Subversive bookfair in Brussels

When we think of books which are subversive, books about juvenile rebellion found in any bookshop in a big city are not the ones that come to mind. Neither do we think of those more or less critical books which come out of our close circles or which are born from the thinking-heads in universities. What comes to mind are examples such as the one given by Severino Di Giovanni, captured on the 29^th of January in 1931 while coming out of a typesetter’s workshop which he had visited in relation to the master copy for a book by Reclus. Despite having been the most wanted person in Argentina during the previous four years due to various expropriations, attacks and his agitation activity, he risked his freedom and his life in order to obtain the master copy he needed. The printing works were under surveillance but it was worth taking the risk once again for a new book. A few months earlier he had achieved his goal of setting up his own press for printing books, pamphlets and newspapers, using the money obtained from a recent expropriation, although only a part of it because most of the money was used in solidarity with imprisoned comrades.

We also think of Jean-Marc Rouillan, Oriol Solé and other comrades who robbed banks and expropriated printing machines during the early Seventies in order to obtain all that was needed so as to be able to print books in Toulouse and smuggle them over the border to Barcelona and other regions of the Spanish state.

Or, perhaps one of the most inspiring examples, we think of the young anarchists from the city of Bialystok who during the first few years of the 20^th century, apart from terrorizing the bourgeoisie and the gendarmes, dedicated a great deal of their energy and means to translating, printing and transporting written material. In 1905, they expropriated 330 kilograms of typographic equipment in order to set up Anarjiya, Russia’s first anarchist printing works: a clandestine press for their publications and books. Over time, many Russian anarchists imitated the gesture, most of them risking going to prison, getting exiled, being condemned to forced labour or death.

Printing, transporting and disseminating books was, for many anarchists around the world, just as dangerous as carrying arms or explosives: partly they were arms and, moreover, they were very powerful arms.

These are the examples which come to mind, amongst others… such as the example of the fighters who, escaping from repression, set up a printing press in a cave in the Ural Mountains. All of these are only a few examples of a close relationship between books and subversion. They are inspiring examples not only because the books —most of which were considered dangerous or simply forbidden— were printed and disseminated in a clandestine manner, breaking all the prohibitions and moving away from any type of consumer logic from which today, it seems, there is no escape; but also because everything related to the development of these publishing projects, the way in which the machines and ideas were put into motion, the hopes and the fighting spirit, seem to belong to another world. But not entirely.

Many of us involved in current publishing projects and printing collectives, and some magazines and newspapers, feel that we are motivated by this spirit which in days gone by was abundant, and that these are but a few examples out of many. Trying not to slide into —but also trying to dynamite— processes related to production/consumption, a profit logic, relations based on commerce and work, we try to bring back that subversive spirit because a radical message must be contained within a form of dissemination which lives up to the level of that message.

We understand that there are projects related to the publishing and distribution of anarchist books which have subsistence aims, projects which see and live this activity as a modest way of earning a living. This is something we can partly understand, taking into account the shit jobs and ways of living within the framework of the system which are imposed upon us. But they should also bear in mind that for those of us who search for different ways of living, within which our lives and struggles are totally related to our everyday realities and are far from relationships of production and consumption, the idea of working with something which for us is a fighting tool —yet another weapon in this social war— is not something we are able to get our heads around.

Amongst our objectives there is the dissemination (as widespread and as affordable as possible) of ideas, proposals, visions and interpretations coming from a radical point of view. And we believe that this must be done through a rupture —as radical as possible— with regards to the forms that capitalism offers us for this task. It is due to this that we see as important the rejection of all commercial distribution (which actually pushes up the prices), the logic of selling books at a price 10 times the cost of printing, the big bookshop cult, the use of control and numeration codes —whether it be for commercial purposes or for classification (bar codes, ISBN, etc.)—, the rights of the authors (copyright, left or whatever), etc.; and we see as something necessary the promotion of more direct ways of distribution through distros which handle revolutionary material, the support for anarchist printing works projects, the assumption that our material is there to be given life to and to be reproduced as best wished, the incitement of greater autonomy for our projects with regards to the translation, writing, page makeup, graphic design, distribution and —if possible— printing, and also the total support for other related projects, such as social libraries, libraries for prisoners, etc.

Perhaps to some it may all sound pretentious and to others basic, but for us it is important to also talk about these things when discussing books and their subversive potential.

Bardo, August 2011