Auto-Summary
Russian anarchist organization Avtonom has translated essays discussing the potential impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on social revolutions in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. The war has created a fertile ground for nationalists and militarists to recruit across Europe. NATO's weapons will remain in the region, intensifying future civil wars. Anarchists hope to promote solidarity between anti-war, anti-nationalist, and anti-state movements, advocating for grassroots action to interrupt war and exploitation. The article emphasizes the importance of understanding the potential challenges for social movements in the region post-war and the need for resistance against the Ukrainian government and its allies.
A couple essays from the Russian anarchist organization Avtonom (officially blocked in Russia since yesterday!) have been translated into English. Just one Russian anarchists perspective on how this war may influence social revolution in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russian going forward.
___ ___ ___The Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown Eastern Europe into disorder, disrupting an already volatile world order. But what will follow the war? And how will the outcome shape the prospects for revolutionary movements in the region?
The war has created a fertile ground for nationalists and militarists to recruit in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and elsewhere across Europe. The weaponry that NATO is sending into Ukraine and the surrounding regions will remain there for years to come, intensifying the body counts in future civil wars throughout the region modeled on the proxy wars in Donbas and Syria. The soldiers who survive the fighting will bring back the consequences of traumatic experiences, which some of them will revisit on their own communities—or on others’ communities as mercenaries in future conflicts. Patriarchy and fundamentalism typically intensify as a consequence of warfare, as we have seen from Lebanon and Palestine to Iran and Afghanistan—and arguably, to a lesser extent, in the United States as well, following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
As Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged himself, this war is a step towards a world of permanent militarization, in which the Israeli model of militarized policing will become the norm and brute force will be the chief means of resolving political differences. Massive refugee populations displaced by wars and economic and ecological crises will be segregated according to national and ethnic hierarchies—received into welcoming homes, crowded into internment camps, or pushed back into the borderlands to die.
In response to all of this, anarchists hope to advance another vision of the future, establishing solidarity between anti-war, anti-nationalist, and anti-state movements across all borders and lines of difference.
Rather than identifying with any government or capitalist coterie, pointing to the misdeeds of some to excuse the misdeeds of others, we aim to build the capacity to interrupt war and exploitation by means of grassroots action. [emphasis mine] Anticipating the challenges that social movements throughout the region will face after this war could help us to set our priorities.
With our Russian comrades, we have prepared a
translation of the following article by Vladimir Platonenko exploring what the prospects will be for social struggle in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia after the war is over. You can read an English translation of an earlier article of his about the war
here. Though Platonenko takes for granted that Russia will be soundly defeated—which we hardly consider a foregone conclusion—we consider this text valuable in that it shows the dangers of identifying with the Ukrainian government and emphasizes the responsibility of Russian liberals for the situation in Russia today, which could be repeated all over again even if Putin is somehow ousted from power.
___ ___ ___About the war with Ukraine1I do not believe that “the worst republic is better than any monarchy”. Everything is determined by grassroots activism of the masses, not by voting in elections. But in this case, the Ukrainian people are much more independent of the government and much more influenced by it than the Russian people. Putin considers this to be Ukraine’s weakness, but in fact it is its strength. This is the main reason why the army of the “full-fledged state” cannot cope with the army and self-defense units of Ukraine: slaves fight badly, while free people who do not want to be slaves fight well. This is one of the main reasons why Zelensky is perceived as a lesser evil even by his opponents in Ukraine.
A lesser evil tends to transform into a bigger one, which makes it unreasonable to support a lesser evil. However, in addition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, there are territorial defense units in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government is forced to support them. Willingly or unwillingly, it has distributed weapons to the people. And now there is a third force in Ukraine – the armed people. In addition, as once in republican Spain, units of foreign volunteers are coming to Ukraine. Finally, partisan militias may emerge in the occupied territories. One should not idealize all this, the Ku Klux Klan was also a product of self-organization of a part of the people; but an armed self-organized population is the only force from which something good can emerge. Everything will depend on self-consciousness–the people’s self-defense units as a whole are just as “good” or “bad” as the people as a whole. That said, they are heterogeneous, as are the people as a whole. Anyway, as of today they are the only force worthy to be supported. And if I were asked where an ordinary Ukrainian, who doesn’t want to sit idly by, should go, I would answer: “If he or she can, create one’ own unit, if not – join the self-defense brigades. Or join a partisan unit.”
The Ukrainian government is now forced to support this force. However, when the situation changes, it will try to get rid of the Territorial Defense units, the volunteers, and any other self-organized brigades. Recall the fate of the Donbass battalion, which was deliberately left without support and in a knowingly doomed position. Fighters of self-organized units should keep this in mind.
2It is more difficult for the inhabitants of the Russian Federation: all grass-roots initiatives are crushed here, and apart from street protests, which are also brutally crushed, the Russians can only offer passive resistance to the war: avoiding recruitment, desertion, voluntary surrender. In the future, even rebellions by soldiers may become possible, but for now, their prospects are doubtful. Although I have received information about mass refusals of contract soldiers to go to war with Ukraine, but I do not know how accurate this information is.
If I am asked whether I should switch sides if I have the chance, I will answer: “Only to independent units. I can perfectly understand those who would like to join AFU (Ukranian army, translator) , but I consider this to be a mistake.
Mass strikes and refusal to pay taxes would be great resistance against the war, but I do not think that with the current level of self-organization that is possible in the Russian Federation. However, in the future I do not rule out social uprisings caused by the problems that the war will bring and has already begun to bring to Russians. In the latter case, along with the usual social demands, protesters should demand an immediate end to the war.
This demand will naturally be supported by liberals, but ordinary Russians should by no means trust liberals. The liberals and oligarchs are the ones who brought Putin into power to protect what was looted under Yeltsin, and just because Putin eventually escaped their control does not mean that they are any better. Even now they are trying to blame the war and all the troubles it caused on the common people by repeating the official lie about mass support for Putin by the “heartland people”. I repeat, Putin was brought to power by oligarchs and liberals, they are responsible for this war, not the people, deprived by their efforts of any influence on the government, it is them, not the people who should pay for the war. Therefore, the anti-war alliance of the people with them, the alliance with the thieves against the bloodsuckers can only be temporary. This is not even an alliance, but a temporary truce during the fight against a common enemy, nothing more, and people should understand this (the liberals and businessmen themselves understand this very well). Let the reparations and contributions be paid by those who started this war.
Under conditions of low self-consciousness and the long-term propaganda of bourgeois values, a decline in living standards can lead to both social uprisings and attempts to save oneself at the expense of others (by robbery, fraud, and looting). One has to be prepared for this and to fight against it. The only alternative to a war of all against all is a grassroots war against the upper classes and a social revolution.
3Belarus is in an intersectional position between Russia and Ukraine. Some of its citizens go to Ukraine to fight against Russian troops. Having gained combat and organizational experience, they can then begin an armed struggle on the territory of Belarus. However, such a struggle is doomed to failure without the support of the working population, without the support of the very factory workers and rural women and men digging potatoes, who were treated with such contempt and disdain by the “modern” protesters 2020 (which was one of the main reasons for their defeat). On the other hand, a change of power in Belarus without taking into account the interests of urban and rural workers would simply be replacing bloodsuckers with thieves, replacing one exploiter with another.
4Finally, let me remind you that war is one of the products of capitalism. This does not mean that there are no wars without capitalism, but that there is no capitalism without war. And if for some businessmen this war means the loss of their wealth (or a significant part of it), the loss of their accounts and real estate, for others it means new profits, new accounts, new real estate, new contracts, in short – an increase of their wealth. Workers on either side of the war will only lose, some more, some less; none of them will benefit. The workers of different countries have nothing to sell, but they are sent into battle and reparations and contributions are collected from them in favor of the businessmen and bureaucrats behind the front lines.
The only outcome of a war that would be different is a social revolution. And the more the majority of workers on all sides understand this, the higher the chance that such a revolution will take place.
___ ___ ___War and Social Struggle in UkraineThe worst thing Putin has done in Ukraine is to reconcile the authorities with the people. The president has turned from an object of universal criticism into the Ukrainian Charles de Gaulle. The general of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry offers to deliver himself to the Russian army in exchange for the release of civilians from the besieged city and becomes a national hero. The entire population of Ukraine, from the homeless to the oligarch, unites in a common struggle. It is the same as in the USSR in 1941, when Stalin called everyone “brothers and sisters” and people believed in his sincerity. If that war was a domestic war for the USSR, then this became a domestic war for Ukraine. Kharkov and Mariupol are perceived as Stalingrad, Leningrad or the Brest Fortress. Remember how Vysotsky sang about the Leningrad blockade? “Everyone was starving, even the prosecutor.” Well, not everyone starved, and none of the higher officials died of dystrophy. But in the memory of the people, it remains the way as the poet sang. The same will be said and sung about Mariupol or Kharkov.
And when the war will be over, all the hardships will be blamed on it. The hungry and homeless will be reassured by the fact that they won. And the social Maidan [i.e., uprising], which is slowly brewing in Ukraine, will be postponed for a long time.
It already happened after annexation of Crimea. On the Maidan [i.e., in 2014], many people said that after Yanukovich, we would have to deal with the oligarchs next. After Russia took Crimea, this was forgotten. “Not now. The fatherland is in danger.” Now it’s happening again, but in a much harsher tone.
To be fair, the contradictions between the authorities and the people, and the difference in the interests and goals of the upper and lower classes, have not disappeared. In the Poltava region, if I am not mistaken, they confiscated from the villagers… eleven Russian tanks (abandoned by the Russians). That is, the villagers were going to use these tanks as plows or tractors, and the Ukrainian army confiscated them. But for now, such contradictions are resolved in favor of the government—in the name of a common victory.
Ukraine has always been good at one thing: it was always normal to depose the ruler who displeased the people. This made it different from Muscovy (ancient Russia), where the figure of the Tsar was sacred. The exceptions were the Time of Troubles, which was ended by the merchant (Minin) and the prince (Pozharsky). But in Ukraine, it has always been the rule that unpopular leaders are forced out. This Ukrainian tradition goes back at least to the Cossack times. How many Ukrainian Cossack atamans have paid with their positions, and sometimes with their lives, for “unpopular measures”! Whether this tradition will continue now is hard to say.
It is possible that it will. It is not only the Ukrainian army that is fighting the Russian army, but also the territorial defense units. That is to say: ordinary people—who now have weapons. They might keep them. They will feel involved in the victory and demand respect from the authorities. The authorities will not be able to simply scatter them into camps, like Stalin did with the front-line veterans of the Second World War.
But the authorities can trick the people by redirecting their anger from the state to the external enemy. This will be especially easy if Russia is defeated, but not finished off. Not to mention the fact that all this will happen after the victory. And before that, there will be a holy war, in which the people and the Party are one, are united. That is, the people and the government, in this case.
In BelarusIf in Ukraine, the war had reconciled the authorities with the people, or rather, the people with the authorities, then in Belarus it is rather the opposite. Lukashenko is not eager to go to war. He does not want to get involved in this showdown, either. However, he has to take part in it, even if only by permitting Putin’s army to pass through his territory. And the question of the Belarusian army joining the war remains open.
The people do not want war with Ukraine. They even organize sabotage on railroads. Moreover, Belarusian volunteers are already fighting on the side of Ukraine, formed into a separate unit. It’s clear that in the future, this will become the basis of the anti-Lukashenko army. One can imagine which side will receive the sympathy of the majority of the Belarusian people, if there is a war between the supporters and opponents of Lukashenko. Since the West does not recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president, it must be assumed that the anti-Lukashenko army will not be short of food, equipment, or weapons. And most likely it will win. The question is what will happen in Belarus afterwards.
Belarusian liberals have shown their worthlessness by ruining the 2020 protests. However, this will most likely not prevent them from claiming their part in the victory (“We worked hard!”) and laying claim to a place in the government. The more so since the entire united West will be on their side.
There are practically no Leninists in Belarus. That niche is occupied by Lukashenko himself, who promised to preserve the welfare state in exchange for the obedience of the masses. Classical nationalists are also weak there—considering them his main enemies, Lukashenko has repressed everything associated with Belarusian culture. On the other hand, there are “anarcho”-nationalists [sic]. However, it’s hard for me to estimate how strong they are.
At the same time, up until the events of 2020, there was a fairly strong anarchist movement in Belarus. Unlike liberals, anarchists did not give flowers to riot police or urge others to do the same. No wonder many of them ended up behind bars. But even after that, as I understand it, there are quite a few anarchists in the Belarusian detachment fighting in Ukraine. At least, that’s what the photos show. So, unless the Ukrainian authorities or the Belarusian opposition “dispose of” them (and most likely the Ukrainian authorities won’t need to, and the Belarusian opposition simply won’t be able to do so before the victory), then after the victory over Lukashenko, the anarchists could become an independent force in Belarus.
In RussiaThe worst situation is in the Russian Federation. The most active, capable, and educated part of the population flees abroad, or is ground to dust in wars. Some of the soldiers who surrendered to the Ukrainians have gone over to the side of Ukraine and intend to fight on that side. But these people are too few to enter Moscow as liberators of Russia. The most they can hope for is that, in the event of the defeat of the Russian Federation, its government will agree to let them return to the country not as foreigners and national traitors, but as full citizens. At the most, they might be particularly respected citizens, but nothing more than that.
If Yulia Latynina is to be believed, there is a project to create a network of Russian emigrants, but what is behind that and where it will lead are not yet clear. The fact that the social Darwinist Latynina is pinning her hopes on this is more alarming than encouraging for supporters of social justice.
In today’s Russia, with its monarchist traditions, any sort of struggle against the current regime is strongly associated with Navalny and the liberals, on whom Navalny is most likely to place his bets, just as Yeltsin once did. This could lead to a repetition of the Yeltsin era, and then the Putin era. Let me remind you that it was Yeltsin and his liberal entourage who first ruined and robbed the Russian people, then appointed Putin to guard the loot.
This also means that it is the liberals who are directly responsible for Putin coming to power and for all the atrocities he perpetrated. However, they are determined to pin the blame on the common people and make them foot the bill, which the West will present to a defeated Russia.
It should be added that if in the wild 1990s, the Russian businessmen were saved from a new popular revolution by gangster strife, which killed off a significant part of the active population (and not the worst part, because in such strife, the first ones to die were the ones who retained a vestige of their humanity, whereas the worst scoundrels survived), now that part same of population will be ground up in the war (and in similar strife after it, when the soldiers who are accustomed to robbing and killing will return from the front).
In short, unless some “black swan” flies to the aid of the Russian people, Russia will repeat the Yeltsin-Putin three decades, after which the country will most likely perish [sic], except for Moscow and a few other regions, where there will be established a “thriving economy” with a 12-hour workday for the common people and elite restaurants and brothels for the oligarchs.
Possible DisintegrationAmong other things, this “black swan” could be the breakup of the country into various regions. Neither Russian liberals nor the West want this, because then it will be unclear from whom to take reparations. Actually, the unwillingness to pay—literally as well as figuratively—for Moscow’s atrocities may become one of the reasons for various regions to separate. At the moment, such separation is impossible, because it would be quickly suppressed by the federal army, against which the regions simply have nothing to oppose. But after the defeat of Russia, the situation may change, as the federal army will be weakened and the regions will have their own local military formations.
If the country collapses, the monolith of vertical power will also collapse, and no one will be able to impose their model of economy on the whole country, from the Baltic to the Kuril Islands, as was done in Russia (it should be remembered that one of the chief reasons for the first Chechen war was the rejection by Chechnya of the Gaidar-Chubais model of privatization). We have already talked about the chance to avoid paying off the reparations (which the authorities will try to force on ordinary people, not corrupt officials). Finally, territorial disintegration will enable revolutionaries and other troublemakers to escape the persecution of the authorities, if necessary, by simply moving to a neighboring region—and, when necessary, to all gather in one region, the way that activists from different countries gathered for the Maidan.
But all this will only come to pass if the collapse follows the Latin American model, in which all the residents of the former province (whose borders do not coincide with ethnic borders) retain equal rights regardless of their language and origin, rather than the African model, in which members of one ethnic group consider the new country their own and all its other residents are (at best) assimilated, (at worst) exterminated, or else simply reduced to second-class citizens. In the latter case, instead of social struggle, we will get inter-ethnic conflict.
The secession of Ukraine took place according to the Latin American model; in modern Ukraine, there are as many people with Russian, Jewish, or even Armenian surnames as there are Ukrainian names among the soldiers of the Russian army that invaded Ukraine, while the discrimination of the Ivanovs and Koganovs in Ukraine exists only in the inflamed imaginations of those who listen to Solovyov and Simonyan [prominent Russian TV propagandists]. But the separation of Chechnya followed the second model described above: not only Russians, but also representatives of other ethnic groups faced discrimination from the Chechens themselves. And right now, it’s hard to say which of these possibilities would play out if the breakup of the Russian Federation were to take place.
This will depend on many factors, including ourselves—although, unfortunately, not just us.
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Cultivation Supplies 
Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale 
Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order 
Spores for European Microscopy
koods 
shivas.wisdom 
[Re: 
Edit 
Reply 
fft2
Anonymous
Starter
usefulidiot
Krishna
zahudulallah
1 2 3 4 5 all )
PsiloKitten
Rono
