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DOWN WITH AUTHORITY
GENERAL REVOLT THEN, NOW AND ALWAYS
We call on the oppressed and the rebellious, the people of struggle, to join the anarchist/anti-authoritarian bloc for the 17th of November. We address those whose hearts beat and yearn for the burial of economic exploitation and political and social oppression.
The invocation of the democratic polity by the state and its supporters, whatever their political persuasion, left or right, is a deception for those at the bottom. Authoritarian violence and attempts to displace subversive social struggles and their rebellious characteristics from the public sphere and collective consciousness are means of terrorizing and silencing subversive ideas and freedoms.
Against the dictates of bosses and their political superiors, against the American-Israeli power lobby and the brutality of the genocidal “war” in the occupied Palestinian territories. Against the state and capital that dictate our lives and lead society to total control and subjugation.
Free polytechnics [a reference to the Polytechnic Uprising] here and now for all, everything and everyone, outside the shackles of party manipulation and deception. The autonomy of class-social struggles is the unbridled driving force for social liberation. Our slogans remain relevant.
Down with authority
General uprising
November 17, 1973
Then, after, now
Then
Because history is written with actions, the uprising of November 17, 1973, is a turning point for the mass resistance struggles in Greece, as that year, most of society ceased to show tolerance and submission to the military regime of the colonels. The common revolutionary step went beyond tanks and weapons, spearheaded by the student community. With the tensions that had already been building since early 1973, the ground was being prepared for the next decisive moves against the army and the totalitarian system of power. From February 1973, the Polytechnic, the Chemistry Department, and the Law School were transformed into centers of struggle, as the first rallies began against the then-proposed bill that would prohibit the postponement of military service due to studies. The Law School, in particular, was a key location, as 4,000 people barricaded themselves inside and chanted slogans, while 50 fascists showed up to break up the occupation, only to fail in the face of a few anarchists who played a role in stopping them.
Of course, the internal repression within the university complex of the Polytechnic by the left-wing student factions has been masterfully silenced. As early as November 14, 1973, the occupation of the Polytechnic began by a group of workers consisting mainly of members of revolutionary left-wing parties and a small group of anarchists. This assembly, which was housed in Gini [a specific building in Polytechnic school], decided from the outset not to establish a presidium or any governing body for the assembly itself. Subsequently, it was decided to confiscate the students’ typewriters from the architecture school building, which was accompanied by tension with the students, as they realized that they would lose their monopoly on expression.
Despite the internal problems of Gini’s constitution, agreements were made on its anti-capitalist character and the attempt to give the occupation a class character. This effort was unsuccessful, as on the morning of November 15, while some workers were leaving to go to their jobs, a group of left-wing students decided to break up the assembly, referring to “non-university members” and ultimately, people ended up leaving in disgust. At 3 p.m. that evening, a new workers’ assembly was formed in the same building, only this time it had a presidium and its role was to inform workers in their hangouts at the time (e.g., Kotzia Square), but without being able to put class-based, anti-capitalist demands on the broader struggle. Left-wing students, under the pretext of preventing security guards from entering the Polytechnic, carried out face control at the entrances, asking for student IDs (as if security did not have countless IDs at its disposal), in a last-ditch effort to sterilize the area.
Despite this effort, people managed to get into the Polytechnic, contributing more as unsung heroes than as “pioneering students.” The silencing of those not affiliated with party factions, as well as the subsequent concealment of the confrontational events that took place in the surrounding streets and more generally throughout Athens from November 14 to 17, is nothing more than an attempt by the left to dominate the movements over time.
Amidst the anxiety to repel and dismantle the junta, there was no shortage of attempts by the then supporters of state legitimacy, namely the KKE, to ridicule activists, branding them with the sacred rod of speculation, as “provocateurs,” thus undermining the culture of occupation, spark, and struggle, with the aim of controlling the outcome of this entire process of rupture and self-determination of social continuity. Of course, the passion and momentum of all those who opposed roles and attributes surpassed the self-serving maneuvering to prevent the uprising.
Self-organization and self-defense from below are the greatest nightmare of all institutional factions and the ruling class, because they are steps towards the collective self of the social base.
The Polytechnic of ’73 managed to overcome all ideological and political rigidities, spontaneously united against the common enemy, sparked the uprising by overturning the military regime, torture, and violence of the totalitarian regime, and overcoming the false dichotomies/polarities of dictatorship and democracy (Papadopoulos – Markezinis).
It overcame internal slander and attempts to disorient the resistance, with which the KKE, through the despicable newspaper Panspoudastiki No. 8 [the eighth issue of the newspaper that was published by the youth wing of the communist party], spoke of “the 350 provocateurs of the EYP and Roufogalis – Karagiannopoulos,” [the Greek national intelligence agency and its head officers] pointing the finger at the alleged creation of a climate aimed at “preventing a smooth transition to democracy.” It should be noted here that Roufogalis, as an army officer and EYP executive, had close ties with the then US president, Nixon; Greece was (and still is) of great geostrategic importance to the rulers of the American empire, in relation to their military interests in the context of the Cold War at the time, and for this reason they sought any regime that would allow the elimination of any resistance against the established order. The tradition of relations between the US/CIA and the Greek secret services continues unabated to this day.
The Polytechnic led the social-class resistance during a period of intense political change, with the military dictatorship attempting to suppress legitimate resistance.
After
In the anniversaries that followed (and especially after 1977), anarchists and the Wild Youth contributed to ensuring that the anniversary of the Polytechnic was not an innocent democratic celebration, as the state and political parties would have liked. In 1980, there were terrible clashes and the murder of two protesters (Koumis-Kanellopoulou) by police beatings. In 1985, the murder of 15-year-old anarchist Michalis Kaltezas by police officer Melistas in Stournari, which led to the occupation of the Chemistry Department (and the invasion of the police) and the occupation of the Polytechnic, with clashes around it. The following years were rich in confrontational and rebellious practices by the protesters, reaching 1995, exactly 30 years ago, the occupation of the Polytechnic by 2,000 people and the invasion of the cops arresting 500 rebels, amid a complete blockade of the institution, and for the first time, in spectacular fashion.
However, since the early 1980s, beyond the counter-insurgent tradition of the left, in some parts of the broader anarchist space, a discussion began about “set-up appointments,” even writing articles in their publications about the reasons why they would abstain from the anniversary of the Polytechnic and the march. A few years later, some even coined the term “kagkelaki” [lit. “little fence”, a riot tactic in which one sits behind a fence and throws molotov cocktails towards the cops]. This criticism was linked after some time and in part, in some cases, to an attempt to downgrade and undermine rebellious practices.
The Polytechnic was always a lively meeting point for social struggles, not only during the three days of the uprising but also during many other important events throughout the years. Indicatively: clashes and occupation of the [Polytechnic] Institution after student marches in the 1990s, occupation in January 1990 for the acquittal of Melistas and the march [which carried the banner] “We are the bloom of the Greek youth”, student protests after the murder of Temboneras in January 1991, Bush’s visit in July 1991, student mobilizations in 2006-07, and of course, the December 2008 uprising, Obama’s visit in November 2016. At the same time, the Polytechnic was a hub for activists and a host of other causes—until the evacuation of the Gini building [in 2020], which anarchists had used for decades—from squats for striking political prisoners, the caravan of internationalist supporters of the occupation of the Rector’s Office in solidarity with the seven people arrested in Thessaloniki in 2003, to the migrant squats.
It should be noted that after the 1995 occupation, the state, concerned, began what it had been planning for years: the removal of departments and schools from the historic Foundation at Patission street and their transfer outside the city center, precisely in order to weaken and demobilize any protests, not only from student groups but also from the broader social resistance movements that converged there. It resembles an early plan for university and activist displacement—gentrification.
Now
Today, one of the offshoots of bourgeois power and modern totalitarianism in the role of rector, named Ioannis Chatzigeorgiou, comes as a continuator, keyholder and cop, with the support of the Ministry of State Protection, to impose, with cameras, disciplinary measures, and informers, the removal of social territory from the hands of collective vitality. A faithful follower of political plans to disarm universities from their social base and militant self-organization, a policy implemented in 2020, during a time of social confinement due to the “pandemic” outbreak, with the seizure and locking of the Gini building and then with the repressive barrage amid lockdown and lockout bans, in the occupations of the Open Polytechnic of 2020 (NTUA Rectorate and Lower Polytechnic).
The territorial contribution and political content of the historic complex are points of popular reference and struggle on the part of the expanded need for social liberation in the fight against armed military forces and authorities, with the variation of each era against the prevailing structure of the authoritarian machine. The most recent reference we could make in relation to attempts to stifle the community of militants is the repressive operation on 27/9/2024, when a crowd of students and supporters were attacked with beatings and arrests, after intervening in the “Researcher’s Night.” The rector, having publicly characterized the protesting crowd with Nazi-eugenicist rhetoric (specifically as “incompatible grafts”), gave the green light to uniformed killers to invade the university campus with their weapons, with the aim of violently stopping the intervention. MAT, OPKE, and DELTA [militarized police units], an entire police army, sought in this way to show us what democracy really means.
Another example of repressive attacks by the state and the NTUA rectorate is the evacuation of the Self-Administrated Polytechnic Hangout Space (in the Polytechnic campus of Zografou area) in the summer of 2023, where, after attempts by comrades to defend it and a series of reoccupations and evacuations, the university administration decided to demolish the entire space and launched a hunt against comrades, with lawsuits and various repressive operations against them. This was followed by the evacuation of the [Autonomous] Space at Architecture school, housed in the historic Patission street complex, last summer, where the state chose to demolish the space from the outset.
The Polytechnic’s premises have been turned into a field of constant surveillance, with cameras installed almost everywhere, with private cafes popping up here and there, giving capital the space to flourish and intervene in every aspect of daily life. The transformation of universities from centers of struggle and fermentation into panoptic prisons and plots of land for rent is a long process that now confronts us with the harshest reality. Universities as shops and prisons, or universities as hangouts and launching pads?
The restructured neoliberalization of the power structure cannot change anything; it is flesh of the flesh of the state apparatus. The weapons and hierarchies within the intertwined ministerial, judicial, and journalistic centers remain the same; as are the torture and murders in police stations, the drowning of migrants at sea, the shrinking of public spaces, the control of information, the dismissal of self-organized political struggles from social fields, the proliferation of police brutality in public transport, parks, universities, and every alley in the center of Athens, the organized cover-ups of crooks and child rapist politicians, bankers and investors, the mafia and the organized cover-up of the mass murder of Tempi [train crash in 2022 that cost the lives of 57 people] by judicial and political leaders, and finally, the economic and military involvement of the Greek state in one of the greatest genocides of recent years, in Palestine.
Amidst the generalised captivity and militarisation of the state, with the initial legal ruling that part of the front face/facade of the parliament to be placed under the Ministry of National Defense, it is predicted that state totalitarianism will continue across party lines, with a program, a plan, and, of course, terrorization of the masses and vulnerable segments of society.
However, the uprisings also have continuity, because as long as there are states and oppression, there will be rebellion. Because the seed of the liberation struggle takes shape when it is born here and now, for the destruction of the exploitative world and the creation of a free world of equality and solidarity.
KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS ONE OF US, FOREVER A COMRADE ON THE ROADS OF FIRE
SQUARE, [STREFI] HILL, POLYTECHNIC, EXARCHIA DOES NOT BELONG IN A MUSEUM
REVOLT HERE AND NOW
AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL OF FASCISM
NEITHER FASCISM NOR DEMOCRACY, DOWN WITH THE STATE, LONG LIVE ANARCHY!
Open Assembly of Anarchists for the 17th of November, 2025