Interview with Portuguese Mapa - Jornal de Informação Critica -paper, published
in issue 35. Interview by Pedro Morais. ---- After the start of war in Ukraine wehave seen several protests in different cities of Russia, which have led to manybeing detained. Now that five months has passed since the beginning, can you tellus about the resistance and the anti-authoritarian and anarchist action inPutin's Russia? How is it possible for that resistance to exist and to act, andhow can we get insight and reports of the anti-authoritarian opposition fromRussia? ---- Anarchists have been part of the general anti-war protest. On thefirst day of the war, anarchists marched at the front of two non-permitteddemonstrations in Moscow. After the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny and therepressions against his hierarchical organisations, opposition has become moredecentralised. Most important networks are run by feminists, such as FeministAnti-War Resistance, or Human rights activists, such as Vesna (Spring) Youthdemocratic movement. Feminists prefer to organise in an anti-authoritarianmanner, often without visible leaders, and some of them are inspired by anarchism.Some anarchists concentrate on spreading anti-war propaganda and news, and byjoining various less risky actions or projects that provide legal support againstrepressions. Others organise clandestine direct actions. Autonomous Action doesthe former, Anarcho-Communist Fighting Organisation does the latter. You mayfollow these activities from these websites, but for anarchists in Russia, andfor the opposition in general, Telegram channels are the most important source ofnews, as the state failed to block access to Telegram.We have understood this imperialist aggression of Russia against Ukraine as asign of a ever-growing nationalist feeling in Russia. How do you characterise thenationalism in Russia and does it impose itself in the cultural diversity of theRussia Federation? And what is the role of the Russian far-right in it?Russian ultra-nationalism has a long history. Ultimately it is rooted in theSlavophilia-movement of the mid-19th Century, which was part of the generaltendency of romantic nationalism in Europe. Originally Slavophilia was a reformmovement based around the Orthodox Christian religion, but when the Russian elitestarted towards the end of the century to bring its ideas within state ideology,it became more similar to modern ultra-nationalism. That is, repression of thelanguage and culture of minorities, irrespective of their religion.After the revolution the white emigre community synthesised these ideas withfascism and national-socialism, and unlike anarchists and socialists, theymanaged to maintain organisational continuity until the beginning of Perestroikawith organisations such as the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS). Inthe Soviet Union nationalists started to re-emerge already in the 1950s, and inPerestroika times it quickly evolved into a flourishing ecosystem of nationalistpublications, organisations and networks.However, no dissidents ever came to power in Russia, and nationalist dissidentswere no exception of this rule. Although the elite started to once again flirtwith Slavophilia-concepts, such as Russian exceptionalism, already in the 90s,ethno-nationalists were directly antagonistic towards the Russian state, whichthey considered a multi-national mess ruled by disgusting red chekists.Nationalistic mass movements folded in the 90s, as they were not accepted toelections, and nationalists turned to terror. Worst year of nationalisticviolence was in 2008, when more than 100 people were murdered in nationalisticattacks.Soon authorities started to repress nationalists with a heavy hand, but the finalblow to the ethno-nationalist radical opposition was the war of 2014.Nationalists were split, those prioritising fight for a homogenous ethno-statemostly supporting Ukraine, while those prioritising building of a new empire,even a multi-national one, supporting Russia (few hardcore Nazis also choosingRussian side). Nationalistic opposition has not recovered from this split.Meanwhile, Putin and the Russian elite have moved towards a more nationalisticdirection. For thirty years, Putin tried to stress that Russian identity is notdependent on language or ethnicity, but now he is waging war in Ukraine aroundexactly these issues. This is of course shifting the whole concept of Russiatowards a monolinguistic ethnostate. There is already a backlash against this inthe territories of ethnic minorities, and it will only grow.Confronted with the imposition of war, how is the opposition to war in Russiacoming to be? Is the burden of Russian victims and the loss of the supposedbrotherhood with the Ukrainians already felt in Russian society?I have not been in Russia for 10 years. I know what is happening, what are theactions and statements etc., but I do not have the general "feeling" of thesociety. Yet, I currently see some contradicting signals.As in, one friend has said that she found St. Petersburg to be in completeapathy, when arriving there after being abroad during the first 4 months of thewar. Not only are there no protests, but people are not even discussing theproblem in the kitchen, which is a typical cliche from the Soviet times. On theother hand, there are also some new protest tendencies, such as the protests ofmothers of disappeared soldiers.Obviously the protest movement is having some sort of a lull, as people areexhausted, as well as disillusioned, after the first three months of protests,with more than 16 000 arrests in 70 Russian cities, seemingly made no impact. Onthe other hand, there are news of hundreds, possibly even thousands, of Russiansoldiers refusing to fight in the war (which is in fact completely legal, asthere is no war officially), so special camps are being set up to beat them intosubmission and to send them back to the frontline. Obviously, there will be a newwave of anti-war protests, which will not be "moral", but rather a reaction tomaterial worsening of the situation in the home front, and deaths in the front.Already anti-war arson attacks against military and logistic targets happen witha steady pace in Russia.We have seen different reactions within the leftist spectrum, and even withanarchists, towards this invasion of Ukraine by Russia, with some condemning itand others applauding it. How can you explain this divisiveness within thisspectrum on a global scale, and even within Russian and Ukrainian societies?Fortunately, I am not aware of any anarchists applauding the Russian attack!However, there are anarchists who want to maintain a position of "against both",even when this is completely abstract and without any concrete solution, asno-one is proposing some sort of Makhnovist fantasy suicide mission between twoarmies that would attack both the Ukrainian and Russian armies simultaneously.Instead of this kind of stupidity, Ukrainian anarchists are supporting efforts oftheir army to fight back against the Russian advance, and most of the Russiananarchists who still try to maintain some sort of struggle and not only "researchthe history of the movement" etc, are supporting them in this - although notalways making explicit public statements of this support, as that may haveserious consequences for known anarchists.The general discussion on what is wrong with the left would require not one, butseveral books. I think one of the factors is disillusionment on the outcome ofthe anti-colonial movements of the 50s-70s, due to which some have come to theextreme conclusion that national self-determination is a mistake, or at leastthat it is something that could be easily sacrificed for "peace".Some are still afraid of nuclear war, which is a threat, but they tend toover-estimate the risk. Many are only able or willing to analyse the world fromthe context of their own national history. I understand that the USA and Nato arehardly a benevolent force from the point of view of Latin America, Italy, Greeceor Yugoslavia. History repeats itself, but not every repeat is repeating the samestory.To be honest, after more than 100 years of anti-colonialist struggles, the leftis still not having a very good understanding on what is colonialism, and what isnot. In the history of the anarchist movement, there are also blind spots aroundthis. For example, Spanish anarchists were not very interested about resistancebeing crushed at Rif, until they desperately needed more allies against Franco,by then it being too late. I discussed these issues in my earlier texts "Whyshould we support Ukraine", and "Misconceptions about imperialism, and anarchistcollective traumas", but it seems like I should write even more.After five months of war, things continue not to be clear regarding what willhappen in the future. What do you think can be the future scenario on that regionand do you think it's a plausible scenario that a drastic change in Russiansociety can happen?All major transformations in Russian society during the last 170 years have beendue to failed wars. Abolition of serfdom was a consequence of the lost Crimeanwar, abolition of absolutism was a consequence of the lost war against Japan,abolition of monarchy was a consequence of a defeat of Russia in the EasternFront of the First World War, and abolition of the Soviet Union was a consequenceof a lost war in Afghanistan. Currently it does not seem that Russia is winningthe war in Ukraine, and there are plenty of historical examples on what could bethe consequences of a defeat. Actually, the only people I know who saw somethingpositive in this war last February were Moscow anarchists, who saw it as anopportunity, and probably as the last chance to get rid of Putin and his gangsave his natural death.On the other hand, if Putin manages to spin that he was beaten by anoverwhelming, cunning and unfair coalition of Nato, perhaps people will only feelresentment against the West, instead of anger against their own leaders. Soanything may happen. In Russia, you do not only know what will happen next year,you also never know what will happen tomorrow.----------------------------------------Anarchist Black Cross Moscow, established in 2003, has supported Russiananarchist and anti-fascist prisoners continuously for almost 20 years. WhenRussia invaded Ukraine, in February of 2022, we decided to widen our focus bysupporting anti-war prisoners.As of October 2022 we have run out of almost all funds to support anti-warprisoners and we launched a fundraising effort on the Firefund crowdfundingwebsite. Please join our fundraising effort by donating and sharing our call.Support our fundraising campaign in FirefundLinks for video- and podcast-versions:https://avtonom.org/en/author_columns/anarchist-anti-war-action-and-growing-nationalism-russiaYou can find the contact addresses of all prisoners in Russia supported by us_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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