Should we see an act of resistance? Or is it the translation of a real fear in the face of the disconcerting Donald Trump, re-elected for a second term last November? For several weeks, an old manual of resistance to fascism, declassified by the CIA in 2008, has become viral on the Internet. It is a very serious government guide dated the Second World War.
According to the site 404Mediathe guide has become the fifth book most consulted on Project Gutenberg, the world’s main download platform for free ebook and reference books. In December alone, it was consulted nearly 60,000 times, which placed it in second position of the downloads, just behind Roméo and Juliet. And for the only day of February 2, nearly 34,000 people obtained the little practical guide which has around twenty pages. Titled Simple sabotage field manual (“Easy sabotage field manual”), the document is full of techniques to assist civilians to resist their way against fascism.
“Simple method to sabotage” the company
“Sabotage can take the form of large -scale technical acts, which require meticulous planning and the intervention of specially trained agents, or countless simple acts that the simple citizen sabotor can perform,” begins the guide.
In 1944, the American federal government had published this confidential manual entitled Strategic Simple Services Sabotage Field Manual No. 3, supposed to serve as a practical guide on sabotage. Written by the founding father of the CIA, William J. Donovan, he gave clandestine agents a simple and effective method to sabotage industrial production, disrupt transport and communications and, even more interesting, degrade the productivity of organizations interior.
“This document describes ordinary sabotage techniques, as opposed to major sabotage operations, such as blowing up a bridge,” explains Simon Willmetts, specialist in the history of intelligence services at the University of Leiden ( Netherlands) to our colleagues from France 24. During the Second World War, “the goal was to give advice to lead citizens, especially in France, to simple but effective techniques to pose problems to the German occupier without awakening suspicions,” he continues.
“Flea War”
According to 404Media, on forums like Reddit, which bring together many American civil servants, many calls “to resistance” are launched against the efforts made by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to take total control of the state apparatus and in Make a loyal body.
At the start of Donald Trump’s first term in 2016, another work had become viral: dystopia 1984from George Orwell. “The spirit of time for these individuals is no longer for ideological discussions, as at the time of Donald Trump’s first mandate when everyone read was 1984 ‘, but to read more practical works to act “, Indicates to France 24 Robert Dover, specialist in intelligence and national security issues at the University of Hull. For the latter, the advice given by the sabotage manual fall under a “chip war”, “that is to say actions of low intensity but very irritating, like a chip on the muzzle of a dog” . This is Donald Trump warned.