latter portrayed the alliance as “one component of a US–Israeli project.” A segment of the republicans in the Iranian opposition (mainly liberals from former reformist currents) likewise defends the idea of a secular and democratic state grounded in centralizing nationalism.
\n\nThus, a common thread runs through otherwise opposed camps: opposition to autonomy for oppressed peoples. This fault line reveals who adheres to the principles of the 2022 uprising and who does not.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/6.jpg\")
\nWithin this polarization, the opposition has increasingly been structured around two blocs: on one side, the revolutionary horizon that opened in 2022 around Jin, Jiyan, Azadî, which seeks to transform relations of power and national and gender identities from below; on the other side, a right-wing—indeed, at times, far-right—counterrevolutionary bloc led by Pahlavism (monarchists) but extending beyond it, combining centralizing statism with militarism and oriented toward restoring the old order. These are the ones in the diaspora who danced and celebrated the war in the streets of the West while imperialist bombs rained down on the people of Iran and their homes.
\n\nReza Pahlavi previously had only a limited base and lacked a solid organizational apparatus, but he seized the window of opportunity that opened after 2022. By adopting a nationalist and anti-left line, he drew together segments of the opposition that were hostile to the leading role of women, Kurds, Baluchis, and workers, while also capturing a desire for a “rapid overthrow” backed by the West. His earlier attempts to align himself with a Revolutionary Guards–reformist axis had failed, but especially after October 7, 2023, he benefited from the support of an actor that may be small but is nonetheless powerful. Namely, Israel.
\n\nThe nationalist, sexist, homophobic, racist, and anti-left slogans that emerged in 2026, both in the streets and at universities, belong to a counterrevolutionary backlash. This is an anti-left counter-offensive fueled by fear of the power of marginalized groups—the vanguards of 2022—and of those who supported them, but also by political exhaustion and a sense of helplessness in the face of the regime’s resilience. The perceived failures of earlier strategies helped to legitimize the transfer of initiative to reactionary forces, including through war if necessary.
\n\nIn fact, these formations, whether state-led or oppositional, are not just reactionary—they are also parasitic. They feed on the creative energy of uprisings only to neutralize and redirect it toward nationalist or imperial ends. This is visible not only in Israel’s disingenuous portrayal of war as “liberation,” but also in the way that the right wing of the Iranian diaspora pursues Western recognition through the erasure of the uprising’s feminist, Kurdish, and queer dimensions. These actors aim to appropriate the insurgent force that Jin, Jiyan, Azadî unleashed, even as they work to foreclose its return in emancipatory form. The parallels with other feminist uprisings, such as Ni Una Menos (“Not One More”) in Latin America, are striking. In both cases, radical visions of gender justice and collective refusal encountered carceral, military, and ideological backlash. What emerges across these contexts is what Verónica Gago describes as a global architecture of backlash: protesters are criminalized, repressive technologies circulate transnationally, and war becomes a means of disciplining political desire.
\n\nThe regime’s internal repression and the external war merely completed by force of arms a counterrevolutionary process that was already well underway. From this perspective, the recent war appears as the final phase of that process: not as a means of “liberating Iran,” but as an effort to annihilate the last remnants of the momentum unleashed in 2022 and to impose a regime change orchestrated from outside. In other words, the bombings are aimed not at emancipation, but at mobilizing counterrevolutionary forces for a new regional and global order—at the cost of massive destruction, civilian deaths, and the long-term foreclosure of the possibility of popular transformation for generations to come.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/5.jpg\")
\nThe repression that the regime carried out was only the first phase in the counterrevolution. One must also understand how “the left” was constructed as an all-encompassing category of the enemy. In this operation, everything that defends equality, autonomy, linguistic and political plurality, women’s rights, self-determination, the emancipation of oppressed peoples, or social justice is reduced to “the left” and framed as an existential threat.
\n\nThe regime does this. The monarchists also do this. And so do certain Iranian reformists or republicans, if in subtler ways.
\n\nThis demonization of the left has paved the way for the rise of the far right. It is not new, moreover. Under the Pahlavis (1919–1980), left-wing forces were already associated with chaos, subversion, foreign dependence, or hostility to development.1 After 1979, the Islamic Republic extended and radicalized this logic, carrying out the elimination of independent left groups; executions (to which the mass graves of Khavaran still bear witness); purges; repression in Kurdistan in the name of “jihad” against the Kurds; and the criminalization of activists under labels such as “communist,” “atheist,” “Westernized,” or “counterrevolutionary,” all while paradoxically appropriating certain language about social justice, anti-imperialism, and the Palestinian cause.
\n\nState “anti-imperialism” does not continue a tradition of emancipation or anti-colonial struggle. It appropriates the simulacrum of that struggle as a way to justify internal violence, criminalize opposition, present an authoritarian order as a posture of resistance, and legitimize gender apartheid in the name of “cultural authenticity”—a façade intended to distinguish it from the West. This extractive and dishonest appropriatiion, which may at first glance evoke models such as Stalinism or Nasserism, took on a specific form in Iran. Emancipatory concepts were reframed in a religious and mystical language, while state anti-imperialism was reconfigured as a “civilizational” opposition to the West. The left thus became an enemy both because of its secularism and because of its capacity to challenge the regime’s monopoly on the language of social justice and the question of Palestine.
\n\nIran presented itself as the core of the “Axis of Resistance” on the international stage for its own benefit while maintaining a tyrannical order at home. This opened the way for the consolidation of a patriarchal Islamist order. In this way, a discourse of liberation was inverted into a discourse of domination, suppressing women’s autonomy and criminalizing democratic opposition.
\n\nReformism—the only current emerging from the authorized political parties that has consistently shared power with the Islamists in Iran, including seventeen years holding the presidency—also played a decisive role in this demonization by spreading a more diffuse anti-left critique through journals, editorials, and various cultural productions. In the name of stability, moderation, and development, they associated the left with irrationality, dogmatism, violence, or foreign dependence, while minimizing the US-backed coup of 1953 and the repression of progressive forces after 1979.
\n\nAt the same time, reformist discourse often functioned to delegitimize the poor and the working class by portraying them as the social base of religious conservatism, or even as a politically ignorant mass available for authoritarian capture. Socio-economic revolts were framed as the expression of the supposed “nature” of the poor, a framing that we saw again during the uprisings of 2017–2018 and more recent mobilizations.2 In periods of crisis, some reformists even adopted rhetoric focused on “security,” describing protesters as “terrorists” and seeking to neutralize radical demands by spreading fear.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/7.jpg\")
\nPresented after the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) as a path of gradual change “from within”—through electoral participation, parliamentary action, and the formula of “pressure from below, negotiation from above”—reformism has consistently confined the political field to the twin alternatives of reform or collapse. This framing delegitimized any emancipatory rupture by associating it with Syrianization, extremism, and the betrayal of the national interest. After nearly two decades of experience, reformists came to appear less as an alternative to the regime than as one of the mechanisms of its reproduction. The slogan of 2017–2018—“Reformists, conservatives, the game is over for both of you”—articulates this eloquently enough.
\n\nYet despite its crisis of legitimacy, the reformist current continues to reproduce itself, both in Iran and in the diaspora, particularly among certain nationalist elites and sometimes also in campist circles. For example, Fariba Adelkhah, a French-Iranian anthropologist and academic at the French university Sciences Po who was detained in Iran from 2019 until 2023, published a text on January 14, 2026—just days after the bloody massacres of January 8 and 9—that fits squarely within a diasporic reformism which, under the guise of methodological caution, reproduces a framing that is hostile to the left and to the fall of the regime.3 According to reformist thinking, some form of internal mediation within the regime—allowing people to “debate without resorting to violence,” in Adelkhah’s words—might still be possible, despite the manifest collapse of that perspective in the slogans, practices, and forms of politicization that have shaped the recent uprisings. By rejecting any non-reformist alternative and converging with campism in the name of anti-interference, reformism has indirectly helped rehabilitate monarchism.
\n\nThe fact that certain campist decolonial or pseudo-anti-imperialist figures have spread their reading of Adelkhah in France reveals the proximity between campist talking points and counterrevolutionary Iranian reformist positions. In the name of caution and anti-interference, these positions tend to direct conversation away from repression, delegitimizing popular uprisings and providing an indirect justification for the violence that authoritarian postcolonial states exercise. Campist currents that reduce every Iranian crisis to a consequence of sanctions or Western interference end up whitewashing the Iranian regime. By subordinating struggles over class, gender, and liberation to an abstract geopolitics, this helps to empty the very idea of emancipation of its concrete content, leaving the right with a monopoly on radical critique of the existing order.
\n\nWhen one refuses to think through the internal war the regime has waged against its own people, any denunciation of external war remains politically incomplete. This was the logic that led certain decolonial campist currents to insult the revolutionary Jina uprising in 2022 by branding it “Woman, Life, Zionist,” as Paroles d’Honneur (PDH) did in France. The result is the same: the closure of the revolutionary horizon opened in 2022, the isolation of popular forces and leftists, and the displacement of the desire for rupture in favor of reactionary solutions.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/8.jpg\")
\nFrom this reformist and campist perspective, any emancipatory project that departs from Realpolitik is recast as “radicalism” and pushed outside the bounds of legitimate politics. This strategy of disqualification has left the right with a monopoly on radicalism; consequently, these two currents become, if not allies, at least accomplices in the rise of the royalists, whose diasporic branch today represents a form of the far right.
\n\nWithin the diaspora, monarchists have systematized and intensified the demonization of the left. With the backing of international powers and Israel, and with considerable financial and media resources at their disposal, they rewrite history by reducing Iran’s crises to the fitna (“sedition”) of 1979 and the “betrayal of the left.” They use the errors of part of the left, such as the Tudeh Party’s support for the Islamic Republic in the name of anti-imperialism, as a pretext for this, equating the left with the Islamic Republic, much as the Russian left has historically been associated with Stalinism.4 As a label, “the left” thus becomes a smear, an instrument of exclusion targeting anyone who opposes Pahlavism—including human rights activists, republicans, liberals, and even political prisoners such as Narges Mohammadi, who has never identified as left-wing.
\n\nThis is a way to depoliticize the responsibility of monarchist structures and the West while channeling social anger towards a counterrevolutionary nostalgia. In this context, campists who support the “Axis of Resistance” through by whitewashing of the regime’s crimes become unwitting auxiliaries of the far right. In insisting that no alternative to monarchism would exist in the event of the regime’s fall, they ultimately conclude that no uprising should take place at all. This opens up space for fascist populism and the far right, especially in the diaspora, while isolating radicals in exile.
\n\nReformists and monarchists, both often situated within a neoliberal horizon and both largely intolerant of ethnonational pluralism, tend to reinforce one another, at times becoming actual allies. The popular phrase “The left never understood,” powerfully revived by both camps shortly before the revolt of 2026, illustrates the effectiveness of anti-left discourse.
\n\nA triangular convergence emerges between the Islamic Republic, the reformists, and the monarchists: despite their declared antagonisms, all tend to neutralize emancipatory alternatives emerging from the left, feminism, and oppressed peoples, thereby foreclosing the horizon that opened in 2022 with slogans such as “Neither monarchy nor Supreme Leader: freedom and equality.” The rights of these groups are framed as existential threats to different forms of authoritarianism, whether theocratic, secular-centralist, or monarchic. Designating “the left” as the principal enemy prepares the way for a right-wing counterrevolution, or, if necessary, war.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/9.jpg\")
\nThe Islamic Republic’s violent suppression of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî uprising in 2022 transformed the conditions under which “freedom” itself could be imagined across wide sectors of Iranian society. By refusing popular demands for gender justice, democratic transformation, and ethnonational autonomy, the regime deepened an already severe crisis of legitimacy and fractured what remained of the social contract. The result was not only the collapse of trust between the state and society, but also a weakening of the collective capacity to imagine liberation as an internal political project.
\n\nThis rupture created a dangerous political terrain. As avenues for reform, recognition, and participation were systematically closed, the idea of freedom became increasingly entangled with hopes for a solution from outside. War, once understood primarily as the destructive antithesis of emancipation, came—in certain quarters, even among some anticolonial thinkers—to be perceived more ambiguously: not as something desirable in and of itself, but as a possible means of dislodging a violently entrenched regime.
\n\nThis shift should not be mistaken for an endorsement of militarism. Rather, it reveals a profound transformation in political subjectivity—for which the Islamic Republic bears responsibility. Through decades of repression—and especially through its ruthless response to the uprisings of 2022 and January 2026—the regime did not simply foreclose reform; it altered the framework through which violence, rupture, and liberation are understood. In Frames of War, Judith Butler argues that when a state renders sections of the population unrecognizable or disposable, it reshapes the affective and epistemic conditions in which violence is understood. In the Iranian case, this has contributed to a dangerous erosion of the distinction between annihilation and salvation, destruction and deliverance.
\n\nThe events of January 8 and 9, 2026 offer an especially stark example of this. During the latest mass revolutionary uprising, the regime enforced a near-total shutdown of internet and telephone communications and sought to restore “order” through a combination of repression, isolation, and terror. In January, a prominent ophthalmologist released a video stating that, in a single hospital (Farabi) in Tehran, one thousand operations had been performed during the night of January 8 alone to treat protesters shot directly in the eye with live ammunition. Hospitals were turned into detention centers rather than places of care, and many of the wounded were transferred to prisons, where some were summarily executed. The bodies of slain protesters were piled into refrigerated trucks; some of them were unrecognizable as a consequence of the brutality that had been inflicted on them. Videos show families in morgues, weeping, searching for their children or trying to identify the bodies of their relatives. Among these images, one can see infants and teenagers killed by gunfire.
\n\nMany victims are still missing. According to a report from an Iranian university, at least fifty women were buried anonymously because they could not be identified. Bodies returned to families were sometimes released only in exchange for payment, often on the pretext of a “projectile fee,” or families were forced to declare that their relatives had been members of the Basij [a paramilitary volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and had been killed by protesters. Burials, often carried out under intense security pressure, took place in silence, very early in the morning or late at night. In some cases, the bodies were buried without the families even being informed. The figures indicate around 10,000 dead, more than 11,730 cases still under investigation, more than 25,000 injured, more than 52,000 arrests, and at least 337 forced confessions. The regime used violence not only to repress but also to terrorize society.
\n\nThe stories of death, disappearance, and arrest give concrete meaning to the slogan: “Basij, Sepah, our Daesh, that is you.” [Sepah is a term for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Daesh is a term for the Islamic State.]
\n\nIn the political vacuum produced by this state violence, monarchist and right-wing forces found an opportunity to expand. Pahlavi’s rise did not indicate a mass ideological turn toward monarchism so much as a sign of the growing conviction that no break with the regime could be possible without external intervention. As the figure most visibly associated with international backing—especially Israeli backing—he came to embody, for part of the population, the most credible vehicle for an externally imposed “liberation.” Pahlavi’s appeal stemmed less from a positive desire for monarchical restoration than from the perception that he embodied, in practical terms, a project of regime change through war.
\n\nThe regime, in turn, responded by intensifying its discourse about “security,” branding protesters “terrorists,” “spies,” and foreign agents, and paving the way for new executions under charges such as moharebeh (“waging war against God”). A vicious circle emerged: repression foreclosed emancipatory possibilities from within, while the vacuum it produced turned people towards reactionary solutions from outside. That was the context in which counterrevolution could be disguised as salvation.
\n\nThe Israeli-American military escalation against Iran in 2025 and 2026 must be understood in this context. Externally, the war was justified with rhetoric about Iranian “liberation.” This discourse was not merely imposed from outside by imperial force; to the extent that some sectors of Iranian society accepted it, that was the result of the devastation that the regime itself had produced.
\n\nThe fact that a transparently cynical appropriation of feminist and democratic language by a settler-colonial and apartheid state could appear credible to anyone is itself a measure of the depth of despair in Iran. Netanyahu’s grotesque invocation of “freedom” is a stark example of the imperial co-optation of discourse about liberation. The symbolic hijacking of the emancipatory language of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî was facilitated not only by sections of the Iranian right, but also by certain Western liberal feminists whose selective solidarity with Iranian women remained compatible with silence about genocide, colonial domination, and war in the region.
\n\nThis is not new. As scholars such as Lila Abu-Lughod and Mahmood Mamdani have shown, imperial powers have repeatedly instrumentalized language about women’s rights, protecting minorities, and democracy to legitimize military intervention—for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is noteworthy here is the extent to which that discourse could resonate in a society damaged by authoritarian rule. Years of repression, ideological coercion, and nationalist consolidation have fractured political consciousness to such a degree that what would ordinarily be recognized as imperial aggression could appear to some as the only imaginable solution. This is the consequence of the systematic destruction of internal political alternatives. The task of analysis is therefore not to pass moral judgments on this perception, but to understand what produced it. What kind of regime drives people to the point where the bombs of an external imperialist aggressor can appear less intolerable than the continuity of domestic domination?
\n\nHad the regime responded to Jin, Jiyan, Azadî with the slightest bit of accountability, or opened up even the smallest space for democratic transformation, the narrative of war as salvation would have remained marginal. Instead, the regime criminalized dissent, intensified repression against Kurds, Baloch, women, and other oppositional forces, and framed every demand for justice as foreign infiltration. In doing so, it not only extinguished the conditions of internal change but also prepared the ground for imperial powers to dishonestly present themselves as agents of liberation. Domestic authoritarianism and external militarism do not stand in simple opposition; they are mutually enabling, even if they remain asymmetrical.
\n\nIt is crucial to emphasize that asymmetry. It is a serious analytical and political mistake to treat Israel and the Islamic Republic as equivalent actors. While enjoying the full support of the United States, Israel remains the principal external aggressor: a settler-colonial state engaged in genocide in Gaza, permanent occupation in the West Bank, and a broader project of militarized regional domination. By contrast, the Islamic Republic is not the architect of this imperial order but one of its targets—even as it remains an authoritarian and patriarchal regime deeply complicit in the militarization of the region through its own expansionist, quasi-imperial ambitions (particularly in Syria, where its intervention contributed to mass atrocities). Israel and Iran are not symmetrical powers, but they are deeply entangled. Each, in its own way, uses war to manage crisis: Israel by turning militarized violence outward, the Islamic Republic by invoking external threats to justify internal repression. In both cases, war functions as a counterrevolutionary force: it disciplines hope, narrows political imagination, and reimposes patriarchal, nationalist, and statist forms of “order” against the plural, feminist, and subaltern horizon opened by Jin, Jiyan, Azadî.
\n\nThe political challenge, then, is twofold. We must confront imperialism not only as military aggression but also as a discursive project that appropriates the language of freedom in order to destroy emancipatory politics. At the same time, we must dismantle the domestic authoritarian structures that make such imperial appropriations appear plausible. An anti-war politics adequate to the Iranian present must therefore be both anti-imperialist and anti-authoritarian. It must reject the false choice between bombs and massacres, between devastation and prisons, between foreign intervention and domestic repression.
\n\nTo sustain such a politics means recovering the revolutionary content of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî as a living political horizon. That horizon rejects the reduction of politics to militarism, refuses to let liberation be defined through war, and prevents both imperial powers and nationalist elites from appropriating feminist, Kurdish, and subaltern struggles. The question is not only how to overthrow an authoritarian regime, but how to prevent the fall of today’s order from paving the way for tomorrow’s tyranny. So long as the desire for change remains trapped between domestic authoritarianism and imperial aggression, destruction will masquerade as salvation.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/2.jpg\")
\nIran cannot be understood through simplistic binaries—regime versus opposition, war versus peace, reform versus revolution. It is more useful to understand the present moment as a confrontation between two horizons. The first, opened by Jin, Jiyan, Azadî, is an emancipatory horizon grounded in social justice, plurality, and transformation from below. The second is a counterrevolutionary horizon that takes different forms—theocratic, reformist, monarchist, campist, militarized, imperial.
\n\nAuthoritarianism does not rely on repression alone. It also works by capturing symbols, demonizing left alternatives, fabricating internal enemies, emptying the popular imagination of possibilities, and legitimizing war as a solution to crisis. After the repression of the Jina uprising in 2022, exhaustion and disillusionment—shaped by the memory of 2009, 2017, and 2019—enabled both the Islamic Republic and sections of the exiled opposition to reassert statist logics, whether theocratic or nationalist, and to contain the revolutionary opening within familiar discourse about security, masculinity, and ethnonationalism.
\n\nYet the violence of the counterrevolution also revealed the force of the uprising that it sought to crush. As the Peoples Want Internationalist Manifesto puts it, “Behind every fascism lies a failed revolution.” Israel’s attack on Iran, together with the limited support it has received from parts of the Iranian opposition, must be understood as a reactionary response to an aborted revolutionary process. The repression of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî was not the end of the movement, but proof of its political power. In exposing the entanglement of gender, class, race, and territory in Iran’s authoritarian order and opening up a horizon of plural solidarity, it continues to haunt the present as a latent alternative to the militarized normalcy of our time.
\n\nPanning back, we can see that the sequence of repression over the past half decade has followed a single logic. The revolutionary possibility that opened in 2022 was first attacked symbolically by nationalists—including reformist, republican, campist, and monarchist currents, especially in the diaspora—then crushed by the regime, above all in the January 2026 massacre, and finally overtaken by the imperialist war of February. In each instance, what was suppressed was the possibility of an Iran founded on equality, autonomy, plurality, social justice, the political centrality of women and queer struggles, and the self-determination of oppressed peoples.
\n\nExternal intervention does not complete the revolution. Rather, it negates it. It shifts the political center of gravity away from popular struggle, weakens the conditions for autonomous organization, and imposes a geopolitical agenda that is alien to internal dynamics. Washington and Tel Aviv do not want a free Iran, but an Iran that is weakened militarily, stabilized internally via authoritarian means, and reduced to a subordinate position within the regional and global order—an Iran that is disciplined so as no longer to constitute a geopolitical threat, an Iran re-anchored to the West and sufficiently controlled not to disrupt the regional order. They want an Iran that is not in a position to reconfigure the balances of power, that cannot exert influence on the circulation of capital, the corridors of influence, or access to energy resources, especially oil. This kind of “stability” is not the peace of peoples, but the political form required to make Iran governable and exploitable in order to integrate it into the global capitalist and imperial order.
\n\nIran’s future therefore depends on preserving the political autonomy of popular struggles. That means rejecting the Islamic Republic, monarchist restoration, accommodationist reformism, and the logics of war imposed by imperial powers. The challenge is not simply to end one regime, but at the same time to prevent another form of domination from arising.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/03/19/10.jpg\")
\nThe left in Iran has always been rooted in a strong historical tradition, due in part to the country’s proximity to the Soviet Union and its wider sphere of influence. During the Constitutional era (the Iranian revolution of 1905–1911), social democrats, movements for social justice, and groups shaped by the Russian Revolution were repressed by conservative religious forces, the feudal aristocracy, and, later, by the centralizing state. Over the decades that followed, particularly after the formation of the Tudeh Party in the 1940s and the spread of its influence among workers, intellectuals, women, and even parts of the military, a structural fear of communism took hold across the state apparatus and the royal court, culminating in the US- and British-backed coup of 1953 that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. This moment marked a decisive turning point in the systematic repression of the Iranian left. ↩
\nFor more on this, you can read this article by Yashar Darolshafa, a left-wing political activist who has spent more than four years in prison in Iran in recent years. ↩
\nFariba Adelkhah only acknowledges the state violence of January—an unprecedented massacre in modern Iranian history—at the margins, always framing it within concerns with order, stability, security, and the rejection of foreign interference. In extending a certain amount of trust to the government, presenting structurally rigged elections as “truly competitive,” downplaying the institutional coercion of compulsory veiling, and suggesting, at the end of a week of carnage, that “before the internet shutdown, debate in Iran had perhaps never been so open,” she excuses Iranian authoritarianism and minimizes the political rupture that has run through Iranian society since at least 2017. The text reads less as a faithful account of the situation than as an expression of personal desire. ↩
\nAmong certain national minorities, there is an additional grievance: for many Kurds, Baloch, Arabs, and Turks, the left is sometimes framed as a form of majority nationalism complicit in internal colonialism. ↩
\nIn the following analysis, participants in the resistance to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement assault on the Twin Cities chart the course of the movement from 2025 to the present day, exploring why it gained momentum despite escalating repression.
\n\nThe surge of federal mercenaries to the Twin Cities is not over. Even if it is true, as federal authorities allege, that less than 500 federal agents remain (not counting Homeland Security Investigations agents), that is still several times the number of ICE agents that were deployed to the Twin Cities before 2026. One of the classic strategies of fascism is to ramp up violence to the maximum level, then back off the most extreme measures in order to accustom people to a more repressive status quo.
\n\nNonetheless, the administration’s original objective was to normalize sending thousands of mercenaries to terrorize entire cities into submission. In that regard, the people of the Twin Cities achieved a victory, undermining the perceived legitimacy of the federal forces and forcing them to change tactics.
\n\nThe people of the Twin Cities did not turn the tide against the occupation by force of arms, but by out-mobilizing ICE. Yet this does not mean that physically fighting the occupiers has played no role in the outcome.
\n\nA mass mobilization across the entire society forced the federal government to begin to withdraw. Well over 30,000 people have participated in the rapid response networks in some way,1 utilizing a wide range of tactics. Many thousands of these people dedicated their lives to the resistance and patrolled the streets every day for over two months. Many thousands more have participated in clandestine mutual aid networks to bring food, supplies, and rent relief to undocumented families forced into hiding. One in four adults in Minnesota participated in the general strike of January 23 in some way, and an estimated 8% of all Minnesotans refused to work that day. Signs reading “Everyone welcome except ICE” appeared in the windows of practically every business in South Minneapolis.
\n\nThe scale of the resistance prompted Stephen Miller to remark,
\n\n\n\n\n“You only have to read their own words and hear their own words and judge their own conduct to understand that this is clearly an insurgency against the federal government.”
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-24-1.jpg\")
January 24, 2026. People respond to the murder of Alex Pretti.
\nIn the negotiations in Hanoi a week before the fall of Saigon in 1975, an American general reportedly told a North Vietnamese commanding officer, “You know, you never beat us on the battlefield.”
\n\nThe North Vietnamese commander replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
\n\nThe Twin Cities could offer the same retort to our enemy today. Insurgencies win by continuously wearing down a more powerful opponent. We win by not losing.
\n\nWhile the vast majority of patrollers used car horns, cell phone cameras, and whistles as their weapons, it would be incorrect to characterize the resistance as strictly nonviolent. An unknown number of brave people threw their bodies between ICE and our vulnerable neighbors. Some of them slashed the tires and smashed out the windows of ICE vehicles, pelted ICE agents with snowballs, and rescued arrestees from their clutches.
\n\nAccording to “Border Czar” Tom Homan, in January alone, nearly 160 people were arrested for impeding or assaulting federal agents. In the course of that month, ICE and Border Patrol shot one person every week, killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti and injuring Julio Sosa Celis. Undeterred, the people rose in rebellion in greater and greater numbers after each shooting: on January 7, by fighting federal agents at Roosevelt Middle School, storming the doors of a federal courthouse, and barricading off the site of Renee’s murder; on January 14, by chasing off federal agents from the Northside and looting three of their cars; and on January 24, after the murder of Alex Pretti, by erecting barricades in Whittier and fighting off both ICE and local police, compelling them to withdraw.
\n\nFrom the daily skirmishes at the sites of abductions to the riots that engulfed entire neighborhoods, these clashes played a crucial role in the development of the resistance. Without these incidents, the daily rapid response chats, the hyperlocal neighborhood groups, the late-night hotel noise demos, and even the mass work stoppages might not have cohered into a movement capable of grinding down the resolve of the federal government. The reasons for this are social, not military.
\n\nRather than looking at these moments as random occurrences of stochastic turbulence, extracurricular activities that punctuated the ongoing deep organizing with sensational headlines, we understand every engagement with enemy forces as part of an ongoing arc of escalation. Every escalation from ICE drove our own escalations in a feedback loop. Every time people fought back, that opened up a new range of possibilities and we stepped through a portal into a new phase of resistance.
\n\nEach clash with ICE propelled the movement forward in three ways:
\n\nTo show how this took place, we will briefly review the development of the movement from its origins.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-24-4.jpg\")
January 24, 2026. People respond to the murder of Alex Pretti.
\nIn the Twin Cities, the first significant confrontation with ICE took place on June 3 at Taqueria Las Cuatro Milpas. The next day, people confronted ICE agents as they carried out raids in Chicago and Grand Rapids—and two days after that, the clashes began in Los Angeles that rapidly built to the first uprising of Trump’s second term.
\n\nAfterwards, while Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles and went on to target Chicago and other cities with surges of federal agents, the administration did not immediately escalate ICE activity in the Twin Cities.
\n\nAn organization called Monarca, launched in 2024, began holding legal observer trainings for people who wanted to track the movements of ICE. A similar group named MPLS Whistles emerged in October ahead of a press conference featuring Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
\n\nThe first indications that Operation Metro Surge was on the way occurred on November 18, when ICE attempted to raid the Bro-Tex paper factory in Saint Paul. They abducted two workers, pepper-sprayed onlookers, and shoved demonstrators out of the street as a crowd spontaneously formed and attempted to block their vehicles. As the mercenaries fled, somebody smashed out the back window of an ICE van.
\n\nWord of the raid and the response spread like wildfire. A week later, on November 25, another ICE raid took place, this time on the east side of Saint Paul in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood. They took two more people. This time, word spread all over the cities and a larger crowd—over a hundred people—came out to stop them. The energy of the smaller clash a week prior had primed the population. This time, some people showed up in respirators and helmets. Federal agents escalated their repressive tactics, shooting pepper balls and sponge rounds from shotguns. One protester was injured by agents who cracked their head against the pavement.
\n\nAs in June, DHS personnel tried to claim after the fact that the raid was not immigration-related, but nobody believed them. As we will discuss below, this is presumably a disinformation tactic intended to “keep the temperature down,” a priority that Republicans and Democrats share.
\n\nThe two big November confrontations forced federal agents to change their strategy to hasty snatch-and-grabs. This shift showed the limitations of the first iteration of the rapid response networks, in which organizations like Monarca would verify reports and then circulate them. The rapid response networks that were cohering on Signal and Whatsapp solved this problem by decentralizing, cutting out the bottlenecks.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/11-25-1.jpg\")
November 25, 2025. The beginnings of a proportionate response.
\nA week later, ICE invaded the Twin Cities. The stories on the news said they were targeting Somali immigrants. Waves of fear spread through every immigrant community. Some people stopped showing up to work.
\n\nICE abducted twelve people in the first three days of December before the Department of Homeland Security formally announced Operation Metro Surge on December 4. Soon after, over 300 ICE agents were occupying our streets. Stories began to circulate about house raids in the suburbs. Organizers started calling face-to-face meetings to set up neighborhood defense groups. Proper anti-ICE patrols got underway. The first patrollers took to euphemistically calling ourselves “commuters.”
\n\nIn the course of the first two weeks of the occupation, a holding pattern set in. ICE would jump out of their cars in pairs and snatch someone. Sometimes, if we were lucky, a crowd would form. People would get out their phones and blow their whistles and cuss at them. The agents would pepper-spray someone and leave with an abductee.
\n\nOn the handful of occasions when we could stop abductions by sheer numbers, we did—for example, when ICE raided a construction site in Chanhassen in dangerously cold temperatures and two workers got frostbite from being trapped on a roof while a crowd faced down the feds. But for the most part, most of us were relatively passive observers in this period. Most of the abductions succeeded.
\n\nOn December 15, that began to change. Two ICE agents attempted to kidnap a pregnant woman at the corner of 29th and Pillsbury. Agent Brenden Cuni slammed her to the ground and shoved his knee into her back. This was also the first time we positively identified an ICE agent after seeing him in the field. People began throwing snowballs and big chunks of ice at the agents from all sides.
\n\nAs the thermal temperature dropped in the second half of December, the political temperature ratcheted up. It became commonplace to see ICE brutalizing people. December 22 marked the first time they fired live ammunition at us, when they shot at a man in Saint Paul after ramming his car. Reports circulated about ICE shooting out one observer’s tires. Another was arrested in a parking lot near the Whipple federal building (the staging area for practically all ICE activity in the area) and charged with “stalking.” They started brake-checking drivers who followed them, or boxing us in. They began attempting to carry out the abductions more quickly and violently. Their violence became more theatrical. The occupation created a new status quo.
\n\nFor a couple of suspiciously calm days before January 6, it appeared that the abductions in Minneapolis might finally be slowing down. Then DHS announced a surge of 2000 more ICE and Border Patrol agents. Suddenly, the streets were overrun with them. Whereas before, you needed a car if you wanted to “commute,” now there were so many agents that foot patrols around certain hotspots became effective. The abductions became more indiscriminate. We saw agents grabbing people at bus stops and using facial recognition software on random people on the sidewalk. The same day that the surge began, ICE sent detained Minneapolis resident Victor Manuel Diaz to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he died—or else was murdered—only a week later.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-07-1.jpg\")
January 7, 2026. People respond to the murder of Renee Good.
\nOne day into the surge, on January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good. Dozens of federal agents gathered at the site of her murder to threaten the crowd. Considering what the agents had just done, the crowd’s immediate reaction was conservative and restrained. People blocked the street and chanted at the accomplices in the killing. Unprovoked, Border Patrol “Bor-Tac” officers Michael Sveum and Edgar Vazquez opened fire with chemical weapons, touching off skirmishes at 34th and Portland in which some people threw snowballs at federal agents as they retreated.
\n\nTwo hours later, a fight broke out at Roosevelt Middle School, where people successfully stopped ICE agents from abducting an immigrant worker by swarming them in front of the building. That night, locals barricaded off 34th and Portland Avenue, the scene of the murder. Ten thousand people turned out to stand vigil for Renee Good.
\n\nOn the morning of January 8, the day after the murder of Renee Good, people organized by a AFL-CIO “direct action trainer” carried out the first attempt to blockade the Whipple building. The crowd was fairly tame, but officers tear-gassed them nonetheless. As the protesters were only using soft blockade tactics, they were not able to withstand the assault.
\n\nAfter Renee’s murder, a new status quo emerged. ICE ramped up its terror to new heights. It became common for them to smash out people’s car windows. They detained more observers. They started using tear gas in minor confrontations in which it would have been unusual for regular cops to deploy it. Two Target employees who were citizens were beaten and arrested for filming federal agents. ICE released people from custody in the middle of the night in sub-zero temperatures in public parks. Liberal conspiracy theories became popular alleging that Trump was trying to use this violence to provoke us into a reaction. Rapid response chats ballooned in size.
\n\nOn January 11, Greg Bovino conspicuously took a Border Patrol convoy up and down University Avenue, harassing people in crowded areas. At a Speedway gas station in Saint Paul, they beat and choked Orbin Mauricio Enriquez Serrano unconscious, and punched and tackled observers while they carried away his body. Two days later, a hundred people turned out to confront ICE when they raided a house in Powderhorn; ICE tear-gassed them. Clashes broke out at the Whipple building later on the night of January 13, when protesters and DHS police exchanged fireworks for CS gas and flashbangs.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-14-2.jpg\")
January 14, 2026. Police and federal agents tear-gassed an entire neighborhood after shooting Julio Sosa-Celis.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-14-6.jpg\")
January 14, 2026. Police and federal agents terrorizing the neighborhood after shooting Julio Sosa-Celis.
\nWe saw an inflection point on January 14, when an ICE agent shot Julio Sosa-Celis through his own front door in north Minneapolis. Black and brown young people from the working-class Northside neighborhood came out by the hundreds and battled federal agents alongside activists. For three hours, MPD supported ICE as they fired tear gas and rubber bullets. People responded with bottles, rocks, and firecrackers.
\n\nICE withdrew first, abandoning at least three vehicles. MPD fled shortly afterwards. The youth of Northside tagged and smashed up their cars, stole a gun safe from one trunk, and turned the scene into a lively block party. Witnesses livestreamed as people rifled through the ICE vehicles, pulling out sensitive documents and “challenge coins” distributed to the mercenaries for perpetrating harm against communities. Federal agents did not return until hours later.
\n\nFor many in Twin Cities, January 14 felt like a turning point. It represented the stirring of a sleeping giant: the same social force that had produced the George Floyd rebellion rising to put its unmistakable stamp on the struggle against ICE.
\n\nAfter the riot in Northside, the number of detainees flown out of Minnesota reportedly dropped from 204 detainees flown out that day to only 114 the following day (January 15), and only 77 on January 16. The number never again reached anything like the levels seen between January 6 and January 15. The “drawdown” in the number of federal agents occupying the Twin Cities did not begin until February, but the riot of January 14 immediately put a cap on how many people the agents could abduct because it forced them to act more cautiously.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/chart.png\")
\nIt was direct action—not the decisions of officials of either political party—that turned the tide. The changes in official policy came later, acknowledging a reality imposed by courageous grassroots action.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-14-5.jpg\")
January 14, 2026. People respond to the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-14-4.jpg\")
January 14, 2026. People respond to the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-14-3.jpg\")
People investigate the vehicles that federal agents abandoned after shooting Julio Sosa-Celis and terrorizing the neighborhood for hours with tear gas and flash-bang grenades.
\nThings reached a crescendo on January 23, when 300,000 people went on strike against the occupation.
\n\nThe next day, six CBP agents murdered Alex Pretti in cold blood, in broad daylight. A call went out for observers. Out of all the riots we’ve experienced, the street fighting in Whittier was notable for how rapidly it broke out. The most impressive part was that without any planning, all of the participants knew what to do at once. Barricades dotted Nicollet, Blaisdell, and 26th Street. People set dumpsters on fire. The pallets at one warehouse were all repurposed as barricade materials. Federal agents fired an astonishing amount of tear gas to cover their retreat before fleeing onto the 35W highway.
\n\nThree days later, Greg Bovino had been relieved of command and the state government was angling to make a deal for some sort of détente. That same day, Governor Tim Walz said,
\n\n\n\n\n“The politics for the White House is they cannot afford to see tear gas on the streets and they certainly can’t afford to see another incident like we saw on Saturday morning.”
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-24-3.jpg\")
January 24, 2026. People respond to the murder of Alex Pretti.
\nToday, nearly four weeks have passed since Alex’s murder and the events in Whittier. Border czar Tom Homan allegedly withdrew 700 agents from the Twin Cities after those events, although he and the other representatives of the federal government have given us no reason to take them at their word.
\n\nAbove all, the “drawdown” represents a strategic shift intended to pacify people. The state government has given ICE access to all county jails. ICE may have become less visible, and they may be terrorizing the suburbs more intensely than the city centers, but they are still here—their motor pool is still full at Whipple and they’re still kidnapping people every day. Local organizers are calling for a week of action from February 25 to March 1 to keep the pressure on at a moment when the regime is trying to release it.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-25-1.jpg\")
January 25, 2026: a federal mercenary menaces people outside a hotel housing ICE agents.
\nWe can derive three tentative conclusions from this sequence of events:
\n\nThe introduction of militant tactics did not diminish popular support for the resistance. On the contrary, the rapid response infrastructure has continued to grow and develop in each phase of the struggle. There were 3000 commuters in December; as of mid-February, some 30,000 have participated. The state has failed to convince the public to accept a dichotomy between “good protesters” and “bad protesters.” The movement remains extraordinarily popular.
\n\n“Disturbing the peace” is a form of leverage for the movement in and of itself. What forced the federal government to retreat was not only the direct surveillance and confrontation of ICE agents by commuters; it was also the general threat to public order posed by a movement of thousands of people in constant real-time communication that sometimes bleeds over into neighborhood rebellions, such as the ones that took place in Northside and Whittier in response to the shooting on January 14 and the murder of Alex Pretti on January 24. When they started negotiating, Walz and Trump both agreed that it was crucial to “turn down the temperature.” Insofar as that priority unifies the fascists within the Republican party and the false opposition represented by the Democratic establishment, it indicates how a grassroots social movement might pursue its own interests in a way that cannot be co-opted by either of the dominant forces in government.
\n\nThe old mechanisms of repression no longer work. This is why the state is resorting to brute force. The powers that be are no longer interested in practicing the kind of counterinsurgency that involves winning hearts and minds. They’re making a bid to govern by terror alone. This is historically an indicator of a weak state, one that that no longer possesses legitimacy in the eyes of those it governs.
\n\nIn other words—a government living on borrowed time.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/23/01-24-2.jpg\")
January 24, 2026. People respond to the murder of Alex Pretti.
\n\n\n\n“From now on the demagogues, the opportunists, and the magicians have a difficult task. The action which has thrown them into a hand-to-hand struggle confers upon the masses a voracious taste for the concrete.”
\n\n—Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
\n
In the following interview, Palestine solidarity activists from the Chinese diaspora speak with Iranian activists in exile about the uprising that took place in Iran in January 2026, comparing notes about resistance to various forms of authoritarianism.
\n\nFollowing the countrywide protests in Iran on January 8, 2025 and the bloody crackdown that followed, the Palestinian Solidarity Action Network (PSAN) conducted interviews and sustained conversations with two comrades from Roja, as well as with Iranian movement organizer Leila Hossein Zadeh. Under an unprecedented total communications blackout, the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out systematic lethal violence against street protesters and ordinary civilians, inflicting large-scale deaths, arrests, and disappearances. Many who lived through this experienced it as a war directed against society as a whole, erasing any distinction between “wartime” and “peacetime.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/9.jpg\")
\nPSAN is an internationalist diasporic sinophone collective formed in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Since the outbreak of the 2026 Iranian uprising, Iran and Palestine have increasingly been framed as opposing issues within Western leftist discourse. The resulting divisions within pro-Palestine movements over Iran’s ongoing uprising and repression deeply trouble us.
\n\nAs activists shaped by the Chinese context, we place the experiences that Roja describe alongside our own historical and lived realities. In discussing internet shutdowns, street-level organizing, the normalization of state violence, and the ways that internationalism is hollowed out through the language of national security, we came to see that we were not confronting an unfamiliar situation, but a set of mechanisms of governance repeatedly tested, shared, and transplanted from one regime to another. Comrades from Roja also spoke about how the Islamic Republic of Iran has deployed Chinese state security technologies to suppress dissent. This resonates with PSAN’s earlier investigations, which have shown that Chinese state security technologies are not only deployed in “Xinjiang,” but have also been used in Palestine. The Iranian experience thus becomes part of a broader understanding of how contemporary authoritarian governance circulates across regions, part of a shared reservoir of experience and memory between us.
\n\nWe hope to share this experience with those who, under extreme conditions, still seek to understand, to record, and to continue acting. We believe—and we hope—that victory belongs to those who resist.
\n\nWe conducted this interview on January 23, before internet connection to Iran resumed.
\n\nRoja (روژا) is an independent, leftist, feminist collective based in Paris. Roja was born after the femicide of Jina (Mahsa) Amini and the beginning of the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” uprising in September 2022. The collective is composed of political activists from a range of nationalities and political geographies within Iran, including Kurdish, Hazara, Persian, and more. Roja’s activities are not only connected to social movements in Iran and the Middle East, but also to local struggles in Paris in step with internationalist struggles, including in solidarity with Palestine. The name “Roja” is inspired by the resonance of several words in different languages: in Spanish, roja means “red”; in Kurdish, Roja means “light” and “day”; in Mazandarani, roja means the “morning star” or “Venus,” considered the brightest celestial body at night.
\n\nLeila Hossein Zadeh is a human rights defender and student activist in Iran’s contemporary social movements. In 2018, for her involvement in student activism, she was sentenced by the Tehran Revolutionary Court to five years’ imprisonment on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security,” and to an additional year for “propaganda against the state.” Although parts of the sentence were reduced on appeal, the five-year term remains pending, functioning as a long-term deterrent against her political activities. In November 2024, following her master’s thesis defense at the University of Tehran—where she researched ethnic minority issues and appeared without a headscarf—she was again charged with “propaganda against the state” and “appearing in public without sharia-compliant hijab,” and sentenced in absentia to one year of imprisonment and a heavy fine, without a hearing.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/10.jpg\")
A photo of Leila Hossein Zadeh at a demonstration organized by Roja Collective in Paris on January 17, 2026, opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran and monarchists and expressing solidarity with the January 2026 revolutionary uprising in Iran.
\nIt has been more than 25 days since the nationwide protests began. Can you describe the situation on the ground, especially in terms of organization? How did people organize on January 8 without a single leadership or central command, and how did earlier cycles since 2017 shape this process?
\n\nRoja: This uprising is part of an ongoing cycle of mass protests that began in 2017, with the waves becoming more widespread, confrontational, and frequent. Major moments include the brutally repressed 2019 “Bloody November” protests over fuel price hikes, the 2021 “uprising of thirst” against water deprivation and ecological extraction, and the 2022 Jina Uprising, “Woman, Life, Freedom.” The 2022 uprising marked a peak because it united anti-colonial, feminist, and egalitarian struggles, sparked by the killing of Jina Amini, a young Kurdish working-class woman whose death resonated across social and political divisions.
\n\nLeila: When we talk about organization, there are two different levels. One is organization at the street level, and the other is organization at the level of political organizations. At the street level, people on the ground learn from previous uprisings, and each cycle has become progressively more confrontational. Neighborhood-based youth organizations played a very important role, especially during “Woman, Life, Freedom.” These were people who already knew each other, who had socialized together in the same neighborhoods. That social trust became crucial once a mass uprising started.
\n\nThe primary medium for street-level coordination is the internet. If an event occurs in a neighborhood, people can quickly organize online, allowing others to come to their aid. In the presence of repressive forces, protesters coordinate by sharing real-time information—for example, reporting which highways security forces are using—so that some can block the highways while others continue activities in the streets.
\n\nAt the level of political organizations, there is effectively no formal leftist presence due to decades of heavy repression. The main exception is Mujahedeen (MEK), though it remains marginal and lacks broad support for historical reasons. In this uprising, monarchist-aligned groups appear to be gaining influence. They maintain a strong anti-left discourse, positioning themselves against the 1979 revolution. They have substantial resources and financial backing from Saudi Arabia and Israel. According to media reports, Iran International received approximately US $250 million in start-up funding from Saudi Arabia during its founding phase.
\n\nMost of what I am describing applies mainly to central geographies, not the peripheries. Kurdistan and other marginalized regions have very different forms of organization not only because of decades of repression, but also deriving from decades of organizing. The tactics used on the streets—how to confront police, Basij [a paramilitary volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC], and IRGC forces—can only come from marginalized bodies, bodies that confront state violence on a daily basis, especially people working in the informal economy. Manual labor also matters in this context, because the capacity to engage in direct physical confrontation is part of the subjectivity produced by this class position.
\n\nTwo groups were especially important in street-level organization. The first was technical workers, especially mechanics. They have specific tools and skills that became extremely important for building barricades and blockades. For example, mechanics used the same instruments they normally use to fix cars to sabotage electricity towers on the streets, creating very strong barriers against repressive forces. The second group consisted mainly of young people, often between 18 and 25, who were very familiar with digital technologies. They knew how to smash surveillance cameras on the streets—the cameras that function as the eyes of the state. Many of these cameras were imported from China.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/4.jpg\")
\nRoja: In terms of broader organization, three forms were dominant during this cycle: street mobilization, university-based organization, and bazaar or merchant strikes. On the day that the internet blackout started, shopkeepers in more than 55 cities went on strike. Even conservative segments of the petite bourgeoisie joined. Kurdish parties called for a general strike, and all te shops were closed in Kurdistan. The strike extended even to Western Azerbaijan, where both Kurdish and Turkish-speaking populations participated.
\n\nOver the past ten years, union-based organizations—teachers, workers, nurses, truck drivers—have repeatedly protested and gone on strike. One persistent problem has been how to synchronize the temporality of union struggles with the sudden eruption of street uprisings. The only group that consistently kept pace with street mobilizations were university students. Students never let a mobilization opportunity on the streets pass them by.
\n\nCompared with previous movements, why have Pahlavi monarchists appeared to gain disproportionate influence in this uprising, despite lacking broad support or grassroots organization on the ground?
\n\nLeila: As a result of the heavy repression of leftists since the beginning of the Islamic Republic, there is no strong leftist revolutionary organization inside Iran. Monarchists seem to have the upper hand in this uprising, but not because they represent the majority of people or because they are more organized on the ground.
\n\nThey have money and media. They have their media and all of the main media outlets are outside the country. They have strong connections with foreign countries, and of course they are able to organize in exile.
\n\n“Iran International” is present in almost every house through satellite television, even more professional than BBC Persian. With this media power, they are able to shape what people see and hear. There are documented cases where slogans are edited, where the sound of chants is changed, and where one person shouting a monarchist slogan is shown as if the whole crowd is chanting it. If you look carefully at some of these videos, people are actually chanting something else. There was a video of Kurdish people dancing in Punak square in Tehran and there was only one person chanting pro monarchist slogans, but the media manipulation was such that it suggested the whole population is supporting Pahlavi in Tehran.
\n\nRoja: In central cities, especially Tehran, monarchist slogans are heard and seen more often. But in peripheral and marginalized regions—Kurdistan, Baluchistan, Khuzestan—there is much more hesitation and in many cases rejection.
\n\nIn some places, people did not come to the streets precisely because they felt alienated by monarchist narratives. They felt that their struggles were not represented and that everything was being rewritten through one dominant media voice.
\n\nThere is also a very dangerous political logic in this rhetoric. Monarchists say that there is no other opposition in Europe. Anyone who criticizes monarchy is accused of supporting the Islamic Republic. If you talk about ethnic minority rights, you are labeled a separatist. If you talk about leftist politics, you are equated with the regime. This logic is very familiar. It resembles the way political plurality was eliminated after 1979.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/8.jpg\")
\nDuring the blackout of the internet in Iran, which began on the night of January 8, do you still hear anything from friends and families? How did the regime’s shift from selective internet shutdowns to total communication blackout fundamentally change both the experience of repression and the possibility of collective action?
\n\nRoja: Just before this meeting (January 23), my family called me. For the first time since everything happened, my siblings and cousins were all on the phone together. It was very intense. They described how the internet shutdown completely cut people off—families, friends, even neighbors couldn’t reach each other, and many didn’t know if their loved ones were safe.
\n\nAfter protests, people deleted everything on their phones out of fear. Police randomly stopped people in the streets and checked their phones, even if they had never protested. Fear was everywhere.
\n\nFor short moments, Instagram briefly worked, then went down again. People felt this was deliberate—creating the impression that the internet was back while real communication remained impossible. ATMs and digital payments also stopped working. Anything dependent on the internet shuts down. As my cousin put it, it felt like living in prison—cut off from normal life.
\n\nLeila: During previous cycles of uprising—for example, in 2019—the international internet was shut down, while the national internet, often referred to as the “intranet,” remained operational. People were able to use the national network to coordinate, they could inhabit whatever digital space was still available. They would use state-sponsored or IRGC-affiliated Telegram channels and communicate in coded language to share information about conditions in different cities. Someone might write, “In Shiraz, the weather is still rainy,” while another would respond, “Isfahan is sunny now.” Everyone knew this was not about the weather. It was a way of talking about repression, about violence, about how intense things were in different cities, without saying it openly.
\n\nBut this time, the whole network was shut down. After January 8, the government didn’t just cut the international internet. They cut the national internet as well. Every means of communication was shut down at the same time. This had never happened like this before.
\n\nRoja: Even Starlink didn’t function during the blackout. Starlink equipment is extremely expensive, given the national currency depreciation, and it is illegal to have it. Only very few people have access to it. But even those people could not access the internet this time. There are reports that the Islamic Republic used some kind of noise or interference to block satellite signals, a new technology often associated with China and Russia. This is the first time the Islamic Republic has used this kind of technology on the population as a whole, to isolate people completely.
\n\nIran and China have a 25-year cooperation agreement. Iran has continued selling much of its oil to China, bypassing US sanctions, often at significant discounts—sometimes reported at around 20% below global market prices, though the exact figures vary and are difficult to verify. Some observers believe Iran has long sought to develop a China-style national internet and acquire related filtering and control technologies, but until now it has not been able to implement such a system fully. Many people saw the current shutdown as a test—or as a demonstration of more advanced restrictions than before.
\n\nWhite SIM cards are part of this system. These are SIM cards with no filtering and no censorship. In Iran, most websites and platforms are blocked, and people need VPNs. White SIM cards can bypass all of that. For a long time, only people close to the core of the regime had received them. After the twelve-day war with Israel, a limited number of journalists also received them, even including some who were critical to the regime.
\n\nBut during this uprising, even the white SIM cards didn’t work. Nothing worked. At one point, even government websites were down. This is why many people say this moment is radically different from anything they experienced before.
\n\nMany people, including ex-political prisoners, described the feeling during the blackout as like being in solitary confinement. Not as a metaphor, but as a lived condition. What happened in Iranian prisons in the early years of the Islamic Republic, especially the massacres of leftists in the 1980s, seemed to come out of the prisons and spread across society. The logic of the prison expanded and surrounded everyday life.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/5.jpg\")
\nCan you share more about the massacre of civilians on January 8? How did people respond to that inside Iran?
\n\nRoja: There is ongoing debate over how many people have been killed since the internet blackout, particularly during the two nights of Thursday and Friday, January 8 and 9, when people started to flood the streets, taking control of many cities across the country. Some say five thousand; some say ten thousand; others say twenty thousand, even thirty thousand. At the same time, official figures have announced roughly 2000 deaths, many of which they claim were members of their own security forces, effectively replacing the victim with the aggressor. More than 25,000 people have been arrested on the streets, many of whom face the risk of execution.
\n\nFor people inside Iran, the exact number doesn’t really change anything. Whatever the figure, the Islamic Republic of Iran—particularly the IRGC and its paramilitary branch, the Basij—has carried out a qualitatively distinct form of violence, shocking and horrific even by the standards of Iran’s long, bloody history of state repression. The only proper name for this scale and systematic targeting of protesters is massacre.
\n\nAccording to eyewitness testimony from protesters, accounts from medical staff in hospitals and clinics, and records from medical facilities, live ammunition and shotguns were used systematically—not randomly—with shots aimed directly at vital organs: people’s eyes, heads, hearts, and torsos. One of the most visible and devastating forms of injury has been the loss of eyesight suffered by large numbers of people—something that was also used on a massive scale during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in 2022.
\n\nThis level of repression is also a form of punishment that marks collective bodies. It is oriented toward the future as well, so that the next time you begin conquering cities through mass uprising, you will remember that you were massacred—so you never forget what happened to you. The punishment is therefore inscribed on the body and marks collective memory.
\n\nOne of the crucial differences between the current uprising and previous ones is that, for the first time, the Islamic Republic of Iran is using the lexicon of “terrorism” to describe protesters. In the past, the term “rioter” (اغتشاشگر) was used to draw a distinction between “legitimate” protesters and those portrayed as seeking to destabilize the government—the latter of whom were often accused by security and intelligence services, as well as officials (including the Supreme Leader), of being linked to the US or Israel. Today, “terrorist” has become the official keyword for anyone protesting in the streets. People on the streets are no longer treated as citizens—or even as “criminals” to be policed. Instead, they are cast as outside agitators and terrorists, against whom the state claims the right to wage war.
\n\nWhile Western imperialists instrumentalize the Islamic Republic’s brutal repression to justify their own regime-change agenda, supporters of the so-called “axis of resistance” often seek to deny or downplay this repression and the mass killing it entails. This denial—common among campists, who support any force opposed to Western imperialism regardless of its own internal repression, class relations, and geopolitical interventions—is not a neutral error. It is an anti-imperialism of fools, inside Iran and abroad: so fixated on the goal of opposing imperialism that it refuses to recognize the state violence enacted under the guise of anti-imperialism. In that sense, they are not merely mistaken but complicit.
\n\nCould you say more about how the Islamic Republic understands the current uprising as a war?
\n\nRoja: Many who participated in the current revolutionary uprising describe their experience on the streets—what is happening now—as a war. Many non-Iranian commentators, based on a quantitative argument, argue that during the Twelve-Day War, one thousand were killed, but that in just two days inside Iran tens of thousands of people were killed. People even compare this to the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. Now, they say, in two days, the number is even higher.
\n\nArguments about the “quantitative scale” of war have historically served as tools of imperialist warfare. During World War II, the United States relied on precisely this logic when it bombed Hiroshima: if the war continued, one million people would die; if the atomic bomb were dropped now, fewer people would be killed. It was this reasoning that led to the use of nuclear weapons. The same type of argument has repeatedly been used to justify imperialist wars.
\n\nSo we need to be careful with the lexicon of “war.” Western imperialism often mobilizes the language of war to frame the Islamic Republic’s bloody repression in ways that serve imperial interests. That framing helps justify and normalize Western military intervention as a “response”—cast as support for the Iranian people, or even as a humanitarian necessity to “save” them. On the other hand, when the Islamic Republic calls protesters “terrorists” and “Mossad agents,” treating them as enemies, it effectively launches a war against its own subject populations. This has exposed Iranian society to outside imperial intervention through the unprecedented violence it has deployed against repeated cycles of uprising. In this sense, the Islamic Republic and imperialist powers reinforce each other. They are not equal forces, we are not equating them, but they operate in a mutual dynamic. One uses the threat of the other to justify repression. The other uses repression to justify intervention. Caught in between, real internationalist solidarities are weakened.
\n\nBetween Western imperialism and the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is a very narrow path. The whole difficulty is navigating between the two narratives without falling in line with either campism or imperialism. Roja has been trying its best to navigate this path through internationalism from below that prioritizes liberation struggles.
\n\nToday, many Iranians—deeply opposed to imperialist war—nevertheless say that a war is already underway: a war waged by the Islamic Republic against society itself. In this context of continuous internal violence, exhaustion, and blocked horizons of change, the logic of “lesser destruction” reappears in a tragic inversion. War from the outside comes to be imagined not as disaster, but as rescue. This is how a society pushed to the edge begins, desperately, to wait for a war imposed upon it.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/3.jpg\")
\nIn many Western anti-imperialist narratives, Iranians are framed as having only two options: a “sovereign” Iran or an Iran occupied by external powers. What’s your response to the claim that “sovereignty is a precondition for liberation”?
\n\nRoja: Before turning to the question of “sovereignty”—which I understand to mean the state’s territorial integrity and “national security”—let me first say a few words about how the Islamic Republic presents itself internationally as an anti-imperialist force and a supporter of Palestinian liberation.
\n\nSince the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has appropriated anti-imperialist rhetoric to justify both internal repression and regional interventions. It often deploys the language of “anti-imperialism” as a legitimating mask for domestic coercion. Compulsory veiling, for example, was violently imposed on women’s bodies in the aftermath of the Revolution and repeatedly framed as the embodied ideal of the Islamic woman—defined in opposition to “Western” values. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 12-Day War, many people were executed on charges of spying for Israel. Today, protesters are routinely smeared as Mossad agents—a charge that functions less as a factual claim than as a political technology for criminalizing dissent and legitimizing violence.
\n\nAgainst the arguments advanced by campists, nationalists, and some decolonial accounts, Iran’s internal repression cannot be politically severed from its self-proclaimed opposition to imperialism. In the Islamic Republic’s political logic, “anti-imperialism” is not merely a foreign-policy stance; it is also a domestic governing strategy that records demands for freedom and equality as threats to “national security.” In this sense, geopolitics and internal repression are not parallel tracks but mutually reinforcing projects.
\n\nGeopolitically, the Islamic Republic has played an active role in shaping the Middle East through what it calls the “Axis of Resistance.” The case of Syria is illuminating: Iran—together with Hezbollah and Russia—helped sustain the dictatorship of Assad, whose methods of repression only became fully visible after its collapse. The Islamic Republic has long told society, “We fight in Syria so that we don’t have to fight inside Iran,” a claim that has no meaning after the 12-Day War. The logic of “national security first” implies that Syrian lives and Syrian blood did not matter because they were not Iranian.
\n\nAs these two interlinked processes—domestic repression and regional intervention—have repeatedly been legitimatized in the name of anti-imperialism, many inside Iran have become alienated from anti-imperialist politics and struggles. This is the case despite the fact that anti-imperialism was a crucial dimension of the 1979 Revolution.
\n\nNow let us return to the question of “sovereignty” in the state sense of the term. The discourse of “national security” has become increasingly dominant since the Syrian war and October 7 [2023], and especially after the 12-Day War. Certain campist and nationalist positions prioritize the form of the nation over its substantive content. If we understand the nation substantively, it implies social rights, democratic representation, collective autonomous self-determination, and the coexistence of different peoples. This is fundamentally different from understanding the nation as mere form—territorial integrity, centralized sovereignty, and national security.
\n\nBoth the Islamic Republic and its campist supporters have mobilized around this formulation—“national security” and “territorial integrity”—granting it absolute primacy and relegating all other struggles to the margins. But this primacy is false, because it evades the basic question: security for whom, and why is only one form of security prioritized? What about economic security? As we recently wrote,
\n\n\n\n\nWhile the state speaks relentlessly in the name of “national security,” it has itself become a central producer of insecurity: intensified insecurity of life through an unprecedented surge in executions, the systematic mistreatment of prisoners, and intensified economic insecurity through the brutal reduction of people’s livelihoods.
\n
We are repeatedly told: “This is not the time to protest; this is not the time to rebel—otherwise, we will become Syria; otherwise, we will face the same fate as Libya.” The real question is how to confront these contradictions. On the one hand, war and the imperialist fragmentation of society are real dangers. On the other hand, they must also struggle against the Islamic Republic. You cannot simply deny the right of people who have been stripped of any meaningful sense of life—whose lives barely differ from death—to speak and to act, by telling them, “Now is not the time, because national security comes first.”
\n\nHow is the idea of sovereignty contested inside Iran, especially in the Persian-dominated center by comparison with the non-Persian peripheries?
\n\nRoja: Everything depends on who we are talking about—for whom sovereignty serves as protection, and for whom it manifests as violence. Multiple nations live within the Islamic Republic, and the lived experience of “sovereignty” across these populations is profoundly uneven.
\n\nTake Baluchistan, for example. People there live under conditions of “internal colonialism.” They have been stripped of even formal citizenship. In Baluchistan, there are thousands of people who are not recognized within the state’s official system at all; some do not even have birth certificates and are deprived of the most basic conditions of life. For Baluch people, the relationship with the Islamic Republic is an extractive one, accompanied by an extremely securitized presence. When the state itself is experienced as colonial, violent, and occupying, telling people that sovereignty is more important than their lives makes no sense. This is why the claim that “sovereignty is a precondition for liberation” can only be understood—if at all—within the complex dynamics of center–periphery relations and the question of ethnic-minority self-determination.
\n\nThe “primacy” of “territorial integrity” comes out of a very strong nationalist tradition in Iran. Since the construction of the modern nation-state, sovereignty has been treated as the supreme, untouchable principle. Even nationalist leftists have often placed sovereignty above everything else. This was already a major point of division after the 1979 revolution, and it remains so today.
\n\nEven during the 2022 Jina uprising, much of the backlash centered on it: those at the forefront were repeatedly labeled separatists, accused of wanting to bring civil war into the country. Today, this same framing is used to justify a false binary—you must choose between the Islamic Republic or civil war—with civil war presented as a threat to sovereignty. This discourse shuts down any possibility for change from below.
\n\nMore importantly, this argument does not hold up empirically. Throughout the entire post-revolutionary period—from the 1980s until today—there has been no political force in Iran genuinely seeking to break the country apart. Even Kurdish political forces, in their official statements and positions, have never demanded separation from Iran. This claim is a narrative produced by the regime and by nationalist forces, not reflective of reality.
\n\nIn this sense, the sovereignty discourse also ends up reinforcing the Islamic Republic, because it mirrors the regime’s own logic. Over the past decade—especially since 2011—the regime has repeatedly told society: “You may have nothing, but you have security. You have not become Syria because of us, because we guarantee national sovereignty and national security.” This argument has been consistently used to delegitimize every uprising. Since 2017, whenever people have taken to the streets, this argument has returned: “We don’t want to become another Syria.” But the question is: why must that be the outcome? Why couldn’t there be a democratic revolution? This is not a purely imaginary fantasy; it is tied to real struggles and to democratic political imagination.
\n\nThis also helps explain why in this uprising, the calls for figures like [Reza] Pahlavi are heard more often in central regions. Ethnic minorities make up roughly 35-40% of the population. This is crucial. So when people say “Iranians think this way,” we must ask: which Iranians? Many people in peripheral regions do not share this “sovereignty-first” perspective. The claim that “the Iranian people think this way” simply does not hold.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/2.jpg\")
\nThe Palestinian struggle and the Iranian struggle are often pitted against each other—both in Western anti-imperialist narratives (such as the “Axis of Resistance” vs. “Zio-America” framing) and in liberal narratives (for example, slogans like “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, My Life for Iran”). Inside Iran, how has the state’s monopolization and instrumentalization of Palestine shaped popular perceptions and solidarities? What has caused the two struggles to become disconnected—or even appear contradictory—and what does grassroots Iranian solidarity with Palestinian liberation look like beyond state propaganda, military alliances, and the “Axis of Resistance” framework?
\n\nLeila: When it comes to Palestine, the situation is very complicated. At a general level, among large parts of the population in Iran, sympathy for Palestine is low right now. This is not because people suddenly became pro-Israel, but because of how tensions have been mediated and instrumentalized by the state.
\n\nMany people feel that the Islamic Republic depletes the public budget and invests it into military apparatuses operating across the region instead of investing in social welfare. People are struggling with severe economic problems. Prices are going up. Subsidies are being removed. Hospitals are being privatized. The health care system is collapsing. In this situation, people attribute the state’s corruption to the Islamic Republic’s support for the Palestinian Resistance. It is a very widespread misconception.
\n\nThis perception also depends very much on who we are talking to. If we move away from the central, urban, middle class, and look toward working class and marginalized regions, the picture changes. Age matters. Geography matters.
\n\nThere was a moment during the uprising when someone from a peripheral area called me and said that the catastrophe they were experiencing could only be described in one way. They said the city looks like Gaza. So Gaza became the reference. For that person, Gaza was not an abstract geopolitical symbol. It was a concrete way to describe what state violence looks like.
\n\nRoja: In Arab regions such as Khuzestan, there is strong sympathy with Palestine—and not only sympathy, but a strong connection. Palestine has been a source of inspiration for their own struggles, and their activists have been linked to Palestinian struggles. Because of this, they have been crushed repeatedly. People have been arrested simply for holding Palestinian flags or expressing solidarity. The state does not tolerate anyone else holding the Palestinian cause; it wants to monopolize it.
\n\nThis is one of the main contradictions. Even leftists inside Iran who are committed to Palestinian liberation find it almost impossible to organize any independent action in solidarity with Palestine. If they try to act publicly, they are either immediately repressed or their actions are absorbed and re-framed by the state narrative. Palestine becomes state property.
\n\nThe Islamic Republic’s relationship to Palestine—even if one accepts that it materially sustains certain forms of resistance—is fundamentally grounded in its own geopolitical and national interests, rather than in a commitment to Palestinian liberation as such. Officials themselves repeatedly invoke the notion that we fight outside our borders so that we do not fight inside. “If we don’t fight in Syria, we will have to fight inside Iran.” Palestine is treated within the same framework.
\n\nThere is a deep contradiction here. A state that massacres its own people cannot be a force of liberation for others. A state that kills people in the streets, blinds them, imprisons them, executes them, cannot claim to be fighting for justice elsewhere.
\n\nHow are these debates around Palestine and anti-imperialism experienced differently in Kurdistan and other marginalized regions?
\n\nRoja: For Kurdish people, the question of Palestine has always carried a lot of tension. It does not come from theory. It comes from political memory and lived experience. It comes from genocides.
\n\nThere are historical moments such as genocide that shape Kurdish political memory deeply. The first one is the “Anfal campaign.” It was carried out by Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq war in Iraqi Kurdistan. Around one hundred and eighty thousand Kurdish people were killed—merely because they were Kurdish. The allegation to justify the genocide was that they collaborated with Iran.
\n\nWhat matters is not only the genocide itself, but also the reaction of some parts of the Arab world at the time. The majority of Arab states supported Saddam Hussein. And the Palestinian leadership supported Saddam during the Anfal campaign. Arafat supported him openly. Even Edward Said denied the Anfal campaign in his writing in the early 1980s. For Kurdish people, this created a very deep wound. It was not just betrayal. It was erasure.
\n\nThen there is Afrin in Syria. In 2018, Afrin, which is part of Rojava, was occupied by the Turkish army. The occupation involved systematic violence against civilians, including women and children. It involved displacement and destruction.
\n\nDuring this occupation, representatives of Hamas went to Afrin while the Turkish army was occupying the city. They celebrated together with the Turkish army and they said this very clearly. They said this is an example for the Middle East. They said this is something that should be replicated. For Kurdish people, that moment was devastating.
\n\nAs a result, a deep rupture has long existed between Kurdish political struggles and both Arab and Persian nationalism, as well as parts of the self-described anti-imperialist left, which have often failed to recognize the Kurdish struggle.
\n\nAt the same time, it is important to say that historically, Kurdish movements were among the strongest supporters of Palestinian liberation. The first generation of Kurdish revolutionary organizations, especially in the 1980s, declared armed struggle side by side with Palestinian and Lebanese revolutionary movements. There was an organic political and military relationship.
\n\nBut today, in the consciousness of Kurdish people, questions have arisen. Why are Kurdish genocides not recognized, while other genocides are recognized? Why does nobody care when Kurdish people are killed? Why are Kurdish lives always treated as secondary?
\n\nThis is not only about the past. It is happening again now. In demonstrations in Europe, Kurdish people have seen photos of Saddam Hussein carried in pro-Palestine protests. Friends who recently returned from Syria say that Saddam’s image is appearing again there, being displayed and celebrated. For Kurdish people, this is unbearable. The person who carried out genocide against us is being brought back in the name of resistance.
\n\nIf we accept the argument that, in conditions of existential threat, a people may seek support wherever it is materially available—regardless of the nature of the supporting state—then the question must be posed consistently. Many defenders of Palestinian resistance justify tactical alignments with regional powers on the grounds of survival under siege, not because those powers are emancipatory or democratic. If that logic is considered legitimate in one case, why is it rejected so categorically when applied to the Kurds, who have likewise faced annihilation, statelessness, and repeated abandonment?
\n\nThe issue, then, is not the purity of allies, but the selective application of moral and political standards, standards that shift depending on geopolitical alignment rather than on the concrete conditions of survival faced by oppressed peoples.
\n\nI realized this clearly when a Syrian friend of mine, a member of the Druze minority that recently experienced massacres at the hands of Al-Jolani, the head of the new Syrian factional government, told me something. She said, “I have always been anti-Israel my whole life.” She was crying, showing me the Palestinian keffiyeh around her neck, and said, “I always wear the Palestinian keffiyeh wherever I go. But I have to admit, if it weren’t for Israeli support during Al-Jolani’s recent attacks on the Druze in Syria, my people would have been completely massacred. How can I allow myself to say that my people are allowed to be massacred, but should not take help from Israel?” I think she is right. Just as we, as Iranians, have no right to tell Palestinians that it’s okay to be massacred but not take help from Iran or any other repressive state. What we can say, however, is that the compulsion to accept aid in a survival situation does not mean we are endorsing the policies of Israel, Iran, or the US. It doesn’t mean we ignore the crimes these countries commit against other people. This is the logic I am talking about, and it should not be a double standard.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/6.jpg\")
\nNow that many activists are in exile, what can actually be done from outside Iran, and what limits and responsibilities shape diasporic organizing today?
\n\nRoja: As the Iranian far right is becoming a real threat to democracy, other progressive and leftist groups in the diaspora are ready to work together, which was not the case before. This common enemy (Pahlavi as well as IR) is contributing to the formation of united fronts and blocs of all sorts.
\n\nWe also work to maintain long-term connections with different collectives and organizations from Palestine to East Asia, particularly the new generation in China, Taiwan, and Bangladesh. We are building links between Baluchistan, Kurdish, and Iranian groups.
\n\nFor the first time, we organized a large, explicitly anti-monarchist demonstration against the Islamic Republic in Paris. This showed that a progressive, leftist, anti-war opposition also exists in Europe. Afterward, activists from other cities reached out, encouraging us to build broader, less dogmatic alliances capable of organizing opposition both to monarchy and to the Islamic Republic.
\n\nIn the diaspora, we are in a privileged position to fight on multiple fronts at the same time. One front is against Western imperialism. Another front is against the Islamic Republic. Another front is against the campist supporters of the Islamic Republic who deny or delegitimize the uprising.
\n\nMore importantly, we try to insist that the oppressed people and classes in the Middle East have shared destinies—that struggles in Iran, in Kurdistan, in Palestine, in Lebanon are connected, and we need to learn from each other and develop an internationalist politics based on common ground and articulations of social struggles.
\n\nInternationalism is precisely about this: I care about Palestine because it is directly and immediately connected to our lives and also shapes the destiny of social struggles. Your struggle is mine, mine is yours, despite all the differences and contradictions. It is around these questions that we in Roja are organizing today.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/18/7.jpg\")
\nWith the backing of the Turkish government and the blessing of the United States and European governments, the Syrian military is surrounding the self-governing communities of Rojava, seeking to forcibly integrate them into the Syrian state. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Rojava have signed a peace treaty agreeing to integration, but the outcome remains to be seen.
\n\nAt the conclusion of 2024, Turkish-backed insurgent forces entered Damascus, overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Their leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, became president of Syria. Over the following year, the new Syrian government set out to curry favor with imperial powers around the world, including the regime of Donald Trump, in order to consolidate power over the country.
\n\nOn January 6, 2026, the Syrian transitional government launched an offensive in coordination with jihadist paramilitary forces against the Kurdish neighborhood Sheikh Maqsood in the city of Aleppo. The SDF withdrew on January 10 along with a large number of displaced refugees.
\n\nThree days later, the Syrian government attacked Rojava as a whole. On January 18, Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a ceasefire agreement with the SDF, but fighting resumed immediately. Rojava faced the threat of a full-scale war of extermination, including the possibility that the Turkish military would invade once again. On January 20, the SDF agreed to a ceasefire stipulating that the region will be subordinated to the Syrian government in Damascus and the SDF will be integrated into the Syrian military. Yesterday, this ceasefire was extended; but as of now, parts of Rojava remain under siege.
\n\nAlthough proponents of the state claim that a strong and centralized government is necessary to prevent “chaos” and ethnic violence, we can see that in Syria, the opposite is true: those who aim to centralize state power in their hands are using ethnic violence as a means to do so. This is hardly the first time in history that an effort to unify a country under a centralized government has coincided with a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
\n\nHere, we present a statement from American, Chinese, and Russian anarchists who have fought to defend Rojava about what these latest developments mean for the future. For more background on the history of this conflict, you could begin here. You can follow updates from anarchists in Rojava here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/09/4.jpg\")
A map of the region on January 26, 2026, after the pause in hostilities.
\nIn 2012, as the regime of Bashar al-Assad began to lose control of the country at the outset of the Syrian revolution, Kurdish groups that had been organizing underground for decades seized the opportunity to fill the power vacuum, expanding their autonomous structures to defend their people. Over the years that followed, the Rojava revolution became a multi-ethnic force consisting of Arab, Kurdish, Syriac, Assyrian, Armenian, Yezedi, and Turkmen communities, among others. In battle after battle, the combined strength of these communities within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated a large swathe of land from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other fundamentalist factions, bringing relative security, stability, and autonomy under the principles of democratic confederalism proposed by the Kurdish freedom movement and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan.
\n\nThe autonomous administration of Rojava demonstrated that there is an alternative to the rule of autocratic dynasties and brutal theocracies in the Middle East. Yet the revolution has many enemies—most prominently, the settler-colonial Turkish state under the leadership of the neo-Ottomanist Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. To undermine Kurdish self-determination, the Turkish state has long sponsored fundamentalist groups in Syria, sheltering the al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), cultivating a puppet force in the Syrian National Army (SNA), and facilitating the flow of money, personnel, and weapons to the Islamic State (ISIS).
\n\nHowever, Turkey is not the only geopolitical force that has sought to establish hegemony in northeastern Syria. France colonized Syria in the early 20th century; the United Kingdom played a pivotal role in dividing the people of Kurdistan into four nations. Later, starting in the 1990s, the government of the United States of America waged a generation of wars in neighboring Iraq, dramatically destabilizing the entire region and contributing to the rise of Sunni fundamentalist groups like Al-Qaeda. The Russian state supported the Assad regime militarily, economically, and politically; Vladimir Putin was the main guarantor of its existence in the face of the popular uprising that became the Syrian revolution. Together with his counterparts in Washington, DC, Putin is now building military and economic ties with the new Syrian regime, helping it to solidify its grasp on power. Donald Trump’s family has extensive business ties to Qatar, and his administration’s strategic interests broadly overlap with those of the global Sunni geopolitical axis involving the Turkish government and the Gulf States, especially when it comes to Iran.
\n\nIn many ways, fundamentalist movements such as al-Qaeda and ISIS are a consequence of the instability that various foreign powers have inflicted on the entire region. Despite their rhetoric about a “war on terror,” these empires have introduced war, terror, and tremendous suffering to this land.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/posters/rojava-is-a-grave-for-fascism-2026/rojava-is-a-grave-for-fascism-front_color.jpg\")
Click on the image to download the poster.
\nCaught within the struggle for dominance over the region by competing American, Russian, Turkish, Israeli, and Iranian powers, the revolutionary autonomous project of Rojava never had a future in the plans of any empire or nation-state.
\n\nIn 2018 and 2019, the Turkish army and its Syrian proxy SNA occupied the territories of Afrin and Serekaniye, immediately purging the indigenous Kurdish population from these areas. Following the rapid collapse of the Assad regime in 2024, the HTS-led Syrian Transitional Government (STG) now seeks to impose the banner of Sunni-Arab nationalism and sectarianism upon all the territories of Syria. The new Syrian army has advanced with brutality, aiming to destroy the most important achievements of the Rojava revolution—women’s liberation and the comparatively peaceful co-existence and self-governance of all ethnic groups. There are hundreds of videos and pictures recording the crimes committed by transitional government soldiers as they advanced in 2025 and 2026. In January 2026, many recorded themselves mutilating the bodies of women fighters and cutting off their braids as trophies.
\n\nMost of the lands that the revolution liberated from ISIS are now back in the hands of theocratic fascists: Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Shaddadi. As internationalists, we took part in the liberation of much of this terrain, fighting shoulder to shoulder with our Arab and Kurdish friends. Many of our comrades sacrificed their lives for the revolution in these places. It is painful to watch these achievements undone.
\n\nWestern governments have given Damascus the green light to subject Rojava to the threat of a war of extermination. They are just as responsible for the situation as Turkey and the STG. Yes, the Western military coalition played a role in the struggle against ISIS; their support was instrumental in the defense of Kobani in 2014 and the liberation of Raqqa in 2017. That only makes their betrayal of the SDF more instructive: they are prepared to use Kurdish people as cannon fodder, but they would rather see ethnic cleansing in Rojava than a multi-ethnic, egalitarian experiment that exceeds the control of nation-states.
\n\nThe heads of these governments hurried to shake the hand of Abu Mohammad al-Julani after the arrival of HTS in Damascus swept him into power. At the same time that these governments declare that they look forward to working with the new Syrian government to combat ISIS, ISIS loyalists and sympathizers are in the ranks of the STG, displaying their flags.
\n\nAl-Julani’s vows to protect minority groups have been revealed to be falsehoods. First, al-Julani’s forces went west to massacre the Alawites. Then, they drove south to decimate the Druze. Then, with the blessing of the governments of Turkey, the United States, France, and Israel, they pushed east to attack the Kurds and the diverse array of other communities that dare to defend the shared project of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.
\n\nTo prevent the Syrian government from fabricating the narrative that Kurdish people were occupying Arab lands and making war on Arab people, the SDF withdrew to Kurdish-majority areas, where they managed to halt the advance of the government forces. Through fierce resistance, they managed to block the original plan to physically annihilate Rojava, forcing Damascus back to the negotiating table. But the current ceasefire is fragile, the steps to integrate Rojava into the Syrian state are vague, and it remains to be seen to what extent the Syrian government will honor any of its promises.
\n\nThe Syrian military still has not lifted the siege of Kobane. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people still cannot return to their homes.
\n\nAs internationalists, we condemn the American, Russian, and European governments. This treachery is just the latest in a long list of their crimes against humanity. It is clear to us that all nation-states operate without ethics or morality. The machinery of the state has no humanity and the people who run this system have lost theirs, as well. Oil and resource extraction, trade routes, spheres of influence, and political and military hegemony are the language and principles of empire. According to imperial logic, this latest betrayal of the Kurdish people by the American government constitutes a mere policy change, regardless of how much bloodshed it brings about.
\n\nAs enemy forces besiege Kobanê and set their sights on Heseke, Til Temir, and Qamişlo once again, we remain committed to defending the revolution. Only time will tell if the current ceasefire will hold. Every time that the SDF has rejected the unacceptable terms that Damascus seeks to impose, STG forces seize the opportunity to unleash a terror campaign against the population while blaming the SDF. Yet more symbolic representation for Kurds and other communities in Syrian government and society will solve nothing. As long as fundamentalist Islam, sectarian violence, and the politics of centralization drive Al-Julani’s regime, there will be no lasting peace in Syria.
\n\nThis crisis has put a spotlight on the chief goals of the movement in Rojava: to defend the people who live here, to resolve conflict through political rather than military means, to enable people to organize themselves as they see fit. All of these values remain intact, even though the SDF and the autonomous administration of Rojava have been compelled to agree to a peace treaty on unfavorable terms.
\n\nIn response to the agreement, some people outside Rojava are portraying the revolution as defeated—while at the same time, some of us remain in defensive positions around Rojava with rifles in our hands, still prepared to prevent the enemy from advancing. Revolutions are not defeated by decisions imposed from above; they are determined by what ordinary people decide to do, even in the most adverse conditions. Whatever happens, we will continue fighting for, side by side with, and from within this revolution. This is a setback, but it is not the end of the story.
\n\nAs long as we are able to organize with the people around us, to offer space for internationalist comrades, to pursue collective education and training, to advance the cause of a self-governed society coexisting in diversity and exercising women’s freedom, we will continue to do all of these things. The agreement with Damascus may compel us to engage in these activities differently, but it will not stop us. It will not be easy to put an end to what has begun here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/09/3.jpg\")
\nWe call on all anarchists, socialists, anti-fascists, and internationalists to remain committed to the defense of the Rojava revolution and the communities that are a part of it, whatever takes place in the negotiations between SDF officials and the Syrian government.
\n\nThe preservation of people’s power and autonomy in distant lands starts on your own homefront, especially in countries that are powerful actors in international politics. We have learned humbly from the revolution in Rojava—from its forms of organization, from its revolutionary spirit, from the readiness of the participants to sacrifice and from their courage in the face of powerful enemies. We understand that our weapons and bodies alone are no match for the war machines of empire and modern nation-states. To counter such an enemy will require a global revolutionary people’s war.
\n\nWithout fundamental changes to the international order, Rojava and all social revolutions and liberation movements will always be at the mercy of great powers. They will take advantage of our experiments when it is convenient, then abandon and crush us when we are no longer of use to them. The only way to neutralize this threat is to engage in internationalist cooperation and organization, uniting our struggles globally. Today, the defense of Rojava is one front and focal point of such efforts.
\n\nTo offer practical support on an immediate basis, you can donate to projects like Heyva Sor, Riseup4Rojava, and Tekoşîna Anarşîst and raise awareness about the plight of Rojava via social media, press releases, distributing zines and books, and showing movies.
\n\nAs a longer-term organizing strategy, we can connect the Kurdish struggle with other fronts engaged in parallel struggles. In the United States, the racist violence that ICE is perpetrating to advance Trump’s kleptocracy mirrors the strategy of al-Julani, who has awarded government and military positions to the jihadists who are committing massacres in order to forcibly integrate minority communities into a “unified Syria.” In addition to spreading information and narratives, we must also connect people’s concrete needs with political ideas about how we can meet them together, building networks and mutual support groups that can connect people of a variety of backgrounds. Finally, while electoral politics will never function as a vehicle for fundamental change, in some places, it may possible to pressure politicians not to be complicit in enabling ethnic cleansing to occur in Rojava or elsewhere.
\n\nWe write as anarchist internationalists hailing from the three most powerful empires of our time: the United States, Russia, and China. On a planet catapulting toward ecological catastrophe and a third world war, we seek to transcend geopolitical fault lines and repressive political dichotomies in order to stand side by side in struggle against our oppressors. If we are to bring about a new global system based on autonomy, justice, and social plurality, the current system of nation-states, economic exploitation, and patriarchy must be dismantled. We are told of wars between empires, but everywhere we look, we only see wars of all shapes and forms against the people. The undoing of empires must therefore come from within, from the people, through our own self-organized initiative.
\n\nWith revolutionary greetings and respect.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/09/1.jpg\")
People in Rojava celebrated Newroz.
\nTêkoşîna Anarşîst—The website of a revolutionary anarchist organization working in northeastern Syria
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/09/2.jpg\")
\n In the following analysis, participants in the resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Twin Cities reflect on the lessons of the strikes of January 23 and January 30, looking for ways to expand and strengthen the movement.
\n\nOn January 23, 2026, a general strike against the ICE occupation paralyzed the Twin Cities. Seven days later, a second strike took place, on January 30. The first of these mass strikes drew significantly more participants than the second.
\n\nA poll conducted by participating labor and faith organizations reports that 23% of registered voters participated in the first strike in some way—a figure that does not even include vast sectors of the working class, such as undocumented workers, young people, and tens of thousands who are understandably disillusioned with the political system. Extrapolating from those polls, which indicated that 38% of those who participated in the strike in some way actively refused to work that day, we can conclude that over 300,000 people withdrew from the economy on January 23 in the Twin Cities alone.
\n\nA major Somali shopping center called Karmel Mall closed for the day. Daycare centers were forced to close when their staff demanded the day off. Workers forced a major AT&T call center to close. The biggest nursing home in the Twin Cities metro area held mandatory all-staff meetings to threaten to fire employees who participated, but those scare tactics failed and they faced mass absenteeism. The combined population of Minneapolis and Saint Paul is less than 750,000; that Friday, we saw an estimated 100,000 people take the streets in sub-zero temperatures. It is safe to conclude that at least one out of every eight Twin Cities residents took part in the general strike.
\n\nMost of what we have done here since the federal attack on the Twin Cities began has been reactive. We have organized rapid response networks to document ICE and confront their operations; we have driven them out of areas after they shoot or murder people; we have attempted to blockade their headquarters. The really exciting thing about the general strike was that it was proactive: by withdrawing our participation from the economy, we were exerting pressure not only on the Trump regime, but on the capitalist class that backs it and the Democratic politicians who have largely stayed out of its way or actively assisted as its bounty hunters have kidnapped our neighbors and terrorized us.
\n\nIf we are to reach a future in which we are not at the mercy of a totalitarian police state, we will have to develop our ability to engage in collective actions like the general strike of January 23. We have to become capable of proactively exerting leverage upon our adversaries, fracturing their coalitions and ultimately breaking their grip on power. What could hinder us from doing this?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/01/1.jpg\")
\nThe second general strike was also massive, though significantly smaller than the first. Estimates of the crowd sizes downtown range from 20,000-30,000 people, depending on the source. A number of factors account for this discrepancy in size.
\n\nFirst, the general strike of January 23 had been called at least ten days in advance, whereas the call for the January 30 strike went out only five days ahead of time. But this alone cannot explain the difference. In times of extreme urgency and anger, actions that are called immediately sometimes turn out better than actions that are called too far in advance. The general strike of January 23 occurred at a high point of organically building momentum, when people were desperately looking for a way to take action; the strike of January 30 occurred when politicians had managed to undercut this momentum.
\n\nMovements often contract after they appear to have won concessions—in this case, the demotion of Border Patrol “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino and hollow promises from Democrat politicians to negotiate for some “guard rails” around ICE activity. Any apparent victory, however symbolic, functions as a pressure valve to diminish the urgency that people feel.
\n\nAlthough the people of the Twin Cities have experienced horrific violence at the hands of ICE for months now, the replacement of Bovino with border czar Tom Homan has given local politicians an opportunity to assert a new narrative, with governor Tim Walz calling for “a return to normalcy.” At best, this will mean a kinder, gentler Gestapo.
\n\nBoth Donald Trump and the Minnesota Democrats have a stake in “turning down the temperature,” even if that means that ICE abductions continuing by the thousand. One local Twin Cities group speculates that Walz and Trump are already working together to keep the ICE operation going in a slightly less controversial manner:
\n\n\n\n\nWe can infer the nature of the deal Walz made with Trump from the things we have seen over the last six days. Border Patrol have abandoned their previous function as crowd control at ICE’s local headquarters, the Bishop Henry Whipple federal building. Now they have ceded that role to Hennepin County Sheriffs. In the past, we’ve seen these sheriffs wearing standard blue police uniforms. This morning, when they beat and arrested at least five protesters outside Whipple, they were dressed up in tactical gear, green uniforms, and masks. They looked almost indistinguishable from the BorTac officers they are replacing. It seems clear that Walz offered up his own stormtroopers to replace Trump’s, so that Operation Metro Surge can continue unabated, and he can save face by pretending that the worst of the federal invaders have gone home.
\n
Even if the Democrats get ICE to behave more politely, that should appease no one. If all that the Trump administration has to do to normalize putting thousands of ICE agents in the streets is to start by doing so with unhinged violence and then retreat to a slightly less provocative approach, they will repeat that tactic all around the country. There is no “appropriate” role for ICE; Donald Trump has channeled so many billions of dollars to ICE for the purpose of building a private army with which to mete out repression targeting scapegoats and political enemies alike. The road to fascism is paved with reforms that pacify people just long enough to tighten the vice.
\n\nRather than trying to reform institutions that exist for the sole purpose of abducting, oppressing, and murdering, we have to abolish them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/01/3.jpg\")
There can be no compromise with institutions that exist for the sole purpose of oppression.
\nThe other reason that the second strike was smaller was that the constellation of labor unions, immigrants’ rights organizations, and religious institutions that bolstered the numbers for January 23 neither promoted nor mobilized their members for January 30. Instead, the call for the January 30 strike seemed to originate from a coalition of student organizations at the University of Minnesota, including the Somali, Ethiopian, and Eritrean student associations, the Black Student Union, and a graduate student organization.
\n\nTo understand the political dynamics behind these two very different strikes and the decline in participation on January 30, we have to address an albatross that has weighed down revolutionary movements for centuries: vanguardism.
\n\nVanguardism is defined as
\n\n\n\n\n“The strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of a revolutionary movement and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology.”
\n
The idea of a revolutionary vanguard party underpins practically every authoritarian socialist project since the 19th century. In November 1917, Vladimir Lenin made a speech in which he set the blueprint for every state socialist party, asserting that
\n\n\n\n\n“A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the masses.”
\n
Organizations that model themselves in this image see themselves as the brain of the movement, and the rank-and-file participants as the body. They believe that their role is to guide an ignorant populace in a more “advanced” direction.
\n\nThe anarchist Alfredo Bonanno summarized his critique of this approach succinctly enough:
\n\n\n\n\n“This organization tends to cut itself off from and impose itself upon the revolutionary movement that produced it.”
\n
But don’t take Bonanno’s word for it. For us, this is not an ideological issue—a question of political branding—but a strategic issue.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/01/2.jpg\")
\nThe problem with vanguardism is that even when it works, it doesn’t work. Even when vanguardism consolidates control of a movement in the hands of the leadership of a single organization, it doesn’t make the movement more vibrant and effective. Whether the organization in question uses its authority to impose a direction on the rest of the movement or to hold the movement back from action altogether, it can only inhibit the growth of a movement with a widely distributed sense of agency and initiative. What’s more, organizations that understand themselves as the vanguard of the movement tend to compete with each other for control in ways that undermine the prospects of the movement as a whole. The general strike of January 30 is instructive because it offers examples of all three of these outcomes.
\n\nBy 2 pm on January 30, it became clear to anyone who was paying attention that the student groups were not themselves in the driver’s seat of the strike. A certain authoritarian socialist party was running the show. Their professionally-printed picket signs displayed their phone number. Their yellow-vested marshals policed the crowd and directed people along a predetermined route. Their chant leaders stood with a PA system on the back of a 26-foot flatbed truck that led the march. We marched in a big circle, starting and ending at the same location, Government Plaza, giving participants no opportunity to engage state forces or gum up ICE infrastructure. Like practically every event that this group has ever called, the march was as much an advertisement for the party as a tactic intended to exert pressure on the ruling class and empower the oppressed.
\n\nPresumably, this particular party, fairly large by the standards of Marxist-Leninist sects in the United States but without much of a foothold in the Twin Cities, had funneled its plans through student groups at the university. It used them as proxies to call for a strike at a moment when the iron was hot and the people of Minnesota were clamoring to fight ICE. As vanguard parties frequently do, it led from the rear.
\n\nBut all was not well in the wider ecosystem of left organizations. Another Marxist party, with a smaller footprint on the national stage but a much more established presence in Minneapolis, refused to participate in the January 30 strike. Through one of its most active front organizations, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, this competing party conspicuously declined to endorse the general strike, explaining this decision thus:
\n\n\n\n\n“This is not a MIRAC action. We support the workers’ struggle and follow the lead of unions for strikes and strike related activities. We have not seen the vast majority of unions sign onto this. MIRAC will always put our logo on our events. We do not endorse actions with no organizational logos because we can’t ensure it’s safe [sic] for participants.”
\n
Because this proposal for a mass strike came from outside their turf, they could only view it with territorialism and suspicion. While their competitors led from the rear, this organization sought to stand aside completely, as if they could be neutral on a moving train.
\n\nThese organizing failures are not merely incidental. They are familiar patterns that have been associated with the vanguardist approach to movement building for generations. The zero-sum approach to politics, the jealous factionalism, the turf war attitude, the reliance on front groups, the deprioritizing of tactics that actually confront the authorities, and the opportunistic drive to seize a leadership role over and above any other strategic consideration are all recognizable signs of vanguardism.
\n\nThe resistance to ICE in the Twin Cities became powerful because, rather than starting from top-down leadership models, it began at the grassroots with models that anyone could employ, models that maximized the agency and autonomy of everyone who wanted to participate. The rapid response networks proliferated because they were empowering, because they made everyone a protagonist, not because they were controlled by infallible leadership. If anything, the Twin Cities rapid response model removed bottlenecks and centralization from the model developed just a couple months earlier in Chicago, which had already been horizontal and participatory.
\n\nBecause the movement in the Twin Cities grew up in a process of organic experimentation, offering space for everyone’s ingenuity and initiative and recognizing strength in diversity rather than in the control of a preexisting leadership, it has been able to grow bigger, stronger, and smarter than any single party ever could. People try out tactics and strategies and stick with the ones that work, not the ones that benefit a leadership cadre. We should not conflate building the membership of top-down organizations with building the power of a movement. For example, many unions officially refused to participate in both the January 23 and January 30 strikes, but rank-and-file membership participated in both nonetheless. Rank-and-file readiness to strike is almost always ahead of the leadership, in unions and parties alike.
\n\nAs long as our movements depend upon vanguardist organizations and their petty power struggles, we will remain at their mercy and consequently at the mercy of the ruling class. We need a movement that cannot be held back or hijacked by any leadership, a movement that compels every aspiring vanguard to hurry after it, setting aside their squabbles and petty ambitions. That was what made the general strike of January 23 so powerful.
\n\nSo the problem with the January 30 strike was not that it brought out fewer people than the January 23 strike, per se. Many of the experiments that participants in the movement in the Twin Cities have undertaken have brought out far fewer people while pointing to an open horizon and demonstrating possibilities that others could take up and improve upon. But simply attempting to repeat the movement’s previous victories for the sake of recruitment, without opening space for innovation and confrontation, can only run it into the ground.
\n\nThe important question is whether an organizational model is reproducible, serving to empower whoever makes use of it to resist oppression, or extractive, serving to concentrate power in the hands of leaders.
\n\nThe leaderless character of the resistance to ICE in Minnesota is precisely what has made it effective. The decentralized nature of the rapid response groups has made them durable and agile. The initiative of autonomous fighters in the neighborhoods has enabled people to rise in revolt every time they have shot or murdered our neighbors. The horizontality of our mutual aid networks makes them opaque to the feds while enabling them to feed, clothe, and care for vulnerable families. No official organization would ever dare to call for the countless acts of bravery by which individuals have collectively propelled this movement forward. The everyday anarchism of the Minneapolis revolution is its greatest strength.
\n\nTo the extent that we allow top-down forces to take control of the movement, we will compromise its structural integrity and set ourselves up to lose. With so much on the line, we can’t afford to let that happen.
\n\nWe don’t need everyone who participates in the movement to agree. Some will buy into the false promises of Democratic politicians, at least until the next betrayal. Some will prefer to look to the leadership of authoritarian cadre organizations. But if a critical mass of people understand that no one is coming to save us—that it really is up to us to win this fight—and take it upon ourselves to stand up to ICE, doing whatever it takes regardless of what any politician or party prescribes, our movement will remain dynamic enough to go on growing.
\n\nAnd in the end, we will win.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/02/01/4.jpg\")
\nIn this account, participants in the rapid response networks in the Twin Cities describe their experiences, explore the threat represented by the development of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a political police, and propose a strategy for how the rapid response networks could rise to the challenge and contribute to revolutionary social change.
\n\nTo learn more about the rapid response chat structure, start here.
\n\nAll names and locations have been changed to maintain the security of those engaged in rapid response and community defense in the Twin Cities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/5.jpg\")
\nWe leave the house at 5 am, bundled up in the sub-freezing Minnesota winter. We tread carefully to the car because the ground everywhere is icy. Our driver opens their phone and joins a running Signal call in a 1000-person chat that was created eight hours prior. These neighborhood-based signal chats are re-created daily.
\n\n“Hi, this is Patrice signing on, we will be driving for the next couple hours. Our patrol area will be 24th to the south, Main Street to the north, Washington Street to the west, and 5th Avenue to the east.” Its a seven-block area, traversable by car in less than two minutes.
\n\n“Good morning, Patrice, that sounds good,” responds one of the dispatchers. Their role is to keep track of where foot and car patrols take place in the southside of Minneapolis and to make sure that all areas are covered. There are 25 other people on the call. Everyone is muted and only unmutes to address the group.
\n\nWe pull out of the driveway and start our patrol. We hear another voice over the Signal call. “This is Stump, I have a suspicious vehicle headed west on Main at the corner of 7th Avenue. Silver Dodge Ram, Texas plates Alpha Kilo Radio 3863, can I get a plate check?”
\n\n“Yep, that’s confirmed ICE,” replies a second dispatcher a few seconds later. Their job is to cross-check license plates with a large data base of plates that have been collected in neighborhoods and at the ICE regional headquarters over the last eight weeks of Operation Metro Surge. The operation began in December.
\n\n“We are on 6th Avenue heading north. We will be at the corner of Main in 30 seconds and see if we can catch them,” replies our driver. We approach the intersection and see the Ram speed by. We pull out, careful not to accelerate too quickly and draw attention to ourselves. We follow the truck for three blocks before it pulls into a Burger King parking lot. We keep driving, alerting the others on the call.
\n\nSomeone responds: “I’m two blocks behind you, I’ll check the Burger King.”
\n\nSomeone else replies, “I’m on foot a block away, I’ll be there in one minute.”
\n\nAs we are driving, we see individuals and pairs of people standing at street corners on their phones, with whistles around their necks. People are 3D-printing whistles in massive quantities. We pass cars every few blocks driven by people checking the cross streets, talking into their phones. Following the invasion of 3000 ICE officers, everyday Minnesotans are pouring into rapid response networks and scouring their neighborhoods—even in 20-degree weather before the sun has come up.
\n\n“I’m being tailed by a car I think is ICE, I can make out two masked individuals through the tinted windshield,” someone says. The call goes quiet for a few seconds. “I’m being pulled over.”
\n\nDispatch chimes in: “Stay unmuted, turn down your volume so they don’t hear the call, everyone else please stay on mute.” We hear banging, then something shatters. “ICE just smashed their window,” our driver explains calmly, decelerating ahead of a red light. We are shocked, but this is a regular occurrence. Everyone on the call keeps their cool.
\n\nWe have heard stories from rapid responders about ICE tailing them, boxing them in, smashing their car windows, pepper-spraying them, holding them at gun point, shooting out their tires, detaining them. Some responders have been taken to the regional ICE headquarters, the Whipple building. Others have been driven to the other side of the city and thrown out of the vehicle, alone in the cold. Their cars have been left running in the road. The responders tell us all these stories in passing, quickly returning focus to the work that is to be done.
\n\nOf course, ICE has done worse than this, too. ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good as she was trying to drive away. A week later, as ICE agents were pursuing someone, they shot live ammunition at a house with a family in it, hitting Julio Sosa-Celis in the leg.
\n\nBut when you ask patrollers what they want people to know about what’s happening in their city, they barely mention the broken windows and bruises. They describe the feeling of connection and solidarity filling the streets. They make hearts with their hands from car to car, they blow kisses. They make dinners for one another, they drop off groceries for undocumented families that have been locked inside their homes for weeks. They tell us about how, when a skirmish broke out on a busy road, an entire café full of people stood up as one, dropping what they were doing to run towards the sound. We hear again and again about their deep love for the community in the Twin Cities and for their neighbors. Every day, people who never imagined themselves fighting ICE are participating in bold combative actions.
\n\nAnd all of this rings true. Even as guests, volunteers visiting from out of town, we feel like the whole city has our backs.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/7.jpg\")
\nLater in the day, we head out to get breakfast. We’ve only driven three blocks when we see a group of people running and blowing their whistles. Then we see flashing lights ahead.
\n\nWe pull over and get out of the vehicle. ICE is leading someone out of their house. Other cars—some driven by people doing rapid response, others just on their way to work—pull over and more people leap out. A few people come running out of their houses, still putting their jackets on. People are screaming at the agents, filming them, throwing snowballs at them.
\n\nA neighbor is there, crying. The person ICE detained has two kids in the house, and the neighbor has to go to explain to the kids what just happened to their mom. We try to block the ICE agents, but they quickly get into their vehicles. We jump in our car and follow them. The two cars split up and head in different directions, driving erratically.
\n\nThe ICE agent we’re tailing is running lights and driving on the wrong side of the street. He almost gets into a head on collision with oncoming traffic. He turns right from the left turn lane, then speeds down a residential street. We lay on the horn behind him.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/4.jpg\")
\nWe came to Minneapolis after the murder of Renee Good because we wanted to understand what was happening in the city and to support the people who were fighting back. We expected to find a city experiencing an ICE surge like the ones that have taken place in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, or New Orleans.
\n\nBut the situation in Minneapolis is not like anything we’ve seen before. It’s not just an uptick in raids. It is a full-scale military occupation, confronting you wherever you go. You can’t drive more than a couple blocks without seeing roving bands of cars with tinted windows containing masked men in full military equipment: helmets, balaclavas, long guns, tactical equipment, crowd control munitions. They pull up to bus stops, leap out, grab a brown person, shove them in the car, then speed away. They don’t check papers. Some people have been held in detention centers for weeks before it came out that they were US citizens.
\n\nWe are witnessing a racial pogrom.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/6.jpg\")
\nAfterwards, as we are sitting down for breakfast, we get a message that ICE hit someone’s car a few blocks from us. “Abduction in process at the corner of 2nd and Pine. The man is saying he is a US citizen.” We quickly pay and rush to the scene.
\n\nIn the middle of a block, we see a sedan with its rear end crumpled. Behind it, two ICE vehicles sit with their lights flashing. The agents were pursuing someone and rammed into him, causing an accident in a residential neighborhood. There are cars blocking the intersection on both sides, the occupants standing in the road. Some people are filming, many are whistling and honking their horns, others are yelling at the officers, a few are throwing snowballs. Within 15 minutes, hundreds of people have assembled.
\n\nThen ICE reinforcements begin to arrive. They deploy tear gas, pepper spray, and shoot rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse the crowd.
\n\nWhile the rapid response networks haven’t stemmed the flow of abductions, diverting dozens of agents who would otherwise be kidnapping people to engage in crowd control is slowing their operations and demoralizing agents. Gregory Bovino, senior Border Patrol official, recently admitted this, conceding that the ways that community members have responded to ICE operations in the Twin Cities are making his job1 more difficult.
\n\nAfter about an hour of navigating the traffic jam of parked cars and angry residents, the pack of agents succeed in extricating themselves. They release the man who was struck by the ICE vehicle. A senior agent mechanically delivers a few words of apology, but the violence continues throughout the Twin Cities.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/9.jpg\")
\nAt this very moment, ICE is undergoing a transformation into a political police force. Recent leaks show that secret ICE programs seek to exploit every detainee to acquire information, and they aim to deploy up to 2000 “intelligence” assets into communities around the country for the purpose of spying on migrants and citizens alike. These operations—and the strategy of the Department of Homeland Security in general—are not just targeting immigrants; they are also intended to target opponents of the Trump regime.
\n\nThe administration alleges threats from so-called “Antifa” and the “radical left” to justify their authoritarian consolidation of power. But the fact that the FBI called Renee Good a domestic terrorist and pressured prosecutors to investigate her widow shows what they mean by these terms. The “radical left” is a catch-all term that will be retroactively deployed to describe anyone who is randomly murdered by federal agents—or anyone that they would like to murder. Whenever they say “radical left,” they are saying that they intend to go on murdering people the way that they murdered Renee Good, and they intend to do so with impunity.
\n\nWhen the Department of Homeland Security posts a meme on its official social media account promoting “100 million deportations,” it should be clear to all that ICE is not just targeting those who currently lack the proper immigration documents. They have all of the hundreds of millions of people who oppose the Trump agenda in their sights. Given a free hand, they will kidnap or murder every single one.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/1.jpg\")
\nWe can catch a glimpse of this in a current federal case in Fort Worth, Texas. Following a July 4th rally at the ICE-operated Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, an officer allegedly sustained a gunshot injury. The officer in question has no medical records substantiating this claim, but the authorities arrested nine people that night and ten more in the months since. All nineteen now face the threat of decades in prison on account of their alleged connection with the rally or else for their political beliefs alone. One Dallas teacher, Dario Sanchez, faces state charges for allegedly removing someone from a Signal group chat. Daniel Sanchez Estrada, a local artist, faces federal charges for carrying a box of pamphlets out of his wife’s home. Neither of these individuals were even at the Prairieland Detention Center for the rally in question.
\n\nWhereas the Twin Cities are the front lines of ICE enforcement operations, the Prairieland case shows how they are weaponizing the legal apparatus to crush dissent all around the country. Freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of thought are being disappeared as quickly as our neighbors are. The precedents that they are setting will soon be wielded against anyone who dares to stand up to the rising tide of authoritarianism.
\n\nUnless we act fast to stop them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/3.jpg\")
\nIf you can, come to Minneapolis. Bring a crew of two or more so you can act independently as you support local organizing. Bring a phone with service and a car with all wheel drive. Plug into local rapid response networks. Don’t rely on a single set of tactics. The situation changes day by day. Be flexible. Be creative. Be bold.
\n\nIdentify targets that are directly linked to ICE. We need to spread narratives that publicize which companies are complicit in ICE abductions and offer concrete points of intervention. Here are some examples:
\n\nUnfortunately, in a time of rising authoritarianism, economic crisis, and ecological catastrophe, ICE is not the only danger threatening our communities. What would it take for this movement to become capable of taking the offensive across the country?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/8.jpg\")
Click on the image to download the poster as a printable PDF.
\nIt will not become easier to protest.
\n\nIt will only become harder to organize.
\n\nIt is easier to win now that it ever will be again.
\n\nWe are afraid. We know you are too. But together we can be brave.
\n\nWe can win.
\n\n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/minneapolis-needs-you.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Download a PDF to print and share. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/a/everyone-to-the-front.jpg\") \n \n | \n
Gregory Bovino was dubbed Border Patrol “Commander at Large” (a rank with no statutory basis) by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The transition from democracy to autocracy involves the emergence of new militarized groups that operate outside the old protocol; Bovino’s “job” reflects this. ↩
\nIn the following analysis, anarchists from Germany explore how events from German history should inform those who are resisting the consolidation of authoritarian power in the United States today.
\n\nGreetings from Germany. Even though we have seen many videos of police murdering people, it still enrages us every time. After the murder of Renee Good, we reflected on what we could do to support the opposition to Donald Trump.
\n\nWe have decided to share our experiences from Germany and German history in hopes that this will help people in the United States to defend themselves against attempts to control, pacify, and divide. One of the central elements of the Nazi rise to power in Germany was the fact that the leaders of the Social Democrat parties participated in the crackdowns suppressing a series of uprisings.
\n\nIn addition, we want to call on everyone else in the territory claimed by Germany to support the resistance in the United States with all resources available. If Trump is stopped, we may also have the chance to defeat authoritarianism here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/8.jpg\")
“Remember Renee—Don’t let the state destroy all good in the world.” A poster in remembrance of Renee Good seen somewhere in Germany. You can download the design in Appendix I, below.
\nBefore the Nazis took power, Germany had one of the largest workers’ movements in the entire world. This movement was dominated by the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From 1919 on, the second strongest power was the Communist Party (KPD). Consequently, the German workers’ movement has always been strongly focused on elections as a means of acquiring state power.
\n\nDespite this focus on the parliamentary route, the rank and file of the German workers’ movement has repeatedly been compelled to resort to other means. In 1918, a revolution organized by workers and soldiers overthrew the emperor and created the first German republic, creating a government led by the Social Democrats.
\n\nShortly afterwards, right-wing militias and elements of the official military staged a coup against the government in Berlin. The government fled.
\n\nIn response, a nationwide general strike took place with millions taking part. In the Ruhr area, workers went a step further: tens of thousands armed themselves and drove the police and military out of the region, establishing workers’ councils. In the cities where the anarcho-syndicalists were strong, people also expropriated companies. The workers were so powerful and the regular German military so weak that the most important industrial region of Germany, a region with millions of inhabitants, was liberated from the control of the state.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/3.jpg\")
An anti-fascist workers’ militia in the town of Dortmund during the Ruhr Uprising.
\nAfter the strikes, direct actions, and militant struggle stopped the coup, the same social democrats that the workers had helped to victory quelled the uprising. To accomplish this, they made use of some of the right-wing militias that had previously been involved in the coup. They were able to do this because half of the workers withdrew from action after the “legitimate” government was back in power.
\n\nTo crush the Ruhr uprising, state forces murdered over a thousand workers, including many of the most militant fighters of the workers’ movement. Consequently, they were not able to participate in the resistance to the growing fascist movement in the following decade.
\n\nSome 93 years after the suppression of the Ruhr uprising, it was the same party, the SPD, that deployed over 31,000 cops to the G20 summit in Hamburg to defend the autocrats Trump, Putin, Erdogan, and Xi.
\n\nToday, the SPD is in a coalition with the conservative CDU. Its chancellor, German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz, gives speeches in which he speaks of migrants as “a problem in the cityscape.”
\n\nIn short, the SPD are to Germany what the Democrats are to the United States. The Democrats, too, are trying to pacify the resistance against Trump in order to maintain their own power.
\n\nWithout the uprising that took place in 2020, the Democrats likely would not have returned to power. Yet after that uprising, the Democrats sought to eliminate the most militant elements of the resistance via repression while doing their best to re-legitimize the same institutions—such as ICE—that now serve Trump once again.
\n\nWe do not know how history would have turned out if the workers had not let themselves be divided during the Ruhr uprising—if many of them had not given up as soon as the democratically elected rulers were back in power. But the Ruhr uprising was the best chance to stop the rise of fascism in Germany. After that, no large anti-fascist insurrection took place again.
\n\nIn the long term, it’s better not to compromise, not to let oneself be pacified and disarmed, whether literally or figuratively. Being uncompromising and taking risks is often safer than restoring the status quo.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/4.jpg\")
German SWAT police attempting to suppress resistance to the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg, in order to defend Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Saudi Arabian finance minister Muhammad al-Jadaan.
\nThe other lesson that we can draw from German history is that civil war is not the worst thing that can happen. After 1933, there was resistance to fascism in Germany, but the resistance movement was too weak to wage a large-scale struggle like the Ruhr uprising.
\n\nBy contrast, in countries like Spain and Italy, where the workers’ movement was not dominated by social democrats focused on elections but rather was driven by anarchists and socialists focused on grassroots organizing and action, a long struggle took place against the fascist regimes that came to power, involving extensive resistance.
\n\nIn the case of Spain, after decades of unauthorized demonstrations, strikes, and militant attacks, the capitalist elite were forced to introduce a democratic system as a concession. The foundation for this extensive resistance had been laid by generations of peasants’ and workers’ resistance from which a great anarchist movement grew, culminating in the anarchist revolution in 1936 and the civil war from 1936 to 1939. Although the anarchists were defeated in the civil war, their efforts left such a mark in Spain that eventually fascism was abolished without the sort of military defeat that was essential to ending fascism in Germany.
\n\nTo be clear, we do not want a civil war. We want a social revolution—we want people to stand so decisively against the state and capitalism, with such unity, that the other side is too small to wage war at all. But if our only choice is between civil war and a dictatorship that will have a free hand to imprison and murder millions of people, then the decision should be clear. Civil war is better.
\n\nDemocrats in the United States are trying to stoke fear that “non-peaceful” confrontations with ICE and the Trump regime will lead to the deployment of the military. And then what? People will get shot for protesting? But aren’t people already being shot?
\n\nWhat the Democrats really fear is not that people could be hurt in the streets, but that Democrat politicians might lose their jobs. Because they want to maintain their own power, they try to pacify and divide the resistance with rhetoric about the necessity of remaining “non-violent” and “law-abiding.”
\n\nWhat happens when a population unites against a regime and no longer stops at what is legally permitted? We saw the answer in Germany in 1989 when the GDR (the so-called “German Democratic Republic”) collapsed.
\n\nAt that time, the resistance to the regime was not all “nonviolent.” There were attacks on the police. The demonstrations were not law-abiding—in fact, they were all illegal. Millions of people broke the law. Because of the number of people on the streets refusing to obey, the regime knew that it would have to use the military, including tanks, to quell the uprising.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/5.jpg\")
“No Power for nobody”: Anarchists participate in the largest demonstration against the GDR Regime in 1989. Anarchists, especially anarcho-punks and eco-activists, played an important role in bringing down the dictatorship.
\nParts of the government became afraid of escalation. They were unsure whether their military was ready to obey the order to attack protesters. They asked their main ally—the Soviet Union—to support them with troops. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev refused.
\n\nThe Trump regime is not dependent on Moscow, at least not in this particular way. But it relies on an American state apparatus that is not entirely under its control.
\n\nAs long as the Trump regime is not forced to use the military and all other available forces, as long as the loyal shock troops of ICE suffice to enable them to accomplish their goals, those who are not yet definitively on Donald Trump’s side will not have to make a decision. They will not have to experience a Gorbachev moment in which they might decide against carrying out Trump’s orders.
\n\nEscalation always involves the risk of losing. But holding back in this situation means choosing to lose.
\n\nThe downfall of the GDR also shows that it is not necessarily useful to address resistance directly to the despot, as he will not be the one who hesitates, but rather to those who are not completely ideologically on his side.
\n\nIn the context of the United States, this would mean not to focus all energy on ICE and Trump. It is important to oppose them, but that will go much better if every time Democrat politicians send local and state police and National Guard to protect ICE, they experience consequences that make it impossible for them to continue to do so.
\n\nThe uprising in the GDR did not succeed in a vacuum. In many countries in Eastern Europe, the heads of numerous dictatorships were forced to decide whether to double down on repression or make concessions. Any weakening of the dictatorship in a neighboring country made it possible to expand the fighting elsewhere, because it was no longer possible to move troops from one Warsaw Pact state to another.
\n\nWe want to propose a question. What would it take to ensure that a mayor in the USA can no longer send the police when people try to confront a hotel full of ICE agents? What has to happen to compel a governor to order his National Guard not to interfere? What circumstances would have to prevail on the street to make it impossible for the National Guard of one state to be sent in another?
\n\nWhile fascists and autocrats are not yet in power in Germany, the day when they could be is not far away. The AFD (Alternative for Germany) is about to become the strongest party in Germany. The AFD represents positions similar to the MAGA movement, and the demographics that support them are similar.
\n\nWhile it has a clearly fascist base, most people do not vote for the AFD because they support its positions. As surveys show, they vote AFD to express their anger at the existing system. Consequently, the AFD is now especially successful in the Ruhr area—the region where the largest anti-fascist uprising in German history took place in 1920—as well as in East Germany. This is not a coincidence. After the people in Ruhr area mined coal for 100 years to support German industry and German wars, the region was left impoverished the way that the Rust Belt in the United States has been since the 1970s.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/6.jpg\")
A survey of AFD voters in February 2025, in which 85% of them claimed that the AFD was the only political party via which they could express their protest.
\nAnd who was responsible for this? The SPD—the social democrats who managed the process of economic decline for 50 years while diligently profiting from their posts in the state apparatus until the situation finally became so stark that they could not maintain their majorities.
\n\nAnd here we find another parallel: just like Trump, the AFD does not promise material improvements to its base; rather, it promises hatred and violence. It will not benefit the majority of its constituents. The AFD openly states in its election program that it intends to cut German social spending, just as the Republicans are doing under Trump. Its leaders are primarily recruited from the academic elites; they are not the ones who are at risk from these cuts.
\n\nThe neoliberal left (SPD) and the conservatives (CDU) who are currently in power in Germany have already partially implemented these cuts on the grounds that doing so would stop the AFD from gaining support. Unsurprisingly, this has done nothing to erode the popularity of the AFD. These neoliberal leftists and conservatives are comparable to the right wing of the US Democrats.
\n\nThe only other notable political force in Germany is the Left Party, which now represents the new Social Democracy. It’s clear where this will end up. In the neoliberal global order, and due to the decline of the imperialist rule of Europe, the Left Party will not be able to carry out significant social reforms. Like Syriza, it will betray its predominantly young voters—this has already been shown in the decision to abstain from the vote on a pension package, which allowed the law to pass. (At the expense of the younger generations, this pension package preserves the status quo of the state pension without compelling privileged groups—such as Beamte, a special group of state employees, entrepreneurs, and self-employed people such as doctors—to pay into the general pension system.)
\n\nTo summarize: just as in the United States, where the Democrats do not represent a real alternative to Trump and cannot stop the fundamental causes of authoritarianism, in Germany, there is no real alternative to be found within the state.
\n\nThe only way out would be a movement that overturns the fundamental power structure of society, putting an end to the state and capitalism. Unfortunately, the prospects for this in Germany are currently very weak.
\n\nIn view of all these factors, we could be reduced to despair, but actually, we are still capable of hope. We are able to hope because we have experienced that what is happening in the United States can spill over to Germany. Inspired by the George Floyd uprising, tens of thousands in Germany spontaneously took to the streets against the violence of the police in the summer of 2020—something that has not happened in Germany for decades, because, thanks to their “good training” see Appendix II, the police rarely kill white people from the middle class. Summer 2020 was one of the few moments in the past decades when, for a moment, something other than the status quo seemed possible.
\n\nAfter that, protests continued against police murders, although—being organized by an alliance of liberals, social democrats, and parts of the so-called “radical left”—they were mostly directed at securing the convictions of the policemen involved. As in the United States, this strategy has failed utterly. Instead of becoming more “accountable,” police are expanding their powers in Germany, including the use of Tasers, AI-based surveillance, and the installation of monitoring software.
\n\nBut if people in the US succeed in stopping Trump and the resistance that unfolds exceeds the control of Democrat politicians, if something better than the old status quo becomes possible, that will also inspire people in Germany and all around the world.
\n\nThat is why we want to call on everyone in the territory claimed by Germany to support the resistance against Trump.
\n\nThe only route that promises long-term security is the route to another world.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/7.jpg\")
15,000 people protest in solidarity with the George Floyd Uprising on June 6, 2020 in Berlin.
\nAfter seeing the above photograph of this poster hanging in Germany, we’ve succeeded in acquiring a PDF of it, which you can download here.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/9.jpg\")
Click on the image to download the PDF.
\nIn their attempts to pacify resistance to the Trump regime, Democrats promote the narrative that a “better trained” police force would be less violent.
\n\nThe example of the German police shows that this is false. German police are among the most highly trained in the world. German officers receive two and a half or even three years of training. They receive training in deescalation and communication. This does not prevent them from murdering people.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/1.jpg\")
German police receiving training about racism against Sinti and Romani people.
\nA well-trained police force does not create more freedom and security. It creates a stronger state. It is precisely this “strong” state that has repeatedly made great horrors possible in German history.
\n\nIn 2024, police in Germany shot and killed 22 people. For comparison, if the population of Germany were equivalent to the population of the United States, this would mean that German police killed approximately 100 people. In the United States, police kill over 1000 people a year, but the figures in Germany do not include those who have been killed by the police in other ways—there are no central statistics about the total number of police murders in Germany, just as there were no public statistics about police murders in the United States until fierce demonstrations brought the subject to light. Firearms are much harder to come by in Germany, yet the police still kill people, even without that justification.
\n\nIn any case, despite all the training, the number of people that police shoot in Germany is increasing.
\n\nAre police less likely to do violence to people because they are trained to “help” them? Consider the case of a deaf 12-year-old, whom police shot on the night of November 16, 2025. The police were sent by the youth welfare office because the 12-year-old had left a residential group of the youth welfare office to visit her family. Shortly after midnight, several police officers broke into the family’s home, pulled the mother, who was also deaf, out of the apartment, and shot the 12-year-old with both a pistol and a Taser. The child survived, though critically injured. The police claim that the 12-year-old had a knife in her hand. If she really did have a knife in her hand, it was a spontaneous attempt to defend her family against the violence of the state.
\n\nThe reasoning of the police for the operation was that the twelve-year-old urgently needed insulin and therefore had to intervene. The logic is that the state must protect people from themselves by force, must violently rule them for their own good. Training is not the issue here. The problem is the monopolization of force by an institution that exists for the sake of using violence against the general public.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/21/2.jpg\")
The entrance to the apartment building where German police shot a 12-year-old girl on November 16, 2025. It is located in Hamme, a working class neighborhood in the town of Bochum in the Ruhr Area.
\nStarting on December 28, 2025, a new wave of protest broke out across Iran, triggered by economic distress and escalating to call for the toppling of the government. This is at least the fifth such movement in a decade, drawing on previous waves of labor unrest and feminist resistance. Yet within this uprising, the grassroots movement contends with reactionary monarchists, largely based outside Iran, who seek to win the backing of the United States and Israel to seize power.
\n\nThis comes in the midst of a tumultuous geopolitical situation. The Israeli government has intensified the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon and the seizure of land in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria; it is preparing to construct a settlement that will cut the West Bank in half in order to make a Palestinian state impossible. The United States has just kidnapped the president of Venezuela and his wife in order to seize Venezuelan oil, signaling a readiness to go to great lengths to dominate people both inside and outside its borders.
\n\nIn the fall of 2025, protesters in Nepal and elsewhere demonstrated that it is still possible for social movements to overthrow governments. A successful revolution in Iran could set off a wave of change around the world. But if such a revolution were hijacked by reactionary forces, it could set movements for liberation back another generation or more.
\n\nThe stakes are high. We owe it to grassroots movements in Iran to learn about them and support them, both because they are confronting a desperate situation and to ensure that a puppet regime serving Israel and the United States cannot come to power. Here, we present three perspectives on the uprising of the past week and a half.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/3.jpg\")
\nThis text was contributed by an anarchist based inside Iran who is actively documenting and reporting on the current situation. Due to serious security concerns, the author prefers to remain anonymous.
\n\nFor nearly a decade, Iranian society has repeatedly witnessed waves of street protests directed against the ruling political system, the Islamic Republic. While these protests have emerged as the consequence of different immediate triggers, they are all rooted in deep and unresolved structural crises—economic, political, and social—that continue to shape everyday life in Iran.
\n\nThroughout these years, the state’s primary response to public dissent has been systematic repression. Protest movements have consistently been met with lethal force, mass arrests, imprisonment, and widespread intimidation. Far from resolving the underlying issues, this approach has contributed to the accumulation of public anger and a growing sense of injustice across society.
\n\nThe most recent protests were initially triggered by the dramatic collapse of Iran’s national currency and the severe deterioration of living conditions. The rapid devaluation of the rial, combined with soaring inflation and widespread poverty, has pushed large segments of the population beyond economic survival. These conditions have led many to conclude that the crisis is not temporary or reformable, but structural and inseparable from the existing system of power.
\n\nUnlike earlier episodes, the current protests reflect a broader level of collective awareness. Demonstrations are no longer confined to specific cities or social groups; instead, they have spread simultaneously across multiple regions, involving diverse segments of society. Economic grievances have quickly transformed into explicitly political demands, with protesters openly calling for the end of authoritarian rule and the dismantling of the Islamic Republic.
\n\nAt the same time, parts of the opposition—most notably, monarchist groups—are attempting to capitalize on the protest movement. Through satellite media and social platforms, these actors seek to present themselves as viable political alternatives, drawing on nostalgic narratives of the pre-revolutionary era while attempting to redirect popular anger toward their own projects of power.
\n\nMeanwhile, state repression has intensified significantly. Reports indicate that more than ten protesters have been killed and hundreds arrested in recent days, though the real figures are likely higher. Security forces have expanded their use of violence, surveillance, and arbitrary detention, placing immense pressure on protesters and the wider population.
\n\nOverall, the current situation in Iran represents far more than a spontaneous outbreak of unrest. It signals a profound crisis of legitimacy, the collapse of public trust in governing institutions, and a critical phase in the confrontation between society and the ruling order. The trajectory of this moment will depend on the balance between social resistance, state repression, and the capacity of people to organize independently outside both state power and elite opposition forces.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/1.jpg\")
\nThe following analysis is contributed by Roja, an independent, leftist, feminist collective based in Paris. Roja was born after the femicide of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, alongside the beginning of the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” uprising in September 2022. The collective is composed of political activists from a range of nationalities and political geographies within Iran, including Kurdish, Hazara, Persian, and more. Roja’s activities are not only connected to social movements in Iran and the Middle East, but also to local struggles in Paris in step with internationalist struggles, including in support of Palestine. The name “Roja” is inspired by the resonance of several words in different languages: in Spanish, roja means “red”; in Kurdish, roj means “light” and “day”; in Mazandarani, roja means the “morning star” or “Venus,” considered the brightest celestial body at night.
\n\nUpdate, January 9: This political intervention was written by Roja on January 4, 2026, on the sixth day of Iran’s nationwide protests. Much has unfolded since then—above all the historically unprecedented night of January 8, the twelfth day of the uprising. The day began with a general strike among shopkeepers and in the merchant economy, notably in Kurdistan, called by Kurdish parties. The shutdown of shops converged with street and campus mobilizations across the country. Clashes with security forces spread through dozens of cities, from the capital to border provinces; one rights-monitoring report counted protest actions in at least 46 cities across 21 provinces on that day. By nightfall, circulating footage showed crowds on an extremely shocking scale that routine policing could not contain: millions of people taking back the streets as their own and, in many places, pushing the security presence into retreat—an atmosphere that, for many, carried the memory of the months leading to the 1979 revolution.\nOn the evening of January 8, as the Islamic Republic’s repressive apparatus faltered and the streets slipped beyond its grip, it implemented a near-total internet shutdown. The blackout continues at the time of writing, an attempt to sever circuits of coordination and to pre-empt the documentation of killings.
\n\nAt the same time, Donald Trump reiterated threats of retaliation if the Islamic Republic escalates killings, while also—only partially—distancing himself from Reza Pahlavi, saying he was not sure a meeting would be appropriate and that “we should let everybody go out there and we see who emerges.” The fixation on the “son of the Shah” obscures another tendency, no less real, which we focus on in this text: the prospect of a controlled transition through internal reconfiguration—change without rupture—along the lines of what has recently unfolded in Venezuela.
\n\nSince December 28, 2025, Iran has once again been burning in the fever of widespread protests. Chants of “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” have echoed through the streets in at least 222 locations across 78 cities in 26 provinces. The protests are not only against poverty, soaring prices, inflation, and dispossession, but against an entire political system rotten to the bone. Life has become untenable for the majority—especially for the working class, women, queer people, and non-Persian ethnic minorities. This is due not only to the free fall of Iranian currency following the twelve-day-war, but also to the breakdown of basic social services, including repeated power cuts; a deepening environmental crisis (air pollution, drought, deforestation, and the mismanagement of water resources); and mass executions (at least 2,063 people in 2025)—all of which have combined to worsen living conditions.
\n\nThe crisis of social reproduction is the focal point of the current protests, and their ultimate horizon is the reclaiming of life.
\n\nThis uprising is the fifth wave in a chain of protests that began in December 2017 with the uprising known as the “Bread Revolt.” This continued with the bloody uprising of November 2019, an explosion of public rage against the fuel price hike and injustice. The 2021 revolt was known as the “uprising of the thirsty,” initiated and led by Arab ethnic minorities. This wave peaked with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022, which brought women’s liberation struggles and the anti-colonial struggles of oppressed nations such as Kurds and Baluchis to the fore, opening new horizons. Today’s uprising centers the crisis of social reproduction once again—this time, on a more radical, post-war terrain. Protests that begin with livelihood demands, but with striking speed, target the structures of power and the corrupt ruling oligarchy.
\n\nThe ongoing protests in Iran are besieged on all sides by both external and internal threats. Only one day before the imperialist US assault on Venezuela, Donald Trump, draped in the language of “support for protesters,” issued a warning: if the Iranian government “kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” This is imperialism’s oldest script, using the rhetoric of “saving lives” to legitimize war—whether in Iraq or Libya. The US is still following that script today: in 2025 alone, it launched direct military attacks against seven countries.
\n\nThe genocidal Israeli government, having previously staged its twelve-day assault against Iran under the name of “Woman, Life, Freedom” now writes in Persian on social media: “We stand with you, protesters.” Monarchists, as the local arm of Zionism, who took on the stain and shame of supporting Israel during the Twelve-Day War, are now trying to present themselves to their Western masters as the only alternative. They have done this through selective representation and manipulation of reality, launching a cyber-campaign to appropriate the protests, to fabricate, distort, and alter the sound of street slogans in favor of monarchism. This reveals their deceitfulness, their monopolistic ambitions, their media power, and, crucially, their weakness inside the country, as they lack material power in Iran. With the slogan “Make Iran Great Again,” this group welcomed Trump’s imperial operation in Venezuela and are now waiting for the kidnapping of the leaders of the Islamic Republic by American and Israeli hit men.
\n\nAnd, of course, there are the pseudo-left campists—the self-styled “anti-imperialists”—who whitewash the Islamic Republic’s dictatorship by projecting an anti-imperialist mask onto its façade. They cast doubt on the legitimacy of the current protests by repeating the tired accusation that “an uprising under these conditions is nothing but playing on the field of imperialism,” because they can only read Iran through the lens of geopolitical conflict—as if every revolt is merely a US–Israeli project in disguise. In doing so, they deny the political subjectivity of the people of Iran and grant the Islamic Republic discursive and political immunity as it massacres and represses its own population.
\n\n“Angry at imperialism” yet “afraid of revolution”—to recall Amir Parviz Puyan’s seminal formulation—their posture is a form of reactionary anti-reaction. We are even told not to write about Iran’s recent protests, killings, and repression in any language other than Persian in international arenas, lest we give the imperialists a “pretext”—as if, beyond Persian, there are no people in the region or the world capable of shared destinies, shared experience, connection, and solidarity in struggle. For campists, there is no subject other than Western governments, and no social reality other than geopolitics.
\n\nIn opposition to these enemies, we insist on the legitimacy of these protests—on the intersection of oppressions, and on the shared destiny of struggles. The reactionary monarchist current is expanding within the Iranian far-right opposition, and the imperialist threat against people in Iran—including the danger of foreign intervention—is real. But so is the people’s fury, forged across four decades of brutal repression, exploitation, and the state’s “internal colonialism” targeting non-Persian communities.
\n\nWe have no choice but to face these contradictions as they are. What we are seeing today is an insurgent force rising from the depths of Iran’s social hell: people staking their lives to survive, confronting the machinery of repression head-on.
\n\nWe have no right to use the pretext of an external threat to deny the violence inflicted on millions in Iran—or to deny the right to rise up against it.
\n\nThose who come into the streets are tired of abstract, simplistic, patronizing analyses. They fight from within contradictions: they live under sanctions while simultaneously experiencing the plunder of a domestic oligarchy. They fear war, and they fear internal dictatorship. But they do not freeze in fear. They insist on being active subjects of their own destiny—and their horizon, at least since December 2017, is no longer reform, but the fall of the Islamic Republic.
\n\nThe protests were sparked by the free fall of the rial—erupting first among shopkeepers in the capital, especially in mobile-phone and computer markets—but they quickly expanded into a broad, heterogeneous uprising that pulled in wage workers, street vendors, porters, and service workers across the merchant economy of Tehran. The revolt then moved quickly from Tehran’s streets into universities and to other cities, notably smaller ones, which have become the epicenter of this protest wave.
\n\nFrom the outset, the slogans targeted the Islamic Republic as a whole. Today, the revolt is being carried forward above all by the poor and dispossessed: youth, the unemployed, surplus populations, precarious workers, and students.
\n\nSome have dismissed the protests because they began in the Bazaar (the merchant economy of Tehran), which is often perceived as an ally of the regime and a symbol of commercial capitalism. They have branded the protests “petty-bourgeois” or “regime-linked.” This reflex recalls early reactions to France’s Yellow Vest movement of 2018: because the revolt emerged outside the “traditional” working class and recognized left networks, and because it carried contradictory slogans, many rushed to declare it doomed to reaction.
\n\nBut where an uprising begins does not determine where it goes. Its point of departure does not predetermine its trajectory. The current protests in Iran could have been reignited by any spark, not only the Bazaar. Here too, what began in the Bazaar quickly spread to the neighborhoods of the urban poor across the country.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/2.jpg\")
\nIf the beating heart of “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” in 2022 pulsed from marginalized regions—Kurdistan and Baluchestan—today, smaller cities in the west and southwest have become central nodes of unrest: Hamedan, Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Kermanshah, and Ilam. The Lor, Bakhtiari, and Lak minorities in these regions are being doubly crushed under the Islamic Republic’s overlapping crises: the pressure of sanctions and the shadow of war, ethnic repression and exploitation, and the ecological destruction that threatens their lives—especially across the Zagros. This is the same region where Mojahid Korkor (a Lor protester during the Jina/Mahsa Amini uprising) was executed by the Islamic Republic one day before Israel’s assault, and where Kian Pirfalak, a nine-year-old child, was killed by live ammunition fired by security forces during the 2022 uprising.
\n\nNevertheless, unlike the Jina uprising—which from the outset expanded consciously along gender/sexual and ethnic fault lines—class antagonism has been more explicit in the recent protests, and so far, their spread has followed a more mass-based logic.
\n\nBetween December 28 and January 4, 2025, at least 17 people were killed by the Islamic Republic’s repressive forces using live ammunition and pellet guns—most of them Lor (in the broad sense, especially in Lorestan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari) and Kurdish (especially in Ilam and Kermanshah). Hundreds have been arrested (at least 580 people, including at minimum 70 minors); dozens have been injured. As the protests advance, police violence escalates: on the seventh day in Ilam, security forces raided Imam-Khomeini Hospital to arrest the wounded; in Birjand, they attacked a women’s student dormitory. The death toll continues to rise as the uprising deepens, and the real numbers are certainly higher than those announced.
\n\nThe distribution of this violence is uneven, of course: repression is harsher in smaller cities—especially in marginalized, minority communities that have been pushed to the periphery. The bloody killings in Malekshahi in Ilam and in Jafarabad in Kermanshah bear witness to this structural disparity in oppression and repression.
\n\nOn the fourth day of protest, the government—coordinating across institutions—announced widespread closures in 23 provinces under the pretext of “cold weather” or “energy shortages.” In reality, this was an attempt to break the circuits through which revolt spreads—Bazaar, university, street. In parallel, universities increasingly shifted classes online to cut horizontal ties among spaces of resistance.
\n\nAfter the Twelve-Day War, Iran’s ruling power—seeking to compensate for its collapsed authority—has turned more openly to violence. Israel’s attacks on Iran’s military sites and civilians further militarized and securitized the political and social space, notably via the racist campaign of mass deportation of Afghan immigrants. And while the state speaks relentlessly in the name of “national security,” it has itself become a central producer of insecurity: intensified insecurity of life through an unprecedented surge in executions, the systemic mistreatment of prisoners, and intensified economic insecurity through the brutal reduction of people’s livelihoods.
\n\nThe Twelve-Day War—followed by intensified US and EU sanctions and the activation of the UN Security Council snapback mechanism—tightened pressure on oil revenues, banking, and the financial sector, choking foreign-currency inflows and deepening the budget crisis.
\n\nFrom June 24, 2025, when the war ended, to the night that the first protests erupted in Tehran’s Bazaar on December 18, the rial lost around 40 percent of its value. This was not a “natural” market fluctuation. It was the combined outcome of escalating sanctions and the Islamic Republic’s deliberate effort to pass on the effects of the crisis from above to below through the managed devaluation of the national currency.
\n\nThe sanctions must be condemned unconditionally. In today’s Iran, however, they also operate as an instrument of internal class power. Foreign currency is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a military–security oligarchy that profits from sanctions circumvention and opaque oil brokerage. Export revenues are effectively held hostage, released into the formal economy only at select moments, at manipulated rates. Even when oil sales rise, the proceeds circulate within quasi-state institutions and a “parallel state” (above all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), rather than entering people’s everyday lives.
\n\nTo cover the deficit produced by falling revenues and blocked returns, the state turns to subsidy removals and austerity. In this framework, the rial’s sudden fall becomes a fiscal tool: it forces “hostage” currency back into circulation on state terms and rapidly expands the government’s rial resources—since the state itself is among the largest holders of dollars. The result is direct extraction from the incomes of the lower and middle classes, and the transfer of profits from sanctions circumvention and currency rent to a narrow minority—deepening class division, livelihood instability, and social rage. In other words, the costs of sanctions are paid directly by the lower classes and the shrinking middle strata.
\n\nThe collapse of the national currency must therefore be understood as organized state plunder in a war-scarred, sanction-strangled economy: deliberate exchange-rate manipulation in favor of brokerage networks tied to the ruling oligarchy, in the service of a state that has turned neoliberal price liberalization into a sacred doctrine.
\n\nCampist pseudo-leftists reduce the crisis to US sanctions and dollar hegemony, erasing the role of the ruling class of the Islamic Republic as active agents of dispossession and financialized accumulation. Right-wing campists, generally aligned with Western imperialism, blame only the Islamic Republic and treat the sanctions as irrelevant. These positions mirror each another—and each side has clear interests in adopting them. Against both of them, we insist on recognizing the entanglement of global and local plunder and exploitation. Yes, sanctions devastate people’s lives—through medicine shortages, missing industrial parts, unemployment, and psychological erosion—but the burden is socialized onto the people, not onto the military-security oligarchy that amasses enormous wealth by controlling the informal circuits of currency and oil.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/4.jpg\")
\nIn the street, contradictory slogans are heard, from calls to overthrow the Islamic Republic to nostalgic appeals for monarchy. At the same time, students chant slogans target both the Islamic Republic’s despotism and monarchical autocracy. Pro-Shah and pro-Pahlavi slogans reflect real contradictions on the ground—but they are also amplified and manufactured through right-wing media distortions, including the shameful replacement of the voice of protestors with monarchist slogans. The chief perpetrator of media manipulation is Iran International, which has become a megaphone for Zionist and monarchist propaganda. Its annual budget is reportedly around $250 million, funded by individuals and institutions linked to the governments of Saudi Arabia and Israel.
\n\nOver the past decade, Iran’s geography has become a field of tension between two socio-political horizons, mediated by two different models of organizing against the Islamic Republic. On one side stands concrete, embedded social organizing along the fault lines of class, gender/sexuality, and ethnicity—most vividly, in the intersecting networks forged during the Jina uprising in 2022, stretching from Evin Prison to the diaspora, and producing an unprecedented unity among diverse forces, from women to Kurdish and Baluchi ethnic minorities, opposing the dictatorship while presenting feminist and anti-colonial horizons. On the other side stands a populist mobilization staged as a “national revolution,” aimed at producing a homogeneous mass of atomized individuals through satellite television networks. Backed by Israel and Saudi Arabia, this project seeks to assemble a body whose “head”—the son of the deposed Shah—can later be inserted from outside, through foreign-backed intervention, and grafted onto it. Over the past decade, monarchists, armed with massive media power, have pushed public opinion toward an extreme, racist nationalism—deepening ethnic rifts and fragmenting the political imagination of Iran’s peoples.
\n\nThe growth of this current in recent years is not a sign of people’s political “backwardness,” but the result of the lack of broad left organization and media power in producing an alternative counter-hegemonic discourse—an absence and weakness partly produced by repression and suffocation, which opened space for this reactionary populism. In the absence of a powerful narrative from left, democratic, and non-nationalist forces, even universal slogans and ideals such as freedom, justice, and women’s rights can easily be appropriated by monarchists and sold back to the people in an apparently progressive shell that hides an authoritarian core. In some cases, this is even packaged in socialist vocabulary—this is precisely where the far-right also devours the terrain of political economy.
\n\nAt the same time, as antagonism with the Islamic Republic intensifies, tensions between these two horizons and models have also intensified; today the divide between them can be seen in the geographic distribution of protest slogans. Since the “return of Pahlavi” project represents a patriarchal horizon based on Persian ethno-nationalism and a deeply right-wing orientation, in places where grassroots worker and feminist organizing has emerged—in universities and in Kurdish, Arab, Baluchi, Turkmen, Arab and Turk regions—pro-monarchy slogans are largely absent and often provoke negative reactions. This contradictory situation has led to various ways of misunderstanding the recent uprising.
\n\nIran stands at a decisive historical moment. The Islamic Republic is in one of its weakest positions in history—internationally, after October 7, 2023 and the weakening of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” and internally, after years of repeated insurgencies and uprisings. The future of this new wave remains uncertain, but the scale of the crisis and the depth of popular dissatisfaction ensure that another round of protests can erupt at any moment. Even if today’s uprising is suppressed, it will return. In this conjuncture, any military or imperial intervention can only weaken the struggle from below and strengthen the Islamic Republic’s hand to carry out repression.
\n\nOver the past decade, Iranian society has been reinventing collective political action from below. From Baluchestan and Kurdistan in the Jina uprising to smaller cities in Lorestan and Isfahan in the current protest wave, political agency—without any official representation from above—has shifted to the street, to strike committees, and to local, informal networks. Despite brutal repression, these capacities and connections remain alive within society; their ability to return and crystallize into political power persists. But the accumulation of rage is not the only thing that will determine their continuity and direction. The possibility of building an independent political horizon and a real alternative will also prove decisive.
\n\nThis horizon faces two parallel threats. On the one hand, it can be appropriated or sidelined by right-wing forces based outside the country—forces that instrumentalize people’s suffering to justify sanctions, war, or military intervention. On the other hand, segments of the ruling class—whether from military-security factions or reformist currents—are working behind the scenes to market themselves to the West as a “more rational,” “lower-cost,” “more reliable” option: an internal alternative from within the Islamic Republic, not to break with the existing order of domination, but to reconfigure it under a different face. (Donald Trump is aiming to do something similar in Venezuela, bending elements of the ruling government to his will rather than bringing about a change in government.) This is a cold calculus of crisis-management: containing social rage, recalibrating tensions with global powers, and reproducing an order in which peoples are denied self-determination.
\n\nAgainst these two currents, the revival of an internationalist politics of liberation is more necessary than ever. This is not an abstract “third way,” but a commitment to place people’s struggles at the center of analysis and action: organization from below instead of scripts written from above by self-appointed leaders, instead of false oppositions manufactured from outside. Today, internationalism means holding together the right of peoples to self-determination and the obligation to fight all forms of domination—internal and external alike. A real internationalist bloc must be built from lived experience, concrete solidarities, and independent capacities.
\n\nThis requires the active participation of left, feminist, anti-colonial, ecological and democratic forces in building broad, class-based organization within the protest wave—both to reclaim life and to open up alternative horizons of social reproduction. At the same time, this organizing must situate itself in continuity with the liberatory horizon of prior struggles, and specifically the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” movement—the energy of which still carries the potential to disrupt, all at once, the discourses of the Islamic Republic, the monarchists, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and those former reformists now dreaming of a controlled transition and reintegration into US-Israeli cycles of accumulation in the region.
\n\nThis is also a decisive moment for the Iranian diaspora: it can help redefine a politics of liberation, or it can reproduce the exhausted binary of “internal despotism” versus “foreign intervention” and thereby prolong the political impasse. In this context, it is necessary for forces in the diaspora to take steps toward forming a real internationalist political bloc—one that draws clear lines against both internal despotism and imperialist domination. This stance links opposition to imperialist intervention with an explicit break from the Islamic Republic, refusing any justification of repression in the name of fighting an external enemy.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/6.jpg\")
\nThis is excerpted from a statement from anarchist internationalists on the ground in northern Syria.
\n\nIran is an important actor in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Its influence also had a strong impact on Syria during the Assad era. Smuggling and other transportation routes were passing through Syria, supplying Hezbollah. After the fall of the Assad regime, Iran was pushed out of Syria and has generally lost its previous power in the region. The damage sustained during the Israeli attacks in June 2025 became another factor that affected the situation of Islamic Republic.
\n\nProtests have been regularly flaring up in Iran. The 2022 protests under leading slogan «Woman, Life, Freedom» are famous globally. Just as then, the protests spread all over the country. People’s discontent spread due to economic factors—inflation, growing prices, and poverty, but eventually arrived at calling to take down the regime. Protesters are clashing with the police in the streets, and some have been killed and injured.
\n\nDuring Israel-Iran escalation in 2025, an interesting detail to notice were the statements of Netanyahu and Trump on the intentional destabilization of Iran with the goal of regime change. It is a pretty standard approach of the USA towards “inconvenient” governments in the regions of their interests: clearing the path for more co-operative politicians, as they tried to do in Afghanistan. During the most recent escalation of Israel-Iran war, there were rumors that there already exists a tentative “democratic” ruling figure, backed and prepared by the United States. Although this information wasn’t confirmed, we can well imagine that it could be true, considering the methods of the United States in other instances (e.g., the recent kidnapping of the Venezuelan president). In this context, the meaning of Trump’s declared intention to come to the aid of Iranian protesters if Iran will “cruelly kill peaceful demonstrators, as they do,” becomes clear.
\n\nIranian Kurdistan, Rojhilat, is one of Iran’s rebellious regions. Their attempts to declare autonomy have not been successful for decades, but the guerrilla struggle in the territory of Iran continues. PJAK (the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) has supported the protesters and again condemned the current regime.
\n\nThe Kurdish liberation movement is fighting for freedom not only in Syria or Turkey. News from Rojhilat take the headlines somewhat less frequently, but the situation in Iran is especially hard for the liberation struggle. PJAK forces include a female armed wing, which is especially important in the context of a dictatorship that executes “moral policing” over the population and, as usual, harms the most vulnerable groups, including women.
\n\nInstability in Tehran could be beneficial for the Kurdish region and could weaken the imperialist alliances of the Russia-Iran-China axis. Nevertheless, a puppet government installed by the USA, Israel, or anyone else won’t address the Kurdish question in Iran. Furthermore, addressing the Kurdish question in a neoliberal imperialist framework can’t provide a true solution for a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Middle East. Democratic confederalism, already being implemented in northeastern Syria by the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) and advocated by PJAK in Rojhilat, offers a much more promising option to bring peace.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/07/5.jpg\")
\n“We live in a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Stephen Miller told CNN host Jake Tapper, on January 5, 2026, spelling out the fascist program as he justified seizing Greenland by force. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
\n\nEarly in the morning of January 3, the Trump administration carried out a made-for-TV raid on Venezuela, bombing at least seven targets in Caracas and kidnapping president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores. This was the culmination of a year-long pressure campaign during which the administration designated Venezuelan immigrants in the US as “narco-terrorists,” attempted to employ the Alien Enemies Act, bombed alleged “drug boats,” seized oil tankers, and deployed the US navy to blockade Venezuela.
\n\nThe Trump regime initially accused Maduro of heading “Cartel de los Soles,” a construct as concocted as “antifa.” Though they revised this accusation yesterday in order to formulate a less tenuous legal case, it is typical of their method that they begin with a false narrative and seek the means to impose it on reality. One of Donald Trump’s chief objectives was to post a photograph of Nicolás Maduro in chains, echoing the photographs that federal agencies have circulated of people abducted by ICE. Rather than offering improvements in anyone’s economic conditions, Trump offers his supporters the vicarious thrill of identifying with jailers and torturers. His goal is to dehumanize his adversaries and desensitize everyone to the kind of violence that will be required to sustain his reign and capitalism itself in an era of declining profits.
\n\nCorporate media is performing its classic role of loyal opposition, raising questions about the legality of the action while demonizing Maduro and lionizing his right-wing opponent, María Corina Machado. For anarchists and others who aim to oppose imperialism, it’s necessary to situate the attack on Venezuela in a larger context, reflect on what effective opposition could look like, and identify how we can take action in response.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/2.jpg\")
Fire at Fuerte Tiuna military complex in Venezuela, January 3, 2026.
\nThe United States government has a long history of imperialist interventions in Latin America, including over a century of operations against Cuba, the bloody military coup in Chile in 1973, and George Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989. The attack on Venezuela picks up where a series of more recent endeavors left off, from George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003 to Joe Biden’s dismantling of the international “rules-based order” to enable Benjamin Netanyahu to carry out genocide in Palestine starting in 2023.
\n\nAt the same time, the program of the Trump administration represents a departure from previous norms. In seeking to carry out resource extraction by brute force without the slightest pretense of any other agenda, Trump joins Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu in inaugurating an era of naked rapacity for its own sake.
\n\nWhile Trump’s underlings have cited the rigged elections that took place in Venezuela in 2024 to justify the attack, Trump is not pretending to bring elections or “democracy” to Venezuela. Some sources claim that the opposition led by María Corina Machado is supported by nearly 80% of the Venezuelan population, but Trump maintains that they do not have enough support to rule; presumably, he means that they lack the support of the military. Trump himself would prefer to work with an autocratic regime that is beholden directly to him. He, too, would rather not answer to elections, whether in Venezuela or the United States.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/3.jpg\")
\nTrump is using war to stave off domestic crisis. While Trump and a contingent of anti-communist republicans have long pressed for regime change and the naval buildup in the Caribbean has been growing since August, this coup is timed to seize the media cycle in order to distract from worsening polls and a series of court losses regarding Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard. At the same time, evidence of Trump’s complicity in Jeffrey Epstein’s racket of child predation and rape is finally fracturing Trump’s base.
\n\nAs autocrats lose their hold on power, they become more dangerous and unpredictable. Netanyahu’s maneuvers to stay ahead of his corruption scandal—including his readiness to sacrifice hostages in order to continue perpetrating genocide—are instructive here. When crisis threatens them, such rulers create additional crises to distract those they rule. Any effective opposition should remember to keep the spotlight on what Trump is trying to conceal. That is what he fears most.
\n\nUnderstood as a media operation, the attack on Venezuela is an attack on all of us: an effort to intimidate everyone who might resist the Trump regime, to make us accept that state violence will continue escalating whatever we do, to convince us that we are not the protagonists of our time.
\n\nAs we argued in 2025, Trump has copied much of his playbook from authoritarians like Vladimir Putin. When Putin became prime minister in August 1999, his approval ratings were even lower than Trump’s are now. He solved that problem by means of the second Chechen war, which turned the polls around dramatically in his favor. Afterwards, every time his support slumped, he repeated this trick—invading Georgia in 2008, Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and Ukraine in 2022—slowly consolidating control of Russian society until he could afford to feed Russians into the meatgrinder of war a hundred thousand at a time.
\n\nPutin has used the war in Ukraine as a means of domestic control—and in Russia, this goes far beyond suppressing protests. As economic conditions worsen, Putin has to project strength and brutality continuously, but he also has to figure out what to do with an increasingly restless and desperate population. Shoveling young men from poor families in the hinterlands into the maw of war enables Putin to keep them busy; if a couple hundred thousand of them never return home, all the better—they will not show up in unemployment statistics and the police will not have to suppress their protests. Likewise, conscription has driven those who would likely lead a revolution to flee the country by the thousands. This is a strategy we shall see repeated elsewhere as the global crisis of capitalism intensifies.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/8.jpg\")
\nThe chief difference between the two contexts is that, while the United States is much more powerful than Russia, Trump’s hold on power is not nearly as secure as Putin’s. At the same time, coming out of the disastrous occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, US voters have considerably less stomach for operations that put the lives of US soldiers at risk.
\n\nTrump is not an especially disciplined tactician, nor is he a focused strategist. He always relies on threats and intimidation to achieve his goals, taking advantage of the cowardice and weakness of his contemporaries. Presumably, he is gambling that intimidation will serve to bend the governments of Latin America to his whims without the need for further military action. If that does not work, he likely intends to rely on military technology, private mercenaries, and other means of exerting force without having to send US troops to occupy Venezuela or other countries. But war, once summoned, imposes its own logic. If the Trump administration continues down this path, US forces may yet become embroiled in open conflict.
\n\nIn the wake of the attack on Venezuela, Trump and his henchmen have threatened to take similar actions targeting Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Denmark, and other nations. They will certainly undertake these if they feel that they are acting from a position of strength, but even if things go badly for him, Trump may attempt to use such stunts to distract from his weakness.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/1.jpg\")
Cars stand in lines for fuel in Venezuela after the attacks. This, in the country with 17% of the world’s oil reserves.
\nCapitalism began in the midst of colonial plunder, and as profit margins decline throughout the global economy, governments are returning to this old-fashioned strategy of accumulation. This explains Putin’s land grab in Ukraine, Netanyahu’s ongoing attempt to use genocide as a form of gentrification, and Trump’s latest adventure in Venezuela.
\n\nIn a November 2025 “National Security Strategy” paper, the Trump administration explicitly committed to a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, aiming to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a means to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.”
\n\nTrump has embraced the self-aggrandizing renaming of this geopolitical strategy as the “Donroe Doctrine,” stating that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” This is about oil, as Trump has emphasized—Venezuela contains 17% of the world’s oil reserves—but it is also a means of jockeying for power with China, which is a major investor in and importer of the Venezuelan oil industry, purchasing 80% of Venezuela’s oil exports and propping up the Venezuelan oil industry with over $60 billion dollars of loans since 2007. This strategy precedes Trump: a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine with a focus on competing with China and Russia in the Global South was a key part of the 2024 Commission on the National Security Strategy created under the administration of Joe Biden. The 2024 Commission explicitly called for competing with China and Russia for leverage in Latin America with regard to the “development and harvesting of natural resources, and facilities and capabilities for projecting power.” While Trump represents the turn towards autocracy, the geopolitical and economic rationale was already in place.
\n\nIn other words, Trump’s heavy-handed brutality offers the ruling class a solution to a problem that capitalists of all stripes are confronting—the problem of evaporating opportunities.
\n\nTrump’s plan to have US oil companies take over resource extraction in Venezuela is part of a new phase of colonial plunder, a return to directly seizing assets from other countries. We have to understand this within the larger context of stagnation and financialization. Historically, this mirrors earlier periods of “systemic chaos,” 1 when declining profits compelled capitalists to pivot towards financial speculation and the machinery of the capitalist world system struggled until it was reconstituted into a new order through mass violence. The most relevant recent example is the period from 1914 to 1945, which saw both of the 20th century’s world wars.
\n\nSo this is not just about oil; it is a means of shoring up the conditions for capitalist profiteering in general, and a glimpse of larger-scale violence to come. We are entering a phase of relations based in pure force, not “rule of law” or diplomacy, and this attack—like Trump’s presidency itself—is a symptom, not a cause.
\n\nBut this represents a departure from the nationalist and populist imperialism of the past, in which regimes stole resources from the global periphery in order to improve the quality of life in the imperial core. Trump’s assault on Venezuela is calculated to benefit an increasingly small cadre of capitalists. The middle class and white working class are no longer “junior partners” to colonial ventures, and have increasingly less cause to identify with them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/6.jpg\")
People in Caracas clean up after the United States bombings.
\nAt first, Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez struck a defiant tone, but she immediately backpedaled to more conciliatory rhetoric. This has prompted speculation that Rodríguez might be prepared to cooperate with the Trump regime, or is already cooperating.
\n\nA variety of scenarios are possible, and it is difficult to determine the truth. Perhaps the United States has put Delcy Rodríguez in a terrifying situation, but she is bearing up bravely; perhaps the Trump regime has already negotiated secretly with Delcy Rodríguez, and she intends to talk tough while facilitating the US agenda of resource extraction; perhaps something else is going on. Regardless, the vulnerability of Chavismo2 to the kidnapping of its leader—and the possibility that Rodríguez or other elements of the Venezuelan government are complicit, or will become complicit, in Trump’s plan to take control of Venezuelan resources—both underscore the fact that all hierarchies represent a point of failure for liberation struggles.
\n\nWe have already seen how the leadership of previous revolutionary left movements, such as the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, has been forcibly integrated into the functioning of neoliberalism and compelled to impose capitalist austerity measures and state control on the populations under their rule. Confronted with these defeats, some people draw the conclusion that the only way to possess sovereignty is to control a powerful nation state that possesses nuclear weapons. This is the logic underpinning “campism,” the support for imperial powers like Russia and China that rival the United States.
\n\nYet Russia and China operate according to the same authoritarian, capitalist logic that the United States government does today—and those who choose to support them will have no more leverage over the actions of their leaders than Venezuelans do over the United States government. Those who seek to align themselves with one geopolitical state actor or another will inevitably end up defending genocidal autocrats from a position of total powerlessness. The real alternative is not campism, but an international grassroots resistance that extends across borders.
\n\nBut for that to become a persuasive alternative, people in the United States will have to develop the capacity to prevent the US government from overseas bombing and looting.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/4.jpg\")
The attack on Venezuela marks the escalation of a proxy war with China. Shifting the industrial base, including the tech industry, into wartime industry is one way to deal with the stagnating economy, but this will only be possible if the Trump administration can whip up more “national spirit” and patriotism. Arguably, the rush to consolidate the funding and proliferation of artificial intelligence is intended to create a more credulous and controllable population towards that eventual purpose.
\n\nIn the nearer term, we can expect to see the Trump administration attempt once more to use the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuelans and other targets. Trump’s and Miller’s previous attempt was defeated in court because the US was not, in fact, at war. Now that they have created a war, they will use this to declare a range of additional emergencies and justify additional clampdowns. We can also expect more racist violence against Latin American and Chinese people, as well as retaliation against US foreign policy from non-state actors or proxy actors, which the Trump administration will seek to take advantage of to advance its agenda.
\n\nThe midterm elections are scheduled for November 2026. Donald Trump and the Republicans are not favored; but Trump has crossed so many red lines already that he cannot tolerate any threat to his power. Whether by election interference, fraud, or, more likely, engineered crises that legitimize a state of exception, we can expect the midterms to be the least “democratic” elections in recent memory. Elections alone will not get us out of this mess.
\n\nAs Trump is beset by various crises, scandals, and obstacles, he will become more violent, unpredictable, and dangerous. This is a sign of weakness, but it is a weakness that is backed up by the full strength of the US military. We should expect military entanglements on a larger scale by October of this year, including further National Guard deployments and perhaps even martial law.
\n\nUnpopular wars without a clear mandate—especially wars that result in US casualties or other sacrifices at home—can spell downfall for a regime. It is our task to turn this war—along with Trump’s other errors, and the wars to come—into a millstone around the neck of the entire ruling class. It will require so much popular force to dislodge Trump that we should popularize similarly ambitious proposals—not simply demand a return to an unpopular centrist status quo. Revolutionaries must prepare to outmaneuver centrist attempts to rebalance the ship of state. It may seem hard to imagine now, but uprisings and revolutions unfold quickly. The “Gen Z” revolutions toppled regimes around the world over the course of 2024.
\n\nDemonstrations across the US have used familiar slogans like “No Blood for Oil.” Unfortunately, Trump has concluded that his followers want both—oil and blood. Anti-war movements tend to be inherently conservative, as they seek to influence state policy; but like the administrations before it, the Trump regime has made clear that it is not concerned about opposition. Rather than presenting demands through symbolic protests, we need to build horizontal movements capable of addressing needs through direct action. These should focus on the common conditions that ordinary people face from Caracas to Minneapolis: poverty, austerity, the pillaging of essential resources, control by violent mercenaries, rule by unaccountable tycoons. The resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity around the United States represents a promising step towards this.
\n\nIf, indeed, as Stephen Miller implies, governments do not represent the desires or agency of the people they rule over, if—as should now be obvious to all—they do not have our best interests at heart but simply act to seize as much wealth for themselves as they can, then no one is obligated to obey them. The only question is how to build up enough collective strength—enough grassroots force, enough horizontal power—to defeat them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/5.jpg\")
The return of fascism on a global scale—and hopefully, of the capability to defeat it.
\nTo begin with, readers should consult “We Denounce the Imperial Offensive on Venezuela,” an international statement from Latin American anarchist organizations published in December 2025.
\n\nFor deeper background on the situation in Venezuela, we encourage Spanish-speaking readers to peruse the archive of the now-defunct Venezuelan anarchist publication El Libertario, where one can find, for example, a critical evaluation of the Bolivarian social organizations from 2006, or a collection of texts about the role of the petroleum industry in subduing grassroots popular movements in Venezuela and integrating them into the global economy:
\n\n\n\n\n“Venezuela is part of the process of building new forms of governance in the region, which have demobilized the social movements that responded to the application of structural adjustment measures in the 1990s, re-legitimizing both the state and representative democracy in order to meet export quotas for natural resources to the chief markets of the world.”
\n\n-Ley Habilitante: dictadura para el capital energético (“The Enabling Law: Dictatorship for Energy Capital) in El Libertario # 62, March-April 2011
\n
We could understand Trump’s attack on Venezuela as a way of continuing that “process of building new forms of governance in the region” today.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/01/06/7.jpg\")
A list of those who have recently been incarcerated at a single detention center in Brooklyn hints at the increasing array of world-historical contradictions coming to the fore in our time.
\nIn The Long Twentieth Century, Giovanni Arrighi argues that the past 700 years have witnessed a predictable pendulum swing between relatively “peaceful” and stable periods of trade expansion, during which growing markets enable capitalists and states to profit without significant competition, and investments in production or trade generate reliable profits, and increasingly chaotic periods of financial expansion, during which inter-capitalist competition drives down profits and investment capital seeks profit primarily through financial speculation. As the global economy stops growing, capitalists and national elites increasingly turn towards force and plunder to sustain profits, culminating in periods of “systemic chaos.” These periods are remarkably violent, characterized by military expenditures and plunder; historically, they only end when a new hegemonic force imposes a new global order and restores the conditions for capitalist accumulation. 20th-century American hegemony and the international system introduced by the United Nations played that role after the Second World War, but both have been in decline since the shift towards financialization and the rise of “neoliberalism” in the 1970s, and are now displaying their irrelevance as more and more forces attempt to seize profits by pure force instead of capitalist investment. Pundits bemoaning the end of the international rules-based order and expressing nostalgia for the United Nations are missing the forest of economic stagnation for the trees of individual bad actors like Trump and Putin. Any real resolution to the period of barbarism that we are entering will have to be grander in scope and more ambitious than the “Age of Revolution” of 1789-1848. ↩
\nChavismo is the socialist movement associated with former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. ↩
\nCongratulations on surviving 2025 and welcome to our year in review report! What did we accomplish this year? Let’s review!
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/8.jpg\")
\nIn the United States, the year 2025 arrived like a nightmare. Danger. Terror. Hatred. All of the worst elements of humanity had taken power and were preparing to use the institutions of the state to inflict tremendous harm. War was already raging in Ukraine, genocides underway from Palestine to Sudan. How much worse could it get?
\n\nWe, at least, were not taken by surprise. Four years ago, looking back on the debacle of January 6, 2021, we anticipated Trump’s return; when Elon Musk bought Twitter, we pointed out that his purchase resolved the fundamental conflict within the capitalist class, between Silicon Valley and Trump’s authoritarian nationalism; by summer 2024, we sensed what was coming:
\n\n\n\n\nDonald Trump will win the election. Then all the institutions that centrists have counted on to protect them—electoral politics, the court system, the police, ordinary citizens’ inclination to obey the law and respect the authorities—will become weapons in the hands of their enemies. Of course, many of us already experience these institutions as our adversaries. Biden’s supporters will have to ask themselves whether they are willing to work alongside us against them, or if, in fact, they prefer fascism to freedom.
\n
Despite these warnings, the opening months of Trump’s second administration shocked many people who had foolishly expected a rerun of Trump’s first presidency, not the sudden arrival of a much more destructive and cynical strategy of governance. Others remain in denial to this day, assuring themselves that however bad things have gotten, they cannot possibly continue to get worse at such a pace.
\n\nOn the contrary, we remain convinced that only grassroots action can change the trajectory we are on.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/6.jpg\")
First, they came for the immigrants. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement mercenaries.
\nNot everyone had the good fortune to survive 2025. Police officers murdered well over 1200 people in the United States in 2025. Dozens more perished in ICE custody. Hundreds of thousands of people have been brutally snatched from their communities, held in abominable conditions, and deported. The cuts that Elon Musk and his flunkies made to aid programs have reportedly already inflicted many hundreds of thousands of deaths. Countless more will follow as the autocrats continue to “streamline” the state to play a purely repressive function.
\n\nNonetheless, as we have documented, the assault has reached a plateau, if not yet an impasse. It is time to get our bearings, identify the vulnerabilities that our oppressors have opened up by demolishing the concessions that their predecessors made, and launch a counterattack that could propel us into an entirely different future.
\n\nFor a full accounting of the struggle in the United States throughout 2025, consult our retrospective, “At the Turning of the Tide.” For more background, revisit the events of 2024.
\n\nWe began 2025 with two foundational texts proposing how to come to grips with the rise of autocracy.
\n\n“It’s Safer in the Front: Taking the Offensive against Tyranny” makes the case that, facing ascendant fascism, it is more dangerous to try to avoid confrontation than it is to go on the offensive. Bringing together a series of anecdotes from the front lines of a quarter of a century of anarchist mobilizations, this text also offers a brief overview of the ways that repression has ramped up since the 20th century.
\n\nThe second text, “Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace,” argues that, rather than powerlessly accusing Donald Trump and his cronies of lawlessness, our best hope is to organize concrete acts of resistance on a horizontal and participatory basis. In other words, to become anarchists.
\n\nIn June, we followed these with a third text, “Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism,” revisiting the distinction between charity and mutual aid in hopes of unlocking the revolutionary potential concealed within the latter.
\n\nWe concluded the year with the aforementioned analysis, “At the Turning of the Tide.”
\n\nIf you only have time to read a few things we’ve published this year, start with these four.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/06/05/2.jpg\")
From “Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism.” Click on the image to read the essay.
\nEarly in 2025, we published a report on the student walkouts in Los Angeles, one of the first signs of life from what became a powerful movement.
\n\nOver the following weeks, we published a text from a bus driver facing austerity measures, titled “The Only Immigrant Trying to Steal My Job Is Elon Musk,” followed by a reflection on the federal kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil.
\n\nWhen a wave of resistance to ICE gathered momentum in June, we published reports from participants in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, Chicago, and Seattle. In fall 2025, when ICE concentrated their violence on Chicago, we published a report from the blockades at the Broadview holding facility, followed eventually by reflections on the efforts to target that facility.
\n\nWhen ICE agents returned to the Twin Cities, people confronted them once more.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/3.jpg\")
By the end of the year, the student walkouts had spread from Los Angeles to Charlotte, North Carolina.
\nIn March, we published the final installment in our series chronicling the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, Georgia. In July, as Stop Cop City defendant Ayla King prepared to go to trial, we published an overview of the absurdly tenuous case against Ayla and the other RICO defendants. Almost all of the charges have since been dropped, though the threat of future state persecution still hangs over the heads of the accused.
\n\nFollowing up last year’s campus occupations in solidarity with Gaza, we covered a daring Palestine solidarity occupation at the University of Washington in May. In October, we published a statement from a participant in the Thousand Madleens to Gaza flotilla, followed by an account of the direct action campaign that shut down Elbit Systems—Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer—in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
\n\nFinally, as we do every year, we observed Steal Something from Work Day—this time, by celebrating employees who shared company goods with the general public during a time of need.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/01/20/header.jpg\")
The weekend of the Festivals of Resistance was the anniversary of the brutal police murder of Tortuguita, a participant in the movement to Stop Cop City. Mourners courageously redecorated this billboard in the middle of New York City in Tortuguita’s memory.
\nAt the end of December 2024, we called for people to organize “Festivals of Resistance” the weekend immediately before Trump was to take office, in order to share skills and prepare for the onslaught. Over two dozen cities hosted events in response to this call. Afterwards, we published reportbacks from some of them.
\n\nWe published a call to take action on May Day, as well, and a call for anti-authoritarian blocs at the October 18 “No Kings” demonstrations around the country. Afterwards, we reached out to participants in a dozen cities and towns to learn how their efforts went and published a collection of their reflections.
\n\nFinally, we published a reportback from the Florida Abolitionist Gathering.
\n\nAnarchists at one No Kings rally led the entire crowd off the sidewalk and on a spirited march throughout the city.
\nEarly in 2025, we published a short guide titled “Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE.” Copies of the trifold version appeared everywhere—for example, during the disruption of a US Customs and Border Protection recruiting event in Chicago.
\n\nTen months later, drawing on the experiences of Chicago organizers, we followed up with “Standing Up to ICE,” a guide spelling out the steps a community can take to stand in the way of ICE kidnappings on a large scale.
\n\nIn between, we published “A Demonstrator’s Guide to Operational Security: Fighting Back, Staying Free,” a comprehensive guide to maintaining your anonymity while engaging in street actions, as well as “A Demonstrator’s Guide to Reinforced Banners” and “A Demonstrator’s Guide to Lockdowns and Blockades.”
\n\nIn addition, in response to Donald Trump’s cartoonish announcement that his administration would be designating “Antifa” [sic] a “major [?!] terrorist organization,” we circulated\n“Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression,” spelling out steps that organizations, activists, and others who oppose fascism can take to be ready to endure an authoritarian crackdown. If such a crackdown has not yet taken place, we owe that chiefly to the resistance that has tied down federal mercenaries on other fronts, as we argued at the end of the year:
\n\n\n\n\nIf federal agencies have yet to move with full force against a target other than immigrants, it is only because people have fought so hard to obstruct ICE. This drives home the true meaning of solidarity: the best way to protect ourselves tomorrow is to protect each other today.
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/1.jpg\")
Demonstrators outside the Broadview holding facility. They’re in there for us, we’re out here for them.
\nBetween May and July, we published a series of texts from the Mideast, including a reflection on what the Rajaee Port disaster in Iran revealed about the systematic racism that Baluch ethnic minorities face; a statement from Iranian, Kurdish, and Afghani feminists arguing against reductive positions in regards to the conflict between Israel and Iran; and an analysis of what the decision of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) to lay down their arms means for the whole region.
\n\nIn August, a wave of protest against austerity spread across Indonesia, then escalated dramatically in response to the police murder of Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old delivery worker. While the Indonesian government managed to reestablish control, a few days later, a similar eruption toppled the government of Nepal, setting a template for what became known as the “Gen Z uprisings,” a series of revolts from Madagascar to Peru.
\n\nWe published an interview with anarchists in Nepal who participated in the revolution, followed by an article by another Nepali about the new horizons it opened up. The following month, we published an interview with participants in the subsequent uprising in Morocco, as well.
\n\nWhile conditions in the United States and Europe have been grim, these distant fires suggest that the age of uprisings is not over. The plumes of smoke rising from the horizon today hint at events that could break out much closer to home tomorrow. It is urgent to think through what lasting gains movements can achieve during such surges of activity in an era when the apparatus of the state has proven incapable of reform.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/2.jpg\")
Indonesia.
\nOur most ambitious historical project of the year was “Anarchists in the Movement against Police and White Supremacy,” tracing anarchist contributions to uprisings against white supremacist policing from the Los Angeles riots of 1992 to the George Floyd Uprising of 2020.
\n\nWe also published a collection of reflections from participants in the Seattle Solidarity Network on their seventeen years of organizing to support laborers and renters in their struggles with bosses and landlords.
\n\nSeeking to equip people for the urgent struggles of 2025, we published a text about the General Strike of May Day 2006, one of the high-water marks in the fight against the oppression of immigrants in the United States, and two articles about how people organized to shut down the machinery of deportation in France in the 1990s. Both of the articles were adapted from the newly published book Another War Was Possible, a firsthand account of anarchist street action at the turn of the century, to which we contributed the preface.
\n\nFinally, we shared a eulogy for Karl Garside, a lifelong participant in the animal liberation movement.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/05/28/header.jpg\")
A scene from the uprising of 2020.
\nThis year, via our Ex-Worker podcast, we released audio versions of a handful of our articles, including “It’s Safer in the Front,” “Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace,” “Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism,” “Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression,” and our coverage of the origins of the wave of resistance to ICE in Minneapolis to Los Angeles.
\n\nWe also collaborated with subMedia and the Coordinadora Anarquista Tejiendo Libertad on a video and poster campaign to counter ICE recruitment.
\n\nMERCENARIES: A Video and Poster Campaign to Counter ICE Recruitment
\nWe published a work of speculative fiction, “Survival: A Story about Anarchists Enduring Mass Raids.” We also designed a poster in homage to Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, the “street gang with an analysis” that introduced the concept of the affinity group to English-speaking anarchists in the 1960s.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/9.jpg\")
\nIn 2025, we released our first record in over a decade—the album “Hope against Hope” by Catharsis, long known as one of the world’s most extreme and uncompromising underground hardcore bands. The first pressing of the LP sold out immediately, but we will have a second pressing available soon. You can read an array of reviews of the record here, or read Kim Kelly’s interview with members of the band.
\n\nCatharsis supported the album with tours on the East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and has further tours scheduled in 2026. The vast majority of the other music we have released over the past thirty years is available here, all of it free of charge.
\n\nCatharsis: “Hope against Hope.”
\nWe also published a text written by the surviving members of the Russian hardcore band Sandinista! in memory of their bandmate, Timur Kacharava, on the twenty-year anniversary of his murder at the hands of fascists.
\n\nFinally, we reprinted our Contradictionary, alongside other print projects.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/7.jpg\")
\nHere follows a more or less comprehensive list of the zines, posters, and articles we published in 2025 in different languages, organized from most recent to oldest.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/at-the-turning-of-the-tide/at-the-turning-of-the-tide_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/make-ready-safeguarding-our-movements-against-repression/make-ready-safeguarding-our-movements-against-repression_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/chicago-against-ice-la-migra-la-policia-la-misma-porqueria/chicago-against-ice-la-migra-la-policia-la-misma-porqueria_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/resistance-reader/resistance-reader_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/minneapolis-to-feds-get-the-fuck-out-how-people-in-the-twin-cities-responded-to-a-federal-raid/minneapolis-to-feds-get-the-fuck-out-how-people-in-the-twin-cities-responded-to-a-federal-raid_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/seven-steps-to-stop-ice/seven-steps-to-stop-ice_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. (Español) \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/it-is-fascism-start-acting-like-it/it-is-fascism-start-acting-like-it_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. (Español) \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/melt-ice-be-water/melt-ice-be-water_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/los-angeles-stands-up-to-ice-a-firsthand-report-on-the-clashes-of-june-6/los-angeles-stands-up-to-ice-a-firsthand-report-on-the-clashes-of-june-6_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/mutual-aid-the-commons-and-the-revolutionary-abolition-of-capitalism/mutual-aid-the-commons-and-the-revolutionary-abolition-of-capitalism_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/cop-city-is-everywhere/cop-city-is-everywhere_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/survival/survival_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/remember-2020-we-can-win/remember-2020-we-can-win_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/become-an-anarchist-or-forever-hold-your-peace/become-an-anarchist-or-forever-hold-your-peace_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/8-things-you-can-do-to-stop-ice/8-things-you-can-do-to-stop-ice_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. (Español) \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/zines/its-safer-in-the-front/its-safer-in-the-front_front.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the zine. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/mercenaries-2025.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. (Português Brasileiro, Español, Español) \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/we-are-all-anti-fascist.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/for-spirits.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/security-culture.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/the-whole-world-hates-the-police.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/fantastic-demands.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. (Español) \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/may-day-means-resistance.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. (Italiano) \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/its-double-or-nothing-for-everyone-now.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n
\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/fell-in-love-with-fire.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n\n\n\n ![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/depose-trump-depose-musk.jpg\") \n \n \n\n Click on the image to download the poster. \n | \n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/30/4.jpg\")
\nA year into the second Trump era, authoritarians are in control of the federal government, but they have yet to gain control of society at large. They have done tremendous harm, but their assault has hit a plateau, if not yet an impasse. They have to project strength at all times precisely because they are not invincible. It is finally possible to imagine how we might not only defeat them but take advantage of the situation to make profound changes.
\n\nHere, we revisit the structural forces behind Trump’s return to power, review the events of 2025, and propose a strategy for how to fight our way out of the Trump era together.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/2.jpg\")
The more precarious a social order, the more violent force is required to preserve it.
\nThe political crisis in the United States today is the consequence of economic processes that have been underway for generations. The rise of fascism is not a fluke brought about by the demagoguery of a single individual, but the logical outcome of profit-driven capitalism.
\n\nThe neoliberal order paved the way for this by deepening the gulf between the rich and poor, militarizing policing in order to preserve those disparities, and creating a downwardly mobile population desperate for scapegoats. In a globalized economy, politicians cannot mitigate the impact of capitalism on their constituents without investors taking their business elsewhere.1 Consequently, “left” parties have consistently failed to deliver on their promises, while reactionary parties have pulled public policy and permissible discourse steadily to the right—with centrists serving as a sort of ratchet preventing policy and discourse from shifting back.
\n\nUnderway for decades, wealth polarization has begun to produce qualitative shifts. In 2003, Bill Gates was considered the world’s wealthiest man with roughly $40 billion to his name; in October 2025, Elon Musk’s net worth reached $500 billion. Today, the world’s ten richest men control considerably more wealth than the poorest three billion people. When wealth becomes this unevenly distributed, the ruling class exerts so much power relative to the rest of the population that representative democracy changes character. A single man like Elon Musk can determine the outcome of an election by buying up communications platforms and bribing voters.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/1.jpg\")
\nIn such circumstances, it’s not surprising to see toadies like Curtis Yarvin arguing that billionaires should have formal political supremacy to match their economic supremacy. The desire for a politician who would “run the country like a business”—which is to say, like a dictatorship—has always been an autocratic fantasy. Having become accustomed to authoritarianism in the economic sphere, an increasing number of people are prepared to accept it in the political sphere as well. This creates a feedback loop: the more inequality there is, the more popular authoritarianism becomes, as people from every political faction conclude that, being too weak to assert their interests themselves, they need a powerful champion to do so on their behalf.
\n\nFor over a century, democracy has functioned as the political counterpart to free-market capitalism. Both promise social mobility to individuals while preserving the inequalities fundamental to monarchy and feudalism, the systems that preceded them.2 For a while, democracy served to temper the violence of the economy and the state, at least towards the comparatively privileged. But as economic and political disparities deepen, neither capitalism nor democracy function to stabilize the social order any longer.
\n\nThe economy has changed in other ways over the past half century. For example, today’s billionaires are increasingly accumulating their wealth through speculation. Whereas Henry Ford made his fortune by selling cars,3 Elon Musk assembled his mostly by benefitting from spikes in stock prices. Donald Trump and Musk are both hype men whose strategy is to ceaselessly scale up their promises, double or nothing, before anyone can evaluate the real outcome of their previous ventures. Like the cryptocurrency boom, this is a symptom of an era in which the rate of profit is declining, rendering speculation more profitable than old-fashioned commerce.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/6.jpg\")
\nCapitalism is a fire that must continually consume resources in order to go on generating profits for the victors. Eventually, capitalists are compelled to treat the state itself as a site from which to extract profit rather than a means of stabilizing the terrain in which they compete. In an era of declining profits, capturing and pillaging the state becomes the ultimate gambit for hype men.
\n\nFor decades, we heard about such things taking place in overseas autocracies—Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Hungary. Neoliberal pundits like Thomas Friedman and Francis Fukuyama believed that these were less advanced societies that would eventually catch up to the West as the free market civilized them. In fact, it was the European and North American democracies that were behind the times. Donald Trump and his henchmen studied the model that these authoritarian societies offered in order to import it to the United States.4
\n\nAgain, this was not simply the initiative of a few malevolent individuals, but the consequence of structural developments. In the 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to subsidize social safety nets for their citizens in part thanks to outright resource extraction in the parts of the world that were on the receiving end of their imperialistic ventures. Following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the world was divided into the wealthy consumer nations of the imperial core, where most citizens enjoyed the privileges of democracy, and the impoverished producer nations of the periphery, where the majority of people were treated as cheap labor and subjected to correspondingly repressive regimes. As economic disparities widen and life becomes more precarious in the imperial core, it should not be surprising that political liberties are eroding here, as well, while the forms of repression that were practiced overseas are brought home. Aimé Césaire termed the latter tendency the imperial boomerang.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/18.jpg\")
Fascists from the group Patriot Front marching in 2021. The rise of fascism is the logical outcome of the consequences of neoliberalism.
\nBut the transition to cutthroat capitalism, scorched-earth policies, and rule by brute force entails risks for the ruling class, as we shall see.
\n\n\n\n\nBarring world revolution, the crises inflicted by capitalism will continue to provoke social unrest until the emergence of some massive new mechanism of control or appeasement.
\n\nIn a globalized world, state structures are forced to impose and perpetuate these crises, but are increasingly powerless to mitigate the effects. This makes the state a sort of hot potato; any party holds the reins at its own risk, as Morsi’s downfall showed in Egypt. On the other hand, in moments of crisis, whoever is capable of effective action against the repressive forces of the state will accumulate popular credibility.
\n\n–The Ukrainian Revolution and the Future of Social Movements
\n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2022/01/12/5.jpg\")
A throne after the looting of the president’s residence in Almaty during the uprising in Kazakhstan in January 2022.
\nThose who followed the rise of autocracy in Russia know what to expect when it takes hold. Everything looks more or less the same—the police go on policing, landlords go on collecting rent, people go on showing up to work. The transition takes place so smoothly because all the necessary elements of fascism were already present under democracy. Nonetheless, there are telltale signs. You see militarized state mercenaries in the streets more and more often, masked and heavily armed. Protest becomes progressively more difficult and dangerous, until the last protesters are arrested for standing alone holding blank pieces of paper. And sooner or later, once the security agencies have the internal situation under control, the regime goes to war—for fascism must always have an enemy to mobilize against.
\n\nThe second Trump administration represents an experiment in authoritarianism that has not occurred in the United States in living memory. This time around, Trump has control of practically the entire executive branch and the Supreme Court, as well as the backing of Silicon Valley. Yes, the United States was already built on white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonial violence—but those who do not want to update their analyses to reflect the new situation are simply in denial.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/9.jpg\")
Gregory Bovino, dubbed Border Patrol “Commander at Large” (a rank with no statutory basis) by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, oversaw ICE raids in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, and New Orleans through the latter half of 2025. The transition from democracy to autocracy involves the emergence of new militarized groups that operate outside the old protocol.
\nFor the purposes of this analysis, we won’t linger on the strategic frameworks and objectives driving different elements of the Trump coalition—the Heritage Foundation’s “Unitary Executive Theory” intended to concentrate dictatorial power in Trump’s hands, the Christian nationalists’ Seven Mountain Mandate aimed at gaining control over society at large, the counterinsurgency strategy refined in Iraq and Afghanistan that the military and police bring to bear upon protest movements and unruly communities in the US, the Christian and Jewish Zionists’ efforts to use Palestine as a testing ground to establish genocide as a means of gentrification, the Silicon Valley corporations and petroleum companies and cryptocurrency profiteers all seeking license to pillage with impunity.
\n\nWe will confine ourselves to identifying some of the regime’s initial objectives:
\n\nWhen the Nazis took control of Germany, their program of Gleichschaltung—an electrical metaphor for consolidation—swiftly did away with all other political parties and organizations. The Trump administration knew that if they attempted to accomplish something similar, they would provoke a backlash that they could not control. The above program represents the most they believed that they could get away with.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/11.jpg\")
Concentrating resources in the hands of ICE is both a means of forcibly changing population demographics and a way of establishing mercenary violence as a profitable industry within a society in which most people face diminishing prospects.
\nAt the close of 2025, the administration has fulfilled the majority of these objectives. Do they still have enough momentum to advance to the next stage of their operation?
\n\nThe first Trump administration opened with thousands of demonstrators taking the streets of Washington, DC in defiance, setting the precedent for four years of fierce resistance that ultimately resulted in Trump’s departure from office. The second Trump administration opened with Proud Boys marching in the streets of DC where the anarchist black bloc had marched on January 20, 2017. It was the Proud Boys’ first appearance in the capitol since the failed coup attempt of January 6, 2021, for which Trump had just issued blanket pardons.
\n\nWhere were the anarchists and other protesters on January 20, 2025? At the opening of Trump’s second term, many people were paralyzed by the idea that any sort of resistance would only play into his hands. Ahead of the tame protests that the group 50501 organized for February 5, some panicky liberals speculated that it was a setup to declare martial law:
\n\n\n\n\n“Project 2025 outlines specific plans to use any mass protests as an excuse to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement, up to and including deploying deadly force.”
\n
Today, it’s easy to forget how many radicals bought into some version of that narrative. Trump and his supporters appeared to be an unstoppable force, something out of a nightmare. Hadn’t we already spent four years risking everything to defeat them, only to see them rise from the dead even stronger? As they took over the state apparatus with every other political faction in disarray, the terror that they inspired was their chief asset. Fascism depends on the management of perceptions.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/7.jpg\")
Proud Boys and other fascists returned to the streets of Washington, DC on January 20, 2025.
\n\n\n\nState capture is a type of systematic corruption whereby narrow interest groups take control of the institutions and processes through which public policy is made, directing public policy away from the public interest and instead shaping it to serve their own interests. [Joel S.] Hellman et al. introduced the concept in the 1990s to describe patterns of behavior observed during the first decade of transition in parts of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and Eastern Europe… The captors of the state were businesspeople, soon to be known as “oligarchs,” who purchased influence over policy formation through direct kickbacks or promises of favors, using personal connections to the individuals and parties holding political power. This framing of business as the captors of politics probably always overstated the separation between the two spheres.
\n\n-Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett, State Capture and Development: A Conceptual Framework
\n
Elon Musk and his underlings immediately set about dismantling every part of the government that did not help them accumulate wealth or keep the citizenry in line. The cuts they made have already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths without significantly reducing the federal budget. “Government efficiency” was beside the point: they were showing that a new era had arrived in which the state would represent new values.
\n\nAnarchists that we are, we cannot help pointing out that if all these programs had been maintained by autonomous grassroots projects, it would have been impossible for a Sieg-Heiling fascist and his juvenile henchmen to dismantle them in a matter of months. Panning back to a longer timeframe, we can understand “state capture” both as the process by which the institutions of the state supplant grassroots initiatives, rendering the public increasingly dependent upon the state, and the second phase of the process, during which oligarchs gain control of the state who see no utility in ensuring that it is perceived to function as a neutral arbiter or to play any broadly beneficial role whatsoever.
\n\nBut it is important to remember that the state actors who integrated those initiatives into the state in the first place—not just aid programs and social security, but also representative democracy itself—understood themselves to be making repressive concessions, concessions that were necessary to subdue social unrest. Musk and his colleagues are wagering that the technologies of repression—or else apathy and despair—have progressed so far that these concessions are no longer necessary.
\n\nThey are gambling that hard power is worth more than soft power. They would prefer that people live in terror of being murdered in a random naval strike than that people support US foreign policy. To cite a recent example, Trump is assuming that the advantages he gains by pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, the corrupt former president of Honduras who made millions of dollars flooding the United States with cocaine, are worth more than the credibility that he gives up by doing so in the midst of an apparent military campaign against narco-trafficking.
\n\nIn brazenly destroying every feature of the government that could preserve its perceived legitimacy in the eyes of a great part of the general public, they are taking a risk, perhaps a bigger risk than they understand.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/5.jpg\")
Demonstrators in Berlin. While Germans are famously hesitant to acknowledge fascism outside their borders (“It’s only fascism if it’s from the fascism region of Germany, otherwise it’s just authoritarianism”), Elon Musk convinced them that he was the real thing.
\nThe poet Juvenal wrote that the people of ancient Rome were bribed with bread and circuses to accept the end of democracy and the establishment of the dictatorship known as the Roman Empire. The tried-and-true playbook to accustom people to autocracy is to meet their material needs while channeling their attention towards activities that substitute for self-determination.
\n\nDonald Trump is trying to accomplish something more unusual: he aims to preside over the destruction of the last vestiges of the social safety net and the impoverishment of much of what remains of the middle class while buying off his support base with entertainment alone. His administration has not bolstered the economy but further destabilized it, as if intentionally rendering people more precarious, desperate, and exploitable. In return for this, we are supposed to content ourselves with watching the violent reality television gameshow of his presidency. Less bread, more circuses.
\n\nWhatever far-right propaganda outlets claim, tariffs and crackdowns on immigrants will not improve the economic prospects of white US citizens. Already, an impoverished US working class was only kept appeased by the cheap consumer goods produced overseas by underpaid labor; it would only be possible to move those production operations to the US if desperate American workers were compelled to work for even lower wages than they do today. Likewise, deporting those who have been forced to work the lowest-paying jobs on the market will only make goods and services more expensive for everyone else.
\n\nThe real reason for the tariffs and the deportations is that they are mechanisms of autocracy: they offer ways to maximize the leverage that Donald Trump can exert on governments, corporations, and ordinary people from the Oval Office. The tariffs enable him to negotiate quid pro quo agreements with governments and corporations for his own benefit, the deportations to build up a loyal paramilitary force tasked with attacking whomever he deems an internal enemy. Trump has been using antitrust mechanisms in the same way, along with the so-called Department of Justice and litigation in general. Likewise, cutting off funds to healthcare and education will not strengthen the United States as a political or economic force; it is solely intended to concentrate more power in Trump’s hands while leaving ordinary people occupied with the challenges of bare survival.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/23.jpg\")
\nAbove all, the goal is to accustom the general population to suffering—both to others’ suffering and to their own. This is the point of the extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, of the gratuitously brutal arrests of Mahmoud Khalil and other green card holders, of Trump’s efforts to weaponize the legal system. This explains why they commit their worst atrocities not in secret, but as media stunts.
\n\nAgain, rather than seeing this simply as the audacity of a few malevolent individuals, we should understand it as a response to structural factors. Previous generations of autocrats took care to channel resources towards the bread side of the bread and circuses formula. If today’s autocrats do not, it is not because they are foolhardy, but because they are constrained by contemporary conditions. We should seek out the consequent fault lines and vulnerabilities.
\n\nBy the opening of the second Trump era, the powerful grassroots movements that had clashed in 2020 had been tamped down on both sides. State repression likely played a role in this—the response to the coup attempt of January 6, 2021, the judicial persecution of the Stop Cop City movement—but nonetheless, the subsiding of these movements is one of the enigmas of our time. Had the entire population of the United States simply been reduced to digital spectatorship and isolation?
\n\nMany people expected that Trump’s pardons would bring the Proud Boys and right-wing militias back in full force. It may be that many of those who would have joined them instead sought to join ICE, or else waited on the institutions of the state to follow through on Trump’s promises. But what became of the millions who had participated in the George Floyd uprising?
\n\nThe first unruly protests involving highway blockades and student walkouts took place in Los Angeles at the beginning of February. The first demonstrations at Tesla dealerships followed later that month. Through the spring, older middle-class liberals were arguably the demographic most represented in protest activity. This illustrates the extent to which Trump’s return to power was facilitated by widespread disenchantment and disaffection. Practically every other segment of society had already been reduced to cynicism. Comfortable liberals were the only ones who still had something to lose—the idea that they lived in a democracy.5
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/4.jpg\")
\nHowever tame the participants, the Tesla protests had an impact. Weekly protests at Tesla outlets across the country supplemented by vandalism and arson contributed to a steady decline in overvalued Tesla stock; on March 10, it plunged 15%. The next day, Trump staged a Tesla commercial at the White House in return for another $100 million from Musk. Tesla stock rebounded, but the stunt showed that the protests were taking effect. It may also have put additional strain on their relationship.
\n\nOne of the first signs that the Trump machine was not unstoppable came on April 1, when Elon Musk’s preferred candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court lost the election, despite Musk pouring over $25 million into the campaign. The next day, Trump announced his tariffs, a clumsy effort to reset US trade polices to the year 1930—likely not what transnational capitalists like Elon Musk had had in mind when they backed him. The Tesla protests had not subsided. On April 22, Musk told anxious Tesla investors that he would shift his attention away from Washington, DC.
\n\nOn May 27, the same day that San Diego locals clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in one of the first publicized instances of resistance, Musk criticized Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Trump hosted a sendoff for Musk on May 30, the last day the two were able to maintain the appearance of being on good terms.
\n\nOn June 3, locals in Minneapolis drove ICE out of a neighborhood. The next day, people confronted ICE agents as they carried out raids in Chicago and Grand Rapids.
\n\nOn June 5, the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump exploded into the public, with Musk announcing that Trump was in the Epstein files and suggesting that Trump should be impeached a third time.
\n\nEarly in the second Trump administration, some had speculated that capitalists like Elon Musk were the true powers behind the throne and would prove more powerful than Trump. Yet looking at the example of Russia, we see that Vladimir Putin successfully used the instruments of the state to crush every rival, however wealthy. Thus far, Musk has played a far weaker hand than Trump. So long as the state determines the conditions that prevail in the market and retains a monopoly on violent force, control of the state is the currency of power that trumps all others.
\n\nThe very next day—Friday, June 6—people in Los Angeles responded to an ICE raid, precipitating days of fierce unrest. Trump deployed National Guard to LA, fulfilling the fears of those who had claimed that violent protest was exactly what he wanted. However, the protests did not die down when the National Guard arrived in Los Angeles. On the contrary, they continued, inspiring solidarity demonstrations around the country, the first wave of confrontational demonstrations since Trump had taken office.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/20.jpg\")
Demonstrators in Los Angeles, June 2025.
\nThe No Kings protests were scheduled for June 14, the day that Trump had arranged a military parade in Washington, DC for his birthday. With the National Guard on the streets, some feared that the day would herald the beginning of military rule.
\n\nJune 14 began with a Trump supporter shooting multiple Democratic politicians in Minnesota. Nonetheless, over five million people turned out to demonstrations in thousands of different locations. As in August 2014 and May 2020, militant confrontation preceded mass protest: rather than frightening people away, it drew out more people, driving home the urgency of the situation and wresting the news cycle from Trump’s control. By contrast, only a few thousand spectators attended Trump’s military parade.
\n\nIn the history of the second Trump administration, the first chapter concludes with the protests of June 14. Until that day, it wasn’t clear how much popular support there was for resistance, nor how little enthusiasm there was for Trump’s desire to turn the military against the public, nor what would happen if people took the streets.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/14.jpg\")
\nOf course, ICE did not leave Los Angeles. A protracted war of attrition followed, in which ICE mercenaries recycled tactics that neo-Nazis had previously employed for street demonstrations. At the same time, local organizers developed a playbook to track their movements, force them out of hotels, and equip rapid response networks to resist them.
\n\nOn July 4, a shooting took place during a demonstration at the Prairieland Detention Center south of Fort Worth, Texas. The police ultimately arrested 18 people, charging them with an array of crimes including “transporting antifa materials.” The Trump administration hailed this as the first legal case against “Antifa,” aiming to set a precedent for criminalizing protest in general. The case is ongoing.
\n\nAt the beginning of August, a teenager who had worked alongside Elon Musk to dismantle the US Agency for International Development claimed that he had been assaulted in downtown Washington, DC. Musk had originally hired him to work at Neuralink; barely out of high school, by August, this boy had already worked inside the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Social Security Administration. This résumé speaks volumes about what kind of expertise—and security—can be found in federal agencies under Donald Trump.
\n\nTrump used this opportunity to deploy the National Guard to Washington, DC. Yet the presence of Guardsmen in DC did not suppress expressions of dissent. If anything, it had a demystifying effect, showing that putting the military on the streets could not serve to consolidate control while spurring grand juries to openly defy prosecutors.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/3.jpg\")
ICE mercenaries recycling tactics that they had previously used for neo-Nazi street demonstrations.
\nOn September 10, racist propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot while promoting Trump’s agenda at a university in Utah. Although the young man who killed Kirk had himself grown up in a conversative family, Trump and his supporters jumped at the chance to call for a crackdown on “the left,” with one Trump supporter declaring\nwithout irony that the shooting of Charlie Kirk was “the American Reichstag fire.” For the first time since Trump entered office, grassroots fascist groups around the country held public demonstrations.6
\n\nCentrists provided cover for Trump and his supporters by joining the chorus of Republicans who treated Kirk’s death as a more significant tragedy than the tens of thousands of fatalities caused by gun violence in the US every year, including the Democratic politicians assassinated three months earlier. Whether they were motivated by fear or genuine concern for human life—dubious in view of their silence about the genocide in Gaza—the consequence was to give the Trump administration and its supporters a free hand.
\n\nTrump and his henchmen are hastening into fascism as fast as they can. They have already scripted the scenes in advance. There is no such thing as “giving them an excuse” to crack down—they are determined to make use of whatever opportunities arise, however far-fetched. The important question is whether others will enable them to do so. The burning of the Reichstag in February 1933 enabled the Nazis to consolidate power in Germany only because other political factions responded to it by granting the Nazis emergency powers. The way to stop a Reichstag fire is not to attempt to control those who act in response to the violence of the state, but rather to refuse to legitimize fascist initiatives or narratives under any circumstances. Anything else is complicity, pure and simple.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/12.jpg\")
Charlie Kirk, meet Horst Wessel.
\nOn September 17, Trump announced that he was designating “Antifa” as “a major terrorist organization.” Satisfied with the progress of the initial phase of their program—“First, they came for the immigrants”—the Trump administration was moving on to the next stage: “Then they came for the anti-fascists.” A government doesn’t announce that it has embraced fascism; it simply declares anti-fascists to be enemies of the state.
\n\nOn September 21, nearly 100,000 people packed into a stadium in Arizona for a Trump rally billed as a memorial service for Charlie Kirk. Stephen Miller’s speech channeled Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Trump and Musk were seen together for the first time since May. Presenting themselves as victims enabled Trump and his supporters to regain momentum after the reversals of June. Fascists must appear to be both Übermensch and underdog; this propulsive contradiction lies at the core of their project.
\n\nNational Guardsmen were still occupying the streets of Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Trump had announced that he would deploy the National Guard to Chicago, where a massive ICE operation was underway, and to Portland, Oregon as well. On September 30, he convened US military officials from around the world to instruct them to use American cities as “training grounds.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/26.jpg\")
“We’re under invasion from within,” Trump declared to a gathering of US military leadership on September 30. “No different than a foreign enemy.”
\nOn October 8, Trump hosted a panel of far-right grifters whose business model was to spread fear and lies about anti-fascists. One guest, Jack Posobiec, explicitly stated to the approval of Trump and his cronies that “Antifa” originated in the Weimar Republic—making it clear for all to see that the administration considered those who resisted the rise of Adolf Hitler to be its foes.
\n\nIt was a frightening moment to be an opponent of fascism. Hundreds of people had lost their jobs for not responding to Charlie Kirk’s death to the satisfaction of their employers; the Turning Point organization was targeting one professor after another for suspension. Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, fled the country. The anti-fascist media platform It’s Going Down shut down.
\n\nIn such a situation, it is tempting to withdraw from proactive efforts to focus on preparing for repression—but doing so cedes the initiative to the authorities, permitting them to continue to gain momentum.
\n\nThe Trump administration was preparing the next phase of its assault. How far would it go, and how fast?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/10.jpg\")
An ICE agent in Chicago points a weapon directly at a photographer. Fall 2025.
\nAhead of the October 18 reprise of the No Kings protests, Trump and his underlings described the participants as “Hamas supporters,” “antifa,” and “paid protesters” representing “the terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party, a “small but very violent and vocal group.” This apparently did not deter anyone from participating. Exceeding expectations, nearly seven million people turned out for the October protests, considerably more than in June. While the demonstrations themselves were mostly staid events controlled by local Democrats, they drew out a wide range of people, some of whom were eager to engage in more concrete protest activity, especially in places where ICE was active.
\n\nTrump’s National Guard deployments were hitting legal obstacles. He called off a threatened troop deployment to San Francisco at the last minute. Resistance to ICE operations continued in Chicago and elsewhere around the country, fostering new grassroots networks and tactics.
\n\nThe election results of November 4 showed that, far from building a consensus in favor of their rule, the Republican Party was losing support. The hot potato had changed hands again: voters who had cast protest votes against Biden now blamed Trump for the economy. In electing Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York City, voters rebuffed centrist Democrats who had, yet again, argued that Trump’s victory indicated that Democratic policies had to shift even further to the right. Mamdani’s victory also gave Trump an additional adversary to track, drawing his attention from “Antifa” to other threats.
\n\nIn the wake of the elections, new rifts became visible within the Republican Party. The so-called “antisemitism task force” of the Heritage Foundation resigned in response to the foundation’s president defending extreme-right podcaster Tucker Carlson for platforming an avowed antisemite. Zionist Jews who had partnered with Christian nationalists for the sake of exterminating Palestinians likely already understood that this coalition included people who wanted to exterminate Jews as well. But by November, it was clear that Jewish Zionists were not the ones in the driver’s seat, and the prospect of electoral losses diminished their incentive to put up with the situation for the sake of retaining power.
\n\nMarjorie Taylor Greene was forced to resign from Congress after clashing with Donald Trump over his unwillingness to release the Epstein files, saying “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.” Although her withdrawal from office suggests restiveness among some elements of Trump’s base, it confirms that Donald Trump continues to wield the power of life and death over Republican politicians. To consolidate the sort of control over the United States government that Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan established over Russia, Hungary, and Turkey, Trump must show that he can sacrifice even his staunchest allies. All successful autocracies involve this sort of farcical infighting and jockeying for position. They don’t call it competitive authoritarianism for nothing.
\n\nIn a polarized political climate, such fractures are unlikely to turn a significant element of Trump’s base against him, but they illustrate why Trump has to project strength at all times. Trump’s supporters have debased themselves for the sake of his cult—avowing falsehoods, excusing atrocities, enduring cognitive dissonance. The moment that the rewards for doing so dry up, there will be hell to pay.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/22.jpg\")
Justice delayed, justice denied.
\nBitcoin had spiked when Trump took office, ahead of his promised deregulation of cryptocurrency. It peaked immediately before the White House panel spreading fear about “Antifa.” In November, however, it plunged, shedding almost a third of its value. At the same time, there were murmurings that the Artificial Intelligence investment bubble could burst, tanking the stock market. Some Republicans likely feared that Trump’s tariffs and general recklessness could contribute to an economic crisis. This may have diminished their eagerness to be counted among his most obsequious supporters.
\n\nOn November 26, two National Guardsmen were shot in Washington, DC by a disaffected Afghani war veteran. Trump once again sought to capitalize on this event to intensify his campaign against immigrants, but his Reichstag fire strategy was already producing diminishing returns. It bears mentioning that the shooting would not have occurred if Trump had not deployed the National Guard to DC in the first place. “She swallowed the spider to catch the fly… I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.”
\n\nOn November 29, ICE attempted to carry out a major operation in New York City, only to be\ncompletely thwarted by popular resistance. People surrounded the ICE agents, blocked them, and escorted them out of the city. Rather than subduing the population, Trump’s heavy-handed attempt to make federal agencies into a political weapon had inflamed people, drawing them out of despair and fear into passionate collective action.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/16.jpg\")
\nOn December 15, Kash Patel’s FBI claimed to have arrested five alleged members of “an anti-capitalist, anti-government movement,” four of whom were accused of participating a bomb-making conspiracy. The Criminal Complaint bears the hallmarks of a classic entrapment case.
\n\nThe end of 2025 finds us at another turning of the tide. If federal agencies have yet to move with full force against a target other than immigrants, it is only because people have fought so hard to obstruct ICE. This drives home the true meaning of solidarity: the best way to protect ourselves tomorrow is to protect each other today. Trump and his henchmen would already be carrying out extrajudicial killings in our communities if they could. They may yet.
\n\nHaving put the pieces in place to target anti-fascists, it is almost inevitable that federal agencies will follow through. Any FBI agent who wants to advance his career now has an incentive to set up an entrapment case, and more ambitious assaults are probably on the way as well. If these succeed in reducing people to silence, if the frame-ups play well to television audiences and turn public opinion against popular resistance, this will embolden not only the Trump regime, but also Democratic politicians who would happily be rid of their pesky rivals. We should respond to the next round of repression in ways that bring people together to experiment with new tactics, the same way that people have formed rapid response networks in response to ICE raids.
\n\nThis is not the first time—not even the first time this century—that federal agencies have declared anarchists to be their number one domestic target. The FBI did the same thing in May 2005. Within seven months, they had initiated “Operation Backfire,” one of the flagship cases of the Green Scare alongside the SHAC 7 prosecution. Looking back twenty years, we can see that refusing to let our movements fracture under pressure is as crucial to our safety as any particular security culture practice.
\n\nIf Trump’s support continues to crumble, this may prevent him from targeting his adversaries in a systematic way, but it will not reduce the danger he poses. If his situation grows more precarious, there will be more Reichstag fires, more Charlottesvilles. Like Benjamin Netanyahu, he may instigate wars—or worse—as a means of evading his day of reckoning.
\n\nNonetheless, the only way out is through. Today, it is clear for all to see that there is no route to a better future that does not begin with building the capacity to resist the violence of the state.
\n\nUpdate: Three weeks after this text was published, the United States attacked Venezuela and ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good in cold blood in the streets of Minneapolis, fulfilling the foregoing predictions.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/15.jpg\")
\nChiefly concerned with job security, Democratic politicians have sought to focus attention on the 2026 elections, even as Congress itself has been largely sidelined by the executive and judicial branches of government. The 2026 elections could be to Trump’s second term what the Mueller investigation was to his first: a spectacle that distracts people from the urgent matter of building real power. Regardless of how people vote, the elections will only matter if the balance of power shifts against Trump both in the streets and inside the state.
\n\nIn 2022, our comrades in Turkey reported a similar dynamic under Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:
\n\n\n\n\nFor the past ten years, there has always been an election on the horizon that people hope will deal a death blow to Erdoğan… there have been no less than six of these elections, ranging from a referendum to presidential, parliamentary, and mayoral elections. Some of them were repeated until the “correct” result was delivered.
\n
Donald Trump has made it crystal clear that he will not leave power voluntarily. On October 23, Steve Bannon stated that there was a plan to arrange for him to serve a third term. Had there been no George Floyd uprising, Trump might well have succeeded in enlisting more elements of the state in his 2020 coup attempt. This time around, he has installed loyalists atop all of the agencies that refused to support him then. It is possible that he might conclude this term with his administration even more fractured than last time—but only if we exert considerable pressure.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/24.jpg\")
Update your tactics before it’s too late.
\nIf Trump will not leave power voluntarily, we have to evaluate our protest strategies accordingly. We must build the capacity to exert leverage in ways that militarized occupiers cannot easily counter. The Democrats who have argued that Trump’s National Guard deployments were not necessary on the grounds that the demonstrators were not being unruly enough to warrant them are thinking in a way that can only serve Trump. Remaining sedate and well behaved will simply open the way for fascism. The question is not how to keep crowds under control, but how to become impossible to control.
\n\nEven those who only wish to for electoral victories must understand the importance of grassroots unrest, as we saw in 2020:
\n\n\n\n\nIn op-ed after op-ed, centrists expressed concern that the street confrontations of May and June 2020 might swing the election to Donald Trump. In fact, Democratic voter registration in June 2020 increased by 50%, while Republican voter registration grew by just 6% that month. Those who cited the protests as a factor in determining how they cast their ballots in 2020 voted for Joe Biden by a margin of fully 7%.
\n\nIn other words, the George Floyd Revolt helped get Biden elected.
\n\nAnd remember—the George Floyd Revolt did not begin with a voter registration drive. It got off the ground with the burning of a police precinct. According to a Newsweek poll, 54% of those surveyed believed that this was justified. If that had not occurred, the movement would not have succeeded in pushing the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others into public discourse, and there would have been no electoral gain for the Democratic Party. There is no way to create powerful movements without taking real action against the causes of injustice.
\n
Even if Trump is removed from power, whether by election or other means, authoritarianism is here to stay. Now that this is the ascendant model, we see politicians from across the political spectrum cozying up to the reigning despots—not just Eric Adams, but even Zohran Mamdani—or taking pages from their playbook, like Gavin Newsom. The Republican Party has been reinvented as the private vehicle of a single man; the Democrats who worked so hard to brand themselves as sanctimonious rule followers are hastening to emulate their rivals.
\n\nIf or when Trump loses control, a power struggle will ensue, and the winner could be an autocrat like himself—from either political party. This is yet another reason why, if we want to see real social change, we have to build grassroots movements that are not dependent upon representational politics, that can act effectively regardless of who holds office.
\n\nWe must make it clear to everyone that even the most well-meaning Democrats do not represent a real alternative, however they might update their campaign platforms. The Biden administration drove millions of people to vote for Trump because the Democrats failed to address the problems that capitalism is creating. If we manage to force Trump from power once more only to repeat this cycle yet again, the next wave of fascism will be more horrific than we can possibly imagine.
\n\nThe movement against Trump must dig deeper and look further than electoral politics. We must center practices that put power in the hands of ordinary people, pursuing a strategy that outflanks and delegitimizes party politics along with capitalism and the violence that sustains it. We have to dismantle the mechanisms that produce billionaires in the first place. We have already caught glimpses of what that can look like.
\n\nThe problem is much bigger than a single politician, party, or government. The same forces that brought Trump to power in the United States are bringing similar figures to power in Argentina, Chile, Europe. We are enduring the dying throes of a centuries-old social order that threatens to destroy us along with itself. We will only survive if we can solve the immediate problems we face in ways that enable us all to build a new way of life together. This is the secret promise of the rapid response networks.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/17.jpg\")
Volunteers staffing a community defense center set up at Home Depot.
\nHow do you topple an autocrat?
\n\nFirst, identify segments of his support base that are not permanently committed to his reign,7 but whose backing is essential to keeping him in power. Analyze their interests. Identify what is more important to them than maintaining his reign. Think about their vulnerabilities. Then identify a form of activity that could put that segment of the autocrat’s supporters in a situation in which they will prefer to withdraw their support.
\n\nEngage in that activity—whatever it takes. Repeat as needed until enough sectors of society shift their commitments.
\n\nSomething like this occurred in summer 2020, when Trump concentrated federal agents in Portland in an effort to show his supporters in the capitalist class that he could successfully impose order and preserve business as usual. Essentially, he was attempting to provide proof of concept to potential investors in a coup. Because he failed, most major capitalists did not support his 2021 coup attempt. The credit for this goes to the crowds who showed up every night, whose courageous efforts not only defeated the federal agents but convinced elements of the ruling class that Trump’s efforts to remain in power would only endanger them.
\n\nThe anti-Tesla protests of spring 2025 demonstrated the effectiveness of this strategy. Facing a unified front of fascist demagogues, Christian nationalists, and tech billionaires, the protesters applied pressure to Tesla dealerships and achieved startling results within three months. Coincidentally or not, the fracturing of the alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk—one of the most powerful participants in Trump’s coalition—took place immediately before the June 2025 uprising in Los Angeles, distracting Trump at a crucial juncture.
\n\nIf we do not wish to live under the autocratic rule of Donald Trump or his successors for the rest\nof our lives, we will have to use direct action to break up his support base, compelling those who have remained passive to take a stand against him.
\n\nAnd then, we will have get to the root of the problem.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/21.jpg\")
\nWith the old institutions in disarray and faith in politicians at an all-time low, this would actually be an auspicious time for a powerful liberation movement—if only such a movement existed. The chief problem is not the strength of our enemies, but our own weakness.
\n\nCountless people on the receiving end of Trump’s policies experience a daily emotional reality of rage restrained by terror, in which the fear of state violence mounts at a pace that only barely keeps up with their fears for the future. Should cracks appear in Trump’s control—for example, if a movement emerges that can consistently outmaneuver his forces—it could unleash a tremendous amount of pent-up energy. Whoever can bring people together on that basis will open a path that millions will rush to tread.
\n\nThere will be no returning to Biden’s America. The destruction that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have wrought cannot be undone. But they have showed millions of people how urgently real change is needed. In the wreckage that they have created, it should be easy to make the case that our institutions of memory and care should never be at the mercy of a few narcissists. Everyone should be able to recognize that the legal system was only a few appointments away from tyranny all along, that the entire political system has always functioned to keep most people at a distance from their own agency.
\n\nIf nothing else, the lines are drawn clearly now. The far right can no longer pretend to oppose the billionaires who finance them; the billionaires can no longer pretend to be creating prosperity for all; the Zionists who threw their lot in with the Heritage Foundation can no longer pretend to represent resistance to fascism. Who can still pretend that Silicon Valley deepens our social ties, that Artificial Intelligence makes us more creative, that cryptocurrency enriches us? Those who made excuses for ICE and the police in 2020 must now see them for what they are, a reserve army waiting to serve any despot—just as they must see that borders are not lines between communities but open wounds within them.
\n\nAs we brace for the worst, we should also prepare proactively to bring about a best-case scenario. As terrifying as this situation is, if we survive, we will arrive in a different world. Right now, in the midst of battle, let’s identify what it will take to get there, popularize our proposals, and start to realize them together.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/19.jpg\")
Demonstrators blocking a highway in Los Angeles.
\n\n\n\nIt’s you against the billionaires. At their disposal, they have all the wealth and power of the most formidable empire in the history of the solar system. All you have going for you is your own ingenuity, the solidarity of your comrades, and the desperation of millions like you. The billionaires succeed by concentrating power in their own hands at everyone else’s expense. For you to succeed, you must demonstrate ways that everyone can become more powerful. Two principles confront each other in this contest: on one side, individual aggrandizement at the expense of all living things; on the other, the potential of the individual to increase the self-determination of all human beings, all living creatures.
\n\n \n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/12/16/13.jpg\")
\n“A profit-driven economy inevitably concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands. In a globalized world, any country that tries to reverse this process scares off investors; this is why today even the wealthiest nations are being forced to feed all the infrastructure of social democracy into the fire, keeping the market healthy at the expense of the general population. This problem could be solved by the revolutionary abolition of private property and the state that defends it, but there is only one way to preserve the support infrastructure of social democracy while maintaining capitalism, and that is to narrow down who gets to benefit from it.” –Syriza Can’t Save Greece: Why There’s No Electoral Exit from the Crisis ↩
\n“Just as capitalism succeeded feudalism in Europe, representative democracy proved more sustainable than monarchy because it offered mobility within the hierarchies of the state. The dollar and the ballot are both mechanisms for distributing power hierarchically in a way that takes pressure off the hierarchies themselves. In contrast to the political and economic stasis of the feudal era, capitalism and democracy ceaselessly reapportion power. Thanks to this dynamic flexibility, the potential rebel has better odds of improving his status within the prevailing order than of toppling it. Consequently, opposition tends to reenergize the political system from within rather than threatening it.” –From Democracy to Freedom ↩
\nWhile Henry Ford and Elon Musk share an affinity for fascism and white supremacy, Ford famously bought up all the stocks in his company in 1919 in order to take it private. By contrast, Musk made his billions largely as a consequence of stock market speculation, which has left Tesla stocks dramatically overvalued relative to the actual income that Tesla sales bring in. ↩
\nThose facing off against Donald Trump in the United States would do well to study resistance in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and other authoritarian contexts. ↩
\nThe refrain of the democrat: “Take everything from me, but leave me the idea that I choose this state of affairs of my own free will!” ↩
\nIn August, one journalist had asked Where Have the Proud Boys Gone? Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point, sought to use the opportunity to set up chapters around the country. It remains to be seen to what extent they will succeed in expanding the grassroots reach of the far right, which no longer has the advantage of purporting to oppose the establishment. ↩
\nEspecially in the era of rage-driven social media, it can be tempting to focus on those who are most committed to supporting the autocrat, but that is a mistake. There is little to be gained by focusing on those who would sooner die than see their leader deposed. ↩
\nSince September 2025, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been stationed in Chicago, Illinois kidnapping immigrants and terrorizing the population at large. Their immediate goal is to capture enough people to meet Donald Trump’s target deportation numbers; beyond that, they aim to project strength, showing that they can wreak havoc in a “sanctuary city” with impunity. Arguably, the idea is to normalize the use of federal forces against the civilian population in order to erode our capacity for collective solidarity, paving the way for autocracy. Here, we focus on one of the strategies that people have employed to resist them.
\n\nWe have seen at least three different complementary strategies emerge in Chicago in response to the ICE attacks. Some have gathered at the ICE holding facility in Broadview, a suburb twelve miles west of downtown Chicago, attempting to block the facility or at least to tie ICE agents down in conflicts around this bottleneck in their infrastructure. Others have set up rapid response networks in order to mobilize communities throughout the Chicago area to respond to ICE sightings and raids. Still others have set up community hubs at Home Depots and other locations, sharing information with people from targeted demographics and seeking to build ties within and between communities in the face of the assault on a deeper basis than could be possible through Signal threads alone.
\n\nSeveral comrades who have participated in the ongoing protests at the Broadview facility composed the following reflections for the benefit of those who are now responding to ICE assaults in North Carolina and beyond. Though we are all actively involved in rapid response networks, we chose to concentrate most of our energies on the protests in Broadview. We will recount our experiences in greater detail elsewhere; for now, we will focus on what we have learned so far, especially the things that we wish we had known at the beginning.
\n\nAs of now, it remains difficult to assess the success of the Broadview protests, the rapid response networks, or the Home Depot occupations. ICE and United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has succeeded in arresting and deporting over 3000 people—roughly half a percent of the nearly 500,000 undocumented people living in Illinois. Measured against their stated goals, this represents a failure. People from a wide range of neighborhoods have engaged in principled resistance, blowing whistles, following ICE vehicles, reporting every helicopter and suspicious vehicle sighting, and doing everything in their power to prevent ICE agents from kidnapping their friends and neighbors. All of that activity is inspiring. Whatever our enemies might say, people in this city took enormous risks to protect their neighbors from arbitrary arrest for the simple reason that they identify with those that the current administration is trying to portray as foreign and dangerous.
\n\nNonetheless, one in every 200 undocumented people has been kidnapped and disappeared by an overtly fascist government, and ICE intends to stay in Chicago to continue this campaign of ethnic cleansing. ICE has reportedly purchased a much larger building immediately adjacent to the Broadview facility and will likely be devoting more resources to turning Chicago from a “sanctuary city” to a hunting ground for anyone who looks “like an undocumented person.” From this point of view, our efforts thus far have been inadequate. It will require considerably more effort, coordination, commitment, and intensity to succeed in our goal of driving ICE out of Chicago and ultimately abolishing them. This is no small task, given that we are up against the most powerful government in the world.
\n\nWe offer the following reflections on our experience in anticipation of a longer chronology and analysis.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/6.jpg\")
Demonstrators line up behind reinforced banners outside the Broadview ICE facility on November 1, 2025. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\n\n\n\nThe processing center in Broadview holds roughly 150 prisoners at any given time; it serves as a hub for ICE activity across the Midwest. Higher-capacity ICE detention centers are illegal in Illinois, making the location a logistical chokepoint in the transportation of prisoners. As federal resources for this center have ballooned to satisfy far-right politicians’ desire for xenophobic violence, the Broadview location has become increasingly important as a critical piece of infrastructure.
\n\nWhen protest activity at Broadview began, small groups initially tended towards self-sacrificial, spectacular acts—typically sitting down in front of ICE vans leaving the processing center, only to be dragged away by the Broadview Police Department. As reports and footage from each action spread and faith in the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance waned, the mobilizations changed form: the primary objective of action shifted from sacrifice to resistance. ICE began brutalizing and detaining protesters at will, and attempts to block the vans failed; in response, early morning crowds traded N-95 masks for black bloc gear and opted to follow agents instead of just sitting down.
\n\n \n
![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/10.jpg\")
Courage against cupidity, liberation against oppression.
\nThe first and most obvious response to ICE attacks is to form rapid response networks. Comrades should join these and engage with them wholeheartedly. At the same time, because ICE will arrest whomever they please whenever they please, rapid response networks and neighborhood hubs alone are inadequate. The effectiveness of rapid response networks in neighborhoods depends largely on their ability to be everywhere. Tremendous numbers and organizational capacity are required, and this may not be possible in locations where there are neither established mutual aid networks nor strong communities connected on an ethnic and social basis.
\n\nBecause ICE can choose the time and place of their attacks, we will almost always be a step behind if we focus solely on reacting to them, no matter how dense our networks are. One solution to this problem would be to identify tactics that we can engage in proactively after ICE strikes, regardless of whether rapid response networks react in time. That would require identifying stationary secondary targets, or at the minimum, gathering after the fact at the location of kidnappings, using the model demonstrated by the movement against racist police violence. A third option is to identify strategic locations that ICE continuously depends on and exerting pressure there.
\n\nA friend analogized rapid response tactics to intervening at the point of consumption. Our wager was that, by engaging at the point of production—the detention facilities and hotels that ICE agents depend on—we could maximize the effectiveness of our numbers. When ICE agents encounter resistance in the streets, they can simply go elsewhere, and they often do. But their holding facilities represent what business executives call “fixed assets,” investments that can’t easily be transferred, so obstructing these can create a bottleneck.
\n\nWhile we don’t have precise data, observers reported that the protests at Broadview did diminish ICE activity in the neighborhoods. The more that federal agents have to deal with at their home base, the less they can do out in the city.
\n\nThe Broadview facility is approximately 45 minutes away from downtown Chicago by car; it takes over an hour to reach it by train. This means that the first challenge to solve is logistical: how do you get people out of the city and to the facility? This remains a tremendous obstacle today.
\n\nBut that was not the most serious challenge.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/4.jpg\")
Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\nOur first engagements with ICE were terrifying. They do not behave like normal law enforcement, but like soldiers. They wear full combat fatigues, are comfortable tear-gassing and pepper-balling anyone who defies them, make virtually no distinction between “violent” and “nonviolent” protesters, and generally do not modulate their aggression according to circumstances. Yet, as became clear later on, their control of the streets was fragile, at least until Democratic politicians reinforced them with state and local police. As far as we can tell, there were never more than 300 ICE officers in Illinois at any point over the past three months. If they had been forced to defend the Broadview facility by themselves, without assistance, they would likely have behaved in such a way as to intensify local anger, potentially leading to a outburst of resistance of the sort we saw in 2020.
\n\nThere was a window of opportunity at the beginning of the ICE operations in Chicago when they were not yet well oriented in the physical and political terrain, before local and state police reinforced them. If we had acted more boldly and ambitiously at the Broadview facility during that time, we might have been able to precipitate a much more interesting and generative situation, drawing in a wider range of people with more combative energy.
\n\nAfter a particularly rowdy demo on September 26, it became clear that ICE could not maintain the perimeter around the Broadivew facility without constantly tear-gassing protesters—a tactic that annoyed neighbors and local community members and generally created the impression that local politicians had lost control of their territory. In response, Illinois governor Jay Robert “JB” Pritzker and Broadview mayor Katrina Thompson sent in state and local police to secure the area.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/5.jpg\")
Without the support of the Illinois State Police and the Democratic politicians who sent them, ICE agents could have lost control of the area around Broadview. Photograph from Unraveled Press.
\nWe place so much emphasis in this analysis on the Democrats and Illinois State Police because their arrival at Broadview was clearly intended to address the danger represented by the evolving intelligence of the crowds. It was not surprising that, in response to the violence that ICE agents employed in the first days of the conflicts, some people defaulted to self-sacrifical behavior, seeking only to emphasize their moral difference from ICE rather than looking for ways to escalate and expand the conflict. But building strong bonds of trust with people on the ground and engaging with each other directly across ideological differences has made a lot of things possible that did not feel possible before.
\n\nAt the beginning of October, our minimum objectives were to overcome the trap of the self-sacrificial approach, to break out of the free speach zones and state-imposed barriers, and bridge the gulf between the “front liners” and the rest of the protesters in order to be able to directly engage the police. It was precisely this growing confidence, camraderie, and tactical intelligence that forced the politicians to bring local and state police forces to bear on the situation.
\n\nThe Illinois State Police in particular has played a brutal role in the repression of protests around the Broadview ICE facility, beating and severely injuring a number of entirely non-violent protesters and several members of the clergy on a regular basis for weeks. The day before Pritzker stood up in front of 300,000 No Kings demonstrators to thunder against the brutality and illegitimacy of ICE’s presence in Chicago, his state police beat up and arrested 11 people to defend the Broadiview facility; police attacks at the facility resumed just a few hours after his speech. It is essential not to let Democrats get away with such contradictory positions, to force their hand wherever their rhetoric deviates from reality.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/8.jpg\")
The Illinois State Police have consistently played an essential role in brutalizing and suppressing the protests in Broadview, yet the average Democratic voter still wrongly imagines that governor JB Pritzker is standing up to ICE rather than supporting them. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\nHow can autonomists exert leverage on Democratic Party politics without legitimizing or strengthening the Democratic Party itself? How can we take advantage of the fault lines between the Democrats and the Republicans, which threaten at any moment to give rise to a larger crisis of governance, in order to divide the political class and weaken their capacity to coordinate repression? One strategy could be to build relationships with institutional left organizations, like unions or other advocacy groups that have already developed the necessary resources, relationships, and infrastructure to pressure Democratic politicians.
\n\nAs a result of Republicans efforts to reverse the “long march through the institutions,” many of the the NGOs and left institutions that the Democratic Party depends on are in crisis. While Trump’s Department of Justice attacks their capacity to raise money legally, the younger volunteers and radicals they seek to recruit or employ are turning towards more autonomous milieus and tactics. Many people inside these institutions are aware of this and have begun to seek out input from or to build relationships with autonomous social movements, especially after witnessing the courage and success of militant efforts during the George Floyd Uprising and the Stop Cop City movement. This could present a crucial opening for anarchists to work with the rank-and-file membership of these groups, at least for now, drawing them away from supporting politicians like Pritzker towards more autonomous efforts like direct action confronting ICE.
\n\nIf politicians like Pritzker and Katrina Thompson can declare their opposition to Trump on television and in the media while arranging for their underlings to brutalize even the most peaceful protests against ICE, if they can declare their support for undocumented people while protecting the very shock troops that are carrying deportations without paying any political price, there will be no limit to how fast and how far autocracy can proceed. There are challenges and risks in attempting to work with powerful institutions that do not necessarily have incentives to be reliable allies to autonomous movements. But it is at least as dangerous to forgo the opportunity to work with more people at a time when radical movements must expand or perish.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/1.jpg\")
Demonstrators with shields gather outside the Broadview ICE facility on September 19, 2025. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\nThe two preexisting organizational forces that had the greatest impact in the Broadview protests were, first, autonomous networks—as virtually everyone defaulted to the leaderless, horizontal structures that became popular through struggles between 2010 and 2020—and, second, clergy. The notorious footage of Pastor David Black being shot in the face after praying in front of the ICE facility went viral and led to several corporate media interviews. Clergy-driven demonstrations and other protests have taken place consistently at the Broadview facility every Friday morning.
\n\nHistorically speaking, it has been difficult for these two tendencies to work together, as their tactical sensibilities and strategies for resisting repression differ considerably. Autonomists generally operate with opacity and maintain their capacity to intervene by avoiding being individuated, whereas clergy require recognition as clergy in order to preserve the perceived legitimacy that they bring to bear via protest. When ICE shot Pastor Black in the head with non-lethal rounds, this created a potential opening for autonomous activity, provided that autonomous organizers reached out across these tactical and political differences to establish real relationships of trust and familiarity. This is not always easy, but it is often necessary.
\n\nWe caught a glimpse of what it could look like to fulfill this potential on November 1, when a playful demonstration managed to take the streets and advance on the police lines using reinforced banners. Although the police quickly seized the banners, the tactic was effective: it led to far fewer injuries than previous efforts and only one arrest, and the police had to call in quite a few reinforcements to secure their position. This was the first time that many of the protesters had ever used a reinforced banner. It convinced the clergy to train two weeks later on how to resist a police line, something that had been unimaginable just a month prior.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/7.jpg\")
Illinois police brutalizing demonstrators at the Broadview ICE facility on November 1. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\nIn order to address the challenges posed by the distance of the Broadview facility from downtown Chicago, we could have undertaken a more concerted effort to mobilize from within rapid response networks to shuttle people. Immediately building closer relationships with unions and other institutionalized leftist groups might also have helped.
\n\nWhile practically all of the protesters at Broadview were also active in various rapid response networks, these relationships nonetheless felt underdeveloped over the last few months. It is as important to build relationships across space as across political difference. Ideally, participants in the rapid response networks and the various facility protests and occupations should understand one another as participants in a single larger effort and strategize accordingly. If we had, we might have proved more effective on all fronts.
\n\nICE is already reportedly moving on from North Carolina to New Orleans and other targets. This drives home that when we engage in frantic activity in response to a crisis, we should not forget that the most important thing is to build long-term connections and momentum that will remain after the urgency of the moment has passed. If every time that ICE strikes, they leave each community more mobilized, interconnected, and radicalized than before, we can use their efforts to eventually become capable of defeating them.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/9.jpg\")
Federal agents use tear gas to defend the Broadview ICE facility on September 19, 2025. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/11/20/3.jpg\")
Demonstrators mobilize against the Broadview ICE facility on September 19, 2025. Photograph courtesy of Andres A. Chavez.
\nElbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. On September 8, 2021, Elbit announced it would open an “Innovation Center” in Cambridge, Massachusetts for its subsidiary company KMC Systems. The Innovation Center lasted less than three years before activists forced it to close.
\n\nLast year’s early-lease termination of the KMC office is the first time that activists in the United States have forced Elbit Systems to close a facility. It is also one of the few successes that the US Palestine solidarity movement has achieved since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in 2023. This anonymously submitted analysis explores the year-long targeted direct action campaign that successfully evicted KMC Systems from Cambridge.
\n\nOn September 8, 2021, Israel’s largest weapons company announced that its subsidiary KMC Systems was opening an “Innovation Center” in the heart of downtown Cambridge. KMC Systems (henceforth referred to as its parent company, Elbit) explained the new facility as part of the company’s anticipated growth. Starting their expansion in Cambridge put the company within walking distance of its “top talent” recruitment pools of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While the city’s mayor gleefully cut Elbit’s red ribbon, activists took note. But they didn’t strike immediately.
\n\nIn nearby Somerville, many Palestine solidarity organizers had their hands full pressuring Puma to end its contract with the Israel Football Association. Others were quietly preparing to publish an interactive research project tracking Zionist collaboration across Massachusetts, known as The Mapping Project. Over a year passed before a protest was organized against Elbit, following the deadly raid that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) perpetrated against the Jenin refugee camp in January 2023.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/8.jpg\")
In December 2021, BDS Boston demonstrators forced Puma to temporarily shut down their outlet store.
\nDays later, a crowd of 300 people gathered at Cambridge City Hall and marched two blocks to disrupt the Innovation Center at 130 Bishop-Allen Drive. As the three-story building was surrounded by a sea of Palestinian flags, several dozen activists stormed the downstairs lobby. Keycard access-only elevators prevented activists from reaching the second floor where Elbit rented space. Instead, organizers gave speeches against the weapons company, disrupted work for the first-floor tenant, and left before police could carry out arrests. The march continued unimpeded to the nearby MIT campus.
\n\nMonths later, in April 2023, organizers called the first rally specifically singling out Elbit. A few dozen activists met up, marched through the street to the office, and yelled outside. A few weeks later, a May 15 Nakba Day rally-turned-march stopped at the Elbit facility. This time, someone spray-painted “Land Back” across the building before slipping back into the march.
\n\nSensing what might be coming, Elbit attempted to obscure its presence. After the two consecutive protests, it removed the KMC Systems logo from view and tinted the office windows. Too late.
\n\nThat spring, an activist group called BDS Boston declared a campaign to evict Elbit from Cambridge. They started by canvassing the businesses around Central Square where Elbit was located. By their third canvass, every business in the vicinity had been reached. Many were sympathetic; a few offered to display informational leaflets condemning their neighbor. Two blocks from the office, a popular Palestinian coffeehouse prominently displayed the flier at the register. One can only hope it spoiled the lunch break of at least one Elbit employee.
\n\nFrom April to October 2023, BDS Boston regularly canvassed the surrounding block. Often a few people, sometimes as many as twenty, would gather outside Elbit during the weekday and hand leaflets to passersby with information about the weapons company in their backyard. This early activity wasn’t confrontational, but it established a visual presence and routine of frequency that would be important in the months to come.
\n\nEarly canvassing efforts were also supported by the Filipino group Malaya Movement. In August, the group filed a policy order in the Cambridge City Council to support the Philippine Human Rights Act. In it was a clause condemning Elbit’s war crimes in the Philippines. The Cambridge City Council voted to remove all mention of Elbit.
\n\nBy early fall, messages such as “War criminals work at 130 Bishop-Allen Drive” and “Elbit out of Cambridge now!” were graffitied on sidewalks throughout the wealthy neighborhoods near the office, generating minor chatter on local Reddit threads.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/4.jpg\")
Elbit removed the address of its Cambridge facility from its website in October 2023. Activists publicized the information themselves.
\nOn October 7, 2023, the siege on Gaza was momentarily broken when 3000 militants led by the al-Qasam brigades overpowered the Zionist occupation by sea, in the air, and above and below the ground. The world was shocked; many anticipated the escalation in violence from the Israeli military that followed immediately after. An urgent momentum pulsed through the international Palestine movement. Demonstrations erupted everywhere. In Boston, hundreds of people took the streets in support of the resistance. One of the first major rallies in Boston focused on Elbit.
\n\nWithin a week, a new group modeled on the British direct action network Palestine Action (and briefly operating under the same name) prevented Elbit workers from accessing their Cambridge office. Before opening hours, three Palestine Action US activists barricaded the door to the building by bike-locking their necks to the door handles. One also dumped red paint across the sidewalk and spray-painted “Shut Elbit Down” on the building. Having successfully deterred the employees, the activists were able to unlock themselves and slip home right under the noses of the bewildered Cambridge police.
\n\nWithin a few hours, anonymous activists vandalized the building again. The walls were spray-painted with anti-Elbit slogans and the keycard machine was smashed. Four days later, anonymous activists hit the building once more, smashing keycard readers and dousing the building in red paint that took weeks to remove.
\n\nIntercontinental Real Estate, the real estate company that owns the Bishop-Allen building and leased the second floor to Elbit, was targeted a week later. Anonymous activists sprayed red paint across their office and smashed the keycard readers. A local news station was also covered in red paint.
\n\nDuring this time, BDS Boston transitioned from canvassing the sidewalk to picketing the office and announcing noise demonstrations. The small-to-medium crowds these regularly drew now brought megaphones and banners.
\n\nOn October 30, Palestine Action called a rally outside of the Elbit office. More than 200 people arrived. Police set up a perimeter of metal barricades around the building and staged officers behind them. The crowd chanted against the police for protecting a weapons company. Several people began pushing through the barricades toward the building. Unprepared, the police panicked. They snatched people from the crowd, tackling them and pepper-spraying wildly. One cop lost his footing on wet leaves and cartoonishly crashed into the sidewalk. Officers openly argued with each other about what to do. Activists de-arrested each other and pushed back against the police; some enthusiastically hurled eggs and smoke pellets at them.
\n\nAltogether, nine people were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault on an officer. All were released that same evening, and eventually, a judge dismissed all of their charges.
\n\nAfter the October 30 rally, Palestine Action dialed back on the Cambridge Elbit facility. The group called for a protest there on December 14, which was later quietly rescinded. Online, they promoted actions against Elbit Systems of America nationally, pushing people to get organized against the war machine, form affinity groups, and take direct action. In November, the group organized its last public action before disbanding. On November 20, activists descended on the Elbit manufacturing facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire. They bike-locked entrances, smashed glass doors, covered the building in paint, broke the HVAC system, and graffitied “Free Gaza, Fuck Elbit!” Four people were arrested; they ultimately served 40 days in jail and two years on probation.
\n\nAround Boston, various NGOs and the Democratic Socialists of America made futile appeals to Elizabeth Warren and other members of Congress to endorse a ceasefire. Local chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now briefly mimicked the performative arrest actions of Jewish activists that made headlines in DC and New York City. The Party for Socialism and Liberation wore people out marching outside empty consulate buildings and rallying over the weekends in public parks. Occasionally, unaffiliated activists staged disruptive actions against Boeing, Raytheon, and Boston trucking logistics.
\n\nMeanwhile, BDS Boston was brainstorming new ways to exert leverage against Elbit. By the end of October, the group launched a tertiary target campaign against the landlord, Intercontinental Real Estate. On social media, BDS Boston published the names, emails, and phone numbers of the three other companies renting space at 130 Bishop-Allen Drive. For the next ten months, the downstairs work-bar and the upstairs architecture firms received emails and phone calls about their neighbor on the second floor.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/1.jpg\")
BDS Boston outreach material about Elbit Systems in November 2023.
\nBDS activists were straining the relationships inside the building at the same time they were calling the real estate company themselves. When the landlord’s receptionist started hanging up calls, activists tried a new way to get through to the company. A local tenants union sent organizers into another of Intercontinental’s properties, a luxury apartment complex downtown. Activists canvassed the irritated residents about their landlord, Intercontinental Real Estate CEO “Peter ‘Genocide Profiteer’ Palandjian.” Complaints certainly got back to the company. By the time the tenants union organized a second canvass, private security was there waiting for them.
\n\nOn January 22, BDS Boston expanded its actions against Elbit to include investor JP Morgan Chase. That day, nearly 200 people marched to the Harvard Square Chase Bank branch. Acting on their own, a few individuals went ahead of the march and disrupted the branch office, yelling anti-Elbit chants and throwing bloodied prop money everywhere. Outside, activists picketed in a long, unbroken circle taking up the whole block. The branch closed for the day.
\n\nLess than a month later, hundreds of activists shut down a Chase Bank branch in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. A handful of people recreated the bloodied-money disruption; others brought rubble and bloodied linens to dump outside the entrance, creating a visual of the company’s investment in Elbit’s genocide. The large crowd blocked entry to the bank until it closed for the day, then shut down traffic in the adjoining intersection, where speakers from Palestinian Youth Movement praised direct actions interrupting the US-Zionist war machine. Others spoke in support of Palestinian armed resistance.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/9.jpg\")
JP Morgan Chase’s Form 13F filing with the SEC in May 2024 showed a 70% reduction in Elbit shares held, with its holdings falling from shares worth a total of $54 million to just $16 million.
\nSimilar actions recurred a few more times. BDS Boston would announce a branch location, usually drawing over 100 people. As the crowd picketed the location and physically prevented people from accessing the branch, others acted autonomously as they saw fit, usually by throwing prop-money inside the branch or dumping rubble, paint, and bloodied linens at the doorway. Each action succeeded in closing the branch for the day. Only once was someone arrested for allegedly dumping rubble, and that person’s charge was eventually dismissed.
\n\nOn April 17, 2024, Columbia students took over the lawn in a Student Encampment for Gaza. Police raided them the following day. When Columbia students’ tents sprang back up, they were not alone. Within a week, similar protests erupted across the country. In Boston, students set up camps at Harvard, MIT, Emerson, Boston University, and Northeastern.
\n\nDays before this “student intifada,” BDS Boston simultaneously disrupted four Chase Bank branches across the city. This was the last of the bank protests until mid-summer, and the penultimate such protest of the whole campaign. Most Palestine organizers were directing their energy to sustaining the camps throughout the city.
\n\nDisruptions targeting Elbit didn’t pick back up again until the end of May. Riding the energy of the student encampments and the Chase Bank disruptions, picketers began coming out in larger numbers and with greater appetite to take the intersection outside of the Elbit office. At least 50 people repeatedly showed up and blocked cars from turning onto Bishop-Allen Drive, usually resulting in petty pushing matches with otherwise impotent Cambridge police. The protesters always stood their ground.
\n\nIn February, BDS Boston organizers had learned that Elbit employees didn’t have to come to the office on days when there was a protest. Pickets resumed regularly. By early May, the Chase Bank actions had decreased in frequency. JP Morgan Chase SEC filings showed a 70% reduction in Elbit shares, dropping their holdings from $56 Million to $16 Million. Activists kept phone-blitzing the other businesses in Elbit’s building throughout spring and summer. Furious secretaries occasionally relayed the message that the landlord was trying to break the lease with Elbit as soon as possible. Organizers took this as encouragement, but treated it as nothing more than a rumor. If true, it was time to double down against the landlord.
\n\nIn late June, more than 100 people gathered in Harvard Square to do just that. The crowd marched a mile north to the $15 million home of Intercontinental Real Estate CEO Peter Palandjian. Rallying outside the yellow mansion, activists blasted Palandjian for cashing “blood money rent checks” and demanded that he immediately evict Elbit. Annoyed neighbors decried the noisy midday disruption. Activists plastered his street with pictures of his face, captioned: “WANTED FOR CASHING IN ON GENOCIDE. TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR TO EVICT THEIR GENOCIDAL TENANT.”
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/7.jpg\")
In late June 2024, protesters gathered at the $15 million home of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation CEO Peter Palandjian, demanding he evict Elbit’s medical subsidiary KMC from its “Cambridge Innovation Center.”
\nIn July, BDS Boston and Palestinian Youth Movement called for a week of action. The goal was to increase Boston community engagement with the Elbit campaign, planning something every day of the week. PYM led a Palestine 101 workshop over a kick-off dinner, presenting to over 100 people. The next morning, a crowd shut down the Harvard Square Chase Bank branch from the moment it opened until closing time. Later, PYM hosted a Tatreez workshop, followed by a No Tech for Apartheid teach-in.
\n\nThe following evening, BDS Boston and PYM held an 18-hour picket outside the Elbit office. By day, activists picketed Elbit and chanted in support of the resistance. A People’s University for Palestine teach-in was set up right in the middle of the street. By night, the demonstration became a vigil and memorial for Palestinian martyrs. Only once did an agitator try to disrupt it: one night, a lone man with a sound cart interrupted the vigil with an Arabic-language recording of Zionist propaganda. Activists collectively shouted him down, surrounding him with kuffiyehs and eventually outlasting him.
\n\nLater, the space was converted again. Activists set out tarps and pillows and got comfortable in the street. They projected Tell Your Tale Little Bird, a documentary about Palestinian women resistance fighters, against the concrete wall of the building. For the whole night, the intersection belonged to the protest.
\n\nOn another night, a few dozen activists returned to the landlord’s house in North Cambridge. Near 2 am, they gathered outside his front yard, banging noisemakers and shouting demands to evict Elbit. As private security chased and attempted to film the protesters, an irate Palandjian stumbled onto the porch, yelling in his underwear.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/10.jpg\")
Police surveil Palestine solidarity demonstrators on September 2, 2024.
\nBy the end of the summer, the campaign had gained traction. Direct action against Elbit was a cornerstone of Palestine organizing in Boston. BDS Boston staged weekly pickets outside the office, taking more space and becoming increasingly comfortable pushing back police. Peter Palandijian was growing irritated. The upstairs tenants passed on rumors that most Elbit employees had started to work from home. The office was nearly always vacant.
\n\nOn August 18, the Cambridge Day local news reported the office was empty. Elbit confirmed this publicly: they were gone. A few days later, activists held a march to celebrate. They took over the intersection below the now-empty office on the second floor, where flecks of red paint were still visible under the drawn window shades. Someone adjusted the usual chant “Elbit is not welcome here” to “Elbit is no longer here!” The crowd cheered. Hot-headed police repeatedly threatened to arrest activists, brandishing zip-ties, but the activists were undeterred.
\n\nSomeone got on the megaphone. “You will not hear the word ‘victory’ from BDS Boston’s lips until Elbit Systems is completely dismantled. Until Palestine is completely liberated. Instead, you’ll hear us say: onward.”
\n\nThe year-long campaign to evict Elbit Systems was animated by four groupings: the independent activist group BDS Boston, the direct action network Palestine Action, the Palestinian community group Palestinian Youth Movement, and anonymously acting individuals and affinity groups. Together, this constellation cut a new path for Palestine solidarity in Boston and for protest in the city in general.
\n\nThis campaign was unique in the Boston Palestine ecosystem. Instead of pandering to city or federal politicians, it focused on impeding a specific unit of the Zionist war economy. The campaign also differed from one-off actions at Boeing and Raytheon sites. Disruptions against Elbit were routine, occurring almost weekly for the better part of year. Leasing office space in a shared building was a particular vulnerability activists were correct in exploiting.
\n\nThe campaign was most led by independent, autonomous groups with strong political lines supporting each other’s tactics. The Elbit campaign rejected symbolic arrests and peace-policing. When people gathered in a crowd—whether of 20 or 200—it was to impede work, not march symbolically. Those who used megaphones praised those who used spray paint cans. This is a meaningful departure from the timid NGO-locomotive that typically drives Boston protests.
\n\nAnd it worked.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/2.jpg\")
Activists shut down Elbit Systems in October 2023.
\nHere follow some individual reflections on the campaign.
\n\nAfter October 7, the first actions at the Elbit office were vandalism. The building was graffitied and doused in paint three times in four days. Its keycard reader was smashed, as was the keycard reader at the Intercontinental Real Estate office. A local news station was doused in red paint. These actions occurred frequently—and the police had no leads, with the exception of one person who took public credit for one vandalism (their charges were later dropped by a judge). All of the anonymous vandalism was openly celebrated by the public-facing organs of the Elbit campaign.
\n\nThe October 30 rally immediately followed this slew of paint actions. Predicting more vandalism, the police cordoned off the building with metal fencing and surrounded it. Protesters didn’t accept this turn of events, pushing through the police line and hurling eggs and smoke pellets at police. This was a major departure from the docile rallies Cambridge police had come to expect—and it showed in their aggravated and dysfunctional response.
\n\nTogether, the weeks of vandalism followed by the confrontational demonstration signaled a willingness to escalate against Elbit. This specter lurked behind all future protests. It likely contributed to the work-from-home option Elbit eventually gave employees in response to protests. This was a useful leverage point for activists, turning less-confrontational protests into deterrents to come to work. Frequent protests meant fewer employees coming into work, which rendered the physical office a redundant business cost.
\n\nBy October, BDS Boston started a tertiary target campaign against the Cambridge “Innovation Center.” Over the next ten months, the group would experiment with three different types of tertiary targets: the landlord, Elbit Systems investors, and clients of KMC Systems.
\n\nGoing after KMC Systems’ clients was the least-explored of the tertiary target campaigns. BDS Boston only organized two phone blitzes demanding that clients cut ties with the Elbit subsidiary. Once, the group called for a rally outside a research and development summit where KMC and its clients were present.
\n\nBDS Boston spent more time protesting Elbit investor JP Morgan Chase. The group organized several successful disruptions at a handful of consumer branches across greater Boston. The direct impact of these protests on Elbit was likely negligible, but they substantially benefitted BDS Boston itself. The group swelled in numbers during the bank protests, drawing more than 100 people each time. Protests at Chase Bank were always on weekends, providing the opportunity to be involved for those who couldn’t make the Elbit office pickets during the work week. Repeated success in closing branches with minimal effort built momentum and confidence that showed up later at pickets.
\n\nThe most effective tertiary target was the landlord, Intercontinental Real Estate. This was both the weakest link in the chain and the most consequential. It was easy for protesters to make Elbit a business liability for Intercontinental on several fronts.
\n\nThe fact that Elbit shared the building with several other businesses represented a vulnerability. Disruptions outside the building (vandalism, noisy picketing, clashes with police) irritated the other tenants. Wearing down the other tenants, canvassing other Intercontinental properties, and showing up at Palanjian’s home at all hours made it easier to let the lease lapse.
\n\nGroups that can analyze targets, experiment with tactics, and integrate strategic lessons are indispensable to winning campaigns. Palestine Action US disbanded after two actions. By November 2023, the anonymous vandalism at Elbit had ended. Palestinian Youth Movement got involved in 2024, after the campaign outlasted other local initiatives. Were it not for BDS Boston’s unwavering focus and repeated actions against Elbit over the course of a year, the “Innovation Center” might never have closed.
\n\nIt was easy to get distracted after October 7, 2023. The Toufan al-Aqsa operation and Israel’s resulting scorched-earth policy generated unforeseen public support for Palestine. Masses of people flooded the streets looking to take action. Many groups called protests all over the city—protests with shifting targets and little strategy. BDS Boston was a joinable organization with an active campaign against a sensible target; this offered a meaningful way to get involved.
\n\nThe politics of BDS Boston also played an important role. BDS Boston is not an NGO, but an independent political group; it does not focus on appealing to politicians, but on direct action. The group supports Palestinian resistance and is staunchly anti-Zionist. Around Boston, it distinguished itself by supporting The Mapping Project, an online resource tracking Zionist collaboration in Massachusetts; BDS Boston weathered a public feud with the BDS National Committee in Ramallah, which denounced that project.
\n\nThese political distinctions aren’t trivial. They are important guardrails against cooptation. It’s no coincidence that BDS Boston helped make space for a campaign that broke away from NGO protest norms.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/6.jpg\")
A demonstration outside the offices of Elbit in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 30, 2023.
\nThe state inevitably responds to effective action. Smart campaigns seek to minimize, leverage, or crush the countermeasures that the authorities take against them without capitulating to intimidation. Activists must stay abreast of the shifting terrain of repression in order to minimize the damage it can do.
\n\nFollowing the slew of vandalism against the Elbit facility, building security increased to a round-the-clock stakeout by Cambridge Police and private security personnel. Usually, there was never more than one guard, numbing himself with cellphone blue-light and drive-thru fast food to bear the boring night shifts. This minor adjustment was evidently enough to deter vandalism. Who knows what the vandals’ strategic calculations were; still, it’s worth stating that activists don’t always have to be on the back foot with police.
\n\nThat much was evident at the October 30 rally, when the rowdiness of the crowd caught police off guard. How much more could have been achieved with a bit more coordination? By December, police were showing up more prepared.
\n\nPalestine Action intended to hold another rally outside the facility on December 14, but quietly canceled it. The only ones who showed up were the police. That morning, photos went viral showing Cambridge Police staging two snipers on the roof of a business directly across from Elbit. Activists were right to use the resulting scandal to their advantage. While some anti-police advocates turned out to City Hall decrying the disproportionate show of force, anti-Elbit organizers played up the tension with Elbit’s co-tenants: Why is an architect coming to work under the scope of a sniper?
\n\nThe three strategic pivots in response to the increased police presence at the facility between October and December were an outright end to vandalism, the scandal about the snipers, and a shift to tertiary targets. The latter move opened new spaces to gather and gain confidence when organizers felt the Elbit site was “too hot.”
\n\nFollowing the success of this campaign, police have been expanding their toolkit. By summer 2024, three flock AI license plate reading cameras were installed on the Bishop-Allen building, and another at the entrance of the Intercontinental Real Estate office. For now, these are some of the only Flock cameras in the state of Massachusetts. Police are also requesting new surveillance camera installations around Cambridge, starting with Central Square.
\n\nThis is not a recipe for shutting down Elbit offices. Each campaign confronts a unique convergence of forces. In sharing this story, we hope to share how some organizers assessed their specific situation and uplifted each other’s tactics to win.
\n\nIn addition to a strong analysis, Boston activists were consistent. Whether it was an individual or small group acting by night, a few dozen activists picketing Elbit during business hours, or hundreds shutting down Chase Bank on the weekend, there was activity against Elbit nearly every week for one year.
\n\nIf you are reading this east of the Mississippi, you are within hours of an Elbit facility. With dedication, you can change that.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/3.jpg\")
Activists shut down Elbit Systems in October 2023.
\nAugust 3, 2023: BDS Boston and Malaya Movement canvass outside Elbit.
\nAugust 21, 2023: BDS Boston canvasses outside of Elbit.
\nSeptember 7, 2023: BDS Boston canvasses outside of Elbit.
\nOctober 12, 2023: Three Palestine Action activists bike-lock their necks to the entrance of the Elbit office, blocking employees from entering. Someone pours red paint all over the sidewalk. “Shut Elbit Down” is spray-painted on the building. That night, the building is vandalized again, spray-painted with “Elbit Makes Genocide,” “Fuck Elbit,” and “Elbit Get Out.” The key-card machine is smashed.
\nOctober 16, 2023: During the night, anonymous activists douse the Elbit building in red paint and graffiti it with “Elbit Arms Genocide.” The keycard reader is also smashed. This is the third consecutive vandalism against the Elbit office in four days.
\nOctober 18, 2023: Elbit removes the Cambridge office from its website.
\nOctober 24, 2023: Sometime in the night anonymous activists target the office of Elbit’s Cambridge landlord. The Intercontinental Real Estate office is sprayed with red paint; its keycard readers are smashed.
\nOctober 30, 2023: 200 activists rally outside the Elbit office. Many push through police barricades; several hurl eggs and smoke pellets at Cambridge Police. Nine are arrested, though a judge eventually dismisses all charges.
\nEarly November, 2023: Activists disrupt a career fair at Wentworth University sponsored by Elbit Systems, at which KMC Systems also had a recruiting table.
\nNovember 2, 2023: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nNovember 5, 2023: Multiple blocks of Cambridge’s Central Square are chalked with the names of Palestinian martyrs.
\nNovember 17, 2023: Tufts University students blockade the administrator building for several hours demanding divestment from Israel. A few savvy students in the blockade use the school’s personnel website to learn the names of the campus police responding to the action and begin chants addressing each police officer by name.
\nNovember 26, 2023: Activists disrupt a baggage claim area at Boston Logan airport in protest of Boeing. One activist is arrested. Several dozen more continue to rally outside the airport for a few hours.
\nDecember 2, 2023: BDS Boston picket outside Elbit.
\nDecember 13, 2023: Puma announces it will no longer sponsor the Israel Football Association (IFA).
\nDecember 14, 2023: Cambridge Police are photographed staging snipers on the roof across the street from Elbit in anticipation of a protest.
\nDecember 16 2023: Activists gather for a “family-friendly” protest at Cambridge City Hall. Free food is served, several speeches take place, and attendees dance dabke together on the City Hall lawn. Activists spray-paint yard signs reading “ELBIT OUT OF CAMBRIDGE” and chalk the steps of City Hall with anti-Elbit slogans.
\nDecember 18, 2023: More than 50 activists block trucks in the rain at a shipping terminal in Boston to protest the blocking of aid trucks at the Rafah crossing.
\nJanuary 1, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside Elbit.
\nJanuary 17, 2024: Activists block the entrance to a Raytheon manufacturing facility in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Red paint appears on the Raytheon sign.
\nJanuary 20, 2024: More than 100 people shut down a Chase Bank branch in Harvard Square. Activists disrupt the branch by throwing bloodied money, preventing people from entering, and picketing outside.
\nFebruary 8, 2024: Activists disrupt BNY Mellon, an investor in Elbit Systems, at their Boston office, throwing bloodied-money and chanting anti-Elbit slogans.
\nFebruary 11, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nFebruary 17, 2024: More than 100 people shut down a Chase Bank branch in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Activists disrupt the branch by throwing bloodied money, dumping rubble and bloodied linens at the entrances, preventing people from entering, and picketing outside. After the branch closes early, activists take over the adjoining intersection to give speeches in support of the Palestinian armed resistance.
\nFebruary 21, 2024: Activists learn that Elbit employees can work remotely on days there is a protest. BDS Boston schedules a picket outside Elbit at 9 am.
\nFebruary 27, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nFebruary 29, 2024: Activists block the entrance of the Elbit facility in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. Six are arrested.
\nMarch 4, 2024: More than 50 people block trucks at a Boston shipping zone for an hour to protest the blocking of aid trucks in Gaza.
\nMarch 7, 2024: BDS Boston protests outside of MassMEDIC, a medical device manufacturing summit, over Elbit’s participation. Activists demand KMC Systems clients end their contracts.
\nMarch 9, 2024: More than 100 people shut down a Chase Bank branch at the Prudential Center mall in Boston. Activists disrupt the branch by throwing bloodied money, dumping rubble and bloodied linens at the entrances, preventing people from entering, and picketing outside.
\nMarch 19, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nMarch 22, 2024: Seven people block the entrance of the Elbit manufacturing facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire using lock boxes.
\nMarch 26, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit. Elbit releases its 2023 financial results to shareholders.
\nMarch 30, 2024: Activists block traffic for Palestinian Land Day on the Longfellow Bridge using chains and bike locks.
\nApril 6, 2024: Palestinian Youth Movement and BDS Boston hold a joint demonstration against Elbit.
\nApril 15, 2024: Activists simultaneously disrupt four Chase Bank branches across Boston by throwing bloodied money and chanting anti-Elbit slogans.
\nApril 17, 2024: Columbia University students camp out on the lawn for Gaza, sparking a national wave of student encampments. Within a week, Boston campuses recreate the action with camps springing up at Emerson, Northeastern, MIT, Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts.
\nMay 15, 2024: Palestine solidarity activists protest around the city for Nakba day. Anti-Elbit graffiti appears around Boston. JP Morgan Chase SEC filings show a 70% reduction in Elbit shares.
\nMay 29, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit. Activists drop a banner reading ELBIT KILLS from the Charles Bridge.
\nJune 5, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nJune 12, 2024: Activists occupy the lobby of Boeing. Barricading themselves inside, they prevent a gathering crowd of employees and police from entering. After an hour, the activists leave together, without arrests.
\nJune 12, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nJune 26, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nJune 29, 2024: 100 activists march to Peter Palandjian’s house for a noise demonstration. Palandjian is the CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate, the landlord leasing office space in Cambridge to Elbit.
\nJuly 3, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nJuly 12, 2024: Start of the BDS Boston and Palestinian Youth Movement week of action. Over 100 people join the welcome dinner and Palestine 101 workshop.
\nJuly 13, 2024: BDS Boston shuts down the Chase Bank branch in Harvard Square from open to close. Activists blocked the entrances with lockboxes and human chains.
\nJuly 15, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit for 18 hours. Teach-ins happen throughout the day. By night, the picket converts into a vigil for martyrs, and then a movie screening. Activists hold the intersection outside the office for the entire time.
\nLate July 2024: Activists hold a noise demo outside Peter Palandjian’s home at 2 am.
\nJuly 24, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nJuly 31, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nAugust 7, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nAugust 14, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nAugust 21, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nAugust 26, 2024: BDS Boston pickets outside of Elbit.
\nSeptember 2, 2024: BDS Boston calls for a march and rally outside of the Elbit office to celebrate the early termination of the lease.
\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/10/10/5.jpg\")
Palestine solidarity demonstrators march to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on September 2, 2024.
\nOn May 12, 2025, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) announced its dissolution after more than four decades of armed struggle against the Turkish government. This came on the heels of a call from imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to disband the organization. On July 11, PKK fighters participated in a ceremony signifying disarmament. What will this mean for Kurdish movements for liberation and for the Middle East in general?
\n\nIn the following analysis, a Kurdish feminist militant draws on over ten years of political and research engagement with the Kurdish liberation movement to explore these questions. Raised in Iran and based in the Kurdish diaspora, the author, Soma.r, has been in close contact with women participants and remains actively connected to the movement.
\n\nA group of PKK fighters symbolically disarmed on July 11, 2025, in Jasna Cave, located in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. The site carries deep historical and political significance: in 1923, it served as a refuge and command base during British colonial attacks. That same year, Jasna Cave became a clandestine printing site for Bangî Haq (“Call of Truth”), the first revolutionary Kurdish newspaper, founded by the journalist Ahmad Khwaja. This act wove together anti-colonial resistance, political struggle, and underground journalism.
\n\nA century later, the act of disarming here is not surrender—it is a political statement, echoing through layers of time. It draws a line between the past and the present, invoking memory as strategy. In choosing Jasna, the fighters remind us: revolutions may shift shape, but their roots run deep. Where empire once sought silence, Kurdish voices printed truth. Where arms are now laid down, new struggles may rise—rooted in the same earth, but shaped by new imaginaries.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/1.jpg\")
Jasna Cave, the site of the symbolic disarmament of the PKK on July 11, 2025.
\nThis act gains further resonance in light of recent events. Just two days earlier, Abdullah Öcalan, the legendary PKK leader, reappeared in a video message—his first since 1999—calling for the end of armed struggle and urging a definitive shift toward democratic politics. This moment invites not merely commemoration, but interpretation: how does a guerrilla movement, once synonymous with armed resistance, perform political transformation through symbolic acts?
\n\nTo understand the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s self-dissolution, we must bear in mind the breadth of its social base, which spans tens of millions. Since Öcalan’s imprisonment in 1999, the Kurdish movement in Turkey has grown beyond its guerrilla origins into a complex political project rooted in diverse urban and rural, secular and religious, Kurdish and non-Kurdish constituencies—though the proletariat remains central. It now operates through a hybrid structure combining an armed wing in Qandil with a wide civilian network involving unions, municipalities, legal parties, women’s organizations, media, and transnational solidarity platforms. Its political praxis is at once territorial and transnational, legal and clandestine, militarized and deeply social. Among the most transformative shifts has been the rise of the Kurdish women’s liberation movement (KWLM), which has repositioned gender emancipation as both a symbolic and strategic core. Across Öcalan’s letters, the Rojava project and KWLM’s expanding role are consistently upheld as the PKK’s most significant contemporary achievements.
\n\nIn a significant development for the Kurdish political landscape, the PKK announced its dissolution following its 12th Congress. This decision was shaped by a series of dialogues initiated in October 2024, involving Abdullah Öcalan (via his nephew and the delegation of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party) and prompted by statements from Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, a far-right, ultranationalist political party in Turkey. Öcalan emphasized the need for transitioning the Kurdish question from armed struggle to democratic politics, stating he had the capacity to lead this shift if the conditions allowed.
\n\nIn response, the PKK began internal consultations and expressed readiness to convene a congress under Öcalan’s guidance. On February 27, 2025, Öcalan issued a formal “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society,” urging the PKK to end its armed activities and take responsibility for achieving a peaceful resolution. In response, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire on March 1. This was followed by the organization’s 12th Congress, where the decision to dissolve the PKK and end its armed campaign was formally adopted by the leadership of both the PKK and the Party of Free Women in Kurdistan (PAJK).1
\n\nÖcalan’s strategic vision was more fully developed in the May 2025 issue (No. 521) of Serxwebûn, the PKK’s official monthly publication. This final issue featured the complete 20-page document Öcalan had submitted to the Congress, along with a four-point letter addressed to the delegates, outlining the political framework for the transition to a peaceful and democratic phase of the Kurdish movement. Announcing the end of its uninterrupted 44-year history, the magazine declared: “Everything is in place for a new and stronger beginning.”
\n\nIn his April 27 letter, Abdullah Öcalan outlines a transformative vision for the post-PKK era centered on democratic nationhood, ecological and communal economics, and democratic modernity as an alternative to both the capitalist nation-state and real socialism. He proposes democratic society as the political program of the new era—one that does not aim to capture the state but to create autonomous, grassroots-based structures like communes. Within this framework, concepts such as democratic socialism, communalism, and regional confederalism become central to both Kurdish liberation and broader regional transformation. Öcalan calls this a new form of internationalism and urges all actors to take responsibility for materializing it, suggesting that success in Kurdistan could have ripple effects across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.2 The texts in this issue—including speeches, resolutions, and congress documents—reflect an attempt to reconfigure the movement’s strategic horizon.
\n\nÖcalan’s recent call for dissolution is not without precedent, as the PKK has long oscillated between armed struggle and negotiation. However, this moment signals a more profound ideological shift: since 2004, the movement has restructured itself around “democratic confederalism” via the Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union (KCK)—an umbrella framework that includes the PKK but is conspicuously absent from the current dissolution plan.
\n\nThe meaning of “dissolution” remains highly ambiguous. Does it signal the end of the PKK, a mere rebranding, or a tactical shift within a longer arc of political adaptation? More critically, what does dismantling a structure that has historically blurred armed resistance and grassroots mobilization mean for anti-state and anti-colonial struggles in the region?
\n\nEven within the PKK, interpretations vary. Zagros Hiwa, the Foreign Relations spokesperson of the KCK, stated on Sterk TV that the resolutions call for ending armed conflict—not disarmament—and questioned the feasibility of this, given the 100-meter proximity between Turkish soldiers and guerrillas. Others disagree. Amir Karimi, from the PKK’s Iran-Kurdistan branch, asserted, “Those who have fought and endured the most have the greatest right to speak about peace.” Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Numan Kurtulmuş, framed the process as part of a national effort to resist imperialist fragmentation:
\n\n\n\n\n“Iraq and Syria have been fragmented, Lebanon has become ungovernable. Libya, Sudan, and Somalia have been divided. These countries have turned into battlefields fueled by tribal, ethnic, and religious divisions, and some have been dismantled through terrorist organizations. We could have passively waited like a ‘yellow cow’ for our turn to be broken apart, or Turks, Kurds, and all others could unite to defeat this imperialist agenda. We have chosen the latter path and are committed to moving forward together.”
\n
Unsurprisingly, this call has generated division, uncertainty, and a wide spectrum of responses among Kurdish activists. Here, we will unpack these questions by analyzing the PKK’s historical evolution in relation to peace processes, and explore the broader implications of its dissolution for contemporary anti-state, anti-capitalist, and decolonial movements.
\n\nWe will begin with a brief overview of how revolutionary violence emerged through armed struggle in the Kurdish movement, and how this trajectory became entangled with a series of failed peace initiatives that often reproduced new cycles of war. Then, we can turn to the core question: why did the PKK pursue unilateral disarmament? We will examine his decision in relation to shifting political dynamics at regional, national, and global levels. Finally, we will reflect on the stakes, uncertainties, and strategic calculations surrounding this move, concluding with a gendered reading that foregrounds the role of the Kurdish women’s liberation movement in shaping both the limits and possibilities of this process.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/8.jpg\")
Abdullah Öcalan announcing the dissolution of the PKK in a video message in July 2025.
\nAs the PKK declared on May 12, 2025:
\n\n\n\n\nThe PKK was born as a liberation movement against the policy of denial of the Kurdish people enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne and the Turkish Constitution of 1924.
\n
From a recognized imperial “nation,” Kurds became “ethnic minorities” in states that repressed, assimilated, and erased them. Despite being nearly 40 million strong—20% of Turkey’s population—Kurds remain the world’s largest stateless people, excluded from political and cultural recognition.
\n\nState repression has often taken genocidal forms: Iraq’s Anfal campaign (1987–1988) killed 180,000 Kurds; Syria’s 1960s denationalization policies left tens of thousands stateless; Iran frames military attacks on Kurdish regions as jihad; and Turkey long banned the words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan,” labeling Kurds as “mountain Turks.” The war between the PKK and the Turkish military alone has claimed over 40,000 lives, in a broader context of Kurdish conflicts that have killed more than 250,000 since the 1960s.
\n\nThe Turkish Republic was built on the genocide of Armenians and the denial of Kurdish identity, both of which served to impose a homogenizing nationalist project. The PKK emerged in the 1970s in direct response to this exclusionary regime. Its opposition was not only military but cultural and political, as symbolized by Leyla Zana’s 1991 parliamentary oath (“I take this oath for the fraternity of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples”)—in Kurdish—for which she served ten years in prison.
\n\nToday, Turkish imperialism combines internal colonialism with regional neo-imperial expansion. Since 2016, Ankara has deployed proxy Islamist militias—like the “Syrian National Army” (SNA)—across northern Syria (Afrin, al-Bab, Azaz, Jarablus, Idlib). These militias allow Turkey to outsource warfare while advancing a neo-Ottomanist agenda of forced Arabization, Islamization, and demographic engineering. Promises of salaries up to $2500 attract youth surviving on mere tens of dollars, turning war into precarious employment.
\n\nSince 2015, Turkey has launched successive operations—Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, Peace Spring—occupying Kurdish areas, displacing populations, and enabling looting, mass violence, and ethno-political reengineering. Airstrikes in Iraq on Qandil and Sinjar have intensified, with little global response. This war model—privatized, precarious, and transnational—has extended to Libya (2019–2020), Azerbaijan (2020), Yemen, Niger, and Pakistan. Paramilitary networks linked to Turkish intelligence, like the Sultan Murad Brigade, operate from Kurdish villages such as Sinara near Afrin.
\n\nTurkey’s reach is also extraterritorial: in Europe, Kurdish activists are surveilled, extradited, or killed. Assassinations of key feminist figures like Sakine Cansız (Paris), Hevrîn Xelef (Syria), and Nagihan Akarsel (Iraq) reflect a gendered strategy of decapitating revolutionary leadership and stifling transnational feminist articulation. Turkish imperialism fuses Islamist militiafication, transnational war economies, and fragmented sovereignties, producing a deregulated violence in which market logics trump state interests.
\n\nThis extraterritorial violence is not an isolated extension of state power, but a core mechanism of a broader geopolitical agenda. This aggressive projection of force is not merely opportunistic; it is part of a broader neo-Ottoman, neo-colonial project aimed at reasserting Turkish influence across its former imperial territories. Central to this vision is the integration of Kurdistan’s geography and resources into the emerging architecture of global trade—particularly through the Middle Corridor, discussed below.
\n\nYet this violence has generated an equally transnational resistance. The PKK has politicized the Kurdish question, transforming a stateless population into an organized political subject. Led in large part by women, its project remains one of the few contemporary revolutionary visions centering social justice, pluralism, and radical critiques of power. Against statist, campist, or nationalist leftisms, which are predominantly shaped by vertical, militarist, and masculinist paradigms, the Kurdish movement—especially its feminist dimension—shifts the political from state-centric paradigms to embodied, localized, and solidaristic forms. Its slogan, Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (“Woman, Life, Freedom”), forged in decades of subaltern struggle, became a global cry during the Iranian uprising of 2022.
\n\nBut this resistance was made possible by armed struggle. And that raises the key question: what becomes of the Kurdish revolutionary horizon with the announced dissolution of the PKK?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/6.jpg\")
\nThe repeated collapse of peace processes in Kurdistan reveals not a lack of Kurdish commitment but the entrenched refusal of regional states to recognize Kurdish rights. In Iran, the 1989 Vienna talks ended with the assassination of Kurdish leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and his colleagues—an act replicated in the killing of his successor, Sadegh Sharafkandi, in Berlin in 1992. In Iraq, Baghdad’s breach of the 1970 Autonomy Agreement led to the genocidal Anfal campaign.
\n\nTurkey has followed a similar trajectory. While the Kurdish movement has consistently sought dialogue, Turkish state policy oscillates between short-lived peace gestures and systematic repression. President Özal’s early-1990s initiative died with him, and the decade that followed saw massive state violence, including torture, forced displacements, and cultural erasure. The 1999 capture of Abdullah Öcalan marked a shift: he called for a ceasefire and the PKK’s dissolution. Yet the state’s punitive response only deepened Kurdish mistrust.
\n\nDespite repression, the Kurdish movement transformed. By 2004, democratic confederalism emerged, rejecting nationalism in favor of grassroots pluralism. Armed resistance continued alongside legal-political strategies, culminating in the electoral gains of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP). But peace efforts, including the Oslo talks (2008–2011)3 and the İmralı Process (2013–2015), were sabotaged by the state. First, the leak of negotiations sparked a nationalist backlash in 2009; later, in 2015, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan abandoned the Dolmabahçe Memorandum in response to Kurdish advances in Syria, particularly the victory of the YPG and YPJ (the People’s Defense Units and Women’s Protection Units) in Kobanê. The collapse of the peace process triggered a brutal crackdown that displaced over 350,000 people and resulted in the deaths of around 1700 individuals, while also positioning Turkey among the world’s leading jailers of journalists. By August 2016, Erdoğan was denying that any negotiations had ever taken place. From this perspective, the Turkish government’s gestures toward peace negotiations have often signaled its preference for military operations, whether via war or coup.
\n\nFor many Kurds, armed struggle has become an existential necessity against what they see as colonial domination precisely as result of this asymmetric conflict, which some describe as a “war against peace.” Inspired by Frantz Fanon, the PKK frames violence as strategic self-defense. While internal critiques question urban warfare and protracted militancy, broad Kurdish support persists, rooted in historical trauma and the failure of political avenues. The state’s persistent framing of Kurdish identity as a threat reinforces this impasse.
\n\nBy 2025, any such horizon appeared more elusive than ever. But “all that is solid can melt into air.” As highlighted by Kurdish scholar Adnan Çelik and other voices within the movement, Öcalan’s message during the PKK’s 12th Congress, while unexpected, signaled a rupture: in contrast to his 2015 call for a “democratic opening,” the 2025 statement stripped away the ideological richness of previous appeals, omitting critiques of the nation-state, neoliberal capitalism, internal colonialism and patriarchy. While the initial statement portrays the PKK as a Cold War relic devoid of strategic or ideological legitimacy—calling for its disarmament without political concessions or recognition of Kurdish historical claims—this stance is partially revised in the April 27 letter, which devotes significant attention to the history of Kurdish repression by regional states and the PKK’s legacy of resistance.
\n\nWidely perceived as a unilateral capitulation, Öcalan’s shift provoked shock within the movement—with many interpreting it as a form of implicit humiliation and erasure of past sacrifices, according to Çelik. Yet rather than triggering collapse, it spurred both immediate organizational responses—such as a proposed dissolution congress—and an intense interpretive effort to preserve critical legacies. This moment signals a major strategic reconfiguration, shifting focus from the pursuit of a sociopolitical project to the management of militant heritage, memory, and political resilience amid a transformed geopolitical landscape.
\n\nToday, the Kurdish question remains structurally unresolved. Reconciliation is impossible so long as the Turkish state cycles between hollow peace offers and brutal repression. As the state clings to nationalist paradigms, the Kurdish movement continues to adapt—between insurgency and imagination, memory and resilience.
\n\nThis tension between state denial and Kurdish endurance came into sharp focus in Erdoğan’s post-disarmament landmark speech on July 12, where he officially acknowledged that the Turkish state committed mass killings of Kurds, stripped them of their rights, and initiated this violence in places like Diyarbakır prison. He admitted to burning villages, criminalizing unidentified individuals, banning the Kurdish language, and denying mothers the right to speak Kurdish with their children. Delivered in the wake of the PKK’s symbolic disarmament, the speech, insisting on unity of Turks, Kurds, and Arabs, marks a shift from insurgency to reconciliation, serving as a state-orchestrated spectacle in which the Turkish state reasserts its sovereign power by controlling the narrative of both past violence and future order, positioning itself as the sole arbiter of memory, truth, and historical legitimacy. Framed as an act of closure, this moment instead consolidates state authority. The dissolution of the Kurdish armed struggle is not met with genuine political transformation, but with symbolic containment. What appears as peace is, in reality, a rebranding of domination, setting the stage for new forms of control under the guise of reconciliation.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/4.jpg\")
Women participating in the symbolic disarmament of the PKK on July 11, 2025.
\nIn a letter dated April 25, 2025, Abdullah Öcalan articulated the rationale behind the proposed dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), framing it not as defeat but as a deliberate paradigm shift. He stressed that this process, far from an immediate disarmament demanded by the Turkish state, requires deep ideological critique, self-reflection, and a prolonged debate to reshape both personality and mentality. The PKK, founded to elevate Kurdish national consciousness and expose systemic oppression, now faces a phase in which the next step toward freedom must be built on democratic institutions, cultural renewal, and communalism4—transformations that the PKK as an armed hierarchical organization may no longer embody. It is within this trajectory that the dissolution must be understood: as the culmination of a theoretical break from the 20th-century nation-state model and its militarism, defined by systemic violence that has now “lost its justification (raison d’être).” Öcalan’s vision of democratic confederalism, grounded in local autonomy, gender equality, and ecological economy, signals a decisive break from the statist, militarized models of the past and a move toward a post-state societal project.
\n\nThis ideological evolution, however, is neither sudden nor uncontroversial. Since the 1990s, the PKK has undergone significant internal transformation, confronting the collapse of socialism and the authoritarian tendencies inherent in statist paradigms. The movement’s survival has depended on adaptability and critical engagement, culminating in the Twelfth Congress’s decision to embrace dissolution as a radical reorientation rather than a capitulation. The letter emphasizes that a failure over two decades to fully integrate democratic, ecological, and feminist principles into organizational structures has precipitated this moment of decisive change.
\n\nStrategically, the Kurdish political presence has gained prominence across Turkey and the broader Middle East, particularly through women’s liberation initiatives and political advances in all four Kurdish regions. This progress challenges Turkey’s prior framing of the PKK as a mere terrorist entity. Presidential advisor Mehmet Uçum’s recent declaration that “Kurds are an essential component of the Turkish nation” signals an ideological recalibration at the state level.
\n\nIn this situation, the dissolution of the PKK can be seen as a tactical move to remove obstacles to international recognition, especially of Kurdish structures in Rojava, where the “terrorist” label has served to justify Turkish military incursions. Disarmament aims to protect Rojava as an autonomous political project, ensuring its survival and legitimacy on regional and international stages. Reports suggest that a meeting between Abdullah Öcalan and Masoud Barzani (the longtime leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraqi Kurdistan) may soon take place—a development that, above all, strengthens the hypothesis of an emerging Kurdish regional alliance aimed at reinforcing the stability of Rojava in the current geopolitical context.
\n\nDespite the diplomatic gains stemming from the role Kurdish forces played in the fight against ISIS, international support has remained inconsistent. Öcalan’s call for voluntary dissolution could be a preemptive strategy to avert total defeat amid growing military isolation. Since the collapse of the 2015 peace process, intensified Turkish military pressure—cross-border operations, drone warfare, and surveillance—has confined PKK operations primarily to Qandil, eroding its capacity within Turkey. Even the 12th PKK Congress, which was recently held, took place 12 years after the 11th Congress, primarily due to the lack of security and to military pressure from Turkey. The PKK addressed this issue in a letter released on May 4, addressed to the people and activists of the movement:
\n\n\n\n\nA retrospective look at the past two decades reveals the following: although the new paradigm was intended to facilitate deeper integration with society, in practice, it was the cadre members who experienced the greatest disconnection from it—even as the movement as a whole moved toward decriminalization. While the aim was to cultivate stronger organizational structures and promote communal and socialist modes of life, what actually emerged was a rise in individualism and materialism. It is evident that in our engagement with the masses, we failed to provide adequate education or foster the organization of a truly democratic society. In the military domain, we were unable to develop or implement effective training and organization for social self-defense. We remained, in the mountains, at the level of guerrilla units detached from society and completely encircled. This condition not only led to increased casualties but also weakened the political and propagandistic impact of our armed struggle. Gradually, our capacity for effective warfare became confined to a very limited geographical area.
\n
Technological advancements, notably algorithmic warfare and real-time surveillance, have deepened this isolation, as NATO states prioritize relations with Ankara. Meanwhile, Kurdish autonomy in Syria is under threat from that regime’s centralization, and Turkish influence grows in northern Iraq with tacit local approval. These conditions have driven the PKK’s political center from armed struggle toward seeking civil and institutional legitimacy across the Kurdish region. The dissolution represents a symbolic disarmament and strategic relocation, shifting the Kurdish struggle into political and transnational arenas, where popular power is redefined outside the paradigm of military confrontation.
\n\nThe decline in PKK recruitment and the failure to translate anti-ISIS alliances into lasting international support underscore the necessity of this strategic recalibration. Öcalan’s proposal is understood by supporters not as surrender but as a lucid adaptation to changed geopolitical and military realities, including the prospect of a temporary ceasefire in Qandil and Rojava.
\n\nAccording to many Kurdish analysts, Öcalan’s stance reflects his persistent opposition to Israel and his reluctance to see the Kurdish movement forced—out of strategic necessity—into a tactical or pragmatic alliance with it. This, they argue, is what drives his pursuit of preemptive political solutions aimed at avoiding such alignments. Other proponents of the Kurdish movement contend that the decision by Öcalan and the PKK was a strategic attempt to prevent Kurdistan from becoming the next Gaza of the Middle East. They argue that the PKK’s military constraints in the face of a highly technologized inter-state and international war apparatus—coupled with Turkey’s persistent campaign to annihilate Kurdistan and Rojava—necessitated a political recalibration. This shift, they suggest, is also informed by the waning material and symbolic power of global solidarity with the Kurdish cause, which remains significantly weaker than the widespread support mobilized for Palestinians. From this perspective, if Turkey were to enact a Gaza-like scenario against the Kurds, there would be little international capacity or will to intervene. With diminishing material means of resistance and the absence of comparable regional or international mobilization, Kurdish actors must adopt alternative strategies for survival. This decision is thus viewed not as a retreat, but as a calculated and pragmatic tactic to endure within an increasingly unlivable geopolitical context.
\n\nThis strategic pivot cannot be understood without acknowledging the profound human toll of the conflict. Kurdish guerrillas, PKK cadres, and especially civilians are exhausted; the cumulative costs of the war have become unbearable. Thousands of young lives have been lost, entire cities destroyed, families fractured, bodies scarred, generations shaped by prison, exile, precarity, and stigma. This accumulation of suffering over more than forty years imbues the word “peace” with a new resonance: not as capitulation, but as a vital necessity—a breath long awaited after decades of suffocation.
\n\nFrom the Turkish state’s perspective, the dissolution aligns with a political strategy orchestrated by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who aims to extend his power beyond the constitutional limit of 2028. By presenting himself as the architect of a new peace process, Erdoğan hopes to win over parts of the Kurdish electorate while fracturing the opposition. Framed as reconciliation, the call to end armed struggle is, in reality, a maneuver to disrupt emerging alliances between Kurdish forces and progressive opposition currents. In 2019, the tactical support of Kurdish voters—notably via the HDP (now the Peoples’ Equality Party, DEM)—was crucial to the opposition’s victory in major cities like Istanbul and Ankara. This strategy seeks to isolate secular-nationalist factions within the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) from those open to dialogue with the Kurdish movement while maintaining a securitization discourse for domestic use. This electoral engineering rests on a dual calculation: weakening the joint mobilization of the opposition and deterring Kurdish forces from criticizing the regime too openly for fear of jeopardizing a potential peace.
\n\nIn this complex configuration, the Kurdish movement finds itself in a position reminiscent of the 2013 Gezi Park protests. As then, any opening toward dialogue with the state paradoxically implies recognizing its legitimacy, even as it remains the primary object of contestation. This tension requires the Kurdish movement to adopt a balanced posture: to engage in peace efforts without dissolving into Turkish institutional politics or alienating broader social movements. The result is a form of strategic isolation, but it can also be an opportunity to construct an autonomous political space in which the Kurdish question can be articulated without weapons, yet without renunciation.
\n\nMeanwhile, Erdoğan continues to exploit the rhetoric of securitization, criminalizing Kurdish political figures and perpetuating the trope of the “internal enemy” to consolidate his conservative base. The contrast between ongoing repression and the conciliatory language of peace underscores the cynical nature of the initiative: it is not a genuine commitment to resolution but a tactical move cloaked in the guise of dialogue.
\n\nBoth Erdoğan and the Turkish state as a whole seek to facilitate the integration of Kurdistan and its resources into contemporary capitalist markets through its disarmament. In a speech outlining the new 2025 process, Erdoğan openly articulated the capitalist objectives driving this initiative:
\n\n\n\n\nA Turkey free from terrorism will elevate the Turkish economy above all else. Once we achieve this goal, the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) will be the primary beneficiary. From this point forward, Turkey will compete in a new league.
\n
Likewise, Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek stated that Turkey has spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades on the “fight against terrorism,” and ending the conflict could bring significant economic benefits to the country.
\n\nThese economic imperatives, however, are not confined to domestic considerations alone. They are embedded in Turkey’s broader geopolitical ambitions. The so-called 2025 peace process between Turkey and the PKK is less a genuine step toward reconciliation than a geopolitical maneuver aimed at neutralizing Kurdish military, political, and economic power as a precondition for Turkey’s integration into neoliberal infrastructural capitalism. Central to this strategy is the realization of the “Middle Corridor,” a trans-Eurasian trade route connecting China to Europe via Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Turkey. This corridor positions Turkey as a logistical hub in global capitalist circulation. It is crucial to both China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, a multi-trillion-dollar project linking China with Europe, Africa, and the Middle East through land and sea routes) and the US-backed India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC, a competing infrastructure project aimed at securing Western geopolitical and commercial dominance).
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/10.png\")
The “Middle Corridor.”
\nMore recently, this vision has been reinforced through the “Development Road” initiative—a $17 billion project spearheaded by Iraq, Turkey, and Gulf states, which links the Persian Gulf (via Iraq’s Grand Faw Port) to Europe through Turkish territory. The proposed route cuts directly through Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, further amplifying the geopolitical stakes of Kurdish containment. In the aftermath of October 7 and the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians, regional geopolitical alignments have been further destabilized—producing a new wave of strategic corridor politics in which Turkey’s logistical and diplomatic centrality has only intensified. Amid the collapse of traditional power balances in the Levant and Gulf, Turkey’s control over these infrastructural routes—particularly those that bypass Iranian and Syrian influence—has become even more indispensable to both Western and non-Western blocs.
\n\nBut for Turkey to consolidate control over these routes, it must erase all subaltern or non-state actors, especially Kurdish forces. The disarmament of the PKK should therefore be read not as demilitarization but as the foreclosure of Kurdish armed struggle under a new regime of infrastructural securitization. With Iran’s “Shia corridor”(Tehran–Damascus–Beirut axis) neutralized, Assad toppled, and the axis of the PKK and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) severed under US and Israeli pressure, Kurdish actors have been structurally removed from regional power negotiations. With NATO’s tacit support, Turkey has carried out military campaigns and demographic reengineering to consolidate control over Kurdish regions. In this context, “peace” becomes a euphemism for capitalist pacification, with political reconciliation replaced by spatial and military containment to enable uninterrupted flows of capital, goods, and geopolitical influence across imperial corridors of extraction and control.
\n\nErdogan’s endorsement of the PKK’s call for disarmament should be seen in the broader context of shifting Middle Eastern geopolitics and the evolving balance of power in the region. It also reflects Turkey’s strategic use of Kurdish dynamics to counter rivals such as Israel and Iran. A complex interplay of domestic and regional political calculations has pushed Turkey toward adopting this tactic. This is clearly articulated in a letter from the Central Committee of the PKK dated May 4:
\n\n\n\n\nThe escalation of the Third World War in the Middle East, the outcomes of the Gaza conflict that began on October 7, 2023, the significant strikes by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israeli assaults, and the collapse of the Ba’ath regime in Syria—thereby extending the regional transformation to Iran and Turkey—have all played a pivotal role in bringing us to this stage. The fear and existential anxiety engendered within the Turkish state and the AKP-MHP government, combined with pressures for democratic change imposed internally by our movement and the Turkish people, and externally by the transnational capitalist system, constitute the primary factors motivating the [Devlet] Bahçeli administration and his well-known rhetoric and calls to action. Consequently, we have reached the current stage as a result of the aforementioned political and military developments.
\n
The paradox is profound: a movement possessing considerable territorial and organizational strength is forced to reinvent itself precisely because that power makes it susceptible to algorithmic annihilation. Ultimately, Öcalan’s proposal invites a fundamental rethinking of revolutionary struggle in an era defined by drones, metadata, and total surveillance. It challenges the Kurdish movement to imagine a form of resistance that transcends armed confrontation, finding power in silence rather than gunfire.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/3.jpg\")
Weapons burn during a ceremony representing the symbolic disarmament of the PKK on July 11, 2025.
\nThe announcement in February 2025 of the PKK’s potential armed disengagement raises profound questions about the conditions under which a protracted guerrilla struggle might transition into a political process, especially in a context marked by entrenched authoritarianism, repression, and ideological deadlocks. While some interpret this move as a sign of strategic and ideological reconfiguration, it remains deeply ambiguous. The Turkish government, framing the moment not as a “peace process” but as a “cleansing from terrorism process” (“Terörden arındırma süreci”), signals a punitive stance that departs from the conciliatory language of 2015, casting doubt on the possibility of a just and comprehensive resolution.
\n\nThis presents several urgent questions. Can democratization in Turkey be defined as merely symbolic gestures—such as the conditional release of Abdullah Öcalan (and bringing him to parliament to call on the Kurds to withdraw from Qandil and embrace a peaceful political path) or limited cultural concessions—or must it entail far-reaching constitutional reforms, the mass release of political prisoners, and formal recognition of Kurdish collective rights, including regional autonomy and the right to Kurdish-language education? Would the reinstatement of annulled municipal mandates, the return of exiles, or a general amnesty suffice to convince the PKK that a viable political path has emerged? Many fear that Erdoğan might renege on his commitments once he has secured the political leverage he seeks, repeating the betrayal of the 2015 process and risking a return to conflict with the Kurdish movement in a position of fragmentation and weakened legitimacy.
\n\nUnlike other peace processes—such as those involving the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in Colombia, or Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain—the Turkish state has refused to engage in truth and reconciliation, constitutional restructuring, or genuine political recognition. In Colombia, for instance, disarmament was accompanied by restorative justice initiatives, often led by women and survivors of state violence. A similar potential lies within the Kurdish women’s movement, yet the Kurdish case remains exceptional in its systematic criminalization and denial of the existence of a political problem. At the same time, what distinguishes the PKK case from many other examples is that it has the support of a powerful and influential mass-based civil and political movement. The struggle has not been confined to the military sphere alone, but has also taken deep root in civilian and political arenas.
\n\nThe decision of the PKK to engage in disarmament exposes internal contradictions. Despite being imprisoned since 1999, Öcalan remains the movement’s unchallenged authority, centralizing decision-making in a vertical structure that suppresses internal pluralism. His recent statement—“I can say that the opponents of the process have no value. They will fail”—epitomizes a model in which charismatic authority overshadows collective deliberation, generating a legitimacy crisis in which fighters and activists are expected to follow top-down directives without mechanisms for participatory decision-making. This centralization reproduces a depoliticized militant base and stifles the internal democratization needed for genuine transformation.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/7.jpg\")
\nIn the evolving landscape, some analysts highlight two developments that could mark preliminary steps toward disarmament and a transition to a democratic order. First, in a symbolic gesture, a group of guerrilla fighters, some of whom previously held leadership positions, publicly laid down their arms in the presence of the media, accompanied by a statement declaring:
\n\n\n\n\nWe are ready to participate in democratic politics.
\n
Second, the Turkish Parliament is anticipated to establish a body provisionally titled the “Commission for Social Peace and Democratic Transition,” tasked with formulating a legal and institutional framework to support disarmament and broader democratic reforms.
\n\nWhile these initiatives may initially unfold on a limited and symbolic scale, their proponents view them as indicators of mutual willingness to move forward in the peace process. Nonetheless, past experiences, such as the dispatch of three groups of guerrillas to the Turkish state between 2000 and 2007, underscore the persistent vulnerability of such efforts to repressive state policies and the enduring structural distrust that continues to hinder durable resolution. Neither the guerrilla fighters nor the PKK leadership appear to be naïve about the risks involved. They seem to be approaching the process with strategic caution and political foresight, deliberately preserving the option of returning to armed struggle if necessary. As Bese Hozat,5 Co-Chair of the KCK Executive Council, stated in an interview following the symbolic disarmament of 30 guerrilla fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan in July:
\n\n\n\n\nIf we were to unconditionally comply with every demand made by the state, it would lead to the following outcome: other groups would be expected to do the same—destroy their weapons, return to Turkey, and surrender. If such an approach becomes the norm, the fate awaiting us and our comrades would be either imprisonment or death. But such a future is not one we accept. The Turkish state must understand this.
\n
Still, some within the movement view this as an opportunity to transcend its hierarchical militarist Leninist legacy. A shift toward broader civilian participation and internal renewal could reposition the PKK within a wider democratic framework. The emergence of the DEM Party as a significant actor suggests the possibility of transforming a Kurdish nationalist formation into a pluralistic force capable of uniting Turkey’s broader democratic constituencies. Yet the risk of abandonment—by both the Turkish state and international supporters—looms large, making the promise of renewal contingent on structural reforms, not rhetorical accommodations.
\n\nA framework of transitional justice is crucial. Without acknowledging past atrocities—particularly during the 1990s and the brutal 2015–2016 period—any ceasefire will remain fragile. Truth, reparation, and the decolonization of national narratives are prerequisites for meaningful peace. Otherwise, Kurdish collective memory will continue to bear unhealed traumas that could reignite conflict.
\n\nThe regional context renders disarmament precarious. Syria remains unstable, and the fragile ceasefire between Kurdish forces and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), following the recent Kurdish Unity Conference, appears increasingly uncertain. Turkey’s ongoing military campaigns against Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria, including over 500 airstrikes on PKK-controlled zones in Iraqi Kurdistan in May 2025 alone, undermine the feasibility of a peace transition. Simultaneously, Ankara’s alleged back-channel offers—such as recognizing Kurdish autonomy in Syria in exchange for the dissolution of the PKK—remain vague and untrustworthy. A full-scale offensive on Rojava would threaten to collapse the civil and military architecture of the Kurdish project.
\n\nWithin this transnational configuration, the PKK is not an isolated guerrilla force but part of a broader network established since 2002 through the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which includes the PYD in Syria (2003), PJAK in Iran (2004), and the PÇDK in Iraq (2002). These sister organizations, while nominally autonomous, are ideologically aligned with Öcalan’s vision of democratic confederalism and are deeply embedded in their respective societies, particularly through women-led initiatives. The ambiguity of Öcalan’s disarmament call—whether it targets solely the Turkish wing of the PKK or extends to these allied entities—adds to the uncertainty. Some analysts suggest that cadres could be redeployed to other fronts, like PJAK or Rojava, rather than demobilized outright, raising the possibility of a tactical rather than strategic dissolution. Then, the fate of guerrilla forces in the Qandil mountains remains uncertain, as Ankara’s signals are ambiguous and often contradictory, blurring the line between rumor and reality. For example, AKP member Şamil Tayyar claimed that nearly 300 senior PKK members would be relocated to third countries such as South Africa and Norway, while approximately 4000 fighters would be gradually received at the border. Yet, beyond such unofficial remarks, what concrete steps—beyond rhetorical gestures—will the Turkish state actually take?
\n\nDomestically, Erdoğan’s suppression of the CHP—which has historically been a secular nationalist party complicit in anti-Kurdish policies—reveals the paradoxes within the Turkish opposition. For many Kurds, the CHP remains part of the problem rather than an alternative, complicating the formation of an inclusive democratic coalition. Meanwhile, internal tensions within the Kurdish movement, combined with Erdoğan’s autocratic consolidation, continue to fragment the political field, making a pluralistic political realignment uncertain.
\n\nDespite these challenges, the Kurdish movement demonstrates remarkable resilience and strategic adaptability. It continues to articulate a political vision that resists militarization while affirming the right to self-defense—aligning itself with global decolonial struggles. In Rojava, for example, the Autonomous Administration sustains a formidable security infrastructure, including the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), YPG-YPJ, and Asayish forces, estimated at over 80,000 members. In Rojhilat, the PJAK continues to organize opposition to the Iranian regime. These formations reflect a deeply rooted, transborder movement that cannot be reduced to a mere guerrilla phenomenon.
\n\nThis material infrastructure suggests that even if the current process collapses, the PKK and its allies could pivot to a new, perhaps more fragmented and protracted, phase of resistance. Decades of asymmetric warfare, ideological consolidation, and social embedding have given the movement a capacity for survival unmatched by many revolutionary actors. Its legitimacy stems not just from military capacity, but from its cultivation of political consciousness, gender liberation, and grassroots autonomy.
\n\nAt the heart of this hope lies a deeper ethical question. Is it not profoundly unjust—perhaps even cynical—to project our visions of radical democracy, anti-capitalism, feminist internationalism, and non-state anti-fascism onto a people already burdened by marginalization, repression, structural poverty, and relentless criminalization? Can we, in good faith, ask a geopolitically vulnerable and besieged people to carry, alone, the burden of our revolutionary utopias? How can a marginal revolutionary force—politically and militarily isolated, devoid of state or international backing—survive not only as an organization, but as a carrier of political vision and emancipatory practice? How can it preserve its ideals in an environment dominated by powerful states and imperial actors willing to annihilate it through massacres, ethnic cleansing, and systemic sexual violence? This critical juncture compels us to reconsider the very terms of our solidarity. How can we maintain a radical political stance in a global order increasingly dominated by militarization and authoritarianism, without falling into romantic abstraction or political resignation?
\n\nWhat remains at stake is not just the fate of an armed group, but the viability of a political project that has redefined the parameters of struggle in the Middle East. As the specter of renewed war looms amid unfulfilled promises and military escalation, the Kurdish movement continues to pose a universal question: how can a revolutionary force, stripped of statehood and facing overwhelming repression, preserve its emancipatory praxis without succumbing to erasure or compromise?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/5.jpg\")
\nLong overshadowed by the PKK, the Kurdish women’s movement has emerged since the 1990s as a powerful ideological and organizational actor—what many describe as a “revolution within the revolution.” Initially marginalized within a militarized, male-dominated structure, Kurdish women militants turned this exclusion into a strategic opportunity by forming a dialectical and reciprocal alliance with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. This relationship, far from patriarchal submission, allowed both parties to become political resources for each other: Öcalan instrumentalized the women’s movement to expand and reform the PKK, while women used his symbolic authority to center gender liberation within the Kurdish struggle.
\n\nÖcalan’s recognition of women as the “vanguard force of the revolution” was key to redefining leadership and legitimacy in a movement long shaped by virilism. He encouraged the creation of women’s parallel structures and supported jineolojî, a feminist epistemology theorized as central to his vision of democratic confederalism. In turn, Kurdish women legitimized his ideological leadership. They especially reaffirmed Öcalan’s call for a suspension of armed struggle after his capture in 1999—a moment of deep crisis for the PKK marked by mass defections in 2002–2004 (roughly 1500 fighters left the PKK amid ideological reorientation and internal struggles that culminated in a return to armed conflict in mid-2004). The women’s continued loyalty during this period was a strategic choice aimed at preserving ideological continuity amid fragmentation and repression.
\n\nYet this loyalty had limits. Proposals for greater autonomy—such as the creation of a Kurdish Women’s Workers’ Party—were blocked by the PKK’s Central Committee, revealing persistent structural constraints. Still, the alliance held, particularly as Öcalan’s ideological turn in 2005 toward democratic confederalism placed gender equality at the core of a new political model. In 2012, Öcalan refused to meet a peace delegation without women’s movement representation, underscoring their indispensability. Symbolically, in 2013, women in Rojava announced the creation of the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) on Öcalan’s birthday, reaffirming both their trust in his vision and their claim to autonomous militancy.
\n\nThis paradox—building women’s political autonomy through a male leader—raises critical tensions. While Öcalan’s discourse promotes decentralization and demilitarization, his charismatic authority remains central. The movement’s feminist horizon is thus entangled with strategic dependence. Öcalan’s repeated calls for PKK disarmament, particularly in recent years, amplify this contradiction: they challenge the militarized masculinity long embedded in revolutionary struggle, yet they also provoke uncertainty about women’s influence within a de-armed political process.
\n\nHistorically, armed resistance enabled Kurdish women to gain visibility, leadership, and legitimacy. Combat shattered gender taboos and created symbolic capital, even as it risked reproducing what some theorists call “adopted masculinity”—a replication of patriarchal norms under the guise of revolutionary equality. The current shift toward demilitarization, while opening space for community-based, non-hierarchical feminist practices, also threatens to dismantle the structures that protected and empowered women under conditions of state violence. This tension is central to debates about the future of the movement.
\n\nThe potential dissolution of the PKK prompts urgent questions: Will the Kurdish women’s movement seize the moment to assert full autonomy? Will it develop a distinct feminist stance on this strategic shift? Does dissolution weaken or empower women within the Kurdish struggle?
\n\nDisarmament could represent either a step toward feminist peace or a strategic vulnerability. Some militants advocate cautious, conditional demilitarization—contingent on institutional consolidation, international recognition, and guarantees for women’s rights as it entrenched masculine war mentalities, opening space for radical, community-based, non-hierarchical feminist practices. Historically rooted in masculinist ideals—where heroism, martyrdom, and military valor defined legitimacy—Kurdish revolutionary violence is now challenged by Öcalan’s call for demilitarization, which seeks to shift the movement toward a feminist horizon disentangled from militarized masculinity. But others warn that demilitarization could expose women to renewed patriarchal and state violence, especially if gains made by the YPJ or YJA-Star (the Free Women’s Units, Yekîneyên Jinên Azad ên Star), are not politically safeguarded.
\n\nBeyond armed struggle, Kurdish and Turkish women have long played vital roles in broader civil resistance and peace commitments. The Peace Mothers (Dayikên Aşîtîyê)—Kurdish mothers who lost children to the PKK–state conflict—became symbols of nonviolent resistance in the 1990s and 2000s. Campaigns like “Don’t Touch My Friend” (1990) and “Women Walk Together” mobilized grassroots networks to confront nationalism, racism, and war.6 In 2009, the Feminist Initiative for Peace (BİKG) brought women together across ethnic lines to demand demilitarization, social reconstruction, and inclusive peace processes. These movements demonstrated how women have transformed experiences of loss and marginalization into political agency.
\n\nIn a letter dated May 30 from İmralı Prison to the Jineolojî Academy, Öcalan reaffirmed that women’s liberation is the true measure of socialism, calling it the foundation of his revolutionary struggle. He described jineolojî as an ongoing transformative project and women as potential leaders of peace and democracy in the Middle East. In fact, Öcalan relies on women to lead this transition, given women’s leading role in previous peace efforts in Kurdistan.
\n\nThe choice of Bese Hozat—a long-time commander and co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and a close comrade of Sakine Cansız, the iconic feminist PKK leader assassinated in Paris in 2013—as the central figure in the symbolic PKK disarmament ceremony on July 11 underscores the enduring centrality of women’s leadership in the Kurdish movement. Even at a transitional moment, this symbolic gesture reaffirms the movement’s ideological commitment to gender liberation and honors the legacy of revolutionary Kurdish feminism.
\n\nThe challenge now lies in navigating the contradictions of demilitarization: balancing feminist ethics with the need for protection, autonomy with strategic alliances, and peacebuilding with political agency.
\n\nAny future peace process must center the lived realities and political visions of Kurdish women. Their role has not been peripheral but foundational—and it is their strategic decisions, not only Öcalan’s, that will shape the Kurdish movement’s next chapter.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/9.jpg\")
Bese Hozat leading the symbolic PKK disarmament ceremony on July 11, 2025.
\nFrom the perspective of supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the potential dissolution of the organization should not be interpreted as the end of the Kurdish struggle, but rather as marking a new and as-yet undefined phase of resistance. While this perspective embodies a strategic optimism, it also demands careful reflection. Redefining resistance within such a complex context requires a nuanced understanding of its inherent limitations, contradictions, and risks. In other words, although this approach may open new avenues for the movement, it should not be accepted uncritically as a definitive solution without thorough analysis. Mechanisms for integrating the critical feedback of PKK members and activists—particularly the voices of female political prisoners—into this process are necessary to ensure its legitimacy.
\n\nThe PKK faces a confluence of complex challenges, including intensified military and technological pressures as well as political constraints at both domestic and regional levels. These challenges severely limit the movement’s capacity to sustain armed struggle and achieve structural transformation. The shift toward civilian-led, legal forms of organization represents a significant strategic gamble. While this transition warrants serious consideration and experimentation, its success depends on the fulfillment of several critical conditions; absent these, failure or marginalization remains a substantial risk. Moreover, the tension between the state’s immediate pressures and the PKK’s long-term vision for a protracted political process raises questions about the viability and timing of this shift.
\n\nShould the political process once again be undermined by Erdoğan, the PKK is prepared to resume armed resistance, not out of desperation, but as a continuation of its enduring political logic grounded in collective dignity and self-determination. Nonetheless, such a resurgence would likely entail significant difficulties and costs, disproportionately borne by the Kurdish population.
\n\nFar from being merely a tactical actor, the Kurdish liberation movement embodies a broader political project that fundamentally disrupts prevailing notions of sovereignty and legitimacy across the region. Any substantive shift in its strategic orientation demands a grasp of the interplay between structural constraints, geopolitical risks, and asymmetrical power relations at the local, regional, and international levels. At best, the movement’s turn toward institutionalization could not only consolidate its political legitimacy but also open new avenues for intra-Kurdish reconciliation, particularly with long-standing rivals such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). This strategic realignment could potentially lay the groundwork for a transnational Kurdish political architecture—one more intelligible and diplomatically acceptable to international actors, especially Western powers that have historically marginalized Kurdish claims in favor of their strategic alignment with Ankara.
\n\nThis ongoing redefinition of Kurdish resistance also confronts substantial internal challenges, including factional tensions and the imperative for political reconciliation, which must proceed in tandem with regional and global actors’ acceptance. Yet this process offers the potential to cultivate more inclusive and legitimate political structures.
\n\nFinally, the proposed transformation in the language and modalities of resistance—articulated by Abdullah Öcalan and PKK supporters—responds to the realities of contemporary technological surveillance and warfare. This challenges conventional militant resistance, emphasizing adaptability, resilience, and the re-articulation of power in novel, less visible forms.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/13/2.jpg\")
Weapons burn during a ceremony representing the symbolic disarmament of the PKK on July 11, 2025.
\n“The process that culminated in our Twelfth Congress began with a meeting on October 23, 2024, between the nephew of Leader Apo, and our delegation.” This meeting took place in response to statements and calls issued by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), starting in early October. During the meeting, Leader Apo publicly stated that ‘if the necessary conditions are met, he has both the theoretical and practical capacity to move the Kurdish issue from a context of violence and conflict to one of democratic politics and legal resolution.’ In the ensuing months, a series of meetings were held between the delegation of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and Leader Apo on İmralı Island. These encounters were accompanied by messages from Leader Apo that further shaped the process. He first addressed letters to the leadership of political parties in Turkey, followed by correspondence directed to us. In these letters, he articulated his position on concluding activities conducted under the PKK’s name and ending the armed struggle, asserting that its historical mission had come to an end. In our reply, we expressed our readiness to hold the proposed congress, while underscoring that such fundamental decisions could only be made with Leader Apo’s direct involvement and leadership during the congress itself. Taking a further step, Leader Apo, through the DEM Party delegation, issued the ‘Call for Peace and a Democratic Society’ on February 27. In this call, he urged us to convene the congress and make decisions to officially end activities under the PKK’s name and bring the armed struggle to a close. He also declared his willingness to take full historical responsibility for the initiative. Following this call, in a public statement released on March 1, we reaffirmed the position previously shared in our letter to Leader Apo. To support the process, we declared a unilateral ceasefire, which we communicated to the public. These developments sparked intense public discourse both domestically and internationally. We actively engaged in these discussions, presenting our views and striving to offer both written and verbal assessments to help our people and allies gain a clear and thorough understanding of the process. Furthermore, we transmitted both the records of the meetings held with Leader Apo and the directives prepared on behalf of the PKK and PAJK (Kurdistan Free Women’s Party) leaderships concerning the organization of our party. All of these actions were undertaken with the full awareness and consent of the congress delegation. For the full statement, see the PKK Central Committee declaration dated May 4, 2025. ↩
\n“Our vision for the new era is grounded in the reconstruction of society based on democratic nationhood, eco-economic principles, and communalism. To philosophically establish this structure—its ideological dimensions and its embodiment within broader society—we bear the responsibility of formulating its theoretical and conceptual framework… We are in the process of shaping the ideological components, practical program, and tactical-strategic dimensions of the future. The democratic society constitutes the political program of this era. It does not target the state as its primary objective. The politics of a democratic society is democratic politics… Democratic socialism, likewise, signifies a socially grounded democracy… The free life of peoples is made possible through the commune… In an effort to transcend modernity and the real socialism that served it, we sought to develop a new analysis and an alternative socialist theory. We called this framework ‘Democratic Modernity.’ In it, the democratic nation is proposed as an alternative to the nation-state; the commune and communalism replace capitalism; and economy-ecology is put forward in place of industrialism. Corresponding analyses were developed to articulate and support these conceptual shifts… Victory in Kurdistan will also have an impact on Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The Republic of Turkey will have the opportunity to both renew itself, embrace democracy, and assume a leading role in the region… I can confidently say that the opponents of this process are devoid of meaningful values—and they will ultimately fail. However, bringing this vision to fruition places a significant responsibility on all parties involved. Regional confederalism is revealing itself as an absolute necessity; at the same time, this path inevitably calls for the emergence of a new form of internationalism.” You can read the full letter here. ↩
\nThe Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) responded with intensified repression. In 2009, the “KCK trials” led to the arrest of nearly 10,000 people—politicians, human rights defenders, unionists, and feminists—under broad charges of terrorism. ↩
\nThe concept of the “commune” becomes central. For Öcalan, it represents the authentic instrument of the people, opposed to the nation-state, which he sees as the armed extension of capitalism. Building a communal society via democratic municipalities is achievable only with a coherent anti-capitalist struggle, supported by political clarity and unwavering resolve. Without these, the project will falter. ↩
\nBese Hozat’s family were victims of the massacre that the Turkish state carried out during the Dersim uprising in 1938. She said her family was subjected to genocide, with both her father and grandfather killed. Her brother and sister were also murdered by the Turkish state. Her grandmother, a survivor of the massacre, managed to escape after enduring severe hardship at the hands of Turkish soldiers. ↩
\nSee, for example, this article by Soma Negahdarinia. ↩
\nIn the following reflections, participants in the Seattle Solidarity Network share what they have learned in the course of seventeen years of experimenting with tactics via which workers and tenants can act together against bosses and landlords.
\n\nFor an action-obsessed group like the Seattle Solidarity Network (SeaSol), pausing for reflection is a rare thing. Upon receiving the invitation to prepare this text, we embarked on a collective process that included written interviews with more than a dozen participants with different levels of involvement over the years—exactly the sort of inefficient endeavor that we work so hard to keep out of our regular organizing activities. It was a little embarrassing how high emotions were for people at times, but that also shows just how much SeaSol means to all of us, whether we were in it for a long or even a short period of time. What follows is our best effort to share with you who we are and what we’ve learned over the past seventeen years.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/16.jpg\")
\nThere’s a twinge of nervous energy down your neck and a pinch of hunger in your stomach as you walk towards your first Seattle Solidarity Network action. It’s right before dinner time. Weather-wise, it’s the sort of gray, overcast late afternoon that is so typical of this region. You’ve brought yourself to some northern suburb. You’re venturing across a stretch of sprawl that looks like countless others. Even though you can’t recall ever being on this specific block before, the setting feels so familiar. The street signs and pavement remind you of the block where you live.
\n\nYou know from the mobilization email that there’s a restaurant nearby. It’s at an intersection, next to a gas station, across the street from a strip mall. You also know the restaurant’s owners are petty, entitled, and completely obnoxious. They fired somebody from the kitchen for bogus reasons and now they’re refusing to hand over that person’s final paycheck. It’s not much for the bosses—a few hundred dollars—but it’s devastating for the person fired, who has rent and other bills to pay. They’re still looking for their next job. And you can relate. You’ve worked at places like this, for people like this, and they took advantage of you like this. Again, there’s the feeling of familiarity.
\n\nThen the recognizable hassle of bad jobs in dull neighborhoods gives way to a feeling of excitement in your chest and legs. This is a first for you. Having parked your car a block away, you walk along the sidewalk of an arterial road and approach the meetup spot. You see a small group huddled together with a dozen homemade picket signs. You join them. At the top of the hour, you go around in a circle introducing yourselves. You and one other person are new to this fight. Some others have been doing this sort of thing since the 2010s. The person who got fired is here, too. You get a little briefing on the action to take place: Today, you’re picketing. You grab a sign and march along to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
\n\nYou’re in a solidarity network now. You and this odd lot of sign holders, baristas, email writers, phone tree operators, dishwashers, canvassers, apartment dwellers, and leaflet writers. You’ve read about “solidarity” and today you are getting a clearer idea of what it might mean.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/4.jpg\")
\nWhat follows is a collection of reflections from current and former members of Seattle Solidarity Network (SeaSol) intended to inform current and future organizing efforts. We cover the “who,” “what,” and “why” of the organization, including the principles under which we operate and the lessons we’ve learned. While some of the text is a synthesis collectively written by an ad hoc committee, we’ve tried to center the voices of individual members to show the breadth of experience with the organization and to let productive critique of the organization come through.
\n\nSeaSol was started with only the most essential anarchist ideological positions. The point wasn’t to create an elaborate organization and set forth a detailed analysis; the point was to attack landlords and bosses, to be combative and effective. To explore the “how,” read SeaSol’s 2011 guide) to building a solidarity network.
\n\nSeaSol is a mutual support organization. We use collective direct action to fight for workers’ and tenants’ specific demands. These demands typically address stolen wages, stolen deposits, unsafe working conditions, landlords refusing to make repairs, and discrimination. Unlike service organizations, the expectation is that those who take on a fight will join the organization and show up at other people’s fights as they are able.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/3.jpg\")
\nSome members of the Seattle branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founded SeaSol in late 2007. They wanted to find a way to build a revolutionary proletarian social movement by winning tangible victories despite having only a small number of supporters.
\n\nAt the time, the IWW in Seattle only had one organized workplace. Most of the IWW members were students or other young people with marginal employment—only staying in a given job for a few months at a time. Organizing unions in an era of precarious employment seemed like a stretch. While the IWW (and most radical unions) would focus on one workplace and try to win over a critical mass of workers in that workplace, SeaSol tried to develop more of a class-based organizing approach. Their class politics prompted them to view tenants’ and workers’ issues as inextricably linked and they hoped that by engaging with both tenants and workers they would be able to ensure a broader level of activity for their new organization.
\n\nNonetheless, they did take some lessons from the IWW and others. For example, they learned about demand deliveries and workplace mapping from the IWW. Workplace mapping means analyzing who is ready to join a fight, who is loyal to the boss or landlord, and who is on the fence. Early SeaSol was inspired by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), which did a lot of direct action. They also followed the example set by a courageous friend. Their friend had applied to a restaurant in Chicago. She worked there for one day, which the manager called an unpaid “training day.” Then was told not to come back because she wasn’t hired. She came back the next day with ten friends and demanded to be paid for the day’s work.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/17.jpg\")
A diagram plotting “How much can we hurt them?” against “How hard is it for them to give in?” in order to identify which fights are winnable.
\nHere, some of the early SeaSolers reflect on the network’s origins.
\n\nMickey: SeaSol started out of a series of conversations among comrades at a time when the anti-globalization and anti-war movements were on their last legs. Many of us had been politicized in the anti-war movement or immediately before that during the anti-glob summit protests. We shared a common critique of the ineffectiveness of the activist culture that these two movements were organized around. We felt that this activist culture was alienating to proletarians by design, ineffective at bringing anarchism to the masses, and ineffective at winning struggles against capitalists. To address these problems, we wanted to build a worker-focused project that made anarchism practical and pragmatic to proletarians. We were motivated by historical expressions of anarchism in the old workers movement as well as more recent iterations of anti-state proletarian activity.
\n\nWe had seen how difficult it was for other groups to start anarchist tenant unions or workplace unions from scratch with few or no resources. We had also been languishing in the Seattle IWW for about a year prior to SeaSol’s start, trying to build the branch through organizing campaigns and not having much success. For these reasons, we settled on a direct action casework model pioneered by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP for short). We also took some inspiration from Vancouver’s Anti-poverty Committee. We initially conceived of SeaSol as a temporary platform to get to a place where we could take on larger tenant and workplace organizing campaigns, i.e., to form an autonomous tenants’ union or industrial union.
\nMatt: SeaSol was created in reaction to many of the perceived deficiencies of the anarchist movement and activist left… Basically, we wanted to do something that required struggle at the level of people’s everyday lives, not struggles against some powerful, abstract, distant force that we were doomed to lose, such as the movement against the Iraq War (from 2003 onward). We also felt disgust with the symbolic protest aspects of anti-war and anti-globalization stuff. The anti-globalization movement was great fun. It was empowering to me and mobilized and radicalized a lot of people, but its ephemerality was evident. When I moved to Seattle from the UK, I was disturbed by the weakness of the anti-war movement. It was clear that many projects and direct action groups that existed for a few years around the time of the 1999 WTO protests had already disappeared, while others, such as Indymedia, were fading away rapidly. SeaSol was founded because we thought we should try to win actual victories, even if small ones, instead playing into the martyrdom of the great but impossible cause and the self-righteousness of “at least we’re doing something” symbolic protests. We also felt frustration that the majority of anarchist projects were not conflict-based. They were infoshops, bookshops, food distribution projects, newspapers, websites—all good stuff, but all auxiliary to the engine of the movement and the school of socialism, class struggle. We believed in collective class struggle through direct action and building a social base.
\n\nAlso, we had had no luck in various unionization attempts with the IWW and were fed up with how specific organizations such as NAF [Northwest Anarchist Federation] were putting the ideological cart before the horse of having a common strategy and plan of action…
\n\nAs an attempt to avoid these problems, we discussed more promising movements: the “direct action casework” of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and Canadian inter-union solidarity “flying squads” seemed to be appealing forms to imitate. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a great amount of detail on how those groups operated, so we looked at our own experiences. A friend in Chicago had worked at a restaurant for one day, only to be told it was a “training day” and she wouldn’t be paid. She resolved this problem by walking into the restaurant with a large group of friends and refusing to leave until the issue was settled. We were looking to create something that was the opposite of the flaws we perceived in the movements we had emerged from: a focus on the immediate issues caused by capitalism in daily life as experienced by the general population of Seattle and ourselves, not as activists—specialists in social change—but workers in precarious employment or living conditions; a focus on effective strategy rather than moral force; realistic opposition to targets we could actually overcome; and an approach that placed us in direct conflict with the powerful interests in society rather than one that sought to create an alternative but coexisting culture. SeaSol is itself partially a product of the crisis—without the low pay, unstable jobs, landlords trying to cut corners, and high unemployment, perhaps the group would not have generated the interest and momentum to keep going.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/12.jpg\")
\n For a more comprehensive description of SeaSol’s organizational model and tactics, see the SeaSol manual. In short, SeaSol’s tactics involve a series of escalating actions that make it easier or cheaper for the boss or landlord to give in than to refuse. The approach varies depending on the person or company on the other side. The first priority is to win the fight against them.
\n\nPete: All the time I spent with SeaSol organizers creatively discussing effective tactics, looking for leverage in fights, and focusing our energies on winning has deeply ingrained a knowledge and attitude toward organizing that I take everywhere. I should add that what attracted me to SeaSol in the first place, which I credit with truly radicalizing me, was that the meetings were focused and concise, fully dedicated to getting shit done. These are the same principles I use in labor organizing, which has had the effect of motivating the people I work with.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/13.jpg\")
\n The second priority of SeaSol is to build capacity. From the outset, the organization had both defensive and productive aspects. On the one hand, it defended a community from exploitation at work, scuzzy landlords, and other predatory behavior. At the same time, through this defensive process—through the demand deliveries, pickets, parties, and even through the tedious meetings—the participants could experience moments of social transformation, of solidarity, winning small fights in order to gain strength, experience, and reputation so that they could take on bigger fights.
\n\nDC: SeaSol did two things. One: it directly addressed the practical problems of wage theft and tenant issues. Two: it served an educational and agitational function. Its momentum came from normal people democratically organizing themselves. It played a role in building capacity and consciousness that intermediaries like nonprofits and law firms—and most unions—couldn’t. In the context of precarious employment, alienation, and cultural amnesia, SeaSol was a transformation of the anti-capitalist energy that had, in an earlier era, been directed into the formal workers’ movement and left-wing political parties. It was a way to take action where we were, a hopeful starting point for something bigger.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/14.jpg\")
\n Capacity building includes spreading our model and training organizers who can go on to organize and take action in other places.
\n\nLlama: As direct action mutual aid, I think it works pretty well. Sure, we are not disrupting the system as a whole, but we are absolutely creating a community and network… I think what SeaSol builds for people includes:
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/15.jpg\")
\n Let’s look at the tactic of the demand delivery. As the authors of the SeaSol manual point out, it might be quicker and easier to send a demand delivery by mail or email. But the purpose of the demand delivery is not only to communicate a written message to the boss or landlord. The purpose is to empower the participants in the action. When the demand is met, they will know it is because they were there taking a risk and defending someone in their community.
\n\nHere, we reflect on how our tactics relate to our strategic vision for the organization.
\n\nDolly: SeaSol is not a social service… the workers and tenants at the centers of our fights are not provided with a service, but take on equal roles in organizing their own campaigns. Those who are not members of SeaSol when they come to us are required to become members and are expected to show up for others’ fights in the future as far as they can. In a perfect world, it would work out this way every time SeaSol took on a fight. It hasn’t always, though. […]
\n\nDoing work with SeaSol provides a way better working-class political education than any book. Lots of people come into the organization as some kind of liberal or democratic socialist and leave, or stay, as anarchists. People learn how landlordism works from doing secretary duty (answering phone calls and emails from people who contact us with their problems) and fighting landlords. People learn that the nonprofit-industrial complex is parasitic and unhelpful to the working poor when it comes to affordable housing, because they see examples of how these organizations fail real people week after week. SeaSolers have front-row seats, in real time and in real life, to how governments and legal systems work to keep landlords and bosses in power, and to the fucked up things that they do with that power. These are things that SeaSolers understand on a visceral level from hard experience, not just intellectually. The knowledge you get from reading about some stranger’s experience on Reddit, or a philosopher’s opinion in a book, is very different. SeaSol learning is not just an idea you entertain, but something you confidently know and are ready to convince others of.
\nDC: SeaSol was not about providing services. It was about building solidarity, about theorizing our response to the disunity of capitalist life, and about acting collectively. Actions are open to everyone. Solidarity brings the group together, not the arbitrary circumstances of one’s social situation. One advantage of this approach is that it doesn’t limit activity within one sphere of one’s life—the job, the apartment, the circle of friends. So participants in the solidarity network relate to each other in many different ways. Mostly, we’re just “comrades.” The common cause of people who join campaign after campaign is more than just challenging the individual power of this or that boss or landlord; it is opposition to all the brutality of the everyday indignities of capitalism. […]
\n\nI first attended a SeaSol action around 2010. I was visiting Seattle from out of town and an old IWW contact told me to come out and see what SeaSol was doing. I had experienced some wage theft and other employment issues from working in food service, but I hadn’t seen an organized group of people addressing those sorts of issues. For most people—even most people in the IWW!—workers’ militant direct action is merely theoretical or historical, provided they think about it at all. Opportunities for that sort of unionization are just vanishingly slim. Even when unionization opportunities are present, we often lack the skill, consciousness, and group cohesion to take advantage of them.
\n\nSeaSol’s model overcame some of the limitations of the IWW approach. Whereas the IWW focused on union organizing campaigns at discrete workplaces, SeaSol built campaigns for the whole class of workers and renters. At the same time, SeaSol’s actions had a narrower focus and were appropriate to our circumstances; instead of the years-long efforts to organize unions (typically at workplaces where turnover outpaced the campaign), SeaSol made demands that could be articulated simply and met promptly. […]
\n\nSeaSol prioritized the effectiveness of actions above anything else. I don’t think Jane McAlevey2 was a conscious influence on the group, but “organizing to win” is the ethos of SeaSol. In the earlier years, social retreats and parties helped promote group cohesion. These were the high points, though it’s hard to say whether, and to what extent, the solid sense of group cohesion was the cause or effect of successful actions.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/7.jpg\")
\n Four-Fingered Fisherman: It felt like a meaningful disengagement from appealing to electoral politics for me. The previous mass movements I had been a part of could not escape the recuperative energies of that kind of appeal. Like those movements, the solidarity network model focused on the individual acting in concert with others as the engine of change, but it changed the target. It exposed the various nexuses of power that are, most importantly, within striking distance and enabled communities to take immediate and impactful action against them in a way that the mass movements I had been a part of were largely missing. […]
\n\nThere was also always an acute focus on the model, following the chain of escalation, etc. I think it would be fair to characterize the model and the effectiveness of actions as one of the topmost priorities for SeaSol. This can be a double-edged sword, because any form of dogmatic adherence to something can create the kind of structural rigidity that ultimately ossifies and kills a project. SeaSol mitigated that particular risk by placing an emphasis on debriefing after every action and acting on issues identified in those spaces. […]
\n\nAs I came to learn the solidarity network model and begin working to help implement it, I felt for the first time that I was participating in something that had a high potential for creating transformative spaces for people. After participating in two moments of great social rupture that inevitably simmered back down to the status quo, it felt like the next logical step to take the energy that I had for those and put it towards developing something specifically to the benefit of the people around me rather than acting in the abstract. […]
\n\nDespite the fact that I am no longer currently organizing with SeaSol, my time working on the project represents some of the most foundational and important political activity that I have ever been a part of. It created space for me to grow personally, to expand my organizing capabilities while doing the same for all of the people we took on fights alongside. It secured meaningful, material victories for people, showing them that those could be achieved by direct action. It did all of this while intentionally avoiding getting sucked into electoralism even while Seattle had a self-identified socialist sitting on the city council. Perhaps most importantly, it did this in a way that kept many people engaged with the project for years, parents included, in a setting that tends to lack the cultivation and maintenance of intergenerational relationships.
\nJavabean: There is often a tendency for leftist organizations to see themselves as institutions of political theory that view struggle as secondary to politics, dedicating an excessive amount of time to discussing theory in groups in an attempt to create a singular, cohesive political identity.
\n\nSeaSol does not prescribe its members’ politics, it doesn’t try to guide its organizers’ understanding of theory. If a meeting starts to veer too far into broad discussion of theory and political identity in general, we will put effort into refocusing on the relevant topics, which are never theoretical. Someone needs their paycheck, someone needs their apartment keys, etc.
\n\nThe politics of SeaSol are the collective politics of its members, and what keeps that state of political being from spinning off is very much a social model of organizational structure: people with toxic politics will find SeaSol an unpleasant place to be, and eventually be shown the door. It’s not a perfect system, but I’ve never seen a perfect system, and at least we spend our time fighting fights.
\nLilly: I’m not sure anyone actually presented it this way to me, but when I joined (in 2009), I remember thinking SeaSol was designed to make every person at the center of a fight into a traditional organizer with SeaSol. This would turn out to be a narrow view of organic organizing; it played out seldomly in SeaSol. What happened more often was a ripple effect or branching: an activated person in a community or social group could motivate four or five fights while being at the center of just one of them. Most people who had fights continued to come out to actions for years, and in some cases, forever.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/11.jpg\")
\n SeaSol has been around through many waves of struggle and organization—the antiwar movement, the 2008 financial crisis, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, the pandemic, and the Palestine solidarity movement. Over the past seventeen years, SeaSol has taken on around sixty fights. So far, we have registered a full or partial victory in roughly nine out of every ten of the fights we have completed. We estimate that around 2000 people have engaged with SeaSol in one way or another. Around 400 have become members of the network.
\n\nLilly: Once, we were fighting a developer who sat on the board of an environmental NGO. We hoped to get a flyer detailing his racist employment behavior into the hands of as many people attending this NGO board event as possible. They held their event at a restaurant that had limited public sidewalk and a private parking lot, which made it tricky to distribute the flyers. Another organizer and I dressed in our fanciest clothing, hoping the attendees would infer that we had a relationship to the event venue. They did, and every single car stopped to roll down their window and take our flyer.
\n\nOn a picket line outside of an apartment building, a property manager came out to the line to explain how she was “just doing her job,” claiming that she was “trying to help and really cared for” the person at the center of the fight, whose deposit was being stolen. The property management company had actually produced pictures that were verifiably not from the SeaSol member’s apartment. We were coming out of a solidarity network conference and had other solidarity network organizers in town. Perhaps because they were backing us up, or because it was a rowdy action, or because I have been a renter the entirety of my childhood and much of my adult life and have visceral memories of scrubbing apartment walls in hopes of getting a deposit back, something in me just gave way.
\n\nI verbally tore into the property manager. She knew this was not right, she knew she was stealing $350 dollars from a family that needed it to put down at another apartment—and for what? For a company that routinely steals deposits, knowing people won’t normally advocate for their return. If she cared about the person at the center of the fight, she would advocate to her bosses for the return of the deposit. If she couldn’t do that, she’d better not come out to the line trying to tell us shit. It must have registered, because I remember looking at her face as it broke and she just started crying before running inside. I’m not usually the schadenfreude type, but that knowing she heard and at least momentarily understood the pain she was causing others in this world meant a lot to me.
\nDolly: The Admiral Pub fight was one of my all-time favorites as far as what it showed SeaSol can achieve. Lucio, who was a cook at the Admiral Pub in West Seattle, was arrested by ICE and detained. The owner of the business, Eric Galanti, stole his paycheck. Lucio had family members still in Seattle who joined SeaSol and fought and organized on Lucio’s behalf while he was incarcerated and subsequently deported to Mexico.
\n\nLucio’s nephew, Luis, was active in the fight. We did a lot of pickets for several months at the Admiral Pub, and then at Bourbon Jack’s, another bar Galanti owned in the neighboring town of Kent, Washington. During that picket, the Kent police approached us to ask Luis to talk to Galanti with them.
\n\nWe all sat down, and Luis faced his uncle’s boss. The boss was flanked by cops. Luis was flanked by SeaSolers. Vuvuzelas could be heard blasting down the street. The normal power dynamic in this group had shifted, and I could see and feel it. The power was with Luis and the rabble of protest kids! The rich business owner was powerless, and the cops were decorative but useless. Galanti cut Luis a check for the full amount of wages he had stolen from Lucio . We walked away victorious. We walked away with a powerful experience that showed how direct collective action can shift the power dynamics in unjust situations to win demands for the working class.
\nThe Four Fingered Fisherman: Hands-down the most impactful moment in my time with SeaSol was our fight against a regional hotel chain called Silver Cloud, which fired a long-time dishwasher named Prospero for a no call no show the day after he suffered a massive heart attack while working in their dishpit. Prospero waited for months while we wrapped up another fight, showing up to every SeaSol meeting and supporting that other campaign before we could begin with his.
\n\nOnce we initiated his campaign, he fought for what was owed to him with a joy, determination, and consideration for his friends who still worked there that was almost unbelievable. We fought those bastards alongside him for months and finally won after confronting the multi-millionaire owner of the hotel chain at his lakefront home several times, just blocks from where Jeff Bezos was then living. The day that Prospero received the check from them in the mail, he treated himself to a film at the theater and quietly passed away without having cashed the check.
\n\nFortunately, we were able to assist in ensuring that his family was able to cash the check so that he could return to them one final time. Prospero’s indomitable spirit enabled him to hang on to life just long enough to put the bastards who wronged him in their place, in hopes that it would prevent them from doing the same thing to the rest of his friends there. That memory will stick with me until the day that I join him in the great unknown.
\nDC: [My favorite memory of SeaSol is] Making friends. Oh, and this one time I ran into a friend’s boyfriend at a taco truck we were picketing. He was a young guy, but he literally worked at Goldman Sachs. When he asked me why I was there, I explained the wage theft thing to him. He was so excited that we were doing direct action. He joined us for a bit and was yelling at the truck owner about how he’s never coming back there to eat. The next day, I saw his girlfriend. Apparently, he had told her all about the fun he had picketing. She half-jokingly told me to stay away from her boyfriend. She didn’t want me to give him any radical ideas. She wanted him to keep on the straight and narrow path to bourgeois wealth. She was sweating.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/10.jpg\")
\n Our theory was that SeaSol might start with ideologically-committed anarchists, but it would grow to include people from outside “the scene.” We hoped that by winning small but meaningful victories, SeaSol’s direct action casework would attract increasing numbers of people to engage in demonstrations and organizing. The organizing work was supposed to serve both educational and practical ends, deepening and extending the working-class movement against exploitation.
\n\nWe saw some success in this. In Walter Winslow’s 2011 interviews with SeaSol members, every respondent
\n\n\n\n\n“who did not initially get involved with SeaSol for any sort of ideological reasons, reported that they wanted to see SeaSol continue to grow to successfully take on larger and more significant problems in society.”
\n
One organizer put it poetically:
\n\n\n\n\n“the basic motif of SeaSol that I know is we do what we can today so we can do what we want to tomorrow.”
\n
SeaSol has measured its success by the fights it has won, but also by its capacity to grow. After seventeen years, how have we fared according to those standards?
\n\nOf course, the history of working-class movements includes plenty of failures. Capitalism is still here, structuring our lives and our ability to resist its dynamic push and pull. SeaSol is hardly unique as an organization that has failed to overthrow it. We’ve seen solidarity networks based on SeaSol’s model start in several other cities, but to our knowledge, none of those are still around today. This speaks to SeaSol’s success as the organization that has lasted the longest—we have to be doing something right!—but it also suggests some possible problems in the SeaSol model.
\n\nFundamentally, we must question the degree to which our project has helped develop class consciousness, taught us about the limits of our power, increased the scope of our demands, and prefigured the social relations and dynamics we desire. Could there be problems with our theories and our model? Certainly, it hasn’t been particularly easy to adapt them to other conditions. The problems we’ve observed relate to some familiar themes: lacking a critical mass; lacking committed organizers; challenges recruiting and integrating new people; burnout and retention; drama and interpersonal conflicts. The critical commentary on solidarity networks (such as this article) suggests some important questions:
\n\nThe following reflections relate to some of the lessons we’ve learned in trying to address these issues.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/1.jpg\")
\nEmily S.: I was sixteen when I joined SeaSol in 2010 and nineteen when I began to gradually break away from the group. (I was already aware of some basic tenets of anarchism and came to a meeting after seeing the words “solidarity,” “mutual aid” and “direct action” on a poster.) I don’t think I became an independently effective organizer during that time, but I learned a great deal and participated in parallel political moments, like Occupy/Decolonize Seattle and the 2011 port shutdown, alongside other SeaSolers. The parts of the group that immediately appealed to me were the focus on winning and the framework for choosing and carrying out fights. My criticisms of it eventually arose around issues of racial dynamics between organizers and between organizers and people coming to us with fights. (Patriarchal dynamics that affected white women were mostly eventually addressed.)
\n\nOne incident I remember, the straw that broke the camel’s back for my involvement, was at a meeting after we had voted to take on a fight with a certain monetary demand. Two longtime organizers had apparently been talking with each other and had decided that for whatever reason, the demand was unrealistic and proposed it should be replaced with a lower amount of money to be more “winnable.” They had not talked about this with the people bringing the fight, who were Latino restaurant workers, and the latter had no input until it was brought up formally at the meeting. While everyone has equal ability to participate in meetings (though as I recall these two workers communicated via a volunteer interpreter, so inevitably more friction was involved), I did not feel that everyone involved was on equal footing and I thought it was disrespectful given that no additional information had been discovered in the interim that would have justified reopening the topic. (I spoke my mind at the meeting, to no avail.)
\n\nI do not recall which fight this was, and for all I know it went on to be successful, but I know from what I was told afterwards that the workers were not happy with how things went down at that meeting. While I had always felt respected and appreciated in Seasol, I did not feel like I had the social skills or clout to intervene in a way that would be satisfying in the long term, and mostly stopped going to meetings. In my view, this was an example of the concept of winnability being taken too far: toning down a demand for no concrete reason and at a cost to those workers.
\n\nAnother incident was a much more serious mistake. Before the first picket of Boracchini’s, one of the founding members of SeaSol had gone on a local right-wing talk radio show to speak about it, without asking approval from the rest of the group. This led to the presence of many counter-protesters, and one of our members was seriously hurt at this picket. The violence would not have happened if the action hadn’t been publicized to all the wrong people. It was a major blunder, and an inexplicable one given the generally democratic nature of the group.
\n\nSeaSol provided me with many formative relationships and experiences as a young adult in a way that’s hard to sum up today. The main takeaways I have are the experience of militancy, the willingness to break all the normal social rules and get in the bosses’ faces; the general principles of planning an escalation campaign; and how to use mobilizing lists for actions (something that I later realized is surprisingly rare). While I’ve never been involved in another group with the dedication with which I was involved in SeaSol, it gave me a solid and practical education in core aspects of organizing that are almost universally applicable.
\nJavabean: My realistic critique of that as an overall organizational strategy is that it’s not always easy to recognize when it’s necessary to shift focus to building capacity. I think that we tend to put so much focus on maintaining a fight that outreach and organization building can look like additional work for an already exhausted organizer, which can lead to a diminished organization, and member burnout.
\n\nThere’s no straightforward answer of when to build an organization and when to fight fights. I think the only real answer is to keep the focus on output. If your organization doesn’t create material results, figure out why. It might be that you’re focusing on “recruitment” when you should be focusing on action; it might be the reverse. It might be something else entirely. At the end of the day, SeaSol is more interested in what we can do than in how many people come to meetings. […]
\n\nTo be honest, I think that this question [about what happens when struggles are at a low point] gets right to SeaSol’s biggest weakness, and it can seem existential. When an organization is built on people’s ability to connect and form collective action over material struggle, and it judges its efficacy on its ability to engage and win on that level, then its primary source of energy is those fights.
\n\nWhen there isn’t a fight, people get bored, lose interest, and capacity falters. SeaSol has been fortunate to have had members that have the energy to keep things going in those times. As much as I wonder how long SeaSol could survive without a fight, my immediate response to that thought is, “If SeaSol doesn’t have fights, what’s the point of it even existing?”
\n\nI haven’t been around for a serious existential lull, but I think that historically, the answer is that there’s enough struggle out there to go around, and so we actively look for fights, and that re-energizes the organization. […]
\n\nJust to get this out of the way, SeaSol can’t be specifically “substitutionist” in any way that I would understand it, because it’s not a political party. SeaSol has no collective revolutionary agenda beyond (arguably) the likelihood that most of its members would hope that the existence of solidarity networks might generally raise class consciousness, contribute in some way to aspirational goals in a way that could be described in terms of base building, or create pathways that might assist in community organizing that is antithetical to capitalist hierarchies.
\n\nThe thing about that is: SeaSol doesn’t actually do any of that. We fight fights that we can win. We’ve literally never talked about revolution or political goals in a meeting beyond those directly relevant to what’s in front of us. [In fact, revolution and political goals have been discussed in meetings that this member may not have attended.] If we were to co-opt a fight, it would be for an agenda that doesn’t exist. There isn’t really a definition of “substitutionism” that I could see being realistically applied to SeaSol in any serious way.”
\nMickey: SeaSol took off and was far more successful than I think any of us initially imagined it would be. Some of the challenges presented by activist culture that we had critiqued in the anti-glob and anti-war movements followed us into SeaSol, such as voluntarism. But we were able to address other challenges successfully through this new hybrid form of class struggle unionism. For example, we were able to recruit workers from a variety of backgrounds to our network, introducing them to a functional and pragmatic anarchism.
\n\nThe success of the model also made jumping to other forms of struggle very difficult. Expanding our fights between single tenants or workers into larger collective fights that could form the nucleus of future unions continued to be a persistent issue. Our fights often stayed between isolated tenants or workers. We found out that it was fairly difficult to use the solidarity network model to build a tenant or workers union. […]
\n\nIntegrating into any anarchist/left-wing project is difficult and turnover/attrition is inevitable. That said, this is one of the things SeaSol did well. There was a formal system for bringing new people in and making sure they were engaged. SeaSol also offered childcare at meetings and sometimes organized meetings or materials in Spanish, since some members were Spanish-speaking. While there was plenty of turnover, we recruited and integrated many long-term members into our organizing committee. The theoretical and strategic framework was largely syndicalist and somewhat reductionist on purpose. This framework was perpetuated via regular and consistent organizer trainings. There were attempts to organize political education in SeaSol, but I’m not sure how successful they were.
\nDolly: Revolutionizing the global labor movement and toppling capitalism is a tall order for any single organization or idea. In my twenty-something mind, this was possible for SeaSol. If we fought enough of them, the solidarity network model would spread, and bosses and landlords wouldn’t be able to exploit us anymore. Capitalism would surely fall. For a couple of years there, it seemed like it was happening! Honestly, as I approach my forties and SeaSol similarly enters a slower, more measured and reflective phase, I still believe this model holds key components to the liberation of the working class. We operate using the principles of cooperative self-governance and decision-making. We rely on direct action tactics. We have no paid staff or hierarchy or membership dues. We can definitely improve, but there is a lot about SeaSol that is… perfect. […]
\n\nOur toolbox of tactics has evolved. We’re really creative, passionate, smart people. What we will do for a $99 fight we believe in is unhinged. We have fought international corporations like Greystar in coordination with other solidarity networks and won. We’ve organized strikes and beaten enormous corporations like Chase Bank that traditional unions wouldn’t dream of touching. SeaSol has also cultivated a tight-knit, positive anarchist community whose members have built lifelong friendships. SeaSolers have strong cross-generational relationships built on real class struggle. Our community fights bosses and landlords together, yes, but we’re also a community of people who care for one another outside of that context. […]
\n\nAlong with attracting top-notch organizers, our organization tends to attract people who see an opportunity to take advantage of a place that doesn’t have any membership dues or barriers to membership and seem to delight in being the center of drama and interpersonal strife. The group has a big problem with being helpless in the face of abusive behavior by such people—it’s a pattern that has repeated itself a handful of times since I joined and I wish I knew how to solve it. Many people have “gotten tired of dealing with [person x]” and left before the group got up the courage to vote [person x] out. We don’t have a great process for doing this, and one solid organizer left over the process itself. […]
\n\nGroup cohesion is generally easy when we have fights and we only intentionally work on this when problems arise. Occasionally, groups of female-identifying SeaSolers (affectionately calling ourselves “SheSol”) have gotten together to address problematic or threatening behavior specifically directed at us. We then brought issues to the group with proposals about how to resolve them, which were approved each time. There have been personality problems over the years, with people doing various things—seemingly intentionally—to disrupt the harmony of the group and manipulate and abuse others emotionally. This has been awful, but we’ve found ways to deal with it each time, by eventually voting the member(s) in question out after a certain amount of damage has been inflicted. There has been talk of establishing a process for dealing with this, but no clear proposals have been made. It’s messy.
\nIke: I’d say a majority of people who find out about SeaSol don’t end up taking on any role—even something as small as note-taking.
\n\nMy impression is that SeaSol’s default mode of transmitting knowledge is person-to-person, and we could probably make better use of written material and organize it better. For example, anyone can volunteer to be a secretary / facilitator, and new people who have been around for a few weeks are encouraged to do so, but the actual knowledge of how to do it properly is conveyed either through shadowing someone or through SeaSol school, which runs sessions on this topic maybe one or two times per year. I’ve been trying to document the things I was confused about when I joined and I think it’s been helpful.
\n\nAlso, our niche seems to be people who already know they’re leftists and are familiar with the way “orgs” tend to talk. I haven’t seen much success in converting “normal” people to organizing or much repeat engagement with SeaSol from people we helped with their own fights in the last two years. I do know that some organizers had prior SeaSol fights, so that may be a short time span.
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\n Jane: On the side of “lessons learned,” we have learned that doing this work does not magically transform people into anarchists or other flavors of lefties. It seems to me that it took a preexisting lefty ideological commitment to motivate people to stick around long term as organizers. But as for a list of people who might show up if we asked them about a compelling fight, that list grew and is pretty large now…
\n\nIn terms of my personal desire to have more influence over my organizing work, I definitely achieved that goal as one of the people putting my heart and tons of hours into the work. But I feel like we were in crisis mode for many years, perennially overstretched, and so not really taking the time to develop or mentor people who maybe wanted to be more involved but hadn’t already developed those skills in other parts of their lives. So it’s possible that people felt that same inner circle / outer circle dynamic that I had felt in my union work, again totally unintentionally. There’s only so many hours in the day and we were trying to win those fights. And organizing work is often tedious and more people want to have opinions about it than want to actually do the work.
\n\nRegarding unexpected outcomes, it’s the friends you make along the way, right? Actually, I’m still super tight with a bunch of SeaSol folks and it’s been fun seeing how they’re using the skills that we all developed together in other organizing projects, in their jobs, and so on. I think fighting gross misconduct in employers and landlords will never go out of style.
\n\nAs (mostly) anarchists, we were pretty helpless in the face of basic social dysfunction. We’re so inclusive and want to be nice. But people who would have just gotten fired from actual jobs were allowed to stick around for far too long and to be a psychic and emotional drain on the group. When we actually managed to eject one or two, it nearly broke us. If anyone has managed to crack the code on that problem, I’d love to hear it.
\nDC: Of course, SeaSol’s model has its own limits. The tangible returns of even successful campaigns—a $500 paycheck here, a $1000 deposit there—aren’t great compared to the energy and time put into the campaign. (Although I’d argue that the intangible results are more important!) Obviously, SeaSol hasn’t generalized any of its individual campaigns into some bigger revolution. Many people are burnt out from the time, dedication, and courage required. We keep bumping our heads up against the limits of coordination, communication, and alienation. […]
\n\nSeaSol also isn’t always prepared for a legal counter-attack. We’re vulnerable when an employer uses the courts (lawfare) to harass and intimidate us.
\nLilly: Regarding failure, almost ten years after I left the organizing team I would still prefer to say “I didn’t give it my best effort,” rather than the truth, which is that I totally did and I still feel I failed. I think I learn more everyday about why it didn’t work “better”—and how flawed and grandiose it is to think “I failed” at social revolution. At one point during organizing, it became almost physically painful when people uninvolved in the daily struggle would ask why it wasn’t “scaling” or picking up speed. And honestly? It wasn’t scaling because of the sheer weight of that metaphorical boulder representing an entire economic system, and the innumerable divisions between us in society.
\n\nCriticism flowed constantly: why didn’t SeaSol create more community? Why didn’t it scale? Why was it focused on single-worker or tenant fights? Well, it did do all those things and aspired for more, but the reality of constant, concerted oppression was more extreme than I previously understood. Existing under capitalism—let alone resisting under it—is exhausting, demoralizing, and traumatic. Solidarity Networks are a great method to get elbow-deep into resistance, for pushing that boulder around for a few moments, letting someone else under it breathe before it rolls back on top of all of us. I think that is the type of community and resistance building we need, repeatedly, even if it’s barely manageable. If we keep gaining momentum on this boulder, if we keep organizing and shifting it around, we will eventually keep up the momentum to push it off of us for longer and longer periods; I have no doubt that if more people participated in SolNets, we’d see increased community capacity over time. […]
\n\nDuring my time, one organizer quit by basically telling everybody how much he hated each of them and especially the relationships that organizers formed. It can’t be reduced to this because there was so much going on at the time, but one point he made was that SeaSol organizing was not really sustainable with a working-class lifestyle. He was kind of right. Doing something that hard and doing it extremely well took a handful of people making SeaSol their entire lives. Now, many of those people were working class, but still. It took a lot. I hope that anyone engaging in solidarity networks realizes that balance is really difficult, but not impossible. The frustration around ease of participation is valid; solidarity networks should try to be as inclusive as possible. And it is not fellow organizers or members who dictate the difficulty of participation so much as the conditions from which all fights originate: capitalism.
\nThe Four Fingered Fisherman: I think it is inarguable that the social context has changed; the Trump years, the George Floyd Rebellion, climate catastrophe, and the genocide in Palestine, among other things, have all pulled us in a million different directions, often in reactive way. Moments such as those are always going to shift some of the energy away from a geographically-focused, long-term project like SeaSol.
\n\nHowever, I would posit that a serious and strategic assessment of the limitations of these moments, which we continually find ourselves running up against, points us back toward the keystone elements of the solidarity network model and what has made it so successful for SeaSol. In this regard, the most important elements of the solidarity network model that I have taken away from it as it can be applied to the current social context are having a geographically-restrictive focus (even when tied to a broader mass social movement), being regenerative in their capacity, and using direct action to target relevant local manifestations of power. […]
\n\nWhile SeaSol was generally pretty intentional about reserving use of its mobilization list and organizing energies for its own demand-specific campaigns, there were moments in my time with the organization when we directly organized to support broader goals. The largest single SeaSol mobilization that I participated in was when we hit our entire mobilization list to bring people out into the streets to face off against the Northwest Hammerskins4 on an attempted so-called “Martyr’s Day” march they were planning in 2015. SeaSol mobilized over 70 people from our list and offered a contingent at the action for our supporters in a context that might otherwise have felt prohibitively dangerous . Beyond using the project itself as a space to participate in broader social movements, however, I have always felt that SeaSol is one of the primary points of entry here in Seattle for new, politically-activated people to come in and quickly develop skills and experience that they can then apply in other spaces.
\n\nThat was certainly my personal experience, and I have seen that play out for many others as well in my time here.
\nMatt: We were also inspired by the positive reception we got from anarchist and communist groups around the world.
\n\nAmong other unintended positive effects, it increased the credibility of the anarchist movement around the time of Occupy. We could point to some tangible and practical victories we had achieved. This helped to put us in a position to win the battle of ideas (and organization) against liberal collaborationists.
\n\nThe big problem was scale. It’s great to win a few thousand dollars back in lost wages for a few dozen members, and to help families avoid eviction and so on, but that is a tiny drop in the ocean, so I believed that the model had to grow exponentially to even keep up with capitalist society. That is why I favored speaking tours to spread the model and encourage growth of new groups. This was quite successful in the short term, but most of those groups folded after only a few months to a year. (Perhaps in our enthusiasm, we made it sound too easy.)
\n\nAnother impasse was about what to do with the local Seattle group in order to achieve constantly increasing growth—should we form specialized groups focusing on tenant committees and workplaces, or should we split into smaller regional groups for different parts of the area?
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/5.jpg\")
\n We won’t shy away from it: We want you to start a solidarity network, or at least to borrow heavily from the idea. The solidarity network narratives and critiques that we have shared here attest that manifesting a community of solidarity and resistance through sheer organizing energy is an experience worth the effort it takes to sustain. The responses describe applied, practical solidarity as an antidote to apathy and agony.
\n\nSolidarity networks are a way to blow life into the working class. We want you to play a part in this resuscitation, to pound on the chest until you hear the ribs crack if you need to. Give this your best effort. Because it works. Even if it’s completely exhausting. And despite everything—anxiety and ruined relationships and failed fights, extreme edges of human behavior and fraught moments when it feels like it may actually be impossible—solidarity networks may still be one of the best forms of organizing on offer.
\n\nDolly: Fascists are becoming bolder, which has increased the relevance of the solidarity network model and increased the importance of security culture within SeaSol. Bosses and landlords have been gaining power and traditional business unions are weakening, all of which increases our relevance for obvious reasons. The climate crisis and racial injustice are shifting within our social context. Both are caused by capitalism, and people active in SeaSol and similar organizing care deeply about both of these things.
\n\nSeaSol, over the years, has also made me increasingly doubtful of the effectiveness of governments and legal systems for making any kind of meaningful gains for the working class. I’ve seen people turn to legal fights rather than SeaSol fights, and seen those just drain them of time and resources until they peter out into nothingness. I can see that the bosses and landlords who write the laws of our land also benefit from them. I see that wage theft is the most common type of theft, and that wage theft laws are not enforced. That is a design feature, not a bug, because the employing class writes these laws and enforces them, not the working class. They have ensured that the working class will never overthrow them within the systems that they have set up.
\n\nI had a lot more faith in things like electoral politics when I first joined SeaSol. I’m a lot more critical of those systems now. I consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist. My education didn’t come from reading theory so much as through watching people’s situations play out in the context of organizing.
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\n The picket wraps up and your solidarity network crew does a group go-around, each person recounts a favorite moment from the last two hours. One person—you think they’re the barista, they might have authored the leaflet—says they loved it when the boss stepped out to yell at the picket line. They can’t imagine the vein on the boss’s forehead can handle another picket like this one.
\n\nAnother member—the other person brand new to the fight—proudly shares the moment they were able to turn a customer away, leaflet in one hand and picket sign in the other. Two solidarity network members who had stepped over to the side to talk to the police when they arrived report to the group that the boss was the one who called the police to the picket yet again. The person at the center of the fight goes last and thanks everyone for coming out.
\n\nIt’s now dusk. The street lights are flickering on. You are still in the middle of a stretch of suburban nowhere, at an intersection next to a gas station across the street from a strip mall. But you’re feeling different. You and the dishwashers, phone tree operators, leaflet authors, apartment dwellers, and the barista return your picket signs to the back of the truck that transported them there. The concept behind this group is sinking in. Solidarity.
\n\n“It really is so simple,” you think to yourself. “When we stand up for one another, the rest of the petty, entitled, obnoxious bosses will probably buckle just like today’s did.” You head back home to think about the next action. Maybe you will finally check out one of the planning meetings, too.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/9.jpg\")
\nAn Owie to One Is an Owie to All: A Six-Step Plan for Helping Your Parent-Friends Remain Activists
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2025/07/10/2.jpg\")
\n Agitate, Educate, Inoculate, Organize, UNION is an IWW organizing strategy. ↩
\nJane McAlevy was a community and labor organizer who guided many successful campaigns by inspiring workers to organize for power in their own unions and communities by taking militant, collective action in overwhelming numbers. ↩
\nSubstitutionism is a term in Marxist theory referring to a situation or analysis in which the activity of the revolutionary party is supposed to substitute for the activity of the working class. This was a question from outside of SeaSol; many of us were unfamiliar with the term. ↩
\nNorthwest Hammerskins is an affiliate of Hammerskin Nation, a white supremacist, fascist, antisemitic and homophobic neo-Nazi “skinhead” group in the United States. ↩
\n![flyer](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2026/06/17/35.jpg\"){kind=link}