Another section, from a more influential text

After Marx: Autonomy by Alfredo Bonanno

We thus have two elements: the struggle, and the will to struggle. Now we must ask why this struggle has constantly had a negative outcome, and what is significant about this. The first point can be partly explained by the presence of a minority ‘leading’ this struggle; a minority which, if on the one hand it takes itself as being the ‘head’ of the movement of the exploited, on the other adopts the role of ‘ascending elite’, that is a minority that intends to take power itself, taking the place of the elite who were previously in charge. There is another, deeper reason for the first point: the persistent ‘religiosity’ of the exploited masses, hence their ‘need’ for a ‘guide’, a group or a person capable of materialising their desire for vengeance. This takes us to the second point: what significance should be given to the constant negative outcome of these struggles? The conclusion is linked to the discourse on the autonomy of the individual. Only the will to freedom, at the same time the fruit of and the reason for the struggle, can eliminate the sentiment of religiosity that is still intrinsic in the struggles of the workers today.

This model might explain the great flood of reformist and authoritarian parties in that they become, in our opinion, the symbol of vengeance. The masses see in these organisations the sacerdotal caste and church that will lead to their millenary dream. For their part, the bureaucrats of power (the trade unions should be included in this argument) who present themselves as ascending elites, have every interest in exploiting this sentiment, while their very nature prevents them from stimulating any initiative towards a process of liberalisation.

... Let us take an historical example. In the Middle Ages the German peasants rose up against the lords and the Church, demanding vengeance for the suffering and privation they had always been subjected to, but at the same time asking for the restoration of the Christian principle of poverty and morality in custom that had been profaned both by the lords and the Church. They were therefore fighting in the name of a desire for vengeance, hence put themselves—with great reticence in this case—into the hands of a leader in the name of a moral code shared by the exploiters who were considered profane by the people.

... What is more serious is the fact that this is not simply a literary component that belongs to the priests of the Marxist church, but is also a common sentiment among the mass, one of so many factors of corporate origins which, out of interest, has not been fought by the reformists. The latter’s’ collaboration has in fact hindered any action capable of confronting the State with an irrecuperable situation of conflict.