Distributed in Comiso 1982
The decision to build a base for 112 American Cruise missiles at Comiso is part of the project of political and military equilibrium between the two great superpowers. The justification given to this deadly enterprise is that it is necessary to counter pose the Russian atomic bases which are lined up against Europe with all possible means.
In fact it is not possible to put a brake on the criminal initiatives of the Soviet Union which as a superpower has betrayed the antimilitarist ideals of the international proletariat through just as criminal initiatives as those of the United States and their European servants. The increase in atomic bases does not defend from attacks from anywhere but constitutes a grave threat for the survival of the whole planet. The struggle must be directed towards preventing new bases (such as the one at Comiso) but also to destroying those already in existence, including the Russian ones and those of all the other States.
Comiso is destined to becoming the largest atomic missile base in Europe and the forerunner of other bases to be built in Spain, Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere. If we do not manage to prevent this criminal project we Sicilians shall be the first to have the responsibility of seeing in our land the largest atomic bomb plant in existence in Europe today.
This sad record will be accompanied by a series of other negative consequences which the arrival of an American army of occupation (15,000 US soldiers are expected) will cause immediately. Rise in prices, circulation of heavy drugs, increase in prostitution, militarisation of the territory, presence in our area of mafioso organizations to sell drugs to the Americans, control prostitution, and speculation on the contracts for work on the base. All this will mean an increase in violence (robberies, kidnappings, thefts) and restriction of individual freedom (controls, road blocks, militarized zones, etc).
The Socialist Party has shown itself to be a true servant of American interests, accepting the imposition of the USA and approving the order to build the base in Sicily through their defense minister LagoFio. The Christian Democrats have set to work right away to control building contracts for the hotels, apartments and restaurants which the Americans will need, and all the contracts for the construction of the base itself, through the mafia.
The Communist Party has given inefficient and discontinuous indications of struggle, showing themselves to be undecided, weak and inefficient. Marches (even composed of 100,000 people), petitions, hunger strikes, impress no one.
The struggle against the construction of the Comiso missile base requires other means and methods.
THE SELF-MANAGED LEAGUE
A) CHARACTERISTICS
– Is an autonomous organization of struggle which gathers all those who really and sincerely intend to prevent the construction of the base.
– Is not a bureaucratic organization. It has no statutes, associative rules, constitutive documents, etc. It can also have no permanent meeting place.
– The individual Leagues spread over the territory are born spontaneously and have as sole point of reference the general principles specified here.
– The League is therefore an organism of struggle which refuses to give permanent delegation to its representatives and so denies a specific professionality of this representation.
– The League is constantly engaged in the, struggle against the construction of the base.
– Each component of the League considers him/herself to be in struggle against the base and against the interests which want to realize it, recognizing that these interests are those of the exploiters and their servants.
– The League is not an organization of defense of the interests of this or that category of worker. It is therefore not a trade union or parasyndical structure.
– The propaganda activity of struggle of each individual League will preferably be co-ordinated with that of the other Leagues, while it remains that it is possible also for independent initiatives with local characteristics, but always with the objective of preventing the construction of the base and respecting the common principles.
– Adhesion to the League is the logical conclusion of whoever shares neither the ineffective initiatives of those who are looking for a fictitious counterposition.
B) GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Permanent conflictuality
– The struggle against the construction of the base will have positive results only on condition that it be constant, uninterrupted and effective. A desultory, sporadic struggle with occasional interventions will end up a losing battle.
Self-management
The Leagues are self-managed, i.e. they do not depend on any organization, party, trade union, patronage, etc. They receive no money apart from what comes from spontaneous subscriptions from the adherents to the Leagues themselves. From this autonomy derives their strength.
Attack
– The leagues refuse the road of mediation, pacification, sacrifice, accommodation, compromise. They support the need for attack against the boss interests which are realizing this criminal project.
C) METHODS
The involvement of the bosses and the American criminals is constant. They take no time off. They mean to realize their project of death within a brief period. Their action spreads against us in a thousand ways: unemployment, increase in prices, intimidation and repression. Tomorrow-should the base be built-this repression will reach the maximum of insupportability and we shall be deprived of even the freedom to think. To constant repression the Leagues reply with permanent conflictuality.
– All the work categories have an interest in preventing the base. The least wealthy categories but also those who are a little better off: even the shopkeepers who might imagine that they will cash in something extra on the arrival of the Americans must also take into account the mafia extortion rackets which will be organized to their cost in the area. The same goes for the peasants who are threatened by expropriation and have the right to put their land to really productive use. The other methods which the Leagues employ is therefore the widening of the struggle front.
– Counterinformation on the real situation in Comiso is a further method of struggle. Posters, leaflets, newspapers, radio, television, etc, all these instruments must be addressed not only to the inhabitants of the area but also to the whole of Sicily; Italy and the world. Today Comiso and the problem of the base are at the center of world attention. Through this attention it is possible to defeat the criminals and their servants with our struggle. But the management of information must be autonomous, i.e. must be against the information racket such as the local daily “La Sicilia” and the penny liners in its service.
– To reach the strata which are excluded from having knowledge of the problem: proletarian women, housewives, children, old people. All of them have the right to know the grave danger that is facing them and it is right that they be able to bring their own contribution to the social struggle which is developing against the construction of the base.
– To accept the equivocations of the chatter, putting off time, the promises made by power, means to give the criminals more time to realize their project. We must choose the immediate method of intervention and not put off to infinity what should be done right away.
– We should not forget that to be built the Comiso base requires our acceptance, the acceptance of all those who are working on it, those who allow the passage of materials with which it will be built. It is therefore necessary to widen the field of struggle, also to having the workers of these firms participate, because with their strikes and obstacles they will be able first to delay and secondly eventually prevent the construction of the base.
– The method which the Leagues consider final and adequate to really preventing the construction of the base is its occupation. But this occupation must be a conscious decision made by the Leagues and realized with all the means necessary at the opportune moment. We must reply to the foolhardiness and criminality of the American imperialists and their local servants with great responsibility and just as great decision.
– Each individual League meets as it thinks fit and the way it desires, with the frequency that it considers necessary and in the place it considers best fitted to its structure. Their initiatives are made known to the other Leagues-if this is considered necessary-through the coordinating body which, with this aim, draws up a periodical bulletin, where the decisions of the individual Leagues are published.
– Representatives of all the Leagues meet periodically at Comiso for a debate and exchange of views.
– The first duty of every League is intervention directed outwards to quantitively increase its growth.
– The League is a mass organization, therefore as such can assume the form of sectorial League, (farm labourers’ League, peasants’ League, shopkeepers’ League, students’ League, lorrydrivers’ League, teachers’League, etc), or the intersectorial form of league (city League, village League, zone League, interzonal League, etc).
The choice of the struggle to be conducted is periodically decided by the individual Leagues from general meetings. The most important decisions are made at the meetings of the representatives of the leagues.
D) PERSPECTIVES
– The Leagues are not corporative organisms. They do not have the perspective of defending the interests of a category, village or social group.
– They are mass structures aimed at preventing the base.
– Any attempt from within or without to channel the Leagues towards electoral objectives, power, patronage, trade unions, simple resistance, etc, must be prevented.
– Developing the various initiatives the Leagues can make their weight felt at the level of mass organisms, imposing the decision not to build the base on the structures of power.
E) THE CO-ORDINATING BODY
– The coordinating body of the self-managed Leagues has premises in Comiso, a technical office which serves as a point of reference for all the Leagues which have been constituted and for those in formation.
– The Coordinating body is able to give indications on the complexive situation of struggle, the interests which are developing around it, the bosses’ objectives, the firms which have been given contracts, the arrival of the American contingents of occupation, the firms which are working to produce materials for the base, and the presence of the Americans in the area.
– It can also supply the instruments for widening the knowledge in Sicily, Italy and abroad on the situation in Comiso.
– It sees to bringing out a periodical bulletin with the various decisions and the various proposals of the individual Leagues, and on their formation and development.
– Organizes periodical meetings of the representatives of the various Leagues, meetings to be held at Comiso.
– It is worked on a rotation basis by the components of the various Leagues therefore is an organism formed and constituted by the League itself which needs to take charge of the costs relative to its functioning (rent, telephone, propaganda material, cost of survival of those in charge).
CONCLUSION
The self-managed League is an organism of struggle to prevent the construction of the missile base at Comiso. It is based on the principle of autonomy of the struggle and permanent conflictuality. The method it chooses is that of attack against the construction of the base and against the interests of those who are realizing it.
The decision to give precise indications of struggle to the Leagues is up to the general meeting of the Leagues’ representatives, as well as the establishing of methods and whatever is necessary to prevent the construction of the missile base at Comiso.