FROM RIOT TO INSURRECTION

“…but in the end, we will win.”

In 1992, following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the ruling class declared the end of history and the triumph of capitalism. Less than two years later, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas galvanized a worldwide movement against capitalist globalization. All around the world, history began to crack and move again, like a frozen river thawing in the spring.

This momentum culminated in July 2001 with the protests against the G8 summit, in what became known as the battle of Genoa. For days, tens of thousands of aspiring revolutionaries clashed with an army of police in a city on fire.

From Riot to Insurrection offers a vivid account of this pivotal moment. In electrifying prose, Tomas Rothaus escorts the reader through those explosive days, recounting the chaotic street battles, the exhilarating sense of possibility, the heart-wrenching moments of triumph and loss. This is an ode to audacity, to what we become capable of when we believe in our collective power.

The real lesson of the end of the Cold War is not that capitalism is inevitable; it is that empires always fall. While “socialism without freedom” had crumbled by 1992, “freedom without socialism” has yet to expire. That revolution remains possible—even today—provided that we fight for it the way people did in Genoa.

Tomas Rothaus is a lifelong anarchist, antifascist, athlete, and father. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and his nomadic life led to him moving around with stops in Athens, Boston, Buenos Aires, and Paris, followed by longer stints in Germany, and more recently returning to Argentina. He has been involved with a range of organizations including the CNT-Vignoles, Collectif Anti Expulsions (Anti Deportation Collective), Barricada Collective, Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists, Antifaschistische Linke International, and Acción Antifascista Buenos Aires. He has been a participant in militant demonstrations and antifascist mobilizations ranging from the 2001 Bush inauguration, the FTAA summit in Quebec, the G8 summit in Rostock, and the 2011 mobilization to stop the march of several thousand neo-Nazis in the city of Dresden. PM Press published his first two books, Another War Is Possible and Argentina, a Tale of Two Utopias.

Mark Bray is a historian of Modern Europe at Rutgers University and the author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook and The Anarchist Inquisition: Assassins, Activists, and Martyrs in Spain and France and the coeditor of Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader.