Portland Anarchist Communiqué Signals Potential Escalation with Reference to “Attentat”
Executive Summary
An anonymous letter published on Rose City Counter-Info critiques Portland’s stagnant protest tactics against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field office and calls for a pivot toward decentralized direct action. Most significantly, the text invokes the term “attentat” — historically associated with anarchist assassinations and bombings — hinting at a possible shift in rhetoric from ritualized protest toward potentially violent escalation.
Key Judgments
Key Judgment 1
The invocation of “attentat” reflects a symbolic escalation in anarchist discourse, recalling historical precedents of targeted political violence.
Evidence: The communiqué ends by expressing hope that a “next letter” will be a “claim of an attentat,” evoking 19th–20th century anarchist campaigns of assassination and bombing.
Key Judgment 2
The communiqué uses “attentat” as both a provocation and a strategic signal, suggesting disillusionment with ritualized protest and openness to clandestine militant action.
Evidence: The text criticizes nightly ICE confrontations as futile and instead urges “striking where it will hurt their capacity to dominate.”
Analysis
The use of the word “attentat” is the most consequential element of this communiqué. In anarchist history, “attentat” referred to spectacular acts of political violence — including the assassinations of heads of state, bombings of parliaments, and attacks on symbols of power during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its deliberate invocation situates Portland anarchist frustrations within that tradition, signaling not just tactical dissatisfaction but a willingness to reframe militant resistance in explicitly insurrectionary terms.
The author’s critique of repetitive confrontations with federal agents — described as a “valiant rite” that fails to disrupt ICE operations — underscores the exhaustion and stagnation of Portland’s long-running protest culture. By contrast, the call for dispersal, snake marches, and attacks on “arteries of power” suggests an embrace of decentralized sabotage consistent with insurrectionary anarchist currents worldwide.
However, the reference to “attentat” likely functions more as rhetorical escalation than a definitive operational commitment. Anarchist communiqués often rely on symbolic language to inspire resonance within activist networks rather than to telegraph concrete plans. Still, the statement’s framing of future militant acts as a legitimate and even necessary break from stagnation introduces a discursive normalization of potentially lethal violence — a shift worth noting in the evolution of Portland’s anarchist scene.
The ambiguity lies in whether this invocation signals intent or simply serves as a provocation meant to stir activists out of inertia. Regardless, it highlights that a faction of Portland’s anarchist milieu continues to see traditional protest as inadequate and is increasingly willing to place historical anarchist violence at the center of its strategic imagination.
