Communism doesn’t have to be global. Communism exists where communes do.
The two week long Olympia Commune was communism. Every squat and DIY space is communism.
Our goal is to make communism ubiquitous, but that does not mean it doesn’t exist until it is total. It exists as a relationship between people and spaces they occupy and the processes they take part in and the systems they maintain.
Communism is not the heaven we build for our descendents, but the reality we can live in today– wherever we cast off the chains of capital!
Idk about this. In a sense, sure, but most squats and communes and the like still operate from within (or under) capitalism. Capitalism is in the modern world virtually inescapable
To use the Olympia Commune as an example again, its appearance was extremely disruptive of capitalism. It shut down one of the supply chains and created a space in which a commons formed.
The commune became a place where homeless people could sleep for free, where free food was constantly available, where spaces were defined by their inhabitants and where autonomy was the norm. A complete inversion of capitalist life.
The commune had to be dismantled by the police because it was a threat to capitalism. Because it created a space in which the social coercion of capitalist production was impossible and a space from which transformative energy was emanating… beginning to alter the city around it by providing a base for troublemakers.
Did it destroy capitalism? No. But it did challenge it on one of the most basic levels. It did seize space, even if only for a moment.
This is something to pay attention to. It’s a praxis we can develop– one that can be taken up by almost anyone and that strikes at the foundations of capitalism.
Published
Water Witches 