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### **Three Weeks Ago - Colongo Capital** “Okay, let's assess the situation.” The large woman speaking and three other people, all in grey trench coats, sat around a table in a blown-out bar. Two days earlier, an Usonian suicide bomber had set off his load inside the building at peak hour, ravaging the mostly Ereatian clientele. It had been considered “safe” by the foolish colonizers because of its distance from the working class neighborhoods: They hadn't suspected that a “good Usonian,” the kind who wore “proper” clothes and worked as a clerk for a kindly Ereatian journalist, could be an enemy in their midst. “The rest of the cell was caught in the last roundup,” replied a burly but elderly man holding a revolver close to his chest. “Police took our radio, our telegraph, and our truck. No way to get the message out unless we can hitch a ride or walk our way out. To be honest, we were surprised to find you still alive and well.” The two figures next to the old man nodded, two skinny twin teens who presented as men but, like many younger syndicalist revolutionaries (and some older as well), had a more complicated vision of their own gender. Everyone at the table was native Usonian by birth, but they spoke with a deliberate mish-mash of Usonian, Ereatian, and Flamard. “Do the police know who we are?” “I doubt it. You're our liason, the only one with a card. The rest of us are UCF as far as anyone knows.” “Weapons?” “Hunting rifle with eight rounds. Two grenades. My revolver with twenty-four rounds -six in the chamber-. One flare gun we stole from a dead pig, with five rounds. Knives all around. You?” “Type 12 SMG, two 48-round drums. That and my knife. Anything intact here we could use to make some cocktails?” The old man's expression grew puzzled. “So we're planning on using the weapons? The fighting's over and there's only four of us left. We -” “Forgive me if I disagree, comrade.” She gave a slight, wry smile, though her eyes remained stoic. “The fighting isn't over until we're dead or we've won.” “You can't be serious,” remarked one of the twins. The other nodded in agreement. “Do I look like I'm joking? Can't you see what's happening? The match was lit and the bomb went off. Here we are sitting on the proof. Just when the colonizer bastards think they've got things back under control, we can relight it. And we can keep doing that as many times as it takes.” “As it takes for what?” the old man asked skeptically. “For conditions to get intolerable. For general revolt. For this place to become so hellish for the colonizers and the bosses that they leave once and for all. That's the option we have: No way we're making it to liberated territory through the checkpoints, no way to contact the International, and no serious branch here we can depend on to keep us safe. We fight, we inspire others to fight, we join those who are already fighting. ULF, UCF, whoever. And when they won't fight, we make them by forcing them to make the same decision we have to: Total victory or total defeat.” There was a long silence, filled with uncomfortable gazes shooting every which way. Finally, the old man took a deep breath and spoke. “Well, I've lived a good long life. I'm with you. But what about the twins?” “We can fight,” one interjected. The statement wasn't proud or eager, but fatalistic. “Not much else to do. Victory or death...I suppose.” The rest of the day was long and painful. The four new guerillas burned the few shreds of evidence that they belonged to the RSI, checked and cleaned their weapons, and used a few intact bottles of liquor to prepare firebombs. Then they separated: The liason in one direction, the elder in another, and the twins together in yet another. Their targets would be anyone of the oppressor class: Soldiers and police on or off duty, bureaucratic offices, high-status establishments, suspected collaborators. Anything to show that the fight hadn't ended. Hopefully, that fact would strike fear into the colonizers and hope into whatever remained of the resistance. ### **Two Weeks Ago - International Radio Broadcast** *This is a broadcast from the Liberated Territories of the Revolutionary Syndicalist International. News of the workers and peasants of the world, which you will not hear from the bourgeois press or the state-tyrants' censors. Today we pass on a special announcement by RWC Chair Emma Goossens, speaking of a new directive by the Revolutionary Workers' Congress.* -A light crackle of static hums in the background- *“Fellow self-organized working folks of the International. Your representatives just made a historic commitment that deserves an announcement. Some of you, particularly my friends in the Anarcho-Syndicalist Front, have been waiting for this moment for years. We've come far in the last few decades, and our biggest danger now is sitting on our asses, falling into complacency. But I'm proud to say that my fellow congresspeople are still standing strong.* *“Henceforth, it will be the policy of the Revolutionary Syndicalist International that all member-unions set as a concrete objective the self-management of their every workplace. Workers councils are not a privilege reserved for liberated territory: They are the birthright of every worker, and now is the time to claim it! For every union that has an equilibrium with the owners and management, it is time to shatter it! You may have a good contract now, but there's no telling when you'll lose it. You may have good managers now, but there's no telling when they'll get replaced by thugs. As long as the bosses have power, you can never know when they'll stop playing nice and throw a punch that'll knock the wind out of you and your union.* *“Some of you already know this, because you have to fight management tooth and nail for every little concession. A whole lot of you have been fighting for self-management anyways, and I tip my hat to you and your courageous struggle. But for the others, like my craft unionist friends in Alleghany: Don't be fooled. Until you win the right to run the workplace democratically, until you kick the bosses out and pull the managers off their horses, until every one of your workshops and factories and farms is a self-managing worker-owned cooperative...there can be no lasting peace and no lasting justice.* *“We all know that different places will need different approaches to this goal. It's not Congress' job, thank goodness, to tell you how exactly to run your campaigns. Some of you will be able to win self-management without breaking the law, buying out your owners or using the courts to expel them. Some of you will have to take nonviolent direct action, seizing the means of production for yourselves and occupying your workplaces until the bosses cave in, maybe even setting up your councils and running production right then and there, legalities be damned. That's what we managed in Cournaille, after all. But some of you, at some point or another, may have to rely on force of arms. In that, rest assured that the Revolutionary Guard and your comrade People's Militias are ready to assist you.* *“It is up to each member-union to decide what tactics are necessary to achieve this next step towards World Syndicalism, but the goal is clear and we must go after it in Unity. No alliances with bosses, no settling for bullshit contracts, and no rest until we've taken authority over our work for ourselves!”* ### **Present Day - Office of the RSI Spokesperson, People's Proletarian University, Brouges** For a former academic and a syndicalist intellectual, the great People's Proletarian University was the natural location of RSI Spokesperson Jeannette Jaurès' office. Unlike many organizations, the International was loathe to concentrate its leadership in a palace of any sort: The old Ducal Palace had been converted into a complex of apartments and artisanal shops for the masses. Instead, every officer operated from a location of their choice, provided that meetings with one another and attendance at Congress could be arranged. Upon his arrival at the PPU, Gerald Veron had been treated to wine and bread and cheese as well as anything else that could be provided to help him recover from his long and doubtless treacherous journey from halfway across the world. Though he had seldom been much of a partner to the International, he was considered by the faculty at the University to be a naïve but well-meaning comrade in the worlwide revolutionary struggle. Gerald did not have to wait too long for a meeting with the Spokesperson. She was not the type to keep a guest waiting, especially one on such important business. Reports from RSI contacts in Colongo so far had been scattered and inconclusive, but it was clear that there was violence in the streets. Veron was the first reliable source Jaurès would be able to speak with at length. Once Gerald had taken a seat opposite Jeannette's modest desk, she began in somewhat broken but comprehensible Usonian, “It is a relief to see you in good health, Comrade Velon. You have traveled a long way to be here, and I can only imagine that this confirms our worst fears about the situation in Colongo.” Indeed, the UCF going to the RSI for help was one thing, but their most charismatic leader traveling all the way to Brouges was quite another. “I hope you understand, comrade, that we take the struggle against imperialism-colonialism in Colongo very seriously. “The last reliable news we had from fellow syndicalists in the territory was about preparing for a massive demonstration expected to be larger than any before it. Since then the reports have been scant and worrying: Fighting in the streets, tanks rolling over road-blockaders, massacres. So please speak freely: What exactly happened in your homeland, and what can we do to help?”

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