Fourth Issue of Insurrectionary Anarchist Paper “Blessed Is The Flame” Circulates Internationally
Executive Summary
The fourth issue of the anarchist-nihilist newspaper Blessed Is The Flame was released in early September 2025, carrying counter-information, ideological essays, and numerous claims of responsibility for militant direct actions spanning Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Its multilingual distribution and inclusion of operational guidance—such as reflections on counter-surveillance and investigation files from Italy’s Operation Diana—underscore its role as both propaganda and a practical resource for anarchist networks.
Key Judgments
The new issue reflects a sustained effort to provide transnational anarchist milieus with propaganda, ideological framing, and tactical resources.
Evidence: The paper, published in seven languages, compiles counter-information from July–August 2025 and includes essays on surveillance, repression, and torture, alongside direct action communiqués.
By republishing detailed claims of responsibility, the paper amplifies anarchist militant activity across multiple continents.
Evidence: The issue highlights arson and sabotage incidents against defense contractors, energy firms, state institutions, and infrastructure in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, France, Greece, the United States, Canada, and Chile.
The publication’s inclusion of investigative details from Operation Diana and other case studies provides actionable insight into law enforcement methods and vulnerabilities.
Evidence: The issue summarizes Italian police surveillance measures—including GPS trackers, telecom metadata analysis, spyware attempts, and covert audio collection—framing them as exploitable weaknesses for anarchist groups.
Analysis
The release of the fourth issue of Blessed Is The Flame demonstrates the ongoing importance of media organs within the anarchist-nihilist and insurrectionary space. Unlike purely ideological zines, the publication actively fuses political theory, operational guidance, and propaganda of the deed, making it both a motivational tool and a knowledge-transfer mechanism. By presenting counter-information in multiple languages—including English, Greek, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Bahasa Indonesia—it cements itself as a transnational project that seeks to unify disparate cells and affinity groups under a shared discursive umbrella.
The most significant feature of this issue lies in its operational content. The summaries of police files from Italy’s Operation Diana, for instance, provide granular insight into state surveillance and investigative tactics. Such details are recontextualized as lessons for anarchists: highlighting not only what tools and resources states deploy, but also where fragmentation, resource limits, or human error may create exploitable gaps. This transforms state repression into raw material for counter-learning, an example of reflexive adaptation within anarchist counterintelligence culture.
The issue also aggregates responsibility claims from diverse geographies. The actions span from arson against Holcim machinery in Switzerland and sabotage of wind farm equipment in Italy, to anti-tourism actions in Greece, attacks on defense contractors in Australia, Canada, and the U.S., and solidarity riots in France and Chile. While the tactical sophistication varies, the mere act of centralizing these disparate claims into a coherent narrative lends the impression of a global, coordinated insurgency.
The thematic centerpiece is the remembrance of “Black August,” a tradition adapted from prison abolitionist and anti-authoritarian struggles. In this iteration, memory is explicitly tied to incendiary action, with fallen comrades invoked not only as symbolic martyrs but as participants in an ongoing, living struggle. This use of memory as a call to action demonstrates how affective bonds are mobilized to sustain militant continuity across generations.
The continued publication of Blessed Is The Flame underscores three enduring dynamics: the durability of decentralized anarchist publishing ecosystems, the global circulation of militant tactics and narratives, and the blending of ideological with practical-operational content. Its resilience—even under heightened monitoring—suggests that suppression of such outlets requires not only disruption of technical infrastructure but also engagement with the social and political milieus that sustain them.
