A-Infos (en) Germany, Dortmund, AGDO: The apple and the trunk - Ilan Shalif - The best-kept secret about the revolution just revealed (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Ri got up a bit earlier than usual on the second day of the 5-day 
end-of-year festival. He had an important schedule because of his 
mandate as member of the district assembly of delegates. The first thing 
was a meeting of the educational committee. The meeting was hosted by a 
neighbouring community. ---- During the morning, they edited the final 
draft of their yearly report to the assembly of delegates. Immediately 
after the midday meal they shared at the host community's dining room, 
they joined the other members of the district assembly for the 
accountability meeting. Though the draft reports of all the committees 
were already available on the communication system, there was a 
non-redundant discussion at the assembly as nearly all committees were 
proposing some points to deliberate and to put on the agendas of the 
district grassroots communities for decision.

The main point raised by the educational committee was to intensify the 
relations and visits of the older teens with the various city 
polytechnics so the passage to higher education would be smoother. The 
idea had been discussed the previous year by the city educational 
committee and a few district educational committees had accepted the 
challenge to be the testing ground, if approved by their district and 
grassroots communities. The decision finally arrived at was that the new 
approach would be approved by the district grassroots communities, and a 
special programme would be developed for the two higher age-groups of 
the district's high school.

When the district assembly finally ended, they had a surprise waiting 
for them: they were invited to the 80th birthday party of Gil, a veteran 
of the city spokespersons at the time of the uprising that eventually 
became the 2050 revolution. He was a member of one of the grassroots 
communities of the district and had even participated a few times as 
guest at the district committee. However, throughout the years he 
participated as a welcomed non-delegate at meetings of the city and 
district assemblies committees, though he refused to be formally 
delegated to any of them.

It was a mystery all those years why he refused to be delegated to the 
district or city or any higher-level assembly of delegates. Though he 
was not a delegate to any inter-city assembly of delegates he was twice 
proposed as a special delegate to the world assembly of delegates, but 
even then he declined the offer.

Rumour was he might use this birthday party to reveal the reasons for 
his strange reluctance to be delegated. And indeed, when the party was 
drawing to an end Gil called for a moment of quiet, and started to speak:

"You all know that before the revolution I was a member of this 
country's specific anarchist federation for years. In the spokespersons' 
assembly of the mass uprising of 2049, I was often delegated by my 
district collective to the spokespersons' meetings of the coordination 
committees of various social struggle movements. The day when events in 
our city proved to be the turning point in the revolution has been 
written about in the history of the revolution. There was even a movie 
about the critical hours preceding the explosion of the bridge that 
prevented the last efforts of the State forces who were trying to 
disperse the spokespersons and suppress the uprising. The movie, and all 
the other texts about these crucial moments, vividly describe the moment 
when I put forward a motion calling for a vote whether to continue the 
discussions and polemics or to block the State forces from entering the 
city. Some 'consensus people' objected to any vote as long as there was 
strong objection from the Leninist left and other reformists and the 
chairperson, who was also the head of his party's central committee, 
just refused to put the motion to order to the vote.
And, of course, you all know that I and a few other comrades forced him 
out of the chair. I replaced him and put the call for a motion to order 
to the vote. The overwhelming majority supported it and discussions at 
that point ended. Immediately afterwards the usual two speakers in 
support and two against made their cases briefly, followed by the vote 
on the decision to block the State forces from entering the city. There 
was overwhelming support for blowing up all the bridges leading to the 
city, and this was immediately implemented. It was the point when the 
2049 uprising turned into the full-blown 2050 revolution...

But what you do not know, and what was never revealed, is that I did it 
on my own initiative - without any collective decision or 
deliberations... Because of this - and not as a form of self-punishment 
or guilt-cleansing, but as a precaution against any repetition of 
power-taking by me, on my own initiative - I refused, from that moment 
on, any mandate for any post involving decisions about other people - 
not even a specific mandate, if included the tiniest amount of power or 
authority."

Making his way home after the party, Ri could see how fast these 
sensational revelations were spreading over the information system - 
first the district one, then the city system, quickly reaching the news 
headlines of the world main language feeds.

As he entered their dwelling unit Ti, who was still up despite the late 
hour, excitedly shared the sensational news with him...
--------------------------------
From: Glimpses Into the Year 2100 (50 years after the revolution) Daily 
life in the libertarian communist society
https://ilan.shalif.com/glimpses.html

https://archive.org/details/DerApfelUndDerStamm/Web_2026-03-13-Zine_Gemeinschaft_barrierearm/page/n1/mode/1up
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