War

We strongly believe in the necessity of armed conflict. Warfare, however, is more than simply the strategic moves of soldiers employed by conflicting nations. Such things are surely war, but not in any revolutionary sense. Conflicts between nations nowadays are just police-acts, a question of keeping the global order intact. Since states are the machines handling the demographic issues on large scales and instruments for the administration within Capital, they sometimes collide and contradict each other. While global capitalism grew and large-scale industry extended all over the planet, such conflicts were more common and served different purposes; all the national wars fought during the last centuries were products of separated units of capital striving to merge and form bigger circulation areas. The nation-states were necessary forces in the accumulation of surplus value and the dynamic competition for resources (colonization being the most obvious example of this), and as results of their conflicting interests, long and bloody wars were fought between them.

Now, when Capital indeed has become global and the machines of its concrete manifestation have colonized every area on earth, the nation-states have played out their old rôles. In fact, they now stand in the way of the all-encompassing tendencies of control produced by the megamachine. That is why war between nations (or between ethnic groups within nations, which is the same thing) is not as common now as it used to be. The liberals like to depict the declining number of armed conflicts between states as proof of the success of the spreading market economy. As usual, they deceive themselves, even when they are right. Of course, the fact that national war no longer appear as often as they used to is a result of Capital’s fulfilment as a hegemonic, global apparatus. But this does not mean that war does not exist. Nor does it mean that the world is moving towards its own salvation under the banner of liberalism, democracy and free trade.

The soldiers
War, in its revolutionary sense, is the violent eruption of the conflict-lines inherent in society. This happens all the time. Because the conflict-lines and the energy they produce are motors in the megamachine, war is unavoidable. The antagonisms can not always be kept under control; when repression reigns supreme and all conflict is suppressed, no dynamics are being born and society becomes a stiff relic, incapable of providing Capital with the movement vital to its mutation and growth. Thus, when the circumstances provide the means, the antagonisms become more than dynamic. They force their way out of their bonds and create scenes of rebellion, confrontation and war, realizing their potential as subversive action against the Now.

The primary actors in this kind of warfare are the revolutionaries. A revolutionary is not a party man; he is not someone who has read a lot of theory and leads the masses to victory with discipline, speeches and organization. This type of "revolutionary" actually died with the Russian "revolution", when Leninism, the middle-class ideology designed to stall the actual potential in the workers´ rebellion, usurped the title "communist" and proclaimed itself the sole path to emancipation. Now we know that the revolutionary is produced as such by his or her actions, by the way he or she refuses to be a part of the motor of Capital. This is not a matter of opinion; to regard yourself a revolutionary does not make you one. Many truly revolutionary individuals do not style themselves "communists" or "anarchists" or even "subversives". Instead, they take action against the conditions under which they are forced to exist, in ways suitable to their position and desires.

In other words, soldiers in the revolutionary war against Status Quo are the ones who act against the present circumstances in a concrete manner and manifest a movement away from the Now towards the Maybe. This must not always be manifested in violent actions, of course. It can also be a strategic (i.e. a theoretical) enterprise, at least when the strategic plans are being produced from the standpoint of the soldier. We need theoretical projects as a guarantee that the real movement of destruction is not being articulated in a contra-revolutionary or even reactionary way. By making strategic plans for actions, by analyzing past moves with a clear mind, by critique aimed at the fundamental functions of society, we are able to discern what really matters from the ideological sentiments provided by our enemies.

Thus, revolutionaries appear in diverse areas of society and present their existence in various ways. Theory and action being two sides of the same thing, they produce a dynamic movement of their own when working together in a truly war-like fashion.

The metasubjects
Some people like to talk about classes and their opposing interests. We regard the concept of class as problematic, because it always needs endless definitions. "Who is really proletarian?" is a question without a useful answer today, but it is an inescapable consequence of the orthodox "radical" view of society. If our only hope lies in the proles, we need to find them and make them act. If we are the proles, we need to make ourselves conscious and revolutionary. But in our times, the proletariat is more diverse and heterogeneous than ever, and harder to find than in any previous era. And even if we find it, how do we make it act as a collective? Are not ideas like this, notions that the revolutionary subject (an enormous and united one) must be properly described and then guided to revolution by the right manoeuvres, a most patronizing one? Class is too broad and too ideological a concept to be really useful in the strategies of war.

Do not get us wrong. We do not represent any kind of revisionist perspective with the purpose of denying the existence of class society. Neither do we wish to deny that class consciousness is a vital tool in the critique of society. What we want to do is to move beyond the locked and romantic conception of class as something which is revolutionary in itself. Sure, the working class is real, the capitalist class is real. But the working class (regardless of how one chose to define it) is not revolutionary per se. The workers will not bring about revolution by being workers, but by not being workers. It is a question of refusal and action, and if one locks oneself up in word-play about organization of the masses, a unified worker’s party, etc, one misses the fundamental fact that "the working class" as a global homogeneous entity is just an idea, and ideas can not be revolutionary in themselves.

It is collectives, acting in subversive ways, who are revolutionary. This is where the concept of metasubjects becomes important. A metasubject is the consciousness of a given collective, regarding its place in society and its actions in this society. It is a conception of collective interest, an attitude towards other metasubjects, and most of all, the actions it carries out as a collective. You could, in a liberal or sociological fashion, speak of "social groups", "ethnic minorities" or other misleading etiquettes designed to divide and spread discord. But we speak of metasubjects because we believe that they are not static, given social forms but moving, expanding, merging entities capable of exercising tremendous powers given the proper circumstances.

For instance, the vision of the proletariat is the one of all workers in all nations as a collective, acting together for the same purposes and driven by the same desires. We would argue that the proletariat is not a homogeneous group, that it is not driven by the same desires everywhere, that its purposes are not globally equal. Rather, we would regard it as a very broad term encompassing many diverse metasubjects who only share one common trait: that they are workers. Sure enough, this is a vital common characteristic. But it is not enough. If it were, we would already be somewhere else. Because of the colliding interests of the diverse metasubjects within the proletariat (interests whose conflicts of course are being exploited by the powers governing society), the "working class" will not be a revolutionary force as a whole, at least not under the present conditions. We can see the "white" metasubject fighting the "black" or "immigrant" metasubjects; we can see the "educated worker" or the "union man" metasubjects competing with the "unemployed" and the "welfare" metasubjects for employment and the means of existence. And this diversion is not something that society will want to remedy, of course.

The "capitalist class" is likewise a broad term with many diverse metasubjects acting under its name. They compete, they merge, they form alliances, with the sole common purpose of making money for themselves and in this way driving the machine-park along within the Now. They are allied to the metasubjects of the State (the politicians, the repressive forces, the judicial, medical, and educational institutions) and the metasubjects of ideology (culture-workers, artists, advertising-producers, "intellectuals", preachers of religion, and so on), by the common interest of power. It is not enough to own money, workforce, and means of production; one must also have the back-up of the State machine and all its sub-machines to stay in control.

A metasubject will always act according to its own interests, and defend itself against competing interests, even if these are being forwarded by metasubjects sharing a common trait. All these conflicts within the "classes" and between them provide a powerful dynamic factory for the Now. But because of this, it also has the capacity to destroy itself.

The battlefields
The collectives whose interests are far apart will naturally be more inclined to oppose each other than the ones sharing many desires. When the framework of reality no longer has the power to withhold the conflicts within it, war will erupt. The war is fought everywhere; in the streets, in schools, in factories and work-shops, in stores and parks, sometimes in all places simultaneously in general ways, sometimes in isolated loci in particular ways. Sometimes this will result in "race riots", in coup d’etats, or in mob violence and destruction of property; always it will create reactionary action from State and reinforced repression. Sometimes it will result in a return to Status Quo or an even older mode of production, but sometimes it will instead give birth to the re-formulation of society, the abolition of the present order of things and the refusal to play out the productive rôles prescribed by the Now.

What happens is entirely up to the soldiers. When metasubjects merge, when common interests become more important than superficial division and difference, major armies will march. And then the people in charge, the metasubjects of State and Capital, will find their own union a most fragile, weak, and pathetic one. But then, of course, it will be too late.