negations

Anarchist film buffs have a lot to be happy about these days: Sacco and Vanzetti and Salvador just came out; Anarchism Revisited: Voices and Visions and Growing up with Paul Goodman should be released soon; and the good people at ChristieBooks have been hard at work expanding their remarkable online archive of films.

And now we can add a new film to the catalogue: Lucio, directed by Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga. This Spanish language documentary tells the dramatic story of Lucio Urtubia, a sort of anarchist Robin Hood whose militancy brought him into contact with some of the most significant events of our era. Although the film does not have subtitles, English readers can check out its synopsis (which I have translated and copied below) and watch its trailer (which has subtitles and is also below).

SYNOPSIS: LUCIO

There have been–and are–many anarchists. Quite a few of them have had to commit robberies or manufacture contraband for the cause. A much smaller number have talked strategy with Che or helped Eldridge Cleaver (the leader of the Black Panthers). But there is only one who, in addition to all of the above, put the world’s most powerful bank on the ropes by producing massive amounts of counterfeit Traveler’s Cheques while also not missing a single day at his bricklayer’s job. His name is Lucio Urtubia.

Lucio presently lives in retirement in Paris. During his life, he witnessed–and often participated actively in–some of the most important events of the second half of the 20th century. He experienced the tumult of May ‘68 from within, actively supported the Castro regime during its initial stages, and engaged in a whole range of anti-Franco endeavors. However, his biggest “job” took place in the latter part of the 1970s, a time when he was known in the press as “the good bandit” or “the Basque Zorro.” He defrauded the First National Bank (now Citibank) of 3,000 million pesetas in order to finance causes that he supported. Amazingly, his “career” only cost him a few months in prison.

The film’s official site, which contains photographs and other information, is here.

By Chuck Morse

This article will appear in the spring, 2008 issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, which is likely to be published in March. For more information, visit the Institute for Anarchist Study’s website.

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When Murray Bookchin died on July 30 last year, one of the most ambitious and compelling figures of the anti-authoritarian left passed.

He was an author, educator, and activist, although above all he was a revolutionary who gave his life to a single, colossal task: devising a revolutionary project that could heal the wounds within humanity and the split between it and the natural world. He tried to outline the theoretical principles of this endeavor; to build organizations capable of transforming the world around those principles; and to forge a cadre with the wisdom necessary to fight for them while enduring the inevitable ups and downs of political life. He had much in common with other sect builders of the socialist left—such as Max Shachtman, Josef Weber, and Raya Dunayevskaya, for example—who, in their respective times and latitudes, also attempted to salvage the revolutionary enterprise from the disaster that was Russian Communism and the many calamities of the twentieth century.(1)

Was Bookchin successful? Continue Reading »