First and foremost: we were very happy to find your text [1] here and to encounter a perspective which challenges the dominant ideology of the left from an autonomous insurrectionary perspective within the territories occupied by the state of Austria. Especially since the captivity in the net of the spectacle seems to be a totality in the local milieu. We want to engage with your text and ask questions that have arisen after reading it. Specifically, we were asking us the following questions or had the following remarks:

• You mention the fact that there are other forms of exploitation besides the conditions of being a worker. What is your more concrete analysis of this? For example, we would be interested in a more elaborate analysis of the exploitation of women, genderqueers and sexual-deviants. In our opinion, a theoretical discussion of these issues offers the possibility of overcoming the strands of analysis that only look for the culprit in “identities”, while at the same time being able to name the specificities under which individuals are subjectified.

• What is the commune? When you say “[…] a commune is not simply a group of people occupying a space and making decisions together; it is primarily a specific relationship between people”, do you mean that the commune can be found in relationships like those established 2019 at the Plaza Baquedano or is it rather something that already exists in our daily lives? Why invoke the concept of the commune (in what tradition?) instead of talking about affinity? The last time we heard about an idea like the “Weltcommune” we were confronted with the intellectualization and reframing of a revolution that is always and at the same time never appearing on the horizon. We would like to hear more about your understanding of the term “commune”.

• You speak of the rejection of the political as a sphere separate from life. We strongly agree with Raoul Vaneigem that “the desire to live is a political decision.” Certainly, we also agree with the statement that implicitly oppose a conception of “being active” as another part-time job for bourgeois activists. But we argue that it is necessary to completely negate politics as such. We understand politics as the organization of our lives in the logic of the state and the creation of a future that is always linked to the figure of the CHILD. We are the ones who have no future and we will embrace this position with alacrity. The question of “real political power” or “the pursuit of political power” does not make any sense to us, because we are not striving for any political power, be it “real” or not, we want to break out of the NOW.

• You talk about the defeat of the working class by democracy and how “the real subversive issues, the real dangerous people” are not to be found in “revolutionary” groups or parties. We agree that the so-called and often referred to “civil society” is really the state and will never bring about change. We also recognize the repression against those of us who dedicate their lives to illegalism and crime. Neither the social centers, nor the radical spaces managed by NGOs, nor the factory are spaces per se to find our partners in crime. But how to reach out to them and with whom to build and develop a common ethic?
  Left-wing groups cannot be allies in this search, as you rightly pointed out, but where is this working class – betrayed – that you are talking about? We do not want to complain about labels but we would like more clarity about your understanding of this term. Presenting the working class as an entity that can be betrayed implies attributing an inherent revolutionary character to this class, which is a questionable statement in light of the collaboration and participation of the working class in, for example, the world wars. To ignore the reactionary force within it is to mistake the psychic investments and the desiring-production of “the people” as merely a matter of the “proper” environment and the right alliances.
  This argument also reminds us of the misleading trope, that the working class just has to get to the point where it recognizes itself as a force in order to build the commune. Again, a postponement of the occurrence of the necessary rupture to a never-to-be-determined point in the future.

For us, it comes down to creating situations in which a feeling of actively lived time can emerge and flourish. To create those situations we have to be prepared. We also encourage strengthening the bonds between us (we need to trust), to learn about the mechanisms of control, repression and to find together the courage to attack.

And in the end, something directed to all those who read our conversation and might think, “Now is not the time to oppose the left and the traditional ways of organizing!”: Now is precisely the time to oppose the left, the mentality of the state, and the logic of domestication all together. Because:

Never as today, as a new season of insurrectional struggles is setting off, does this problem of organization and the risk of unrestrained self-reference need to be faced in no uncertain terms. The generalization of the clash does not admit privileged levels, nor is it to be blindly delivered to improvisation and spontaneity.

The enemy is getting ready, are we?
(Alfredo M. Bonnano)