Capsule Reviews

Note: we only review publications that we like, so these publications are all recommended. If some of the reviews sound a bit negative it is because it is important for our tendency to constantly improve our effort. Considering that we losing badly, the most dangerous thing is to simply congratulate ourselves on "a job well done."Proletarian resistance is at a low ebb these days and it's conscious partisans, including us, share this limit. See our failures is critical for going beyond them.

ASAN, Focuses on critiquing capitalist culture and finding ways to escape capitalist ideology. By one of us.

Collective Action Notes. Close to the French group Exchange Et Movement. Thorough reviews of working class-related struggles from around the world. Very worth reading but their inclusion of a police officers' job action in their list of struggles shows the limits of their councilist positions.

Communism. Central review in English of the (uncompromisingly) International Communist Group. If you can get through their surface similarities to Leninist organizations, you find will a crucial voice in the world-wide class struggle. Very recommended.

Harbringer #3. A group of folks that have evolved in a similar direction to us. Noteworthy critique of the Zapatistas and the what is left of the peace movement.

Red Planet. Mini-magazine with a good critique of the left. Also put out by close comrade.

Snipers Nest. Cool "zine" with strong anti-capitalist leanings and a fun attitude. Like the most of the "scene," Treavor tries to make something of a virtue out of giving what he had for lunch equal billing with the creation of a society without exploitation.

Temp Slave. Of the zines that could be called anti-wage labor, this is the most active in the "zine scene". Keafo brings lots of perspectives of different angry workers into the press. Temp Slave describes particular jobs from a sort-of journalistic "just tell your impressions" approach that consciously barrows from the magazine Processed World. But saying "I have no perspective, I just describe" is a perspective and it usually doesn't  point to any collective way out of the horrible catastrophy of capitalist society.

Wildcat. Group with a Left Communist past, a Primativist present, and an Uncertain future. Their summary of the US defeat in Somalia is very worth reading.

            Our perspectives may seem novel or iconoclastic to many of our readers.  But we have not emerged in a political vacuum.  To get a better grasp of the historical context in which our perspectives emerged, please read the following:

            The articles,

            ÒPreliminaries on Councils and councilist organizationÓ

            ÒThe Decline and fall of the Spectacle-Commodity EconomyÓ

            ÒThe Explosion Point of IdeologyÓ

            ÒThe Situationists and new forms of action in art and politicsÓ,

            in The Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb

            Pannekoek and GorterÕs Marxism, edited by D.A. Smart

            Anti-Bolshevik Communism, by Paul Mattick

            Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord

            Eclipse and Reemergence of the Communist Movement,

 by Jean Barrot and Francois Martin

            History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921),

by Peter Arshinov

            Unions Against Revolution, by G. Munis

            Lip and the Self-managed Counterrevolution, by Negation

            The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism, by Freddy Perlman