The Coming Insurrection is a French radical leftist, anarchist tract written by The Invisible Committee, the nom de plume of an anonymous author (or possibly authors). It hypothesizes the "imminent collapse of capitalist culture". The Coming Insurrection was first published in 2007 by Editions La Fabrique, and later (2009) translated into English and published by Semiotext(e). Last Word Press in Olympia, Washington also published an edition. The book is notable for the media coverage which it received as an example of a radical leftist manifesto, particularly from American conservative commentator Glenn Beck. The Coming Insurrection is also known for its association with the legal case of the Tarnac Nine, a group of nine young people including Julien Coupat who were arrested in Tarnac, rural France, on 11 November 2008 "on the grounds that they were to have participated in the sabotage of overhead electrical lines on France's national railways". The Tarnac Nine were variously accused of conspiracy, sabotage, terrorism, and being the author(s) of The Coming Insurrection.
The Coming Insurrection is followed by To Our Friends (2015), and Now (2017).
Synopsis
In its original incarnation, The Coming Insurrection consisted of twelve chapters, together with a brief afterword. The English edition of the book was published after the Tarnac Nine arrests, and therefore includes a brief foreword and introduction which touch on the subject of the arrests, for a total of fifteen parts.
The book is divided into two halves. The first half attempts a diagnosis of the totality of modern capitalist civilization, moving through what the Committee identify as the "seven circles" of alienation, induced by states and capitalism: alienation relating to the self, to social relations, to work, to the urban, to the economy, to the environment, and finally to the state itself. Because the book is a radical leftist, theoretical work, this alienation can be alternately understood in the general sense of the word, or otherwise in its specifically Marxist sense.
Beginning in Get Going!, the second half of the book presents a prescription for revolutionary struggle based on the formation of communes, or affinity group-style units, which will build their forces outside of mainstream politics, and attack conventional powers (states, businesses, the police) in moments of crisis – political, social, environmental – to foment anti-capitalist revolution. The insurrection envisioned by the Committee entails local appropriation of power by the people, physical blocking of the economy, and rendering police actions irrelevant.
For examples, the book points to the late 2000s financial crisis and environmental degradation as symptoms of capitalism's decline. Also discussed are the Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002) and the piquetero movement which emerged from it, the 2005 riots and 2006 student protests in France, the 2006 Oaxaca protests, and the grassroots relief work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. These events serve as examples both of breakdown in the modern, conventional social order, and at the same time of the capacity of human beings to spontaneously self-organize for revolutionary ends, which taken together can give rise to partial insurrectionary situations.
Foreword
"The book you hold in your hands has become the principal piece of evidence in an anti-terrorism case in France directed against nine individuals who were arrested on November 11, 2008, mostly in the village of Tarnac. They have been accused of 'criminal association for the purposes of terrorist activity' on the grounds that they were to have participated in the sabotage of overhead electrical lines on France’s national railways. Although only scant circumstantial evidence has been presented against the nine, the French Interior Minister has publicly associated them with the emergent threat of an 'ultra-left' movement, taking care to single out this book, described as a 'manual for terrorism,' which they are accused of authoring. What follows is the text of the book preceded by the first statement of the Invisible Committee since the arrests."