#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #RUSSIA #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Russia, avtonom: No One Will Give Us Deliverance: Trends in Order and Chaos Episode 86 (December 25) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 What have we been thinking about this past week? ---- 1. Courier strike ----

Suddenly, we're not going to start with a war. From December 20 to 25, a warning
strike of Yandex-food and Delivery club couriers is taking place in Moscow and
St. Petersburg. ---- Couriers demand that they conclude normal employment
contracts with them, stop hellish fines, reduce the delivery area - there are
several requirements, see the details at the link . ---- We consider this strike
extremely important. Indeed, independent trade unions are one of the few islands
of grassroots self-organization in the atomized Russian society. Uniting people
according to their professional affiliation and fighting for their rights
inevitably comes into conflict with both the authoritarian state and the business
that protects this very state. The more such associations, the better. And yes -
the closer the end of the war too.

Help the strikers! Do not order any deliveries during the strike. And if you
yourself work as a courier, then join the trade union "Courier" .

2. The trenches past and present
But, of course, one cannot remain silent about the war either. So far, not very
active pushing of Russian and Ukrainian troops with each other continues in
Ukraine, without any special surprises. Near Bakhmut and around it, soldiers with
stripes of various colors have been sitting in the trenches for almost half a
year. In recent months, on the Russian side, these are largely mobilized
civilians without normal weapons and means of communication; on the Ukrainian
side, supply and logistics seem to be better, but hardly dramatically. And
pumping up the front with cannon fodder from the Russian Federation will
obviously continue: as you know, Shoigu and Putin are already going to increase
the draft ageto 21 years, and the limit - from 27 to 30 years.

And here, for those who remember history, a question arises. One hundred years
ago, during the First World War, just a long trench warfare led to a wave of
desertions, riots and fraternization of ordinary soldiers from all sides of the
conflict. Then came the revolution in the rear. Is it possible to repeat the same
scenario now?

We have already discussed in our podcast the difference between the war in
Ukraine and the First World War. Indeed, the war of 2022 is imperialistic only on
the part of Russia - the Ukrainian state can be criticized for many things, but
it certainly does not pursue an imperialist policy, and cannot. The First World
War was indeed a clash of approximately equivalent empires. Therefore, it is
difficult to imagine how some Western "leftists" are doing, the uprising of all
soldiers (both Ukrainian and Russian) against their superiors.Soldiers and
participants in the defense on the Ukrainian side quite clearly understand what
they are fighting for, and besides, they see that, in general, Ukraine is more
likely to win (thanks to the huge support of NATO, of course).

But the soldiers of the losing and demoralized Russian army are probably close to
rebellion. The only question is how to shift this hypothetical rebellion to, so
to speak, the "anti-state side", and not to the pro-state side.

3. Revolt against the state or for more state
Let's think. Now the average mobilized Russian, disillusioned with the Russian
armed forces and Putin personally, is unlikely to immediately imagine anarchist
communes or even just an anti-war action in the spirit of "bayonet to the ground,
let's go home" as their ideal. He has other ideals before his eyes.

For example, semi-legal armed formations such as PMC Wagner. This is already a
quite powerful structure with artillery and aircraft, it has 50 thousand people,
they spend 100 million dollars a month on it. This structure with an
incomprehensible status is already receiving weapons directly from North Korea,
and Wagner mercenaries are buried in St. Petersburg on the Alley of Valor. Plus
all sorts of Kadyrov's detachments and super-popular bloggers like
Girkin-Strelkov who criticize the Putin regime from the positions that it is not
cannibalistic enough and more war and state are needed, not less.

These alternatives for the typical Russian mobilized are much simpler and clearer
than what the anarchists offer... Hmm, the question is, do anarchists (well, or
non-authoritarian leftists) offer anything at all. It seems that we all need to
think very seriously about what alternative we can show to a person who is
sitting in a frozen, dirty trench with a machine gun older than himself and is
waiting for the next shelling from the APU. The same applies to those who have
returned from the war, the wounded or demobilized in one way or another. How to
show them that standing under the flags of Prigozhin will not help them or their
families in any way? What specific actions can we urge them to, except "do not go
to war"?

A small digression from the topic. It will be possible to discuss this and other
topics at the anti-authoritarian festival "Santa Claus against Putin." It will be
held on January 6-7, 2023 in Helsinki in offline and online formats.

It is very important. After all, if Prigozhin and the fascist "military
correspondents" simply come to replace Putin, then neither the anarchists, nor
the liberation movement, nor, in general, those who now inhabit the lands of the
so-called "Russian Federation" will get better. However, there are serious doubts
that these "fascists more than Putin" have any chance of coming to power. The
current authoritarian political regime in Russia for two decades now has only
been busy increasing control over any potentially alternative elites. So perhaps
all these squabbles between Prigozhin, Kadyrov, governors, Strelkov and others
are only beneficial to Putin and do not pose any real danger to him.At the same
time, they create false alternatives: the soldier became disillusioned with
Putin, went to the Wagner PMC, and died there already.

Our task is to make sure that those who are disappointed do not go into these
fake alternatives, but create their own self-organized structures. And for this
they need to be convinced of the need for these same structures. The task is not
easy. But politically, this is almost the most important thing now and in the
coming months.

4. To whom is the war, to whom the mother is dear
Perhaps, by the way, that not months, but many years. With the support of almost
the entire world, Ukraine could really quickly defeat the Russian Federation in a
conventional non-nuclear war. But, as has been repeatedly said, the United
States, as the most militarily powerful country in the world, is not at all in a
hurry to pump weapons into Ukraine so much.

That is, the support is enough for Ukraine not to lose, but nothing more. The
reasons for this are quite cynical. To date, the United States has spent about 6
percent of its military budget on Ukraine, and the result was the grinding of
about half (!) of the conventional military potential of the Russian Federation
in the war. From a military point of view, it is insanely beneficial for the
United States that the war continues indefinitely - at least until this potential
is completely or almost completely destroyed. This is not some kind of
conspiracy, American military analysts say this quite publicly and openly.

And not only is the ongoing war for a penny fraying the Kremlin's army - it is
also beneficial to the private arms business, both American and European. The
longer the war, the more orders, the more other countries will switch to NATO
weapons instead of Russian equipment, which is shamefully losing in Ukraine.

And we are not saying this now to convince you that "America is to blame for
everything." The war, of course, was started by the Kremlin and Putin, and they
are responsible for it. But politicians and businessmen around the world are
taking advantage of this war and trying to get as many and varied benefits from
it as possible. The fact that trams and buses stopped running in Kyiv because of
the destroyed power supply system is the last thing they care about. And this
must be taken into account when analyzing the situation. As it is sung in the
"Internationale", "No one will give us deliverance - neither God, nor the tsar,
nor a hero" (well, or "not a deputy", as in the original).It is beneficial for
ordinary people to stop the war (and throw Putin off the throne). Generals and
directors in warm seats in safe countries may benefit from keeping the war going
for a long time.

5. With my own hand
Further on, the Internationale continues: "we shall achieve liberation with our
own hand." Judging by the fact that anti-war actions continue in Russia in
various forms, up to arson of military registration and enlistment offices , many
bearers of Russian passports share this thesis and do not run away ready to kill
Ukrainians, but vice versa. State Duma deputies (the very ones who certainly
"will not give us deliverance") are reinsuring themselves and have already
adopted in the third reading a law on life imprisonment for "sabotage." However,
he is unlikely to change anything: as former political prisoner Ivan
Astashinnotes , similar laws have existed since 2014, only they are about
"terrorism" and not about "sabotage." But pull up, of course,

In Russia, by the way, in general, in recent months something has often burned or
exploded. Either an oil and gas condensate field in the Irkutsk region , or a gas
pipeline in Chuvashia. That's just what, on the night of December 23, a military
unit in Moscow caught fire .

Again, there is a tendency to hope that these are some kind of covert partisans
or even all-powerful "Ukrainian saboteurs." But Occam's razor teaches us not to
multiply entities unnecessarily. A much simpler explanation is not sabotage, but
the banal degradation of infrastructure. There are a lot of buildings and
industrial enterprises in Russia - this is still a Soviet legacy. All this was
not in the best condition even under the USSR, and after 1991, a completely wild
plundering of everything and everything began.

Then 2014 brought the first large-scale sanctions, and with the outbreak of war,
support and repairs in many industries became almost impossible or very
difficult. Everyone knows that Russian airlines are forced to engage in
"cannibalism" - to dismantle some aircraft in order to repair others. But in
other industries, the situation is a little better. In such conditions, it is not
surprising that the equipment fails en masse and fires, explosions, accidents,
whatever. There will be more and more of this, and no saboteurs are needed for this.

The economy of the Russian Federation is writhing in convulsions, trying to find
some kind of model of existence in the new conditions, but in such a way that the
power remains with the same gang that has been driving Russia for the past 25 years.

And once again: to prevent them from doing this, an alternative is needed. In
many cases, the creation of a grassroots union (like a union of couriers) can be
more effective in terms of this very alternative than an explosion on some rails
that will be fixed in half a day. And in general, the creation of structures,
teams is much more effective than single actions.

6.Repression
And let's not forget that direct action is what excites Russian cops and FSB
officers the most, even a hint of direct action. Keep this in mind.

Even the stoker from Vologda, Vladimir Rumyantsev, was recently sentenced to
three years in prison, in fact, because he had his own underground radio, and on
this radio he opposed the war. It seems to us that this stoker is a hero, and
someday they will definitely make a film about him, like  "Rock Wave" , but only
much more serious.

Now in the "Tyumen case" the defendants have begun to extend the arrests . Recall
that six anarchists and anti-fascists were thrown into jail and tortured only
because two of them were going to test home-made firecrackers in a deserted
field. Don't forget to support the guys, write them letters and order t-shirts in
support - the money will go to lawyers, and you will have wonderful solidarity
merch. If you don't know what to give your loved one for the new year - give this
T-shirt.

A good gift to the whole world would also be a donation (if there is a safe
opportunity, and in Russia any transfers to Ukraine may result in persecution by
the authorities) of any amount to support peaceful Ukrainians suffering from
Russian shelling.

Continuing the theme of repressions, a year ago, on December 22, Belarusian
anarcho-partisans Igor Olinevich, Dmitry Dubovsky, Dmitry Rezanovich and Sergei
Romanov were given wild sentences of 20 years in prison. Our comrades also need
to be supported as much as possible. By the way, on the cover of this issue of
"Trends" there is a painting by Sergei Romanov, he is also a talented artist, not
only an anti-authoritarian and partisan.

Let's finish with an excerpt from the last word of Igor Olinevich at that very trial:

"What did I want? The main problem of any revolution, anarchists consider the
interception of the initiative by new leaders. As a result, slogans are
emasculated and the matter is limited to a change of elites and a small handout
to the people.

I wanted civic initiatives to unite on a network basis into a nationwide
Confederation and put forward their own program of political transformation,
directed towards direct participatory democracy and civil self-government,
without leaders and intermediary parties.

The uprising lives on hope. My hope, as an anarchist, is that in this social war
the will to freedom will nevertheless prove stronger than slave fetters. "

All of us in the team of the Autonomous Action media project are in solidarity
with Igor and wish him a speedy release. Which, of course, is possible only in
the course of the overthrow of dictatorships both in Belarus and in Russia.

Well, that's all for today! We remind you that in "Trends of Order and Chaos" the
participants of "Autonomous Action" give anarchist assessments of current events.
Listen to us on YouTube , SoundCloud and other platforms, visit our website
avtonom.org , subscribe to the e-mail newsletter!

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