I’ve been doing various political bits for a relatively short amount of time, a bit under 5 years now, but have essentially seen organising as my main focus for that timeperiod. I’ve structured my life around radical political organising so that it is my main priority, I didn’t go to uni in part because I wanted to work and have the opportunity to unionise in workplaces, I’ve turned down or quit jobs because the schedule doesn’t allow me to attend demonstrations, meetings or actions. One strange decision was when I missed a clinical trial that would’ve paid £1500 because I was the only driver to take people to an out of town demonstration.

Recently I’ve been having some crises in relation to organising, how much I do of it vs how much we get out from the time put in, 4 years on it doesn’t feel like the movements I’m a part of are ina drastically different place to when I started. Some changes have been big, and I’m proud to have played a small role in that, specifically the slow, painful change moving antifascism from something that has a primarily macho image to something that still has a pretty macho image but is at least a bit more inclusive and has a genuinely feminist core.

Recently then I had this crisis realising that I could’ve got some kind of undergrad degree with the time I put into organising and we don’t have something that I can point to and say with complete confidence that because of this we’re closer to some sort of revolutionary situation whatever the fuck that means.

It’s not like I’m suddenly personally having some sort of crisis of confidence, I’m not scared of losing, I’m scared of losing hope and the will to keep going. It might sound like a depressing statement but I’ve always understood the struggle for anarchism and against fascism as something that you do aiming at “victory” but accepting that you personally and as a group or movement in one place can only throw yourself in with the most energy and organisation and planning you can but at best you can only hope to be a part of something much bigger than yourself, and if that means failing then you fail.

Re-reading “Order Prevails in Berlin” and “In Spite of Everything”, texts written by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht hours before they were murdered in 1919 by forces who would go on to build the base of fascism in Germany, you get a clear idea that while they aimed and absolutely hoped for success, the point isn’t to win or lose yourself but to force a struggle and know that you’re a part of a long history of people taking on the system with the idea of building a better world.

The idea of arguing about whether “revolution” is possible is then missing the point, we aim for that and as Malatesta said in the (well worth reading) Towards Anarchy: “Therefore, the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow, and always... each victory, however small, gained by the workers against their exploiters, each decrease of profit, every bit of wealth taken from the individual owners and put at the disposal of all, shall be a progress – a forward step towards Anarchism.”.

The things we celebrate the most and look to for inspiration are all essentially failures, the Spanish revolution in 1936 ended with hundreds of thousands murdered by the fascists for their resistance to domination, commitment to anarchism and socialism as well as countless more murdered purely for their identity. Their failure was a success in inspiring millions more to struggle and giving proof of the fact that worker can run things ourselves and organise a mass military resistance with handfuls of rusty weapons! I don’t hope to get killed via firing squad, and I think over-celebration of martyrdom is extremely dangerous and damaging, but the aim shouldn’t be weighing up the odds and deciding it’s best to let things be because we can’t win, it should be to go for it fully accepting we’re likely fucked.

In a pub lately a friend and I talked about this and we used the idea of being on a sinking ship and deciding what to do, you know almost for a fact that you will die and the ship will end up at the bottom of the ocean, but the only remotely rational thing to do is to fight until you can’t fight any longer for survival. I’ve talked about taking a “break” from organising, but I really don’t see how; looking at the world and it’s march towards fascism and ecological collapse is really depressing, and I don’t understand how anyone can sit back and watch instead doing everything humanly possible to make sure we win.

This is all well and good and very nice to write and read, but what does doing as much as possible mean? It definitely means making clear to yourself that if you truly believe in what we’re doing then taking personal risks or disadvantages is still in your best interests, as your individual self is completely tied with the collective movement. As Fred Hampton said “School is not important. Work is not important. Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all .”

More than this though, “fighting” in the abstract sense is great but what does it mean? If we don’t have a clear idea of what fighting for anarchism and liberation means then we leave ourselves open to be manipulated and used by cynical actors. Trotskyists like the SWP love to use people’s genuine desire for revolution as a means to fill their own pockets, get more sign ups and sell newspapers so they can continue being nasty little rats.

We need a clear programme of what we want and how we intend to get there, not a million demonstrations but a million concrete small actions that build our power as a movement.

In London there’s a complete culture of cynicism, anyone who talks about revolution or positive change is laughed at and looked at as a naive youngster by older leftists and anarchists, much like right wingers do to lefties in general...

We need to break that by not only building more projects that inspire hope and confidence in ourselves but also by discussing when and how things go well or don’t. I asked a good friend of mine who has been involved in anarchist and antifascist organising for over 10 years in London if he has any genuine confidence in a hopeful future and he told me “Genuine confidence? No, None. Genuine hope? Plenty.” I asked what gave him hope these days and he told me it was seeing large scale antifascist demos and campaigns that actually worked (he mentioned crushing March for England as an example) and an anarchist environmental group called the Green Anticapitalist Front that distributed food from a social centre while still retaining militant tactics.

The theme of things that seem to build confidence, shockingly, is getting things physically and materially done. Teaching skills, providing material mutual aid and physically smashing fascists and their supporters, this is what we need to focus on to regain some confidence in anarchism in London. Beyond that, I want people to just get over themselves a bit, there’s nothing radical about inaction, yes we’re fucked, but just stating that doesn’t get you some sort of radical badge, our job is to fight how fucked we are as much as we possibly can and force the fascists and the state to have to deal with us as long as we’re alive.

Thinking about how you can shape your life so that you can best carry out this job is a great way to start, and remembering not just the flashy actions but that "fighting" means the boring actions too, taking on admin and behind the scenes work that no one wants to do. Figuring out how you're best placed to do this is hard, but we need everyone contributing in a million different ways.

I recently re-read Lorenzo Orsetti’s final letter from Rojava before he was killed while fighting for Tekoşīna Anarşīst in Rojava against ISIS in 2019. Reading about anarchists who are in the worst possible conditions holding on to their hope and belief in anarchists ability to win a better world puts our sometimes self-serving misery about the state of things into perspective, I think everyone should read his letter regularly, you can do so below:

Hello.

If you are reading this message, then it means that I am no longer of this world. Don’t be too sad, though, I’m OK with it; I don’t have any regrets and I died doing what I thought was right, defending the weak and staying true to my ideals of justice, equality, and liberty.

So in spite of my premature departure, my life has been a success, and I’m almost certain that I went with a smile on my face. I couldn’t have asked for more.

I wish all of you all the best in the world and I hope that one day, you too will decide to give your life for others (if you haven’t already) because that is the only way to change the world.

Only by combating the individualism and egoism in each of us can we make a difference. These are difficult times, I know, but don’t give in to despair, don’t ever abandon hope, never! Not even for a second.

Even when all seems lost, when the evils that plague the earth and humanity seem insurmountable, you must find strength, you must inspire strength in your comrades.

It is in the darkest moments that we have greatest need of your light. And remember always that “every storm begins with a single raindrop.” You must be that raindrop.

I love you all, I hope you will treasure these words for time to come.

Serkeftin! Ⓐ Orso, Tekoşer, Lorenzo.”