If you’ve read all the science up to now on climate change, you know the basics. We are past the point of no return, every year is a pathway of getting worse, scientists largely failed in explaining the urgency, and the worst of it is that our biggest challenge to solve all of this is gross negligence. This was the inevitable outcome of a system whose primary driver was unsustainable consumption. If you think reform is our best option, do you not realize we are past due and reform in its essence takes time? If you think revolution is our best option, do you remotely think we are anywhere near the immediacy needed for a vast overthrow of the system, and even then, do you think the revolution wouldn’t be betrayed as it has countless times over?
We’d like to make a few clarifications before we begin. Our stance is not that from the survivalist perspective, fancied by the Right, nor is our stance individualist in the way we describe it. We are very much an anarchist communist. The phrasing of apocalyptic, in the context here, is divested from its origins and just a neater way to sum up collapse/post-collapse. We’ve all seen enough post-apocalyptic films and books to know the images it conjures. This is somewhat our intent by using the term. Regardless of how this is defined, the attempt of my small analysis is basically, “shit’s fucked, climate change is gonna put the nail on the coffin, what does radical politics look like with this in mind”. It is a lens of analysis that tries to do as we constantly argue anarchism is which is forward thinking. If there are texts similar to this, which there very well may be in eco-anarchist works, we haven’t read them.
As insurrectionary anarchists, we’ve been trying to analyze what we perceive as an inevitable collapse. Our existence, society’s existence is directly in tandem with the greater ecological system that we have fucked, and in a matter of time is going to return the favor. This is rather clear as we increasingly dig our own graves through mining, deforestation, and drilling to name a few. If you’ve read the science and come to the conclusions we have, what does revolution and insurrection look like in these contexts? What does our ideological lens of anarchism look like in a collapsing and post-collapse society?
Insurrection, Revolution, and the Apocalypse
What is the best way to summarize the revolution? To the working-class oriented, the proletariat rise up, seize the means of production, and abolish the current state of affairs to instill a dictatorship of the proletariat in an effort to create a communist society. For the anarchist, it depends on who you ask, but in any capacity, we recognize that a revolution is a violent change of the status quo. Historically, this is based on the concept of production, industrialization, violent uprising, workers’ organizing, and a plethora of other aspects.
The consideration here is, if our understanding of climate change is correct and the status quo fails to stop it, which it will.. What does any of this mean in the face of such imminent disaster? 2017 has had some of the worst natural disasters on record which is rather in line that each year is getting worse. There’s no sign of slowing down in our consumption of resources as each year the environment responds more violently, crying against our violent exploitation of it. The glaciers are melting and within a matter of decades, entire shorelines will be gone, and the cities that inhabited them. Partially a side note, the impact on ports and international shipping logistics alone would fundamentally shape our society in negative waves to paint a greater portrait of the collapse to come.
With no revolution imminent, the expectation that the masses would violently rise to halt the already completed death sentence served by capitalism is a pipe dream that even we still cling to for lack of a better alternative. The reality is that this does shape how we perceive a revolution or uprising as happening. What would it mean for those abandoned by Noah to have seized his ark in the wave of the flood? This is not a call to abandon the work towards revolution, to abandon current efforts, and to give up all hope. This is a call for a necessary recognition and to ask ourselves, how does this shape our tactics and our understanding? The rich, they too are preparing for the end of the world with their own arks and means of survival. They’re preparing to abandon this world, metaphorically and for some, literally, as they condemn the rest of us to death.
If the destruction that climate change is bringing is inevitable, what does this mean? The revolution as we know it may look a bit different. It would mean slaying the oppressors as they escape the hell they’ve created and surviving with each other. The end of now doesn’t mean the end of systems of oppressions as they exist. These same oppressors are developing plans to survive the collapse and into the new world, they plan on bringing their old power dynamics, but into a post-collapse society that allows them to even more freely dictate their villainy. It isn’t enough for us to simply survive the collapse rather the collapse in ways must also be a time of insurrection and revolution. The world is changing, whether we like it or not, but we also change and adapt. Insurrection, in turn, is not just building capabilities to have a revolution or inciting revolutionary activity or moments of war against the system. Insurrection must be a dedicated to building networks and cells that can survive the collapse with the intent of ending every oppressor that would take advantage of the fall. Insurrection isn’t just about building for us to survive and implement change during the collapse, it is very much a response into the now. Insurrection must actively combat these same elements long before the collapse occurs. We must fight as if we are trying to prevent it even in the inevitability that we won’t. If there’s the slightest change that fate isn’t written, then disaster averted, and if it is written, it ensures our survival and their death sentence.
In every sense, we should still prepare as we would whether climate change was a factor or not, as we recognize successful autonomous guerrilla forces would be the ones best adapted to survive these circumstances. Not only is that how we should organize as teams and communities, but we need to create community knowledge of survival techniques and methods to incorporate additional members into communities. The right wing survivalist may only be invested in themselves, their families, or their kin, but our investment is still in the oppressed masses. There will be a significant loss of life and this shouldn’t be as a byproduct of ruthless survivalism rather our focus should be saving and incorporating folks into autonomous communities capable of surviving this. It’s from here, that my anarchy intersects.
Apocalyptic Anarchism
Anarchism, more than any other political standpoint, is centered most on immediate direction action of its beholders. Due to central belief on self-reliance, anarchists, those who are more than the name, avoid State reliance in whatever capacities they can. From creating their own emergency response teams, farming collectives, squats, and a spectrum of other direct action organizing, anarchists are in a unique position for what is to come. We see this with anarchists all around the world, with the Greek anarchists gaining the most public attention (not to undermine the amazing work of those in the shadows around the world). Whereas vanguard parties may be more apt to be a service provider or assist in provision of services, the default inclination of anarchists are to organize themselves as means unto their own, and train up whoever is willing to knowledgeshare. The anarchists’ demand for militant resistance now has many either training up or actively practicing such a reality. Simultaneously, most of this is in the shadows and not immediately witnessed by the public.
Being perhaps the most adaptable of the ideologies, we can and are incorporating what a post-collapse world will look like into our theories and plans. We’ve demanded for our empowerment, actively working in the different ways we can reclaim it whether the system allows or not. The ideological framework of anarchism demands a response to the now and not waiting for material conditions that may be sought out by the parties, especially as those material conditions are not in tandem with the timeline of destruction that climate change is bringing.
We, as anarchists, organize via interpersonal relationships and place emphasis on building communities with autonomy at the priority. We don’t worry about building up the party, we build each other up as communities. Whereas members of the vanguard are devoting their livelihoods and resources to the vanguard, ours is devoted to each other, and the communities we inhabit. My income doesn’t go to some organization, it goes to paying friends’ rent, food, and education. If I am hungry or if I cannot afford a necessity, my comrades cover me as I would for them, and as we do for others. It is this affinity for mutual aid, as we currently practice, that gives us a basis of preparation for the future. Self-reliance isn’t as individual as it sounds, this is community self-reliance, and these capabilities are what will get us through this.
Our anarchy of the now has to prepare for the world of the future. We are in the lineup for mass extinction at this rate and our enemies are well-prepared for this. It isn’t enough to be insurrectionary as we learn to survive the world we are currently in. The cells and the communes of now have to be prepared for the apocalypse. What does this mean? It means a greater demand for self reliance, a more expansive network of autonomous relationships, a knowledge database outside of an electronic grid, and to prepare for all out chaos. The current society is going to go out with a bang and not with a whimper. This collapse will not be clean, the violence will not be orderly, and we must very much learn to glide on the winds of chaos.
This should come natural to those of you who’ve put your beliefs into practice, so what we are telling you isn’t necessarily new, but what we are asking of you is to keep foresight. It is one thing to be self reliant in the world as it stands. But what of the world in heightened temperatures, mass ecological devastation, and violence on a level many of us may have never seen? We know survival when it looks like taking food where we can find it, sleeping wherever we may lay, and street fighting. What do we know of survival when the crops fail to yield, when shelter may be an alien concept, and fighting turns into frantic ranged combat? There are those of us who may daydream of a post-apocalyptic field day, but the reality will be hell and have you thought in what ways to prepare for this? Or even prevent this? You may have some commune in the hills, but is that even feasible when the environment turns into a wasteland at a faster past than it can adapt? If you need to make your commune mobile, could you?
You and your comrades tactics need to reflect this. Your strategies and training need to reflect this. Your resources need to be developed with this in mind. The oppressors are developing their bunkers, their super-yachts, and some are even intending for life in space. If we want a society to which they’re no longer a threat, how do you plan to counter these tactics? What do you know about radiation, pollutants, chemicals? Are you climatized for high-altitude locations? Do you have any mechanical knowledge to keep a car, or even more importantly, an RV running? You ever driven with a trailer? What about on horseback? And what of our comrades, who may not have the ability or accessibility to any of these? We will leave no one behind, but if our knowledge is lacking on how to better enable and empower our community members, we still let them down. The apocalypse will claim those that need our help the most first, if we are not prepared. Do you know how to handle those of us who are neurodivergent in the midst of a crisis? Or those of us who are unable to handle certain physical challenges?
If this seems overwhelming, the end of the world is, and we are not going to undersell it to you. It is not on you to have all of the knowledge, that isn’t practical, and as social beings, community knowledge is far more important than individual. It reduces the burden and distributes the skillsets we rely on it. With that said, our communities need to prepare for this, we cannot wait for others to prepare. We can rely on no one, but ourselves.
To quote Call, “We know it is too early and also that it is too late, that is why we have time.“