Today, it has been 96 years since the execution of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Anti-immigrant bigotry played a significant part in determining the outcome of their trial. The court case became a rallying point for thousands around the world.

"Not only am I innocent of these two crimes, not only in all my life I have never stolen, never killed, never spilled blood, but I have struggled all my life, since I began to reason, to eliminate crime from the earth...

"I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that you can only kill me once but if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already."

-Bartolomeo Vanzetti, addressing the court at their sentencing

On the last day of the Anarchy 2023 gathering in Saint-Imier, a massive chorus of anarchist choirs gathered in the main square of the village. Among other songs, they performed a song about Sacco and Vanzetti, here recorded by Joan Baez:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xWbRBLj2I

The Wagner Mutiny has reached its inevitable conclusion with the reported deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin.

Yet Vladimir Putin should not feel any more sure of his grip on power this month than Prigozhin did last month. The tighter the authoritarian regime, the more pressure waiting to explode.

In the meantime, this is a good time to revisit the perspectives of Russian anarchists on the Wagner Mutiny, written when it was still unclear how it would turn out:

https://crimethinc.com/WagnerMutiny

Civil war is the inevitable long-term consequence of totalitarianism. The alternative is the anarchist project of abolishing oppressive power from below.

The chorus of the song "Defeat" by the hardcore band Requiem is inspired by some of the final words of Bartolomeo Vanzetti:

"If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words—our lives—our pains—nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler—all! That last moment belongs to us—that agony is our triumph."

Like all music released by CrimethInc., it is freely available here:

https://crimethinc.bandcamp.com/track/defeat

Recuerdos de Saint-Imier, de 1872 a 2023

https://es.crimethinc.com/2023/08/22/recuerdos-de-saint-imier-de-1872-a-2023-relatos-de-un-encuentro-anarquista-mundial

Con un mes de retraso, por fin volvemos de las vacaciones de verano con un informe de Anarchy 2023, un encuentro anarquista mundial en Saint-Imier, Suiza. Este festival celebró el 151 aniversario del congreso fundacional de la federación conocida como la Internacional Antiautoritaria, la continuación de la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores, una de las organizaciones sindicales europeas más importantes del siglo XIX. La reunión de Saint-Imier, a la que acudieron unas 5.000 personas -la mayoría procedentes de Europa central, pero también de lugares tan lejanos como Chile y Australia-, pudo haber sido el mayor acontecimiento exclusivamente anarquista del año. A continuación ofrecemos diversos testimonios y valoraciones.

#Español

This weekend, at the Seattle Anarchist Book Fair, there will be a presentation drawing on our coverage of the uprising in Chile in 2019, exploring what made it so powerful and how it was eventually channeled into electoral politics.

https://seattleanarchistbookfair.noblogs.org/

"For nearly a month, the most powerful force in Chile was a patchwork of horizontal assemblies focusing on what the participants could do in their neighborhoods. When the government caved in and conceded to one of the countless demands circulating in the streets—a new constitution—these assemblies were gradually replaced with conversations about what they could get someday from a government in the future. The constitutional process was the first step to taking power out of people’s hands and reconstituting the state."

To learn more:

crimethinc.com/ChilePlebiscite

Gender and Sexuality in Saint-Imier: A Memoir

https://crimethinc.com/sexinstimier

Filling out our coverage of the worldwide anarchist gathering that took place in Saint-Imier, Switzerland in July, one participant explores political practices and discourse around gender and sexuality during the gathering and in the contemporary anarchist movement as a whole.

Content warning: moderately scandalous.

Cheers to the protester who interrupted Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey today with a banner reading “FREY DOES NOT CONCEDE UNLAWFUL BEHAVIOR BY THE MPD, REOPEN ALL CASES!”

Earlier this summer, Frey co-signed a document reading: “...the city does not concede that there is a pattern or practice of unlawful behavior by the Minneapolis Police Department.” Even the Department of Justice, itself a bastion of police violence, has declared that "The Minneapolis Police Department and the City of Minneapolis engage in a pattern or practice of conduct in violation of the US Constitution and federal law."

As anarchists, we are not surprised when police violate laws, nor that politicians from across the political spectrum support them in this. Police, laws, and government itself are all instruments of white supremacy and domination. Only grassroots resistance can limit the harm they do.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPOR0NzuxA

More background:

https://crimethinc.com/AbolishMPD