Text written by the three imprisoned members of Revolutionary Struggle about the trial of the organization which will start on October 5, 2011
The trial of the organization Revolutionary Struggle, which will begin on October 5, is the continuation of the repressive attack of the State which started in April 2010 with our arrests against the organization Revolutionary Struggle and of course the fighters involved in it.
The main purpose of the arrests, the trial but also the sentences to many years’ imprisonment that will be pronounced by the Special Court, is that the State will be able to eliminate the political threat of Revolutionary Struggle, bend our will to fight, make every fighter and every resisting person think that the political choice of armed action is hopeless, unrealistic and with no prospects.
The challenge for the State is to politically defeat Revolutionary Struggle, to defeat us, who participate in it, to defeat armed struggle and in perspective bend any desire to organize an armed proletarian counter-attack on the regime and its overthrowal and any will for an armed revolutionary attempt. Both the action of Revolutionary Struggle and the repressive policy against it are inseparable from the existing historical context, the persecution, imprisonment, trial and our condemnation concern the elimination of a political force that had and still has as its tactic the undermining of the plans of the economic and political elites to financially destroy the majority of society in the name of getting out of the system’s crisis.
The protection of the economic and political state from a threat such as Revolutionary Struggle and ensuring through repression that no armed revolutionary attempt against it will occur, has become particularly urgent lately now that the Greek State is just about to announce its final bankruptcy while the occupation by the Greek government, the IMF, the ECB and the EU is plunging the country deeper and deeper into the most cruel, brutal form of exploitation and oppression that this country has seen since the second world war.
As part of dealing with Revolutionary Struggle, the arrest and capture of members of the organization, comrades V. Stathopoulos, S. Nikitopoulos and C. Kortessis, who will be tried with us, were also arrested, while comrade K. Katsenas is still in hiding.
As well as the four comrades, who are not involved in the organisation, the State sought to widen the circle of hostaged fighters by going into massive interrogations in October 2010. At the same time they delivered a summons to K. Gourna’s companion, Marie Beracha, who will be tried with us on October 5. The State has involved M. Beracha, making a clear attempt to personally strike comrade K. Gournas, curb his desire for resistance and thereby harm the organization itself.
Despite the fact that the move of massive investigations was unproductive in terms of further prosecutions, it was definitely an opportunity to exercise further pressure on us, since by intimidating a large number of comrades, it aimed at our political isolation from the political milieu to which we belong.
Moreover, our political isolation is always an aim of the State since it is a necessary condition for achieving the final goal in the war conducted against us: our political extermination.
As a result, the attack on Revolutionary Struggle can also be interpreted as the prosecution of other comrades and the targeting of the broader political and interpersonal relations within the anarchist milieu, while a broader effort to intimidate anyone who resists is always an objective of any punitive attack.
During our trial, as members of Revolutionary Struggle who took political responsibility for participating in the organization, we can only have armed struggle as our main and central point of reference.
Our trial will be a field of political confrontation with Capital and the State; it will be a political step to defend the action and positions of our organization, where we will claim that armed struggle is over time an integral part of the revolutionary movement of the struggle and social revolution. That armed struggle is more suitable and necessary than ever, especially under the current conditions of economic crisis and modern totalitarianism that we experience after placing the people under the authority of the international financial elite by violently imposing the agenda of troika, IMF, ECB and EU.
We will defend, as we have already done, comrade L. Foundas, a member of the organization killed in a gunfight with cops during an action of the organization in preparation for an attack against the regime, an attack in accordance with the strategy of Revolutionary Struggle so as to confront the current junta of Capital and State.
As members of Revolutionary Struggle we are consistent in promoting the views and opinions of the organization from the prison and we will do the same in court.
The action and aim of Revolutionary Struggle is associated with the struggle against neoliberal globalization, with a strategy and perspective that sees the current economic crisis and consequent de-validation of the economic and political system in the eyes of the social majority, as a unique opportunity to promote the overthrowal of Capitalism and the State.
All this, which we have mentioned before in texts that we sent out from prison, will emerge in our forthcoming trial.
Within the framework of our political advocacy we made an international call of solidarity calling as political witnesses to our trial comrades who have previously fought in the ranks of armed struggle under different economic, political and social conditions and who have remained adamant and unrepentant concerning their choices and defended their struggles, paying for them with many years in prison.
Our aim is to highlight the continuity of armed struggle through a historical record of the guerrilla, to highlight the necessity and opportuneness of armed struggle as a necessary tool of the revolutionary movement, to highlight that the struggle for freedom and revolution is continuous.
We also believe that there is an imperative need to organize an international revolutionary movement. Very important to our trial is also a statement of solidarity from our comrades witnesses from the anarchist milieu who, as activists operating in other forms of struggle, through their words affirm the unity and diversity of struggling to overthrow power, annulling the divisive dilemmas of the latter such as “legality or illegality” or “mass struggle and armed struggle.” After all, we come from the anarchist milieu and have many years of experience participating in mass events, demonstrations, squats; in clashes in the streets and assemblies, as well as, some of us, experience of participating in collectives and groups.
[We also aim to highlight] the proposals of Revolutionary Struggle such as the destruction of the State and the imperative need for social self-organization and self-management, as recorded through the organization’s proclamations and through the texts written in prison, come from the traditional anarchist movement.
For us, armed struggle is a strategic plan of attack against sovereignty while pursuing the possibility of a social address, with the aim always being the sharpening of the social and class war against the State and Capital, the propaganda of armed proletarian counter-attack to overthrow the system, and social revolution.
Finally, to note that not only our arrest and detention haven’t swayed us, as our pursuers hoped, but that we are stronger than ever.
Also, that in this political battle that we will give in court and despite the years of imprisonment that will be imposed by the straw men of the regime, in the end we are the ones who will be the victors.
The members of Revolutionary Struggle
Pola Roupa, Kostas Gournas, Nikos Maziotis
”kim”/sysiphus/actforfreedomnow!