Interview with APO (Anarchist Political Organisation, Greece) at the IFA Congress

Interview with AΠΟ – Αναρχική Πολιτική Οργάνωση, Ομοσπονδία Συλλογικοτήτων – Anarchist Political Organisation – Federation of collectives (Greece), member of IFA

by Ouzo, Fédération Anarchiste Marseille – groupe Oaï

Demonstration during the first day of the International Fair of Thessaloniki, September 2025

Ouzo (FA) : Morning comrades, this interview follows the 13th Congress of IFA which you organised here in Athenes. Can you share with us the story of your organisation that is 10 years old this year ? From which political context it emerged? How are you organised as a federation ?

APO :

The Anarchist Political Organization – Federation of Collectives (APO), was founded as a federalist organization active in Greece since 2015 and a member of the International Federation of Anarchist Associations (IFA). Currently, three anarchist collectives participate in APO, two from Athens, the anarchist collective “Circle of Fire” and the anarchist collective “Omicron72” and one from Thessaloniki, the collective for social anarchism “Black and Red”. The collectives & groups are active also through their own squats and self-organized structures. More specifically, the collective “Circle of Fire” through the squat Lelas Karagianni 37 (founded in 1988) & the collective “Omikron.72” through the anarchist – antiauthoritarian center Antipnoia (founded in 2007), the collective “Black and Red” though the libertarian center No Pasaran (founded in 2023, after the eviction of anarchist squat Mundo Nuevo, which founded in 2015). The autonomous action of the collectives in the cities in which each of them is active and their participation in local actions, processes and projects contribute in the direction of common goals and strategies that emerge within the common project of APO.

APO is organized as a federation with its collectives being its cells, co-operating in a horizontal structure. It is constituted on coherent and adequate political agreements between anarchist collectives that shape their unified movement on a nationwide level through collective procedures in which they coexist equally. Since December 2015, A.P.O. publishes the anarchist newspaper “Γη και Ελευθερία” (in English “Land and Freedom”) and since December 2020 operates the website of libertarian counter-info “Land and Freedom”. Since 2017, we formed a specific thematic group against patriarchy by the women comrades of the groups and collectives of A.P.O. and has a stable and constant presence in the struggles against the state-capitalistic-patriarchic authoritarian system.  

A.P.O. is structured on common political beliefs, principles and positions and aims to acquire more and more coherent political agreements in order to be able to formulate long-term strategies of struggle. It seeks to spread the proposals of the anarchist struggle in the movement and society and to form consciences. To contribute in this way, for its part, to the creation of a coherent, radical movement. A movement that will put a stop to any attempt to manipulate, hijack and mediate social and class struggles and to integrate them by reformism. A movement that will clearly promote social revolution as the only realistic way to their final liberation of the people from below from domination and will connect the partial struggles to the overall revolutionary target of overthrowing the state and capital.

The creation of the Anarchist Political Organization – Federation of Collectives ten years ago, is a political and organizational intersection of our functioning and action so far. This choice encapsulates conclusions and experiences from the struggles of yesterday as it is a product of critique and self-criticism while opening new perspectives for the transition from protest and rebellion to the ongoing struggle for social revolution. A.P.O. is the child of the social and class riots of December 2008 (taking under consideration the possibilities and also the limitations that were brought about) and of the great mobilization in 2010-2012. We are inspired by the libertarian movement of CNT-FAI, that through tough struggles, riots and mostly the class, social, political organization managed to make into practice the idea of general subversion of the state and capitalism and the development of social self-management.

Demonstration 15th years since the Revolt of 2008, 6th December 2023, Athens

Ouzo (FA) : Thank you for this. I know that you are involved in many struggles, the students, the squat, palestine, trials support… How do you manage to impose your anarchist agenda within these struggles that are too often co-opted by authoritarians, Marxist, leftists… ?

APO :

For us, A.P.O. is the vehicle of struggle for our constant and consistent intervention in the battles of the social and class war, from the struggles against class exploitation, state repression, fascism and war, against the plunder of nature, against patriarchy and gender violence to the struggles for the defense of public spaces, of the public character of education and health care and the struggles in solidarity with refugees and immigrants and political prisoners. For the more effective diffusion of the anarchist vision of a society of equality, justice, freedom and solidarity, for social and class emancipation, for the organization of the struggle for social revolution and the creation of a bridge between everyday struggle and the vision of anarchy and libertarian communism.

We seek to participate and intervene continuously and actively in the social and class struggles that are antagonistic to the state-capitalist plans, with the aim of radicalizing their content, the processes that frame them and the means of struggle. To interact with social and class projects, in every field of social life, in the workplaces, in schools, universities, neighborhoods, promoting the development of unmediated, anti-hierarchical and anti-institutional struggles.

Within these fields, we are constantly in confrontation with reformism, a perception antagonistic to the revolutionary perspective. Its actors – whether they come from the forces of the parliamentary left, or from the bureaucratic trade union leaderships or from extra-parliamentary bodies and alternative organizations – systematically attempt to mediate social and class struggles and their people, through the assignment of initiatives to “experts”, thus limiting the scope and forms of the struggle, and ultimately leading to denervation, their distortion and slander.

Therefore, it is our constant concern to fight against these reformist logics and perceptions within the struggles and to be constantly awake to prevent attempts to assimilate social and class resistances. Our distinct participation in the open processes of social and class struggle, with full respect for their autonomy, allows us to defend the self-organization and the unconstrained participation of all people in them and the choice of the means of struggle according to their capabilities. Through this vital interaction and the continuous enrichment of our political experiences, we constantly update our political discourse regarding the situation and the prospects of the social and class struggles today. At the same time, we promote the formation of stable structures of resistance in every social and class field, seeking to disseminate our anarchist positions and proposals, not only in the direction of highlighting the limitations of the partial struggles in the present, but promoting their continuous radicalization and connection with the overall prospect of Social Revolution.

Ouzo : How do you feel about IFA after this congress you organised ? Meeting each others was a strong moment of international anarchist cooperation. What are your perspectives as a federation within the IFA ?
APO : 

At this point we would like to say that we have not completed our assessment as APO for the Congress of the International of Anarchist Federations that took place in early April 2026 in Athens. This process will be completed in the immediate future, where we have scheduled our organization’s Congress in early June 2026. For our part, however, we can submit a preliminary conclusions of this process, which we believe moved in a positive and productive context towards producing an international position on issues such as the intensification of state and capitalist brutality, the threat of generalization of war, fascism and internationalist solidarity among the oppressed, while offered interesting exchanges of experiences on the intensification of patriarchal violence and the plundering of nature and local peoples worldwide. We hope that this positive direction will continue, with joint agreements on additional issues and with initiatives that will have the horizon of strengthening anarchist positions, discourse and action.

Especially in a period where military operations are expanding abroad and state repression is intensifying at home, we believe that the need for the anarchist movement to be able to form its political value and ideological framework is even more acute, both to influence the consciences of those from below and to defend its positions against the attempts to impose foreign perceptions of the anarchist struggle and the internationalist struggle solidarity. On the one hand, the very dynamics of the changes and overthrows sought by the rulers require the rapid reconstruction of the current at an international level, the urgent need to expand the network of contacts and communication of anarchists at an international level is proven, with the main aim of exchanging experiences, informing about how authoritarian politics is shaped in every geography and the social resistances that are manifested in every part of the planet. In addition, the debate at the international level on the war treaty and the generalized threat of war is crucial.

It is literally a matter of life and death both for the movement and for societies and the oppressed, to be able to form and adopt as coherent as possible a stance amongst anarchists towards militarism, the threat of war and resistance to world domination. We believe that this can be achieved if the comrades in every geography manage to realize that as long as there are visible historical, political, social or even cultural differences between the individual societies (and therefore the movements) that are necessarily formed under the shadow of the nation state, which must be respected, at the same time today’s anarchist analysis ascertains a single state and capitalist condition that dominates and oppresses the entire planet. The deepening of the relevant debate and the corresponding cooperation of anarchists at an international level are basic prerequisites for the strengthening of the anarchist struggle, that is, the strengthening of the very social and class resistances that can protect societies from the threat of war and the intensification of exploitation and oppression.

Ouzo : Efcharisto para poli sidrofoi. Do you have something else to say ? A slogan to share ?

Thank you very much for this interview and we send our solidarity to the comrades all over the world who are fighting in every corner of the earth for a society of Equals, without exploitation and oppression, without masters and slaves, for the new world that we carry in our hearts!

As a closure, we will borrow a phrase from the indigenous Mapuche: MARICHIWEU! (“We will win a thousand times”)

Long live Anarchy!