The History of the Yellow Vests By Us, recounts one year of transformation of the yellow vest movement from November 17th, 2018, to November 17th, 2019, from its first day to its first anniversary. In a chronological format, in four chapters, it covers different aspects of the movement: the struggle against political representatives, the 2,000 roadblocks and the dynamics of evictions/reoccupations, direct actions and centralized demonstrations, the defense of a common position in the face of justice, the care of the wounded and prisoners, autonomous walkouts in factories, and the movement’s general inability to attack the organization of work as a whole. What interests us in this article are specifically the international echoes that resurface throughout the one-year chronology of the Gilets Jaunes.

We have not yet resolved the issue of democratic revolution.

First, we mean that the establishment of a “true democracy,” a “democratic and social republic,” still overshadows the horizon of our uprisings. Second, that “seizing state power” and thus transforming our movements into a vehicle for this end remains the only way to achieve this true democracy. Finally, that none of this ever happens as promised by the supporters of the first two assertions, the social democrats of various currents, but instead ends up destroying the revolutionary process and movement.

If we to stick to the framework in which these currents define themselves, the fundamental difference between these sensibilities would lie between “reformists” and “revolutionaries,” both of whom are obviously in competition with each other. The “reformists” are those who, still within this framework, aim to transform the capitalist system through reforms, as part of a transition to socialism carried out without leaving the realm of bourgeois legality, in short, through elections, as in Allende’s Chile (or more recently with Gabriel Boric who took the lead of a leftist government after the 2019-2020 uprising in Chile), for example. The call for the creation of a constituent assembly as a way out of the uprisings falls within the same framework, even if Leninists may rally it for tactical reasons.

We propose abandoning an interpretation based on the “nature” of movements and instead we propose thinking in terms of the dynamic of movements. What interests us is how a movement is capable to attack Capital… 

History has been buried in the sand of a present without end. A present replete with wars and disasters constituting its own horizon: even more wars and disasters, yet again the hottest year on record,… 

(English under revision) In recent decades, many parts of the world have seen intense struggles, widespread revolts, uprisings, and moments that could in some cases be described as insurrectionary. To quote just a few : Argentina…