A continuation of a debate over anarchist positions on Ukraine that previously ran on It's Going Down:
Possibilities to protest in Russia were already significantly limited before the pandemic, and during the last two years, from March 2020 to Russian attack to Ukraine, street demonstrations have been banned with the pretext of the Covid Pandemic. People were demonstrating persecutions against opposition leader Alexey Navalnyi, and in few other cases, but these ended in massive arrests.
We recently received this anonymous contribution, and we publish it as a part of ongoing discussion on the Russian invasion against Ukraine. Text does not necessarily reflect collective views of Autonomous Action.
Tekmil is an instrument of collective reflection. The historical root of what we know as tekmil can be traced to authoritarian communist traditions, such as Stalinism. Although, Mao was the first one among these traditions to put so much emphasis and importance to the methods of criticisms and self-criticism. Overall, we can state that critique and self-critique has been valuable for revolutionary movements in general, and has never been alien to non-authoritarian revolutionary movements in general.
In the context of Rojava, tekmil can be translated as "report" - further, one can trace the development and transformation of this meaning depending on the situation. Still, the literal translation makes sense to keep in mind - humbleness and shortness are valued in tekmil. It contains many cultural codes, mechanisms and ideological assumptions, and it requires an understanding and a solid philosophical and ideological foundation.
“Autonomous Action” (Avtonom) has always been a group that spreads anarchism in the Russian-speaking world. We don’t care about national borders. But no matter which states our activists are based, social change in Russia is very important to us.
Unfortunately, we must once again delay our festival, this time due to war. Our concept was always to be an open meeting of Russian (and not only Russian) activists in Helsinki. But now borders are closed, and it is unclear if any open social activism in Russia will be possible from now on.
But we plan to organise our festival anyway. We still have spaces and organising group. Our preliminary new dates for the festival are 6th-9th of January 2023.
I’m not surprised by the violence. I am not surprised because I know about the violence that occurs in Russia every day. Senseless cruelty is seemingly the norm for some Russians. I don’t have a ready answer to why this is the case. It’s worth asking sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists for an explanation.
Translation from Crimethinc., as part of a collection of anti-war texts from Russia.
ON MARCH 5TH, a solitary picketer stood in a public plaza in Ivanovo, a small city northeast of Moscow, with a homemade sign stating: “*** *****”.
This week, The Final Straw Radio spoke with Petr, a Russian anarchist member of the group Autonomous Action, who is living in Europe right now. For the hour we speak about the invasion of Ukraine, a bit about the resistance inside of Russia to the war drums and the Putin regime, the dangers of a nuclear conflict, the impacts of increased sanctions and anarchists organizing across the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus against the war and against tyranny.
Hi, it's Sunday and you are listening to our podcast «Trends of order and chaos». This is episode 44. Here are the main events of the past week: the week of the war.
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The theory of the state is the reef on which the revolutions of our century have been shipwrecked.1 During the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the people brought about the fall of the regime, but the institutions of the state remained intact. Elsewhere the revolutions were drained in protracted civil wars. Everywhere that the old regime has seemed to be thrown down, it has found new sources of strength and risen again. What would it look like to finally break with this cycle?
In the past, insurrections have managed to defeat the state, rather than just a particular government. Insurrection is something more than a wave of riots, militant protests, blockades, occupations, and so on. It is the opening of a rupture, the search for that point after which no turning back is possible. If the revolutions of our time haven't defeated the state, we argue this is because there haven't been insurrections: there have been nonviolent uprisings, riots, armed struggles, and civil wars, but not yet insurrection.
We visited Yango premises in the Lauttasaari neighbourhood of Helsinki, on the night between the 9th and 10th of March. Yango is a Taxi application of Yandex, an IT company connected to the Russian state. Yango has hastily hidden its company symbols from the premises, but there has been no announcment of withdrawal from Finland. We do not care if business with connections to the Russian state are against the Russian invasion or not. Capital of these companies is maintaining the Russian war machine every day.
War in Ukraine has already increased the level of repressions in Russia, but there are not yet any new criminal proceedings against anarchist or anti-fascist activists. In this new exceptional situation, we are channeling some of our resources to humanitarian needs which go beyond our usual narrow focus of supporting repressed anarchists and anti-fascists.
In picture: action of Left Bloc activists against FSB.
The Russian army has invaded Ukraine. Putin has lost his senses and his army is bombing cities, shooting civilians, and killing children. More than one million people have fled the country in order to escape from Putin’s “liberators.”
Putin's aggression towards Ukraine continues. Protests all over Russia continue as well.
It is important that those protests don't stop. The world is watching Russian citizens, what will they do? Will they support the army that the Kremlin and billionaires sent to occupy the neighboring country? Or there is no one who is happy about this war. Do all Russians need this war or only Putin and his gang?
As the full scale military operation began this morning, it is important to show that the Russian people don’t need this shameful war. There were dozens of antiwar protests all over the country in the past days mostly in the form of single-person pickets, which according to Russian laws don’t need any notifications. But the majority of protestors were detained nevertheless.
Hello, it is Saturday, and we are continuing our podcast "Trends of order and chaos". This is episode 43. Of course, you know perfectly well what is the main topic of the last week.
Yesterday, on February 21, an extraordinary meeting of the Russian Security Council was held. As part of this theatrical act, Putin forced his closest servants to publicly “ask” him to recognize the independence of the so-called “people’s republics” of the Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR] and Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] in eastern Ukraine.
On Thursday, February 10, a Russian court handed down sentences for terrorism to three teenagers from the Siberian town of Kansk. The boys were arrested in the summer of 2020 for posting leaflets with political slogans on the local FSB building. After searching their phones and uncovering a “plot” to blow up a virtual rendering of an FSB building in the video game Minecraft, investigators charged the teens with making explosives and training to participate in terrorist activities.
The sentence in the case of the Kansk teenagers will be given on Thursday, the 10th of February 2022 at 3PM in Krasnoyarsk time (11 AM Moscow time, 8 AM GMT). Three anarchists from the Krasnoyarsk region are accused of “studying terrorism” and storing explosives. Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhayuulenko and Bogdan Andreev were arrested in the summer of 2020 for spreading leaflets that criticised the state, and for supporting political prisoners. At that time they were 14 years old.
This time around there's both good news and bad news, so lets start with the good ones.
Maxim ”Hadad” Smolnikov released from remand in custody
Although the online magazine "Assembly" is active since March 30, 2020 - as soon as there was a feeling in the air around that this hateful status quo had finally cracked - we consider September 6 to be the beginning of its real impact on the social life of Kharkiv.
The family of Maksim Smolnikov needs financial support to cover lawyer costs and the transfer to a pre-trial detention center. If you want to help, please transfer money to the ABC Moscow PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net) or if you are in Russia directly to the family account: 4274320068140352.
Ilya Romanov needs support for rehabilitation
Ilya Romanov has been an activist in the anarchist movement since 1987. He was sentenced to prison twice, for 10 years in Ukraine in 00’s and 7 years in Russia in the last decade. In 2019 he almost died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. Due to the delay in the medical intervention, he lost the capacity to move the right side of his body.
June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...
Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...