#nikos-maziotis — Public Fediverse posts

Text by Nikos Maziotis for the Publication “Friends of Durruti”

New publication:

“FRIENDS OF DURRUTI – THE HISTORY AND TEXTS OF A GROUP OF ANARCHIST REVOLUTIONARIES DURING THE SPANISH REVOLUTION (1936-1939)” TEXTS OF A GROUP OF ANARCHIST REVOLUTIONARY DURING THE SPANISH REVOLUTION (1936-1939)»

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THE ANARCHIST GROUP THE FRIENDS OF DURRUTI IN THE SPANISH REVOLUTION (1937-1938)

In the autumn of 2024, some comrades of an anarchist collective from Barcelona sent me by post at Domokos prison Agustín Guillemon’s book on the Friends of Durruti. The Friends of Durruti, named after the legendary anarchist Buenaventura Durruti, who was killed in Madrid besieged by the Francoists in November 1936, were a group of anarchist revolutionaries who operated during the Spanish Revolution and the civil war of 1936-39 in Barcelona-Catalonia, and more specifically in the period from March 1937 to February 1938. With the very basic Spanish that I knew – which I had learned without a teacher in Korydallos prison when I was a prisoner in 1998-2001 for another case, not of the Revolutionary Struggle (a bombing attempt at the Ministry of Development in 1997 and possession of weapons and explosives) – and with the help of a Spanish-Greek dictionary, I managed to translate this book that presents the history of this group, which in my opinion is one of the most important in terms of political lessons within the framework of not only the Spanish, but also the global revolutionary and anarchist movement.

Why is the history of the Friends of Durruti important? Because the Friends of Durruti were the most organized group within the Spanish anarchist-anarcho-syndicalist movement that disagreed and strongly criticized the collaboration of the CNT-FAI with the State, whether in Catalonia, with the Generalidad, or with the central Spanish government in which the CNT-FAI participated with 4 ministers. The creation of the Friends of Durruti group had its origins in the opposition of a section of the militiamen of the Durruti Column, specifically the 4th Grouping of Helsa on the Aragon front, who refused to be militarized after the Popular Front state’s decree to militarize the militias in October 1936, something that Durruti himself had opposed. Militarization meant the transformation of the militias and columns that the working class had formed to fight the Franco fascists in July 1936 into parts of a classic army controlled by the state government, the transformation of the militant militiamen and members of the phalanxes into soldiers, the acceptance of the military hierarchy and the military code that existed before July 19, all of which the militants fought and represented Franco’s fascist army. Unfortunately, militarization was also accepted by the leadership of the CNT-FAI and by all the confederal and anarchist phalanxes after a congress in Valencia in February 1937. However, many militiamen of the anarchist phalanxes refused militarization, which was also imposed with the threat that if it was not accepted, they would not be supplied with weapons and ammunition. Several members of the Durruti Column, as well as members of the Iron Column, refused militarization and abandoned the front and returned to the rear. In fact, the members of the Durruti Column of the 4th Helsa Grouping who refused to be militarized returned to Barcelona with their weapons, along with them the leader of the 4th Helsa Grouping, Pablo Ruiz, who had taken part in the two-day Battle of Barcelona on July 19-20, 1936, where the CNT-FAI forces defeated the Franco coup plotters and who had taken part in the attack on the Ataratana camp where Francisco Ascaso was also killed, while he was one of the founding members of the Friends of Durruti. The Friends of Durruti were created on the one hand by members of the Durruti Column who refused the militarization of the militias and returned to Barcelona with their weapons and on the other hand by comrades in the rear who strongly disagreed with the collaboration of the CNT-FAI with the popular front anti-fascist “democratic” state.

The Friends of Durruti argued that the anarchists, the CNT-FAI, should seize power, initially in Catalonia-Barcelona, ​​where they had overwhelming superiority and essentially had power in their hands and on the streets after July 19, 1936, that they should deepen the social revolution with the organs that the workers and peasants had created, the committees of workers and peasants, militiamen, sailors, the municipal-communal committees, and thus impose libertarian communism by abolishing the State and purging the counter-revolutionary elements, the petty-bourgeois parties, the socialists and the Stalinist communists. Their program, which was made public in April 1937, shortly before the Battle of Barcelona on May 3-7, 1937, which began with the attack of the Stalinist communist police forces to seize the Telefónica, which was collectivized and under the control of the CNT-FAI, is summarized in 3 points:

1) The overthrow of the Catalan state and the government of the Generalidad and its replacement by a Revolutionary Council or, as they called it literally, a Revolutionary Junta, which would be a democratically elected body, composed of workers, peasants and militia fighters and would have as its responsibility the conduct of the war against the Francoist fascists, revolutionary propaganda and the purge of counter-revolutionaries in the rear.

2) The management of the economy by the unions, which was the classic position of anarcho-syndicalism.

3) The Free Municipalities that will take over the management of social and political life and will be federally organized at the local, regional and peninsular-national level.

The term “junta” has its origin in the Spanish popular resistance tradition. Juntas appeared during the years of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain (1808-1814) and were created by the resistance movement to the invasion. They have the meaning of a council or committee and there were many juntas in various regions of Spain. They were temporary and informal in nature. However, beyond the formation of the Revolutionary Junta, the program of the Friends of Durruti included the socialization of the economy by the unions, the liquidation of counter-revolutionaries in the rear, the creation of a revolutionary army under the control of the working class, the dissolution of the police forces and the control of public order by the working class -with the Control Patrols in Barcelona-, the maintenance of the Defense Committees that played a key role in the suppression of the coup on 19-20 July 1936 and in the beginning of the revolutionary process and the creation of the institution of Proletarian Justice. Other parts of the anarchist-anarcho-syndicalist movement also agreed with the positions of the Friends of Durruti, such as the majority of the Libertarian Youth and several in the CNT unions and FAI groups. The Friends of Durruti participated in the Battle of Barcelona from 3 to 7 May 1937 against the counter-revolutionary coalition of the Generalidad with the Stalinist communists and the petty bourgeois parties, with a force of 400 well-armed fighters. Then, on 5 May, during the street battles, they issued the proclamation that was distributed at the barricades and gave them fame, in which they demanded the formation of a Revolutionary Junta (Council) that would replace the Generalidad, the execution of those who attacked the Telefónica workers on 3 May and the working class in general, the dissolution of the political parties that attacked the working class and the socialization of the economy.

WORKERS: A Revolutionary Junta. Execution of the guilty. Disarmament of all armed forces. Socialization of the economy. Dissolution of the political parties that attacked the working class. We do not surrender the road. The revolution above all. We salute our POUM comrades who have joined us on the road.

When the proclamation was issued, the higher committees of the CNT-FAI, that is, the collaborationist tendency of the CNT-FAI, denounced the Friends of Durruti through the columns of Labor Solidarity, denounced them as “provocateurs” and later “ordered” their expulsion from the CNT unions and FAI groups. However, beyond the slander about “provocateurs”, the higher committees of the CNT-FAI, defamed them as “Marxists”, which was repeated throughout the confederal press controlled by the collaborationist tendency. The irony of history is that these accusations were directed at the Friends of Durruti by those who collaborated with the bourgeois State and with the Marxist Stalinist communists and socialists and the petty-bourgeois parties.

During the battles of May 1937, the attitude of the leaders of the CNT-FAI, that is, those who collaborated with the State – in the name of “anti-fascist unity” – but also of the “anarchist” ministers, Federica Montseni (Minister of Health), and Juan García Oliver (Minister of Justice), was subversive, that is, they constantly called for a ceasefire and a return to work because a general strike had been spontaneously declared by the Barcelona proletariat, while they prevented strong armed forces from the Aragon front from reaching Barcelona to help the insurgent workers, such as parts of the Black and Red division commanded by Maximo Franco, a member of the Friends of Durruti, and parts of the POUM division.

Although the CNT-FAI base fighters defeated the counter-revolutionary forces and controlled most of Barcelona except for a few buildings in the city center, such as the headquarters of the Generalidad, the subversive attitude of the CNT-FAI leadership, as well as the lack of political will to overthrow the Generalidad and the Catalan state, led the fighters to abandon the barricades without gaining anything. The Battle of Barcelona on 3–7 May 1937 was the last attempt by the revolutionaries and the working class, i.e. the CNT-FAI base, to defend the revolutionary conquests won after 19 July 1936, which were gradually being annulled by the State, whether in Catalonia or in the “democratic” zone of the rest of Spain.

The subversive attitude of the CNT-FAI leadership in the events of May 1937 was characterized as betrayal by the Friends of Durruti in a manifesto-account after the end of the fighting. However, the political and organizational inadequacy of the Friends of Durruti themselves was also demonstrated because they did not have the required political influence on the CNT-FAI base, but neither did they seek to raise the issue of leadership of the CNT or a break with the CNT itself, but they sought the unity of the organization until the end. That is why it was impossible for them to go to the end during the fighting and to direct the fighters to occupy – while they could militarily – the headquarters of the Generalidad and thus overthrow the Catalan state, thus changing the course of history with regard to both the revolution and the war against the Francoists.

In fact, as Pablo Ruiz reported years later, when one of the main members of the Friends of Durruti, Jaime Ballus, proposed during the battle that a column be formed that would meet the units of the Black and Red divisions that were within striking distance of Barcelona and had been prevented from assisting the Barcelona fighters, with the aim of advancing together and completely crushing the Generalidad forces and the counter-revolutionaries, the majority of the fighters at the roadblocks rejected the proposal. The senate-style “patriotism” that existed in the minds of a large number of rank-and-file fighters, the deification of the organization, prevented the CNT leadership from going beyond it even when there were serious disagreements, such as in relation to the issue of collaboration with the State and “anti-fascist” unity with all the counter-revolutionary elements of the Popular Front.

May 1937 was in fact the decisive defeat of the revolutionary process that began on July 19, 1936 and resulted in the definitive overthrow of state power, the triumph of the counter-revolution in which the spearhead was the Stalinist communists, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), who sought the dominance of the bourgeois-democratic state by carrying out the orders of Stalin and Soviet agents.

Many years later, Jaime Ballus described May 1937 as the “Spanish Kronstadt”, drawing parallels with the Kronstadt sailors’ uprising in March 1921 against the Bolshevik dictatorship, in an attempt to create a third revolutionary wave that would sweep away the Bolshevik dictatorship and effectively hand power to the soviets. The orgy of repression and terror that followed the events of May 1937, with the murders and prisons full of May Day activists and fighters, also affected the Friends of Durruti. Their offices were closed, their newspaper, The Friend of the People – they took its name from Marat’s newspaper during the French Revolution – was published illegally from the second issue onwards, to avoid censorship, while its main columnist, Jaime Ballus, was repeatedly imprisoned for articles he wrote, such as one against the Stalinist government of Juan Negrin, who took over as prime minister of the Popular Front government after the events of May and was a loyal servant of Stalin and the Soviet Union.

In the end, the publication of Friend of the People became impossible as the Stalinist police raided the printing house where it was being published illegally in February 1938. The last issue of Friend of the People had been published at that time and included the brochure “Towards a New Revolution” which has been translated into Greek more than any other text by the Friends of Durruti. In February 1938, the last gathering of the Friends of Durruti took place. The group’s action was now impossible. The counter-revolution was in full swing and the war against the Francoists had already been decided due to the betrayal of the very “democratic” governments whose main concern was to strangle the revolution and serve the interests of the British, French and Soviet governments, for whom the Spanish Civil War was a pawn on the geostrategic chessboard as they prepared for the upcoming war with Nazi Germany.

The lessons that the Friends of Durruti learned from the experience of the Spanish Revolution can be summarized as follows:

1) The revolution must have total characteristics, that is, it must go to the end with all the consequences, affecting every aspect of social life and not be “half” or incomplete, because otherwise it will face its own destruction.

2) It is necessary to have a revolutionary theory and a specific program, that is, that the revolutionaries know exactly what to do when the right time and the right conditions come.

3) It is necessary to have a unifying coordinating body which will be democratically elected by the working class, the peasants and the fighters and which in the first phase of the revolution will have as its exclusive competence the safeguarding of the revolution, the liquidation of counter-revolutionary elements, the conduct of the war and revolutionary propaganda. This body was the Revolutionary Junta or Revolutionary Council as the Friends of Durruti supported. This body does not interfere with the management of the economy which will be the responsibility of the labor unions, according to the position of anarcho-syndicalism, while the management of social and political life, other than the economy, will be the responsibility of the Free Municipalities which will be federally organized at the regional and national-peninsular level.

The stakes of every social revolution are the seizure of power (not the State), that is, who (social class, movement or political group) will impose themselves, direct the development of the revolution and impose a new regime. This was stated explicitly and categorically by the Friends of Durruti in the Spanish Revolution: “We are extremely unanimous and extremely cowardly in not taking power in Catalonia in such a way as to boycott its exercise by the Valencian Government over the CNT and the FAI in Catalonia and indirectly in Aragon [… ] We could and should have taken power and I am convinced that the Revolution would have followed a different course and so would the war […] (From the text of the member of the Friends of Durruti, Francisco Pellicer, “The Present Hour”, in the newspaper La Noche, April 14, 1937).

Even after the defeat, in 1939, Jaime Ballus, in two articles published in July 1936 and May 1937 in the French anarchist magazine L’Espagne Nouvelle (New Spain), spoke clearly that the CNT should have taken power in 1936 and put the working class at the helm of Spain. […] But the most important problem arose in our own zone. It arose as to who had won. Was it the workers? In that case, the leadership of the country belonged to us. […] The CNT and the FAI, which in Catalonia were the soul of the movement, could have given the July Days their true meaning. Who could stop them? Instead we allowed the communist party (PSUC) to reorganize the opportunists, the right, etc., on the ground of counter-revolution. At such times, the answer would be for one organization to take the lead. Only one could do it: ours […] If the workers had known that they were the masters of anti-fascist Spain, the war would have been won and the revolution would not have suffered from so many deviations […] In the text for May ’37 it said: “The proletariat was at a decisive crossroads. He had to choose between two paths: either he would submit to the counter-revolution, or he would impose his own power which would be the proletarian Power […]

The seizure of power does not mean the seizure of state power or the emergence of a new state power, even if this is called a “workers’ state”, as was the case in the Russian Revolution after October 1917. A social revolution is by nature an authoritarian process, a process of imposition and repression over the social and class enemy. An act where one part of the population imposes itself with arms and violence over another part of the population. An act where one social class imposes itself with arms and violence over another, e.g. the workers, the proletariat impose their will on the bourgeoisie, capital and the counter-revolutionaries. In the Spanish Revolution, the armed confrontation of the workers against the military coup leaders in July 1936 and the violent expropriation of the property of the capitalists and landlords from the workers and peasants and their collectivization were acts of power. The purge and murder of fascists, capitalists, business managers and priests were acts of power. An act of power is or could be the violent abolition of the State, which the anarchists did not do, while they could and had the opportunity to do so in July 1936. An act of power is the imposition of libertarian communism, the program supported by the CNT-FAI, that is, the assumption of the management of social affairs and functions that the State had before July 19, 1936, by the democratic bodies of the workers and peasants, the committees in every factory, business, village, neighborhood, militia battalion, ship, the municipal-communal committees throughout the “democratic” zone, that is, in half of Spain, where the Franco coup had been suppressed, and they had exercised de facto local power.

The question of power, that is, who has the power and who directs the development of things, had been raised from the very beginning of the Spanish Revolution, from July 20, 1936, when the anarchists, the CNT-FAI became dominant in Barcelona and Catalonia, and not only, when they defeated the Franco coup plotters. And in fact, apart from having de facto power, it was also offered to them on a plate by the head of the Catalan semi-autonomous state (Generalidad), Luis Cobán, when he called the leading cadres of the CNT-FAI to the presidential palace after the end of the battle, and was willing to resign if they wanted, and declared to them that they, the CNT-FAI, had the right to govern since they had defeated the fascists. However, the leading cadres of the CNT-FAI preferred to keep the president of the Catalan state in his position, not to abolish the State, thus slowing down the imposition of the revolution and libertarian communism, while in the name of anti-fascist unity they separated the war against Franco from the revolution, to collaborate with all counter-revolutionary elements (bourgeois-petit-bourgeois parties, socialists, Stalinist communists), they collaborated with the bourgeois State itself, initially participating in the government of Catalonia (Generalidad) while later with 4 ministers they participated in the central Spanish government in Madrid.

The Friends of Durruti, especially in the 1938 pamphlet, “Towards a New Revolution,” severely criticized the CNT for its “counterrevolutionary” stance: “The CNT was completely devoid of revolutionary theory. We had no specific program. We had no idea where we were going. We had plenty of lyricism, but when it came time for action, we did not know what to do with the masses of workers or how to give substance to the popular outburst that took place in our organizations. Not knowing what to do, we handed over power on a plate to the bourgeois and the Marxists […] And even worse, we gave the bourgeoisie time to breathe, to return, to transform itself and to behave like an invader. The CNT did not know how to respond to its role. It did not want to promote the revolution with all its consequences […] When the entire existence of an organization is exhausted in proclaiming the revolution, then it has the obligation to act when favorable circumstances arise, and in July, they did. The CNT was supposed to play a leading role in the country, giving the finishing blow to everything obsolete and archaic. In this way, we would have won the war and saved the revolution. In practice, however, it did the opposite. It collaborated with the bourgeoisie in state affairs, at the very moment when the state was collapsing. It supported Cobánys and his gang. It gave the kiss of life to an anemic, panicked bourgeoisie.”

The Friends of Durruti explicitly and categorically argue that the CNT-FAI should have taken power in Catalonia-Barcelona from the very beginning, initially, in order to impose the power of the workers’ committees, Defense Committees, supply, militias, etc. That is, to put the working class and the proletariat in the leadership of the country by purging the counter-revolutionary elements. Their slogans were: “All power to the Trade Unions”, “All power to the working class”. This in no way means a situation similar to that imposed by the Bolsheviks in Russia after October 1917, where in reality they did not impose the dictatorship of the proletariat, nor the power of the soviets, but imposed the dictatorship of a new state power, a bureaucratic class that they themselves manned.

There is a serious misunderstanding within anarchism, both then and now. This misunderstanding consists in identifying the concept of power with the State and that the aim of anarchism is “the destruction of all kinds of power”. This position has been proven by facts and from a historical point of view to be unrealistic and condemns anarchism to not being considered as a realistic social proposal, that is, a proposal for the management of social affairs and functions. It also condemns anarchism as a non-revolutionary current, as some opposing statists, e.g. Marxist-Leninists, claim. It condemns anarchism to be simply a protest current or at most an insurrectionary current. But rebellion is one thing and revolution is another. If anarchism, the international anarchist movement, wants to evolve today and shape a realistic social proposal to create a truly free society based on self-organization, self-management, solidarity, mutual aid, without a State and without social classes, then it must understand that a revolution naturally raises the issue of imposition and power against the opponent, the State and Capital and all counter-revolutionary elements. Whoever does not seize power leaves it to his opponent to seize and strangle him. Whoever does not understand this, does not understand what revolution is.

June 2026, Domokos Prisons

Nikos Maziotis, convicted for the action of the armed anarchist organization Revolutionary Struggle

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1641612/

France: Statement by Nikos Maziotis for Evening of Support for Anarchist Prisoners

From Domokos prison in Greece, anarchist prisoner Nikos Maziotis sent a message of solidarity on the occasion of the Let’s Make a Front evening organized by Secours Rouge Toulouse in support of anarchist prisoners around the world.

Dear comrades, thank you for inviting me to the event you are organizing and I send you a big hug. I also send a big hug to all detainees, revolutionaries, anarchists, anti-capitalists around the world. There is a direct link between the struggle and solidarity for the release of political prisoners and the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the international system of state and capital.

As we used to say here in the past, whoever forgets the prisoners of social and class war also forgets the war itself. However, unfortunately, the relationship between solidarity, imprisoned activists and the fight against the state and capital is not obvious and does not apply in many cases to at least some of those who define themselves as a movement.

Regarding solidarity, speaking of the Greek space, there are all kinds of divisions regarding the position towards imprisoned activists. Divisions linked to the differentiation between legal and illegal means of struggle, armed struggle and urban guerrilla warfare, their defense or the invocation of their innocence.

We experienced this ourselves within the Revolutionary Struggle organization, of which we were members. We were confronted not only with isolation from the mass movement and the space from which we come, the anarchist and anti-authoritarian space, but also with hostility directed against us. Some sectors have even gone so far as to support the separation and the declaration of repentance made by a former member of our organization in court.

Particularly during the period 2015-2019, when we were sentenced to life imprisonment for the attack on the Bank of Greece and the offices of the International Monetary Fund, and the State had taken away custody of our son, we were judged in empty courtrooms, facing the total indifference of a large part of the anarchist and anti-authoritarian space from which we come.

Finally, the slogan present in the Greek anarchist space, according to which solidarity is our weapon, is distorted to such an extent that, in some cases, it comes to mean that solidarity is our stratagem. I believe that such phenomena of lack of solidarity with revolutionary prisoners were also observed in the case of imprisoned members of the urban guerrillas of Western Europe in earlier eras.

Generally speaking, this unfavorable condition, combined with the intensification of state totalitarianism and the legislative deterioration of penal and carceral repression in recent years in the Greek space, consequence of the defeat of the social uprising of 2010-2012 against the programs of the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission, as well as the failure of the anarchist and anti-authoritarian space to evolve towards a truly revolutionary space and movement, results in my remaining in prison, since the authorities refuse to grant me parole.

I am the only political prisoner in Greece, from the wave of arrests linked to urban guerrilla warfare since 2009, who is not serving a life sentence and who still remains in prison serving a 20-year sentence. And the reason why they have refused to release me for four years is because I do not deny or condemn the acts for which I was condemned, that is to say the Revolutionary Struggle organization.

However, comrades, in a short time, next September, I will complete my entire sentence, without parole, and I will be released.

I wish all the true revolutionaries and activists, the irreducible and coherent people throughout the world, wherever they are, strength, health and to hold on. I wish the same thing to you too, comrades, despite the difficulties and the repression, to continue and that we all continue the fight against the State and capital. For the revolution. To build a better world and a better society where solidarity will be a dominant value.

This world already exists and we carry it within us. Sending you a big hug from the prisons of Domokos in Greece. The struggle continues.

Nikos Maziotis, May 2026

Source: https://secoursrouge.org/toulouse-declaration-de-nikos-maziotis-a-loccasion-dune-soiree-de-soutien-aux-prisonnier%c2%b7es-anarchistes/

Greece: Eternal Honour to the Anarchist—Member of the Revolutionary Struggle, Lambros Fountas

HONOR FOREVER TO THE ANARCHIST –
MEMBER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE, LAMBROS FOUNTAS

On March 10, 2010, in Dafni, preparations for a major operation by Revolutionary Struggle aimed at sabotaging the enforcement of the “memorandum” were in their final stages. The attempt to seize a vehicle that the organisation would use for this action resulted in a clash with the cops. Comrade Lambros Fountas, our beloved comrade-in-arms in the struggle, was killed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The Revolutionary Struggle—the struggle to block the “memorandum,” the struggle to overthrow the ruling regime and bring about social revolution—suffered a severe blow. The organisation had publicly stated that it anticipated the Greek state’s bankruptcy as a consequence of the 2008 global economic crisis and had demonstrated the scale of its actions, primarily through the bombing of the stock exchange in September 2009. It had spoken of its goals and the opportunities that the economic crisis and the widespread delegitimisation of the political and economic system during that period would open up. It had publicly declared that the only way out of the crisis would be a Social Revolution.

A month later, the first crackdown against the organisation took place, along with the arrests.

The death of our comrade was a very significant event. It was significant not only for us, his comrades in Revolutionary Struggle, and not only for the anarchist movement in which he had been actively involved for many years and was particularly beloved by all his comrades. It was not only significant for Revolutionary Struggle, whose activities had been frozen for two years.

Above all, it was significant for the overwhelming majority of society, which was mercilessly battered by the devastating storm of loan agreements. Lambros was an integral part of a strategy of armed action that unfolded with the onset of the economic crisis and sought, through strikes of great political and economic significance, to prevent the political and economic system—which at that time was in a state of great instability and deep crisis—from regaining its stability.

For the loan agreements to be approved, social and political stability was a prerequisite. Armed action aimed at preventing the achievement of this goal, carried out through dynamic and effective measures, would have turned the Greek capitalist system into a dangerous arena because it would be vulnerable to armed attacks; this action would act as a brake on creditors’ decisions to transfer their capital to the country and lend to governments that would be unable to impose social and political control. Because the most decisive factor for the state and capital to overcome their systemic crises is the maintenance of faith in the system itself.

By 2010, confidence had collapsed within the global financial system. No economic or political actor trusted any credit or investment organisation or institution. No one trusted the Greek governments or the Greek banks. Because no one trusted any bank worldwide. In short, within the economic and political system, no one trusted anyone, and faith in the system of power itself had been deeply shaken.

The collapse of this trust was, for the first time in capitalist history, of such a large scale and significance. It was a structural factor in the collapse of capitalist functioning in the country and the de facto bankruptcy of the Greek state.

The loan agreements, with the onerous terms imposed, were intended to prevent an admission of bankruptcy. These were loan agreements designed to save the banks in Greece and Europe, to save the economic ruling class, to save the system—not the social base. This was the “bitter” realisation that the overwhelming majority of society eventually came to understand.

Comrade Lambros Fountas and his actions, the actions of Revolutionary Struggle during that period, sought to ensure that faith in the capitalist system and its re-stabilisation would not find fertile ground. Alongside the social reactions and uprisings of those years, Comrade Fountas’ actions could have become a significant factor in the overall struggle to prevent the “memorandum” from being passed. Comrade Lambros Fountas was destined to become the figure who embodied all the anxiety of society during that period. Because he was the armed fighter of all those who resisted the troika and the institutions, the Greek state, and the policies of social extermination for the economic “consolidation” of the capitalist system. Because he is the first and the last casualty of the struggle against the “memorandum.” Because he was and remains the voice of the necessity—then, now, and always—of the Social Revolution.

Today, sixteen years later, we are living through the aftermath of a profound political, economic, and social transformation that began with the 2008 economic crisis and the “memorandum” era. Because what was at stake in 2010 was not just the lending terms of the “memorandaum” the cuts to wages and pensions, the layoffs, or the closures of small businesses. Through these policies, a new model of power was established, and that period marked a historic turning point for the transformation of the capitalist system and modern state power. The “experiment” implemented in our country by lenders and supranational economic and political institutions did not concern only us; it concerned and continues to concern all countries.

It was an “experiment” that was imposed and cemented in the blood of an entire people, with thousands of suicides, with untreated illnesses, with children fainting in schools from hunger, with the conditions of a modern occupation and violence that became the norm for the years that followed, right up to the present day. It was an unprecedented class war. With this “experiment,” the centers of power in Europe and the world were asking “if a people like this, with its history of struggle and resistance, could endure the harsh measures we impose without revolting, then the most totalitarian control and the imposition of the most extreme measures of economic exploitation on any other people is possible.”

The fear of a social revolution in Greece in 2010 tormented all those in positions of political and economic power in Europe and beyond. They had explicitly stated, publicly and without mincing words, that a revolution in this country was a possible outcome. They themselves believed that there were subjective factors that could give impetus to such a development. Among the factors contributing to this fear, they considered the armed activities of Revolutionary Struggle, which were reaching their peak at that time, to be significant. Their fear was not limited to domestic destabilisation. A revolution, if it had taken place, would have swept up the countries of southern Europe and triggered a domino effect of capitalist collapses and social uprisings. Lambros Fountas’ actions sought to make this fear a reality.

In the end, the social backlash was not strong enough to prevent the imposition of the “memorandum,” a prevention that could not have been achieved without overthrowing the country’s political and economic power structure. This is the ultimate historical conclusion of that period.

Nothing has improved in the living conditions of the social majority, which is experiencing its own long-term and never-ending economic crisis that is reaching the brink of social collapse. On the contrary, the “resilience” shown by the social base in the face of the rapid rise in poverty during that period paved the way for the consolidation of the contemporary model of exploitation and oppression by the state and capital. The transformation that began then and was consolidated through ineffective social resistance gave rise to the cannibalistic system in a social context dominated by the illusion of the possibility of “individual detachment.” In other words, a context dominated by social defeatism, introversion, and resignation.

While official economic data paint a picture of economic prosperity for the wealthy in this country, the majority of people are sinking deeper and deeper into endless poverty. Greek debt is far higher than it was in 2010, yet faith in the Greek state’s resilience makes the country a model of subjugation for the extraction of profits and the security of capital investments. The loan agreements from the “memorandum” era will remain in force, along with their terms, for many more decades, and new debt will be added to the old, which future generations will be forced to shoulder.

As for the 2008 economic crisis, the greatest that modern capitalism has ever experienced, it never ended. The economic and political centers of power are still attempting to manage it with the same tools and formulas that created it. The concentration of economic, political, and social power in the hands of an ever-smaller few—which was the most decisive factor in the outbreak of the 2008 crisis— has now reached even more extreme levels, and class divisions across the globe have turned the gap between great wealth and poverty into an abyss.

The lack of a clear path out of the crisis is leading to the head-on transnational conflicts the world is currently experiencing. States, led by the United States, Israel, and Europe, are now revealing the true face of the state as an institution of centralized power and control over societies—manifested in brutal military and police violence, wars, and boundless repression. They are revealing in all its magnitude their hostile nature toward societies, the murderous nature of capitalism both within and beyond borders, and are bringing us ever closer to a catastrophic, all-out war.

The radical transformation of the system of power and the revelation of its true nature came about as a result of the dead ends created by the crisis, combined with the absence of radical social resistance and the unrestrained use of multifaceted methods to enforce social compliance with living conditions that are increasingly unbearable for the social majority. Housing, food, and health are no longer guaranteed for the largest segment of society, and even the minimal degree of their guarantee requires ever greater sacrifices. The social and political threat has ceased to exist following the suppression of the social resistance of 2010–12 and no longer concerns the centers of power. State control and violence are increasing more and more as this social threat from below fails to reemerge.

Since no revolutionary movement in 2010–2011 managed to halt or overturn the destructive policies that the state and capital had imposed on the country, a defeatist mindset—based on the assumption that nothing can be stopped or changed—has become ingrained in the social fabric. What the end of the struggles achieved back then was a profound psychological transformation of a society that accepted living without pride, without its dignity. Because these two factors were then, and will always be, decisive for a society that refuses to bow its head.

Comrade Lambros Fountas was, is, and will forever remain the example of the revolutionary who, with a weapon in hand, fought to prevent the defeat and subjugation of an entire society from becoming a reality. He will remain the light that enlivens the dignity, courage, and pride of anarchists, revolutionaries, and the oppressed. His struggle was the struggle of this society that did not want subjugation, did not want to bow its head.

Comrade Lambros Fountas embodies that unwavering dignity and fighting spirit that any struggle must possess to be victorious. That is why he is the champion of all the oppressed. He is and will forever remain the fighter who shows that the only way out of modern slavery, of daily social humiliation, the only way out of capitalist and state barbarism, wars, the threat of death—the only way out to a life of freedom, to a life of dignity—is the Social Revolution. We honor Lambros Fountas not only for who he was and what we knew of him, but also for everything he stood for. We honor him because he himself was the bearer of radical social change. He was the bearer of a society of equality and freedom

LAMBROS FOUNTAS WILL LIVE FOREVER IN THE STRUGGLE

FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Pola Roupa

Nikos Maziotis, Domokos Prison

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1640103/

Greece: Eternal Honour to the Anarchist—Member of the Revolutionary Sruggle, Lambros Fountas

Message/Greetings from Nikos Maziotis at the International Conference on Political Prisoners

Message/greetings from Nikos Maziotis at the International Conference on Political Prisoners organized by the Prisoners’ Voice Platform (TSP) in Paris (20/12 -21/12/2025)

Comrades, thank you for your invitation to the International Congress of Political Prisoners that you are organizing. I send you my warmest greetings from Domokos Prison, Greece.

If the history of humanity is the struggle of those who aspire to freedom, equality, and solidarity against those who seek to impose slavery, inequality, exploitation, and oppression; if the history of humanity is the struggle of women against patriarchal and sexist power, the struggle of the poor, the people, and the working class against the ruling elites, the rich, the slave owners, the feudal lords, the bureaucrats, or, in today’s terms, against the State and Capital, then this struggle has been paid for with blood. Countless comrades, all over the world, have given their lives in this fight.

They fell in confrontations with the enemy, during clashes with repressive forces, died in prison or during hunger strikes, and were murdered during demonstrations and strikes. Over time, this struggle has cost millions of lives, genocides of entire populations, thousands of years of accumulated imprisonment, as well as torture and isolation. In this social war and class struggle, the current international system of domination, the State and Capital, is not content with simply eliminating us physically or imprisoning us. It demands that we renounce our political identity, our struggle, our organization, the choices of confrontation we have made, revolution, and armed struggle.

It demands that we acknowledge being criminals, terrorists, and social detractors, when these are precisely the defining characteristics of the system it embodies. Our duty, as political prisoners, is therefore to remain faithful and consistent with the choices we have made in our struggle. This is our moral and political victory against the state and capitalist criminals and their apparatus. No revision, then. No repentance for our choices.

We live in an era where the international state-capitalist system of domination is moving towards ever-greater totalitarianism, aiming for the total subjugation of human beings to power and their transformation into docile and depoliticized instruments. The undermining of all the workers’ and popular gains won through past struggles, within the framework of the neoliberal hegemony of recent decades, the anti-terrorism legislation, the hardening of repression and the penal framework, the creation of prisons and special isolation facilities, the criminalization of strikes, and the restriction of the right to demonstrate, all converge towards this objective.

At the same time, imperialist competition between the major industrial powers within the international system of domination, as illustrated, for example, The war in Ukraine and the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza expose the hypocrisy of states and their leaders who invoke “democracy,” “human rights,” or “international law,” etc.

The so-called bourgeois “democracy” has now lost all meaning. Elections are devoid of purpose, since the governments of nation-states, regardless of their ideological leanings and without any popular will, implement policies dictated by the bureaucracies and power centers of the international capitalist-state system (G7, European Union, IMF, NATO, etc.). Their bourgeois “democracy” is increasingly taking on the characteristics of a dictatorship and an authoritarian regime with totalitarian aspirations.

In Greece, following the social defeat of the 2010–2012 uprising against the loan programs imposed by the European Union, the ECB, and the IMF, we are already experiencing the concrete effects of this authoritarianism: the lasting impoverishment of the working classes, permanent austerity, and the continuous hardening of state repression.

But beyond the intensification of exploitation and totalitarianism, the international state-capitalist system, with its logic of infinite growth, its limitless accumulation, and the ecological destruction it engenders, confronts us with a fundamentally existential question: that of our survival as a human species, and indeed the very survival of the Earth and its ecosystems. This ecological catastrophe, with its already irreversible consequences, undoubtedly constitutes one of the most powerful forces driving the people to overthrow the global system of state-capitalist domination. This places us before a fundamentally existential question: that of our survival as a human species, and indeed the very survival of the Earth and its ecosystems. This ecological catastrophe, with its already irreversible consequences, undoubtedly constitutes one of the most powerful driving forces for people to overthrow the global system of state-capitalist domination.

If Rosa Luxemburg formulated the dilemma “Socialism or Barbarism” in her time, today the dilemma is posed in these terms: “Social Revolution or Annihilation.” Despite the difficult conditions in which we live and the bleak future that the State and Capital have in store for us, our struggle to overthrow them must continue at all costs.

Comrades, I wish you strength and courage in the struggle. I wish all political prisoners to hold firm, wherever they are, in prison or in solitary confinement, in Europe, Turkey, Israel, America, everywhere.

SOLIDARITY AND FREEDOM TO ALL REVOLUTIONARIES, ANTI-CAPITALIST, AND ANTI-STATIST POLITICAL PRISONERS

From Domokos Prison in Greece, Nikos Maziotis,  20/12/,2025

[Fr,En El Message/salutations de N.Maziotis à la Conférence Internationale pour les Prisonniers Politiques [(TSP) à Paris].

For Comrade Christos Spilios – Nikos Maziotis-Pola Roupa

Comrade Christos left. He left us prematurely. He has accompanied us to the A/A for many years in demonstrations, assemblies, conflicts, occupations. In 1991, at the Polytechnic of 1995, in the course and conflicts against the Clinton visit in 1999, at the 2003 anti -war demonstrations, in Thessaloniki at the EU leaders’ meeting in the conflicts against the memorandums.

He was always present in the struggles. He has always been present in rallies and solidarity marches for imprisoned comrades. As well as the latest at the Solidarity Assembly for us, at the rallies in the courts in Chalkida, Lamia and in Domokos prisons.

He was the comrade of the uprising. He was the comrade of solidarity. He was the comrade of offering and selflessness. He was, is and will be our comrade in the struggle. He was, is and will be our favorite comrade Christos.

Goodbye comrade, we don’t forget you.

Pola Roupa-Nikos Maziotis, Prisoner for the Action of the Revolutionary Struggle, Domokos Prisons.

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1637921/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21823

#anarchist #ChristosSpilios #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #polaRoupa #revolutionaryStruggle #rip

For Comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris – Revolutionary Struggle

A year ago, comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris lost his life while building an explosive device. He had decided to respond in this dynamic way to some great injustice, to defend a right, to a class and anti-social state policy… Whatever he had decided to do, whatever action he had chosen, it was certainly an armed political action against a savage and deeply unjust system of power that in our time shows more and more bluntly its antisocial and racist face. A deeply class-based system of power that now openly shows its hatred towards anything that does not bring profit and power.

Comrade Kyriakos lost his life walking on the path of armed anti-regime action. In the great world history of the armed struggle, many fighters have given their lives in the struggle against authoritarian governments, against authoritarian regimes, against anti-social policies, against interstate wars. They gave their lives in the struggle for a better society. They gave their lives fighting with a gun in their hands.

They gave their lives by placing or manufacturing explosive devices. They gave their lives for a society without divisions, without poverty, without wars, for social liberation.

In this struggle, no one is lost. Death does not erase their social and political imprints that remain deeply engraved in revolutionary history.

Today and every day that passes, we see the entanglements of the state and capital crushing millions of people. The system of power has brought to the surface every weapon at its disposal and uses it to stifle resistance, to consolidate consensus through coercion and violence, to maintain passivity in the social base, to impose any anti-social measure it wants, to increase the profits of big capital by stealing from the majority. Capital and modern states bring to the surface their most brutal, ruthless face in history. Either they will expand and strengthen their sovereignty over other states or they will let the privileges of their sovereignty shrink and wither. In a deep systemic crisis that has a past and a future and in which states and capital are sinking deeper and deeper, we experience every day generalized -indirect or direct- social cleansings, wars, genocides of entire peoples, raw racism, the extermination of the pariah, extreme economic exploitation. All of this is connected in a network of managing a crisis of survival of the system and maintaining profits for the super-rich of the planet. Along with every form of violence unleashed by the dominant system of power against the weak, the poison of hatred for the different and for the weak that infects the youth is also unleashed. Resistance and anti-state struggle are becoming increasingly demanding and at the same time increasingly necessary.

Fighters like Kyriakos who do not bend, who do not give up, who are not afraid to confront the choice of armed action in an era when excessive regime violence surpasses any modern historical precedent, the least that is due
to them is to become points of reference for the continuation of the struggle and the inspiration of all.

Comrade Kyriakos will forever remain a living example of total dedication and selflessness in a common struggle that concerns all of society.

Comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris will always be present in the struggle for social liberation from the shackles of the state and capital.

He is Immortal

Pola Roupa-Nikos Maziotis

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1637822/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21687

#anarchist #europe #greece #KyriakosXymitiris #nikosMaziotis #polaRoupa #revolutionaryStruggle

Greece: Revolutionary Prisoners Welcome the Liberation of George Abdallah

Following the release of Georges Abdallah and his arrival in Lebanon on July 25, several revolutionary prisoners held in Greece welcomed this announcement, which comes after more than 40 years of imprisonment in France. Anarchist prisoner Nikos Maziotis (left in the photo) wrote a statement on August 2 to celebrate the news.

[…] “Your release from prison is one of the greatest pieces of good news and has enormous meaning for all of us who are part of the international anti-capitalist, anti-state and anti-authoritarian movement. Because good news for one is good news for everyone, it is good for the movements, the peoples in struggle, the poor, the proletariat and the activists incarcerated in prisons, as is of course the opposite for bad news. And the fact that you came out of prison unshakeable, without any questioning of your struggle, is a huge political and moral victory for all of us. »

Similarly, former member of the November 17 Revolutionary Organization and Marxist prisoner Dimitris Koufontinas sent a message after the announcement of the Arab communist’s release.

[…] “Today is a day of immense joy. The beautiful news of your liberation has passed through our cells. I will not speak of liberation. You have always been free of mind, soul, heart, as are those who resist. Only now have they been forced to free your body, to join your brothers in the struggle for a standing Lebanon, and a liberated Palestine. The arch-terrorists, the murderers, the colonialists, the arch-despoilers of the peoples have not succeeded in slandering you by calling you a terrorist or a criminal. Your only crime was to be and always to be a revolutionary, not to have yielded, not to have deserted for a single moment your great responsibility. »

Source: https://secoursrouge.org/grece-des-prisonniers-revolutionnaires-saluent-la-liberation-de-georges-abdallah/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=20738

#AnarchistPrisoners #DimitrisKoufontinas #europe #georgesAbdallah #greece #nikosMaziotis #PoliticalPrisoners

Solidarity Concert for Nikos Maziotis of Revolutionary Struggle (Lyon, France)

Solidarity concert for the comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis

Solidarity concert for the comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis, following the rejection of his request for release and the extension of his captivity. For the sixth time, the judicial council refuses to grant him a suspended sentence, even though he has exceeded the 3/5 of his sentence since 2022, as defined by the “laws” for all prisoners. In Greece, he is the only political prisoner with a 20-year merged sentence—i.e., not a life sentence—who experiences this punitive condition, simply because he has not shown “remorse” or “moral improvement.” But revolutionaries are not “reformed” and do not “morally improve.” We stand in solidarity with the imprisoned comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis.

During the gathering, comrade Pola Roupa will intervene via phone.

source: Act for Freedom

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19966

#anarchism #europe #France #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

Nikos Maziotis: Revolutionaries Are Not “Corrected” and They Do Not “Improve Morally”

26/2/2025

Once again, for the sixth time in a row, the Lamia Misdemeanors Council has honored me with its decision to reject my request for conditional release on the grounds that I have not been “rehabilitated” and have not shown “moral improvement”!
Indeed, a committed fighter, a revolutionary, an anarchist like myself could never be “rehabilitated” or “morally improved” by prison, no matter how many years they remain incarcerated.
A committed fighter, a revolutionary, an anarchist can dedicate their life to the struggle, as did comrade Lambros Foundas of Revolutionary Struggle; they can risk their life for the cause, face the threat of being killed by the state’s praetorians —just as I almost was; they can spend many years in prison —I have already served 12 years for Revolutionary Struggle and another 4 in the past—but they must never take a step back, express repentance or revision, or, in other words, demonstrate “rehabilitation” and “moral improvement,” as the judicial council puts it.
From this perspective, all the decisions of the judicial councils—six from the Misdemeanors Council and one from the Court of Appeals— honor me and show me that I am on the right path. If I were to say the opposite, I would begin to wonder whether I had made a mistake and violated my ethical principles and values. My only objection is the council’s reference to my “pretextual” good behavior. This is truly unfair to me. If such a thing were true, then during the council hearings, entirely “pretextually,” contrary to everything I believe in, everything I have been convicted for, and all the disciplinary violations I have committed, I would have mumbled apologies and expressions of remorse—just as most criminal inmates do to secure their release. However, such a thing is unthinkable for me.
The latest rejection from the Lamia Misdemeanors Council effectively excludes me from the possibility of conditional release, even though I have already served more than four-fifths of my sentence.
In the broader context of recent years’ tightening of penal and “correctional” legislation—which has included increased sentence limits, stricter conditions for conditional release and furloughs, and the effective abolition of these rights, along with the establishment of maximum-security prisons (similar to the old Type C prisons, but worse)— I may well become the first person sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment who will serve the full sentence, all five-fifths, without suspension, effectively approaching the duration of a life sentence, which under the old penal code meant serving 16 years.

“No revision” – No repentance!

Nikos Maziotis,
convicted for the Revolutionary Struggle
4th wing Domokos prison

Received by email

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17202

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

[Greece] Intervention of Nikos Maziotis at the Book Presentation Event of “State Against Commune” by Pola Roupa

The following text is a transcript of comrade Nikos Maziotis’ telephone intervention at the book presentation event of “State against Commune” by comrade Pola Roupa, organised by the Solidarity Assembly for the convicted members of the Revolutionary Struggle P. Roupa and N. Maziotis on 31/5/2024 at Panteion University): “[…] … None of them are recognised as political prisoners, but their discriminatory treatment is obvious. We have similar deteriorating conditions in Greece, towards keeping political prisoners longer in prison. E.g. the multi-lifers convicted for Revolutionary organization 17 November who have completed more than 22 years as is my case as I am not a lifer, yet I have far exceeded the parole limit but they do not release me because I refuse to make any statement of disavowal, “correction” and repentance … [Nikos Maziotis, convicted member of the organization Revolutionary Struggle, captive in Domokos prison (Greece)]”

“Comrades, I greet you. I wish you all strength.

The truth is that the book presentation of “State against Commune” by comrade Pola Roupa should have taken place two years ago and more, when the comrade was still in prison.

I assume that comrade (Pola) will speak in more detail. I will only dwell on the issue of the concept of political opponent, political “crime” and therefore political prisoners, and its historical evolution. First of all, let me say that “State against Commune” is the fruit of the political defence of the Revolutionary Struggle in the trials of the organization throughout the years. It is the fruit of a political defence, which, as we have declared in all the trials of the Revolutionary Struggle, is a natural right of resistance against every
state power and its arbitrary actions. That is why we have never felt guilty for the actions of the Revolutionary Struggle and have never apologized as “criminals” in the courts.

The right of resistance against the State and every authoritarian power has a timeless historical legitimacy, based on the natural law on which the stateless or self-organised societies based on communalism, solidarity and mutual aid of their members were based.

And in these self-organised societies, as for example in the free cities, the communes of Europe that existed from the Middle Ages until the emergence of the centralised nation-state, the right of resistance and reaction -especially armed resistance- against authoritarian leaders and states, monarchs, feudal lords or the upper ecclesiastical clergy, existed as a natural right.

This right of resistance was reflected, for example, in constitutional charters in the communes of Europe as well as in the Constitution of the French Revolution of 1793 -the most democratic of the French Revolution- which provided that people had the right to revolt against their government when it violated their rights.

Something that happened here with the 2010-2012 revolt against the memoranda, which are illegal and unconstitutional contracts even under current law.

Regarding the concept of recognition of political opponent or political “crime”, there is a historical evolution.

When communitarianism was the dominant social organization worldwide since antiquity, and the State and authoritarian power were the exception to this rule, societies treated the action of states and authoritarian leaders as a “political crime”, monarchs, emperors, aristocrats, slave owners, church rulers, who by force, war and massacres, tried to subjugate and impose their power on peasants, on free cities, on the people in general.

This was also the case in the ancient Athenian democracy, where the citizens treated as “political crime” the attacks against the citizens (Demos), against the Republic by the followers of oligarchy and tyranny. That is why the killing of those who preyed on the Republic, the murder of tyrants, tyrannicide, was honoured by the citizens, was a non-punishable act and was recorded in the so-called resolution of Demophantos, at the “Ecclesia of Demos” (Citizen Assembly) in 411 BC.

Later, at the historical turning point, the transition from feudalism to bourgeois society and the emergence of the centralised nation-state which aimed at a monopoly of the management of all social affairs by forcibly seizing this competence from the communities -which it finally succeeded in doing-, the concept of “political crime” and the concept of political opponent changed and now concerned the action of popular movements against the centralised State.

Up to some point, even the rising bourgeoisie up to the middle of the 19th century, because it had not yet consolidated its power and pursued the elimination of feudal remnants, recognised the concept of the political opponent and glorified the political “criminal”.

It was a time when there were revolutionaries honoured by popular movements, such as the members of the Conspiracy of the Equals, Gracchus Babeuf and Filippo Buonarroti who lived through the French Revolution, and the well-known revolutionary Auguste Blanqui, all advocates of conspiratorial armed action by dedicated revolutionaries to overthrow the regime.

The imprisoned Blanqui had been proclaimed in 1871 honorary president of the Paris Commune. The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, whose positions were supported by the majority of the sections of the First International, was an equal advocate of conspiratorial armed action by committed revolutionaries. When, after the armed uprising of the working class against the bourgeoisie in Paris in June 1848 and, above all, after the massacre of the Paris Commune (1871), when the bourgeoisie was now established in power in France -in England it was already in power-, in Germany and in the USA, the bourgeoisie no longer recognised that there were political opponents, only criminals and terrorists.

And the first to be so described were the anarchists, at a time when, from the 1890s to the interwar period, anarchist “propagandists by the deed” carried out the execution-tyrannicide of kings, presidents of states, prime ministers, military and police officials or attacks on capital targets.

Unfortunately, both Engels and the Marxist social democracy of the time condemned such actions, describing them as acts of “individual terrorism”, favouring the participation of socialist parties in elections for the State.

Later, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the designation of criminals and criminal elements in an attempt to depoliticise and criminalise them, included communists and communist parties.

This was something that we saw in Greece, starting with Venizelos’ “Idionymon” law of 1929 and especially after Metaxas’ dictatorship, culminating in the civil war years of the 1940s and the 1946-1949 period, when communists and the guerrillas of the Democratic Army (of Greece) were labelled “bandits” in an attempt to depoliticise their identity or even dehumanise them in order to eliminate them. There was the so-called “headhunting”, as in the old days when the heads of bounty hunters were cut off.

In occupied Europe in World War II, the guerrillas of the National Resistance movements, many of whom were communists in Greece, Italy, France, Yugoslavia, were characterized by the Axis powers and the collaborating Axis governments and states as “terrorists” and bandits.

Anarchists in Spain during Franco dictatorship were also still described as “terrorists” and bandits, those who made an armed struggle against the regime.

Until the end of the Cold War in 1989-1991, the collapse of the regimes of “actually existing socialism” and the emergence of the US as the sole superpower and the strengthening of neoliberalism, there was a contradiction in Western Europe and the Western world -“Western” in the political sense of the term-, where, in part and on occasion, the concept of political opponent or political “criminal” was recognised, mainly in terms of militants acting against dictatorial regimes, liberation movements and groups fighting for national liberation against imperialism-capitalism.

For example, François Mitterrand’s socialist government (when Mitterrand was elected in 1981) had granted amnesty to imprisoned members of the guerrilla organization Action Directe, recognising their political status, just as Mitterand had also refused to extradite Italian comrades -as requested by the Italian state accusing them of “terrorism”-, and gave them political asylum. But this was reversed shortly afterwards, when Action Directe reactivated and concluded the anti-imperialist pact with the RAF.

Another example is that until 1976 British prisons recognised IRA prisoners as political prisoners. This reversal after 1976 caused a backlash on the part of IRA prisoners, culminating in the great hunger strike of 1981 -under Thatcher government-, during which 10 strikers, including Bobby Sands, died. In Greece, this contradiction was reflected in the original decision of the Athens Court of Appeal in 1976 rejecting West Germany’s request for the extradition of Rolf Pohle -a member of RAF-, who had been arrested in Greece after his release in 1975 -along with other prisoners-, as a result of the kidnapping of Christian Democratic Union member Peter Lorenz by the guerrilla group 2 June Movement, demanding the release of guerrilla organization prisoners.

The reasoning of the Athens Court of Appeal for Pole recognized his action as political, i.e. his organization as political against imperialism and monopoly capitalism -this was exactly the wording of the Athens Court of Appeal.

This decision of the Athens Court of Appeal was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court and Pohle was finally extradited to West Germany.

This point was very aptly made by comrade Pola Roupa in the 1st trial of the organization Revolutionary Struggle in 2011, when we had objected to the lack of jurisdiction of the court for political “crimes”, asking to be tried by a mixed jury of 4 lay judges, i.e., citizens and 3 professionals (judges) as the Constitution defines for political “crimes”.

It is no coincidence that this reversal of the recognition of the concept of political opponent, political “criminal” and political prisoner in the international legal system coincides with the rise of neoliberalism and its ascendancy in the Western world in the mid- and late 1980s, which became a global state after 1989-1991, with the fall of its rival, “actually existing socialism”.

So it is no longer considered that there are political prisoners in the Western world, the concept of political opponent is not even recognised, nor is the concept of political “criminal”. Now, in the attempt to depoliticise the political opponent, the current system of globalised capitalism and statism uses the vague and ambiguous term “terrorism”, which was consolidated after 9/11 and “the war on terrorism”. These changes were highlighted in the trials of the organization Revolutionary Struggle. These changes are the result of the fact that over the last 30 years, the totalitarianism of State and capitalism, i.e. the dictatorship of the markets, has been advanced and strengthened.

Special “anti-terrorist laws” have been enacted everywhere, it has become a crime to merely form and join a guerrilla organization, and these cases are no longer heard by mixed jury courts where the majority of the judges are lay judges, i.e. citizens who may accept the political status of the guerrilla organizations, but exclusively by professional judges for a sure conviction and more severe sentences. Not only that, but the criteria for parole have also become stricter, i.e. conditional release, where the main requirement is now a declaration of renunciation and repentance.

Even at this level, there is a deterioration of the situation compared to the past.

To make a comparison with the past, in Greece, the ELAS guerrillas who were convicted after the Varkiza Agreement and the DSE guerrillas -at least all those who escaped execution- did not spend more than 15 years in prison, give or take. In the early or mid-1960s they were released from prison. In contrast, Western European urban guerrilla political prisoners were in prison for more than 20 years or more, 25, or 27 in many cases.

Recall that G. I. Abdallah of the FARL has already been in prison in France for 40 years, because he remains unrepentant, and Carlos has already been in prison for 30 years, as has Maurizio Ferrari of the Red Brigades. They have also surpassed Blanqui. Öcalan is also already 25 years in prison and there is no prospect of him getting out.

None of them are recognised as political prisoners, but their discriminatory treatment is evident. We have similar deterioration in Greece, towards keeping political prisoners in prison longer. E.g. the multi-jurisdictional convicts for Revolutionary organization 17 November who have completed more than 22 years, as is my case as I am not a lifer, yet I have far exceeded the parole limit but they do not release me, because I refuse to make any statement of disavowal, “correction” and repentance. And as you know, there has (had) been an appeal in the case of comrade Pola Roupa.

Nowadays, through the legislative framework, the repression and the mass propaganda by the system-controlled media but also due to the regression of the movement, the following thesis has been established, that nothing political exists outside the State, nothing political exists outside the system of representative parliamentarianism, just as nothing exists outside supranational institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Commission, i.e. the Brussels bureaucrats and the meetings of the leaders of the EU member states.

The fact that nothing political exists outside the State was also reflected in the Greek legal system by the 2010 decision of the Supreme Court, which stipulated that “terrorism”, meaning the action of guerrilla revolutionary organizations, is not appropriate, i.e. capable of bringing about political or constitutional changes, except for military coups, which are of course carried out by hard-core members of the state apparatus itself. That is, by military fascists, Nazis, all kinds of right-wing extremists of state totalitarianism. That is why the action of urban guerrilla organizations is not considered political. That is, nothing political outside the State.

For the dominant international state-capitalist system of power, political opponents are now considered only rival states – terrorists, such as North Korea in the 1990s, Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq until his overthrow in 2003 and the occupation of Iraq in the context of “the war against terrorism”, Milošević’s Yugoslavia bombed by NATO in 1999.

Today the political rivals for the international state-capitalist power complex are still Iran and North Korea, but mainly China and Putin’s Russia after Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, because both China and Russia are seeking a more multipolar system of power in contrast to the monopoly of power of the USA which insists on being the leading power of world capitalism.

On the contrary, the Federation of Northern and Eastern Syria that emerged from the Revolution in Rojava after 2012 is not considered a political entity, precisely because it is not a state but a Confederation of Communities (Communes), and so its representatives are not recognised to participate in the consultations for the resolution of the Syrian civil war.

However, the current totalitarianism of the State and the global dictatorship of the markets has not only been followed by the non-acceptance of the political motives of the armed struggle which is labelled as “terrorism”, along with the consolidation of the concept of “terrorism” for the armed struggle, but has also proceeded to the repression and depoliticisation of other forms of struggle, non-armed ones such as. e.g. occupations of public spaces, the reduction of the right to public assemblies and demonstrations, the reduction of trade unionism freedom and the right to strike.

This is what we have seen in recent years in Greece, too, with the successive legislative reforms. Movements, citizens’ struggles, trade unions and strikes, according to the prevailing logic, do not practice politics, because only professional politicians within the exclusive framework of the State do politics, governments, members of parliament, parties subsidised by the State and supranational organisations, the EU, the European Commission, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, which are not elected and are not controlled, but dictate the policies of elected governments and parliaments of nation-states worldwide.

That is all I had to say in general terms, comrades. In conclusion, I would like to stress that, despite the fact that we live in bleak times where the totalitarianism of the state is being reinforced along with the dictatorship of the markets, we must defend our political identity, our political action and seek the re-appropriation of politics, i.e. the management of the commons by the citizens themselves, the ordinary people, as it was in the years of the Commune and communitarianism, against the centralisation and totalitarianism of the state and capital. The conflict, the struggle of the State against the Commune represents history itself from long ago, it is history itself, and in this is included the class struggle.

Comrades, thank you for listening to me.”

Received by email

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=13908

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

Greece: Gathering at Lamia Court of Law, in Solidarity with the Anarchist Comrade Nikos Maziotis

IN SOLIDARITY WITH ANARCHIST COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS
State and capital are the only terrorists – Solidarity with the armed rebels

On Thursday 16 January ‘25, we held a solidarity gathering for the imprisoned comrade – sentenced to several years imprisonment for his participation in the Revolutionary Struggle organisation – at Lamia court.

Comrades from Athens, Lamia and Chania, with loud pulse and slogans, we stood outside the courthouse of Lamia, which, as a mechanism of state and economic domination, applies tactics of political extermination, inspired by the tradition of counter-revolutionary terror courts.

Its staff of judges “cut off” the licenses of militants (D. Koufontina) and vindictively reject the conditional release of political prisoners, such as the comrade Nikos Maziotis, while on the other hand, they show selectivity in cases of Nazi and cops – murderers.

Even though the solidarity gathering was called on a working day, so that the courthouse would be in operation when we would be standing against them, and in defiance of the heavy winter, we sent a strong signal of solidarity to our comrade Nikos Maziotis, who told us in a phone call from prison: “I am always free – Strength and a comradeship hug to all comrades!”

At the same time, with a fighting spirit and pulse, we sent a strong message to the judicial staff of Lamia that comrade Nikos Maziotis is not alone!

After the end of the gathering, we left in a coordinated manner with slogans of solidarity towards Parkou Square. Around the court there were police forces (teams of OPKE and YMET as well as policemen from Lamia
police station), while riot police was deployed outside the court building.

We inform you that the anarchist comrade Nikos Maziotis, on Friday 24 January, will be heard via skype from prison by the notorious judicial council of Lamia, which will decide whether he will be released from prison or whether he will continue to be in captivity.

IRREVOCABLE* – DEFINITIVE RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS

SOLIDARITY WITΗ THE IMPRISONED COMRADES
UNTIL EVERY PRISON IS DEMOLISHED

Ⓐ

*P.S. We also announce that the council of Chalkida has issued a positive decision for Revolutionary Struggle comrade Pola Roupa. However, the decision will become irrevocably final after 10 days from its issuance.

https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1633726/

With solidarity from Athens – Greece,

Solidarity Assembly for the convicted members of the Revolutionary
Struggle P. Roupa and N. Maziotis
contact e-mail: [email protected]

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=13793

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

Na łamach Athens Indymedia opublikowano wezwanię do Międzynarodowy Tygodnia akcji na rzecz Poli Roupy i Nikosa Maziotisa z Walki Rewolocyjnej.

#PolaRoupa #NikosMaziotis

The quality of those who were charged with persecuting us, with the pursuit of the Revolutionary Struggle and myself as a wanted person and bounty, meaning the security forces, the so-called “protectors of the citizen”, prove in the end, they really are the ones who are dangerous to the citizens by committing heinous social crimes.

According to recent media reports, a retired “protector of the citizen”, who in the expropriation of Piraeus Bank in Kleitoria in 2014 was injured and disarmed by me and was decorated for his zeal to save the bank’s money, was recently arrested as a member of a criminal organization that deceived elderly people and specifically, for fraud against an elderly 70-year-old woman by extorting 40,000 euros.

Of course, this is not the first time that a “protector of the citizen”, who was involved in our persecution, has committed a crime against a fellow citizen when he was in office. Let me remind you that the policeman of the DIAS team who had shot me in Monastiraki in July 2014 contributing to my arrest – he was also honored for this by the then government – two years later robbed and killed a taxi driver and has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

After all, what kind of “citizen protectors” are these police officers who rob, kill, or deceive citizens? And they are not the only examples.

Unlike our persecutors, I and the Revolutionary Struggle may have turned against political-economic power, we may have expropriated banks, i.e. predatory usury institutions that legally rob citizens and we have the political responsibility for this, but we have not turned against any citizen who is a day laborer and poor. We did not rob or deceive a citizen, we did not take or cut the pension and salary of any elderly and salaried person, we did not deprive anyone of their home as the banks protected by these “protectors of the citizen” do. We did not deprive anyone of health and care, nor did we deprive anyone of food. We did not condemn anyone to poverty, misery and death as the implementers of the memoranda did. These were done by the bosses protected by the so-called “protectors of the citizen” who persecuted us and the entire state-capitalist cabal: governments, ministers, parliamentarians, bankers, capitalists, the international transnational cabal called the IMF, ECB, EU. Moreover, by their actions these “buds” of the police, whether past or present, do nothing but confirm again and again the rightness of my choices, the righteousness of the action of the Revolutionary Struggle.

Nikos Maziotis

condemned for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle

Fourth wing Domokos prison.

Source: Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/09/23/nikos-maziotis-the-quality-of-the-protectors-of-the-citizen/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

Greetings comrades

We would like to send you some news about the imprisonment of anarchist comrade Nikos Maziotis -who is in Domokos prison for his actions in Revolutionary Struggle- and the special “state of exception” for him.

as a summary:
The Lamia Misdemeanors Court Council recently rejected the comrade’s request for conditional release. This is the sixth time his request has been rejected (five rejections by the first-instance council and one by an appellate court where he appealed only once). Three of the six requests Nikos Maziotis has submitted for his release were rejected by a council presided over by the same judge. And in all three instances, his request was accompanied by three consecutive positive prosecutorial recommendations.

With the recent conditional release of the Nazi Michaloliakos, the above was proven once again. According to journalistic, legal, and judicial circles, this decision was signed by Christina Papagianni as president of the Lamia Misdemeanors Court Council. Thus, with the decision No. 121/30.4.2024, the specific one was released, while his first release request was accompanied by a negative prosecutorial recommendation. From the very beginning, there was not only political cover but also a concerted and coordinated effort by state (and judicial) authorities to keep the name of the council president who released the Nazi. This attempted cover-up did not succeed. The president’s name was immediately revealed through leaks from journalistic (and not only) offices. And despite the fact that the Nazi is now back in prison (after an appeal was filed against his release by an appellate prosecutor), the selectively biased stance of far-right elements within the “justice system” who release Nazis, yet are the same ones like this particular judge who keeps comrade Nikos Maziotis imprisoned, can no longer remain hidden.

We do not forget our imprisoned comrades all over the world until the freedom from the cells of democracy
We defend comrade Nikos Maziotis and comrade Pola Roupa for their actions and political choices as anarchists and as convicted members of Revolutionary Struggle. We call on the world of struggle to mobilize and show solidarity for the:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS, who remains imprisoned in the cells of democracy for the actions of Revolutionary Struggle.
FINAL RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA FROM STATE CAPTIVITY

Their justice in the years of democracy: the “exception regime” and the imprisonment of Nikos Maziotis

The militants of revolutionary organizations who are imprisoned face a special “state of exception” during all stages of state and criminal repression —from their arrest, trials and long-term imprisonment in the cells of democracy, to the moment of their release. This “state of exception” primarily affects the militants who, through their actions, sought to overthrow the existing state-capitalist world. Despite the increasingly harsh judicial and repressive environment, the imprisoned comrades consciously stand with dignity and consistency, defending their political actions.

This stance of the rebellious revolutionaries constantly reminds us that the struggles against the state and capital, even if temporarily, are not defeated and are not in vain. On the contrary, their political legacy in every historical era has always been (and continues to be) the catalyst that ignites the struggles of the present and the future. This prospect is what continuously frightens political and economic power. For when people who struggle are at the forefront of history, everywhere and always, they are victorious. They fear nothing and have nothing to lose but their chains.

Among the fighters with these political characteristics are the convicted comrades of Revolutionary Struggle, Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis. Precisely because of these political characteristics, the anarchist comrade Nikos Maziotis, who is in prison for his actions in Revolutionary Struggle and does not negotiate or bargain for his freedom on terms of submission and repentance as the state and “justice” seek, is experiencing an additional “state of exception”. He remains imprisoned in the cells of democracy and is deprived of his freedom despite having served his lengthy sentence for over two years. Comrade Pola Roupa, despite being released under restrictive conditions for months, remains in political captivity. Notably, just one week after her release in November 2023, the appellate prosecutor of Halkida appealed her release, and a final decision has been pending since January 2024. As long as this judicial uncertainty exists, she is at risk of being sent back to prison.

The “state of exception” for Nikos Maziotis

The Lamia Misdemeanors Court Council recently rejected the comrade’s request for conditional release, as he himself publicly announced (Nikos Maziotis: Regarding the latest rejection of my release https://epanastaticosagonas.wordpress.com/).

This is the sixth time his request has been rejected (five rejections by the first-instance council and one by an appellate court where he appealed only once). Three of the six requests Nikos Maziotis has submitted for his release were rejected by a council presided over by the same judge. And in all three instances, his request was accompanied by three consecutive positive prosecutorial recommendations.

It is well known that in the comrade’s case, the reasoning behind the continuous rejection of his conditional release is systematically based on similar ideological and political characteristics. This is reflected in all the rejection decisions, with particular emphasis on the latest request. He is one of the few prisoners panhellenicly —if not the only one—with a 20-year sentence who has been denied suspension for two years. They may be attempting to force him to serve the entire sentence, even though he has completed more than the required three-fifths of the sentence according to their own laws, since January 2022.

This “special” treatment by the judicial authority and particularly by the president of the Lamia Misdemeanors Court Council against the political prisoner Nikos Maziotis strengthens—if nothing else—the political assessment that his continued imprisonment is based on the political nature of his case. The same happened with comrade Pola Roupa. However, this case, and especially the continued imprisonment of comrade Nikos Maziotis, not only deprives him of his freedom but could also set a precedent against the world of struggle, should this action be directed explicitly against the state-capitalist system of political and economic dominance. This highlights how much their democracy fears the actions of millitants and guerrilla organizations that oppose the state, capital, and all forms of authority and imprisonment.

As comrades fighting within the anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement, we stand hostile to the state and its mechanisms, its laws, and its prisons. Consequently, we know how the state and its mechanisms treat our comrades and how they treat “their own”. Whether they are political figures involved in criminal (and other) cases, or uniformed servants of the political and economic power system who have committed state murders, or fascists, Nazis etc.

(Para)state, political-judicial mafia and democracy

With the recent conditional release of the Nazi Michaloliakos, the above was proven once again. According to journalistic, legal, and judicial circles, this decision was signed by Christina Papagianni as president of the Lamia Misdemeanors Court Council. Thus, with the decision No. 121/30.4.2024, the specific one was released, while his first release request was accompanied by a negative prosecutorial recommendation.

From the very beginning, there was not only political cover but also a concerted and coordinated effort by state (and judicial) authorities to keep the name of the council president who released the Nazi. Moreover, this was to prevent the “integrity” of the “justice system” itself from being questioned. This attempted cover-up did not succeed. The president’s name was immediately revealed through leaks from journalistic (and not only) offices.

And despite the fact that the Nazi is now back in prison (after an appeal was filed against his release by an appellate prosecutor), this selective decision by the particular judge does not diminish the political significance of this favorable stance by the state and judicial authorities, nor can it mitigate the social and political contempt it caused. However, the selectively biased stance of far-right elements within the “justice system” who release Nazis, yet are the same ones like this particular judge who keeps comrade Nikos Maziotis imprisoned, can no longer remain hidden.

Fascism and neo-Nazism in all their forms and under whatever political guise they appear seem to find “support” from repressive and judicial authorities due to their political affinity and organic connection within the mechanism. The authorities treat them as an extension of their own political reach, as they do not pose a threat. Instead, fascist, Nazi and other nationalist enclaves, as an ideology, political expression and practice, are the perfect political complement to the state-terrorist, in whatever form it occasionally takes. It is well known that since the post-civil war years, they have been consistently integrated into the structures and institutions of the state itself. Moreover, they complete its work whenever, for reasons of integration, appeasement, and deflection of social anger, the political power does not want to “expose” itself further.

Focusing on this selective tactic toward the specific Nazi and the vindictiveness and deprivation of freedom for comrade Nikos Maziotis, the political “sympathy” of the president and, more generally, the ideological and structural blending of state power with such ideologies and practices (such as fascist, Nazi, racist, gender-based and other intolerant pogroms and murders) is fully confirmed. As when “justice” (the Komotini three-member Court of Appeals for Felonies) a month ago, awarded with suspension and released the three fascists who acted as vigilantes in Alexandroupolis, who hunted down and imprisoned 13 refugees/migrants in a trailer-cage! In fact, in August 2023, when they were first arrested, the Alexandroupolis prosecutor recommended their release with restrictive conditions until their trial. Or when the state and its mechanisms allowed the Golden Dawn’s attack squads to operate unchallenged. Let’s not forget that shortly before the neo-Nazi squads of Golden Dawn murdered the antifascist Pavlos Fyssas in Keratsini, members of the current party that is in the government, as well as journalists from mainstream media and later parliament members of New Democracy, who saw their dominance and “votes” in the nationalist right being threatened, were in talks with members and parliament members of the neo-Nazi formation to bring about this political convergence with a perhaps … “more serious” … Golden Dawn (sic)!

The struggles of rebellious people for a stateless, classless society of freedom, equality and solidarity cannot have any relation to the hateful characteristics of fascist or Nazi ideology. As part of the state’s efforts to depoliticize social struggles, in Europe—and not only—democracies are trying on a criminal-law level to equate insurgent-revolutionary actions with the practices of murderers. Recently, the judiciary in Greece and the informers of the regime media have been reproducing the narrative of the “unrepentant” fascists as an argument for the “victory of democracy” in the re-imprisonment of the “Führer”. A jurisprudentially subversive argument for the unrepentant stance of revolutionaries, like that of the imprisoned comrade Nikos Maziotis.

We do not forget our imprisoned comrades all over the world until the freedom from the cells of democracy

We defend comrade Nikos Maziotis and comrade Pola Roupa for their actions and political choices as anarchists and as convicted members of Revolutionary Struggle. We call on the world of struggle to mobilize and show solidarity for the:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS, who remains imprisoned in the cells of democracy for the actions of Revolutionary Struggle.

FINAL RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA FROM STATE CAPTIVITY

Solidarity Assembly for the condemned members of Revolutionary Struggle P. Roupa and N. Maziotis

Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/08/06/update-about-the-special-state-of-exception-for-the-anarchist-nikos-maziotis-convicted-comrade-of-revolutionary-struggle/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

For the 5th time, the Lamia Criminal Court has recently rejected my request for conditional release despite the 3rd consecutive positive prosecution. During the last 2.5 years since I have reached the law of suspension by law, Lamia’s judicial councils, including the Lamia Council I had once appealed, have rejected a total of 6 times my request for conditional release. It is now very likely that I will be one of the few prisoners nationwide – if not the only one – with a temporary prison sentence with the maximum sentence of 20 years under the 2019 Presidential Code that will get the entire sentence without parole. And I will probably be the only one of dozens of political (anarchist and other) prisoners who have spent the last 20 years in prison with a sentence of temporary imprisonment, who is exempt from parole. Of course, the reasons for rejection are still political-opinional: that I refuse to recognize as criminal the acts for which I have been convicted, namely the action of the Revolutionary Struggle, as mentioned in the recent rejection decree, but also the precedent of September 2023.

The issue of repentance for the political opponents of the political-economic regime has now been historically established as a necessary criterion and condition for the granting of conditional release, thus continuing the historical tradition of the Greek state in other eras, from the years of the Metaxas dictatorship, the years of the civil war and the post-civil war period to the junta of the colonels.

Of course, the Council of Misdemeanors of Lamia has proven that it has double standards in these cases, as proved by the case of the recent – albeit temporary – release of the “führer” of the neo-Nazi organization Golden Dawn. In a country and a place where many do not have a short historical memory as the state authorities want and hope, the Lamia Misdemeanour Council was irreparably exposed socially and this is not negated by the fact that the release order was overturned by an appellate prosecutor after government-political intervention.

Once again, the historical tradition of the Greek state is confirmed and the political sympathies of several state bodies are not hidden. Just as the collaborators after 1945, the Security Battalions, the Chites, the ancestors of Golden Dawn, were treated favorably by the post-occupation state, few of them were tried and even fewer remained in prison, so today we see their descendants receiving the same favorable treatment from the current state and their “justice”. Of the 28 convicted of the neo-Nazi organization after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, 21 are already free, while the rest do not have significant time left in detention. After all, they are “their own children”. It was nothing but a parastatal apparatus, i.e. an offshoot of the state apparatus itself, which had been operating for years, since the 1990s, with the tolerance of the police, and did the “dirty” work of the state. That is, anti-immigrant pogroms and racist attacks, beatings, stabbings, assistance of riot police in clashes with anarchists posing as “indignant” citizens, attacks on hangouts, occupations of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space. Traditionally, the Greek state has always treated the parastatals with the glove, such as these fascists, nostalgics for the colonels’ junta who in 1978 carried out indiscriminate bombings at the Rex and Elli cinemas because they screened films that were not politically correct according to them, with content that was not “nationalist”. It is no coincidence that among them was the later “führer” of Golden Dawn. The same was done to the parastatal assassins – members of ONED-ND – of Professor Nikos Tebonera in January 1991 who had been ordered to break in a “dynamic” way the mathematical occupations of that period.

The double standards of state “justice” and specifically of the Lamia Misdemeanour Council are also proven in the case of another of “their own children”, not a parastatal but a former representative of the law, the police killer of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, from whom the Lamia Misdemeanour Council never asked for statements of repentance or disdain for his act when it released him in 2019. And the same applies to the Lamia Court of Appeal, when he had been appealed in 2022 and had returned to prison for a short time. And now that he has returned to prison after a second appeal by the Supreme Court, the issue is not whether he has repented or has naturally expressed disdain for the murder he committed, but about the mitigating circumstance of the “lawful” life granted to him with which he broke the life sentence and was released on parole. The killer of Alexandros Grigoropoulos was the only one of the dozens of police killers since the transition to democracy, who served some years in prison and this because of the uprising of December 2008 and the social condemnation of his crime. Facts which the court that tried him could not ignore. When in other cases the courts acquitted the police killers, e.g. Melista, murderer of 15-year-old Michalis Kaltezas, or threw them on the soft side, they served no sentence or served very little.

However, on the occasion of the fact that the eliciting of the declaration of repentance and disdain has now been established as a necessary condition for the granting of parole and conditional release for political opponents of the political-economic regime, I would like to refer to the political error made by some leftists, such as lawyers of the civil action in the trial of Golden Dawn, who, after the provisional release of its leader, also spoke about the issue of his non-repentance, aligning themselves with the prosecutor who, for the same reason, had proposed the rejection of the request for his conditional release, but also with the prosecutor of the Court of Appeal, who made the appeal. In order not to be misunderstood, let me make it clear that it is quite another matter that someone must continue to serve his sentence and the question of repentance as a necessary condition of release is completely different. The appeal of non-repentance by lawyers in this case, whether they realize it or not, throws water on the mill of the state in refusing for the same reasons, the conditional release to us militants who are condemned for acts of urban guerrilla warfare, armed popular violence and resistance that over time are part of the practices of the popular and revolutionary movement. Indeed, the fact that some of them know the history of persecution of the left in other times and have invoked it in trials of revolutionary-guerrilla organizations as a defense makes their political error even greater. Invoking repentance as a necessary condition of release cannot be applied selectively. Either it applies to everyone or it does not apply at all. However, its general application confirms the practice of the state today that has the theory-fraud of the two “extremes” by equating the theory and propaganda of neo-Nazis with urban guerrilla fighters, anarchists, extreme leftists, antifascists, but in practice it caresses neo-Nazis who are “its own children” and exhausts its severity on the political opponents of the political-economic regime.

Also, the issue of repentance has been raised at the hearing of the Chalkida Court of Appeals last January by comrade Paula Roupa when the decision of her conditional release by the deputy prosecutor of appeals of Chalkida was overturned – apparently by order from above.

The ruling of the Lamia Misdemeanour Council, on the grounds of rejecting my conditional release, also cites as a reason my contempt for “justice”. But a justice that caresses fascists and neo-Nazis, convicted rapists who walk free and happen to have connections with New Democracy, that caresses racist murderers who walk free (Zak Kostopoulos case), that rewards murderous police officers of the Dias group (Sambanis, Frangoulis cases), who also walk free, that behaves with the glove to the rapists of the case of the 12-year-old girl of Kolonos – where the prosecutor Maria Eleni Nikolou had proposed the acquittal of the main defendant and it is the same one that had stripped us of the custody of our son and ordered his confinement in the Children’s Mental Hospital – a “justice” that covers up massive state crimes such as that of Tempi or the shipwreck of Pylos, is an accomplice in the greatest mass crime of modern Greek history such as the memorandums. Such “justice” can only cause disdain and disrepute.

Apart from the rejection of the conditional release, the decree of the Lamia Misdemeanour Council states that criminal charges are pending against me following a report by the chief commander of the external guard of Domokos prison for allegedly disobeying legal orders of the staff and threatening violence against members of the prison staff. In fact, one of the first things the president of the Lamia Misdemeanour Council did at the skype hearing on May 15 to examine my request for conditional release was to show me the report against me of the commander of the external guard, proving her biased attitude towards the already preconceived decision to reject my conditional release. After all, he was president of both previous boards that rejected my conditional release.

The incident referred to concerned the incident I had made public on 14 May when I refused to be subjected to an undignified body search by members of the outer prison guard. That is, to take off my clothes in order to be transferred to the hospital of Lamia for orthopedic examination. The insubordination corresponded to my refusal to undergo such an undignified body search, while the threat of violence concerned that I asked for the details of the police officers of the external guard after my refusal to transfer me to the hospital of Lamia for the scheduled examination. However, despite the fact that I was unanimously acquitted by the prison disciplinary board of both baseless and false charges and I was even transferred to the hospital of Lamia a few days later under the conditions I wanted, that is, without undergoing the undignified body search I required, the Misdemeanour Council reports that criminal charges are pending against me, but there is – at least for the time being – no such criminal proceedings against me. In many cases, in addition to the disciplinary penalty in prison for violations of the “penitentiary” code, prisoners are also prosecuted for the same violations and a trial takes place. If such a procedure were to be taken against me, it would be nothing more than a scheme to cut off the regular leave I have been taking for the last 2.5 years while such proceedings are pending until the trial takes place. Because one of the criteria for granting permits in prison is that no criminal proceedings are pending either for a felony or for a misdemeanor involving acts of violence or threat of violence, for which if the prisoner is convicted, his sentence is served without merging with the rest of the sentence, i.e. upon expiry. This is probably what the president of the Lamia Council of Misdemeanors would have wished for when she mentioned it in the rejection decree.

Having already served 11.5 years net and together with 3.5 years of beneficial work calculation almost 15 years, I have 2.5 years left in prison with the calculation of wages. I will then have served at least 14 years clean in prison and together with 6 years of work I will have completed all 20 years of sentence until the last day.

A sentence that under the current penal code for former prisoners like me – before its last revision – will approach serving a life sentence, where the law stipulates the possibility of parole at 16 years, a sentence equivalent to a conviction for murder, a charge for which I have not been convicted. I have already served a disproportionate amount of time in relation to the charges and sentence for which I have been convicted. The state and its “justice” in my case considers it a greater crime that I do not revise my views on the acts for which I have been convicted than the acts themselves. However, to be released in 2.5 years with an expiration of sentence without having been “imprisoned”, without repenting, without discrediting the acts for which I was convicted, but still having the view that the actions of the Revolutionary Struggle were just, that they were carried out for the social good and for the benefit of the social-popular majority – acts that over time have been part of the practices of the popular and revolutionary movement – It will prove their total failure, the total failure of state “justice” and the total failure of prison as a repressive institution to force me to change my positions and my morale about what I have been condemned. They are already losers and failures.

Nikos Maziotis, convicted for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle

Fourth wing Domokos prison

Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/06/30/nikos-maziotis-on-the-latest-rejection-of-my-parole/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

During a phone call with the Solidarity Assembly, comrade Nikos Maziotis reported that in the disciplinary council held today in Domokos prison (in the presence of the prosecutor and the prison director), he was acquitted of the 2 disciplinary offenses that tried to accuse him of disobedience and threat against the head of the outer guard. At the same time, he reported that he is suspending the hunger strike after his request to go to the hospital in Lamia without the humiliating physical examination was satisfied. A decision on his release or continued captivity is pending.

The comrade himself will report in detail.

THE COMRADE IS NOT ALONE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ANARCHIST COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS
FINAL RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA
STRENGTH TO THE POLITICAL PRISONERS KIDNAPPED IN THE CELLS OF THE REPUBLIC

Assembly of Solidarity with the condemned comrades of the Revolutionary Struggle

From: athens.indymedia.org/post/1630428/

Translation in Spanish posted on 20/05/2024: Contra Info

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/05/22/greek-prisons-anarchist-comrade-nikos-maziotis-ends-hunger-strike/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #hungerStrike #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

Not a day has passed since the publication of the text about what care the “penitentiary” system provides and that gives the blackmail condition for the external guard of Domokos prison. Today, the external guard of Domokos prison with its own commander in charge refused to transfer me to the hospital of Lamia for an orthopedic examination concerning a 3rd degree rupture of the gastrocnemius muscle because I did not accept the undignified and degrading way of body search. I did not refuse a body search in general, I refused the humiliating way they want. They are essentially blackmailing me, putting my health at risk in order to get the care I am entitled to.

In response to the blatant violation of my rights, I am going on hunger strike as of today (14/5/2024) with a request to be transferred to the hospital of Lamia without suffering the humiliating way of investigation demanded by the external guard of Domokos prison.

This request concerns not only this case but any case of treatment requiring transfer to a hospital for examination, surgery or treatment while I am still in prison.

Nikos Maziotis, condemned for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle

Domokos prison

Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/05/15/hunger-strike-by-nikos-maziotis/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #hungerStrike #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

According to the law, the health care of prisoners is proportional to the care of the rest of the population (Article 27 (1) of the Penitentiary Code). But that is not really the case.

Lack of medical staff, lack of doctors, delays in transfers of detainees to hospitals, special security measures and procedures in some cases such as mine, make the supposed right to care a dead letter. In Domokos prison where I have been for the last 4 years there is a doctor, usually a pathologist, for 2 days a week who in many cases when it comes to cases that do not fall within his specialty, simply fills in a referral for an appointment at the hospital of Lamia, which can be done in a period of a few weeks to 2 months, sometimes more. In many cases, due to lack of medical staff, prison guards take on the role of nurses.

Several deaths of prisoners have been caused from time to time in prisons by obstruction by the authorities and prison management in providing timely care to which the prisoner is supposed to be entitled, according to the law. Of course, for this whole situation, which will never change because it does not want the state apparatus to change, the responsibility lies with the so-called ministry of “citizen protection”, the ministry of “justice”, the prison directorates and the prosecutors-supervisors of prisons who supposedly ensure the implementation of the law and the fair treatment of prisoners. Besides, the main concern of the Ministry of “citizen protection” and “justice” in recent years, as the successive reforms of the penal and penitentiary code have shown, is to fill prisons more with prisoners and the further stay of prisoners in prisons.

During my long stay in prison I have experienced, due to the nature of my case (Revolutionary Struggle), a special regime that had consequences in terms of the health care provided by the system. After I was arrested in July 2014, injured with a broken right humerus in a fight in Monastiraki – shot by a “protector” of the citizen of the DIAS team who two years later robbed and killed a taxi driver in Kastoria – I remained disabled by one arm for over a year.

Although I needed a second operation after about six months, the state did not keep me in the prisoner hospital. It ordered my transfer initially to Diavata prison in Thessaloniki and at the end of December 2014 to type C prison in Domokos. These type C prisons had been built by the Samaras government, and the then government had already announced from my arrest through the then Minister of Public Order, Kikilia, that I would be the first prisoner to be sent to them when they were ready.

During the time I was in type C prison, I was taken once a month just for an X-ray to the hospital of Lamia without offering me anything for care and rehabilitation. More than a year had to pass, in August 2015, when, due to the trials I had in the case of the Revolutionary Struggle, I was transferred to Korydallos where, under my own pressure, I was operated on for the 2nd time in Evangelismos by the same doctor who operated on me the first time after my arrest. If I had not been transferred due to courts in Korydallos, I would probably have had one limb amputated. As the doctor who operated on me had told me, the 2nd operation to repair the wound should have been done six months after the first.

In another case, the prosecutor superintendent of Korydallos prison – today responsible for “organized crime” – had canceled surgery that was scheduled to be done for the nasal septum because she did not consider it necessary! This is the care that the law says is commensurate with the rest of the population!

Of course, in times of constant crisis, generalized impoverishment, austerity and degradation of the public health system by the state itself, which promotes neoliberal dogmas and privatizations – including health – for the benefit of capital, basic health care is difficult for the broader popular strata and the majority of the population. Let alone prisoners in prisons that the system considers inferior. This is even more difficult for cases like mine due to the nature of my case (Revolutionary Struggle), in contrast to the care of their own children, the fascist parastatals, those who once did the dirty work of the state, but spoiled them after the murder of Fyssas, and sometimes used them against us alongside the police and riot police. One such is the recently released neo-Nazi leader of Golden Dawn who for almost three years was in a rehabilitation center due to coronavirus. Probably no citizen during the pandemic years had the care that this neo-Nazi had. It has been proven over time that the Greek state has always supported collaborators and their descendants, and has always persecuted freedom fighters. Because from its origin it is a collaborationist state, a state that has in its DNA the culture of rayadism.

There were also cases where the police officers of the external guard of Domokos prison refused to transfer me to the hospital of Lamia, once for an eye examination and once for an ENT because I refused the undignified way they wanted to do the body search, i.e. to take off my clothes when they could use a metal detector. The second time was recently, during the period that in the last two years I have taken several regular licenses. And this proves that there are not even safety reasons that can be invoked for such an undignified body search. The only reason is humiliation.

Recently, in an examination (MRI) that I did during the last leave, I was diagnosed with chronic rupture (relapse) of the gastrocnemius muscle of the right lower limb (third degree contusion), which requires immediate treatment and rehabilitation. Any obstruction for treatment and rehabilitation is the responsibility of the director of Domokos prison himself and the supervising prosecutors. Any refusal by the officers of the external guard of Domokos prison to transfer me to the hospital of Lamia – as has already happened twice in the past – because I refuse to be searched in an undignified way, thus endangering my health, is borne by them and the supervising prison prosecutors.

Just as I did not surrender my dignity two years ago to the judicial council of Lamia, which asks me for statements of revision, correction and repentance in order to release me, I will not even hand over my dignity to the guards in order to receive the care I deserve. Medical care is my inalienable and non-negotiable right and it is unacceptable for it to become a tool of pressure to accept degrading methods of treatment.

13/5/2024

Nikos Maziotis, convicted for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle, imprisoned in Domokos prison

Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/05/14/text-by-nikos-maziotis-on-the-health-care-conditions-in-domokos-prison/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

FREEDOM TO COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS: YOU FROM THE BARS AND WE FROM THE STREETS, TOGETHER WE WILL CRUSH THE STATE AND THE LAWS

STATE AND CAPITAL ARE THE ONLY TERRORISTS – SOLIDARITY WITH THE ARMED GUERRILLAS

Solidarity with the armed rebels

Niko, hold on to freedom!

The comrades of the Revolutionary Struggle are not alone

Another world is possible, armed struggle revolutionary

Assembly of Solidarity to the condemned members of the Revolutionary Struggle

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_VsaJI-hwA

Here is the update text from the mobilization in Lamia and Domokos prison in solidarity with comrade Nikos Maziotis

e-mail: [email protected]

Source: Athens Indymedia

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/04/06/video-from-the-solidarity-gathering-for-comrade-nikos-maziotis-in-lamia-and-domokos-prisons/

#AnarchistPrisoners #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

"In jedem Fall ist die „Justiz“ als Ganzes ein Komplize bei dem Verbrechen der politischen Liquidierung der überzähligen Bevölkerung, wie es bei den Memoranden der Fall war. Das Problem in diesem Fall ist für das System nicht das Leben des Genossen Dimitris #Koufontinas, sondern der politische Preis des Todes aufgrund des Hungerstreiks." -> https://enough-is-enough14.org/2021/02/25/erklaerung-von-nikos-maziotis-zum-hungerstreik-von-dimitris-koufontinas/ #Κουφοντίνας #antireport #koufontinas_hungerstrike #NikosMaziotis

"In any case, “justice” as a whole is an accomplice in the crime of the political liquidation of the surplus population, as was the case with the memoranda." Nikos Maziotis -> https://enoughisenough14.org/2021/02/25/statement-by-nikos-maziotis-on-the-hunger-strike-of-dimitris-koufontinas/ #Κουφοντίνας #antireport #koufontinas_hungerstrike #nikosmaziotis