Is a protracted war a chance for revolution? ---- As everyone is tired
of repeating, "no change on the Western Front." Another episode of the
apparatus struggle has recently ended in the Russian army. The group of
conditional Sechin, Chemezov and Zolotov finally achieved the removal of
Shoigu from the post of Minister of Defense. They appointed the vague
"conservative economist" Belousov instead. Now the Russian army is
controlled either by the FSB, or by someone else.
In any case, this fight of bulldogs under the carpet has not changed
much yet. The front is not moving, with the exception of Russia's rather
ostentatious "offensive" of 10 kilometers in the Kharkov region. The war
turns into a routine.
But against the background of this routine, some interesting processes
also occur. Somehow, very calmly and without noise, this and last week
the rhetoric of Western politicians changed quite radically on two
points. Firstly, almost all of Europe and the United States have given
Ukraine permission to use Western weapons to attack Russia within the
2014 borders. It seems like the highmars already arrived in Belgorod on
Saturday. Secondly, they talk about the participation of instructors and
even NATO soldiers in the war right on the territory of Ukraine as an
already decided and completely ordinary fact.
It is not yet very clear whether this still means a purposeful
escalation and bringing us closer to the Third World War or, on the
contrary, it means that Western governments are convinced that all
Putin's "red lines" are bullshit, and they don't have to bother
observing them, but just help Ukraine.
But it seems that in any case, this is additional confirmation that the
war in Ukraine will, unfortunately, last for a long time. Well, most of
the previous unsuccessful aggressive imperialist wars in the history of
Russia ended in one way or another with the fall of the regime within
the country (remember the First World War and Afghanistan). It seems
that now it is important to find ways of political propaganda within the
Russian troops in order to increase the scale of both simple desertion
and outright rebellion. People usually don't like to fight for a long
time on foreign soil. Will veterans of the so-called "SVO" be one of the
drivers of Russia's transformation in the direction opposite to
dictatorship? It seems crazy for now, but we'll see.
Superman Ruslan Sidiki
Meanwhile, even now there are still people inside Russia who directly
and radically oppose Putin's military machine. Now there is a collection
to pay for a lawyer for the anarchist Ruslan Sidiki. Let us remind you
that he is accused of attacking the Dyaghilevo military airfield with
quadcopters and blowing up railway tracks in the Ryazan region. These
routes were used to transport military equipment and supply fuel to the
Russian army in Ukraine. The FSB eventually captured Ruslan, but in
general he is just a superhero, and one day they will definitely make an
exciting movie about him. There are quadcopters, and self-exploding
video cameras around the rails to control that it is freight trains that
are being blown up, and not passenger ones, and much more. Help Ruslan!
But nevertheless, what will happen after the war, what will replace the
Putin regime?
Triple Anarchy
It is important to think now about what is a real alternative. And what
is the place of anarchism in this alternative. We are not the only ones
playing on this field. For example, there is such a structure "Civil
Council" - this is a kind of association of Russian citizens who fight
on the side of Ukraine in the Siberian Battalion, the RDK and the
Freedom of Russia Legion. In general, it's like "foreign legions" within
the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Plus, of course, those who do not fight
themselves, but support.
The "Civil Council" is, as it were, an attempt to give some kind of
unified political face to the rather heterogeneous units consisting of
all these battalions and corps. We know that these units are really
heterogeneous - from outright Nazis with swastikas and Celtic crosses in
the RDK to completely normal people in the Siberian battalion, for
example. And recently, the "Civil Council" released a statement saying
that they are "moving from recruiting for the Siberian Battalion of the
Armed Forces of Ukraine to creating a political and military alternative
to Putinism on the territory of the Russian Federation." And there,
among other things, some desirable properties of this "alternative to
Putinism" are listed.
Just in case, I am not going to criticize the "Civil Council" as a whole
now (this is a separate topic). Everyone has the right to have any
political views, and those who fight against the occupiers with arms in
their hands are generally given enormous respect. But still, in this
"alternative" from the "Civil Council" there is one point with which it
is difficult for an anarchist to agree. It seems to be about
"self-government of society", but on the other hand it is constantly
repeated that "only professionals can create a successful future, it is
professionals who should become the new political class." Moreover,
these "professionals" clearly have a strong military bias.
That is, in essence, meritocracy is proposed - the power of "experts",
those who, as it were, are more professional and understand better than
others how to steer certain aspects of society.
Naturally, the question immediately arises of who defines
"professionalism" and what kind of caste system this is. And it must be
said right away that we, anarchists, offer another alternative, a truly
democratic one. Democratic - in the sense that decision-making is
distributed evenly throughout the population, and is not concentrated in
a narrow stratum of "professionals". There are many ways to turn
everyone's individual preferences into group decisions, but the idea
remains the same: all people have the right to participate in decision
making, we exclude no one.
This is the essence of self-government, this is the essence of the
society to which we strive. But we should not be helpless kittens on
this path, like this cat in the drawing of anarcho-partisan Sergei
Romanov from the cover of today's episode of Trends. You need to think,
and also rely on what the anarchists of the past discussed, so as not to
reinvent the wheel.
For example, if you are interested in the topic of an anarchist
alternative (both to Putin's Russia and to capitalism), then I highly
recommend reading the text that was almost a century old. This is the
so-called "Response of several Russian anarchists to the Platform." It
was written, as you might guess, by a group of Russian anarchists in
exile in 1927. It definitely included Vsevolod Volin, and some others.
In this text they criticize the project of the "Organizational
Platform", which was then put forward by other anarchists in exile,
including Nestor Makhno. It will be too long to list all the arguments,
read for yourself, I will focus on the interesting thoughts of the authors.
This is what they say:
"Anarchism is a synthesis of class, universal and individual elements.
The class element in anarchism is closely connected with the question of
the method of liberation struggle, the universal element is connected
with the foundations of general principles and the moral foundation of
the libertarian concept, the ideological sublimity of the libertarian
struggle and with the problem of the material and organizational basis a
new emerging society, and the individualistic element is associated with
the philosophical basis and the most developed ultimate aspirations of
libertarian thought."
Here, in fact, we see a very clear concept of a three-level structure of
libertarian political activity and goal setting. Here there is 1) the
method of achieving the goal, 2) the goal itself, and 3) the
philosophical basis for this goal.
It is essential that all three layers or levels are equally important.
Individualism is the philosophical basis and meaning of the whole idea,
because ultimately we proceed from the highest value of each person and
his or her freedom. All for the sake of this one way or another.
Therefore, any punk counterculturalist is also an anarchist, even if he
does not seem to engage in any political activity. Next comes
"universal." It's about what kind of society we think will best provide
this most individual human freedom. This is libertarian communism, a
stateless and classless society of self-government and
self-organization. This is what we want, what we strive for. And
finally, the method of transition from a modern capitalist society to a
libertarian-communist one is class struggle, syndicalism in the broad
sense of the word. That is, the unification of people along the lines of
contradictions that objectively exist in capitalism, in order to
overcome these contradictions and move towards libertarian communism,
gaining the experience of collective direct action and unalienated labor.
At the same time, class struggle is not a goal in itself, it is only the
most effective tool for achieving our universal goals. Maybe other, more
effective tools will appear later, who knows. But even libertarian
communism is not a kingdom of heaven for us, desired just like that,
because Kropotkin said. It's just that such a structure of society will
best contribute to the self-realization and freedom of each individual
person, and we believe that, in principle, nothing is more important
than this.
In general, donating to the fight against the regime and organizing
solidarity campaigns is super important. But at the same time, we must
not forget about the political reasons for what we are doing, and take
them into account when we are asked, "what is the alternative to Putin."
Because otherwise others will offer an alternative, and it's not a fact
that we will like it.
Fake Alternatives
By the way, I would like to finally talk about another alternative, as
it were, which is often heard from the mouths of, so to speak, "liberal"
anti-Putin oppositionists. Since the Putin regime has recently taken up
the fashion of squeezing large businesses from private owners and, like,
"nationalizing" them, the oppositionists with great indignation oppose
"a fair and honest free market" and "corrupt nationalization, a new
scoop" and that's all. It is assumed that we need to stop
nationalization, return factories, newspapers and ships from the state
to private owners, and then we will live.
Of course, this opposition is false. Firstly, the market and the state
are inseparable from each other, and are two sides of the same coin.
Moreover, they often appeared together. Here's what, for example, the
anarchist anthropologist David Graeber says in his excellent book Debt:
The First 5,000 Years of History:
"In fact, markets developed not as a way of convenient exchange between
acquaintances or random passers-by, but as the only possible way for the
state to feed and support its troops. The state could collect taxes in
any form convenient for it: livestock, slaves, precious stones. By
collecting taxes in coins (on one side of which a portrait of a
statesman was usually printed, as a symbol of power, and on the other -
value), while simultaneously paying for military service in money, the
state created an effective mechanism in which residents were forced to
support the army."
That is, the transfer of so-called "assets" back and forth from the next
billionaire oligarch to the next ministry and back does not change
anything. Actually, even liberal oppositionists are beginning to
understand this - in this sense, the new series "Traitors" from FBK is
in some sense iconic. It also shows that there would be no "free market"
without close interaction with government agencies. You can call it
"corruption", or you can simply say that the state and the capitalist
"free market" are such a two-faced Janus where it is difficult to
separate one from the other.
Well, it's even more strange to think that "private companies", on
average, are somehow more fair and beneficial to society than
state-owned ones. Private business exists in the interests of owners and
shareholders, its strategy is "to minimize costs and increase dividends
so that shareholders buy a new yacht." The owners of Alfa Bank or Lukoil
do not care about the poor people called "citizens", they have their own
tasks. Like in the song of the group "Pornofilms" "Kill the Beggars."
Naturally, the state of affairs in the so-called "democratic countries"
is not very different from Russia. Yes, the political regime there is
not so cannibalistic, but the shareholders of Boeing or British
Petroleum don't give a damn about the poor people called "citizens". So
it would be relevant to play a song by the Dead Kennedys, whose cover is
the song "Kill Beggars." Kill the poor!
So the means of production (the same factories, newspapers and ships, as
well as social networks, Internet search engines, data centers and 3D
printers) should not be in the hands of private businessmen, and not in
the hands of government officials. Moreover, in fact these are the same
hands.
No, instead we propose collective and decentralized management of
production - both tangible and intangible. Only this will make it
possible to create a society of true equality - both in Russia and
throughout the world. And, in turn, only this will help us move towards
true freedom for each individual and society as a whole. And this
movement is unlikely to ever end.
Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist
assessments of current events. Listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and
other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org, subscribe to our social
networks and e-mail newsletter.
Issue prepared by Mani
https://avtonom.org/news/individualnoe-obshchechelovecheskoe-i-klassovoe-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-160
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
of repeating, "no change on the Western Front." Another episode of the
apparatus struggle has recently ended in the Russian army. The group of
conditional Sechin, Chemezov and Zolotov finally achieved the removal of
Shoigu from the post of Minister of Defense. They appointed the vague
"conservative economist" Belousov instead. Now the Russian army is
controlled either by the FSB, or by someone else.
In any case, this fight of bulldogs under the carpet has not changed
much yet. The front is not moving, with the exception of Russia's rather
ostentatious "offensive" of 10 kilometers in the Kharkov region. The war
turns into a routine.
But against the background of this routine, some interesting processes
also occur. Somehow, very calmly and without noise, this and last week
the rhetoric of Western politicians changed quite radically on two
points. Firstly, almost all of Europe and the United States have given
Ukraine permission to use Western weapons to attack Russia within the
2014 borders. It seems like the highmars already arrived in Belgorod on
Saturday. Secondly, they talk about the participation of instructors and
even NATO soldiers in the war right on the territory of Ukraine as an
already decided and completely ordinary fact.
It is not yet very clear whether this still means a purposeful
escalation and bringing us closer to the Third World War or, on the
contrary, it means that Western governments are convinced that all
Putin's "red lines" are bullshit, and they don't have to bother
observing them, but just help Ukraine.
But it seems that in any case, this is additional confirmation that the
war in Ukraine will, unfortunately, last for a long time. Well, most of
the previous unsuccessful aggressive imperialist wars in the history of
Russia ended in one way or another with the fall of the regime within
the country (remember the First World War and Afghanistan). It seems
that now it is important to find ways of political propaganda within the
Russian troops in order to increase the scale of both simple desertion
and outright rebellion. People usually don't like to fight for a long
time on foreign soil. Will veterans of the so-called "SVO" be one of the
drivers of Russia's transformation in the direction opposite to
dictatorship? It seems crazy for now, but we'll see.
Superman Ruslan Sidiki
Meanwhile, even now there are still people inside Russia who directly
and radically oppose Putin's military machine. Now there is a collection
to pay for a lawyer for the anarchist Ruslan Sidiki. Let us remind you
that he is accused of attacking the Dyaghilevo military airfield with
quadcopters and blowing up railway tracks in the Ryazan region. These
routes were used to transport military equipment and supply fuel to the
Russian army in Ukraine. The FSB eventually captured Ruslan, but in
general he is just a superhero, and one day they will definitely make an
exciting movie about him. There are quadcopters, and self-exploding
video cameras around the rails to control that it is freight trains that
are being blown up, and not passenger ones, and much more. Help Ruslan!
But nevertheless, what will happen after the war, what will replace the
Putin regime?
Triple Anarchy
It is important to think now about what is a real alternative. And what
is the place of anarchism in this alternative. We are not the only ones
playing on this field. For example, there is such a structure "Civil
Council" - this is a kind of association of Russian citizens who fight
on the side of Ukraine in the Siberian Battalion, the RDK and the
Freedom of Russia Legion. In general, it's like "foreign legions" within
the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Plus, of course, those who do not fight
themselves, but support.
The "Civil Council" is, as it were, an attempt to give some kind of
unified political face to the rather heterogeneous units consisting of
all these battalions and corps. We know that these units are really
heterogeneous - from outright Nazis with swastikas and Celtic crosses in
the RDK to completely normal people in the Siberian battalion, for
example. And recently, the "Civil Council" released a statement saying
that they are "moving from recruiting for the Siberian Battalion of the
Armed Forces of Ukraine to creating a political and military alternative
to Putinism on the territory of the Russian Federation." And there,
among other things, some desirable properties of this "alternative to
Putinism" are listed.
Just in case, I am not going to criticize the "Civil Council" as a whole
now (this is a separate topic). Everyone has the right to have any
political views, and those who fight against the occupiers with arms in
their hands are generally given enormous respect. But still, in this
"alternative" from the "Civil Council" there is one point with which it
is difficult for an anarchist to agree. It seems to be about
"self-government of society", but on the other hand it is constantly
repeated that "only professionals can create a successful future, it is
professionals who should become the new political class." Moreover,
these "professionals" clearly have a strong military bias.
That is, in essence, meritocracy is proposed - the power of "experts",
those who, as it were, are more professional and understand better than
others how to steer certain aspects of society.
Naturally, the question immediately arises of who defines
"professionalism" and what kind of caste system this is. And it must be
said right away that we, anarchists, offer another alternative, a truly
democratic one. Democratic - in the sense that decision-making is
distributed evenly throughout the population, and is not concentrated in
a narrow stratum of "professionals". There are many ways to turn
everyone's individual preferences into group decisions, but the idea
remains the same: all people have the right to participate in decision
making, we exclude no one.
This is the essence of self-government, this is the essence of the
society to which we strive. But we should not be helpless kittens on
this path, like this cat in the drawing of anarcho-partisan Sergei
Romanov from the cover of today's episode of Trends. You need to think,
and also rely on what the anarchists of the past discussed, so as not to
reinvent the wheel.
For example, if you are interested in the topic of an anarchist
alternative (both to Putin's Russia and to capitalism), then I highly
recommend reading the text that was almost a century old. This is the
so-called "Response of several Russian anarchists to the Platform." It
was written, as you might guess, by a group of Russian anarchists in
exile in 1927. It definitely included Vsevolod Volin, and some others.
In this text they criticize the project of the "Organizational
Platform", which was then put forward by other anarchists in exile,
including Nestor Makhno. It will be too long to list all the arguments,
read for yourself, I will focus on the interesting thoughts of the authors.
This is what they say:
"Anarchism is a synthesis of class, universal and individual elements.
The class element in anarchism is closely connected with the question of
the method of liberation struggle, the universal element is connected
with the foundations of general principles and the moral foundation of
the libertarian concept, the ideological sublimity of the libertarian
struggle and with the problem of the material and organizational basis a
new emerging society, and the individualistic element is associated with
the philosophical basis and the most developed ultimate aspirations of
libertarian thought."
Here, in fact, we see a very clear concept of a three-level structure of
libertarian political activity and goal setting. Here there is 1) the
method of achieving the goal, 2) the goal itself, and 3) the
philosophical basis for this goal.
It is essential that all three layers or levels are equally important.
Individualism is the philosophical basis and meaning of the whole idea,
because ultimately we proceed from the highest value of each person and
his or her freedom. All for the sake of this one way or another.
Therefore, any punk counterculturalist is also an anarchist, even if he
does not seem to engage in any political activity. Next comes
"universal." It's about what kind of society we think will best provide
this most individual human freedom. This is libertarian communism, a
stateless and classless society of self-government and
self-organization. This is what we want, what we strive for. And
finally, the method of transition from a modern capitalist society to a
libertarian-communist one is class struggle, syndicalism in the broad
sense of the word. That is, the unification of people along the lines of
contradictions that objectively exist in capitalism, in order to
overcome these contradictions and move towards libertarian communism,
gaining the experience of collective direct action and unalienated labor.
At the same time, class struggle is not a goal in itself, it is only the
most effective tool for achieving our universal goals. Maybe other, more
effective tools will appear later, who knows. But even libertarian
communism is not a kingdom of heaven for us, desired just like that,
because Kropotkin said. It's just that such a structure of society will
best contribute to the self-realization and freedom of each individual
person, and we believe that, in principle, nothing is more important
than this.
In general, donating to the fight against the regime and organizing
solidarity campaigns is super important. But at the same time, we must
not forget about the political reasons for what we are doing, and take
them into account when we are asked, "what is the alternative to Putin."
Because otherwise others will offer an alternative, and it's not a fact
that we will like it.
Fake Alternatives
By the way, I would like to finally talk about another alternative, as
it were, which is often heard from the mouths of, so to speak, "liberal"
anti-Putin oppositionists. Since the Putin regime has recently taken up
the fashion of squeezing large businesses from private owners and, like,
"nationalizing" them, the oppositionists with great indignation oppose
"a fair and honest free market" and "corrupt nationalization, a new
scoop" and that's all. It is assumed that we need to stop
nationalization, return factories, newspapers and ships from the state
to private owners, and then we will live.
Of course, this opposition is false. Firstly, the market and the state
are inseparable from each other, and are two sides of the same coin.
Moreover, they often appeared together. Here's what, for example, the
anarchist anthropologist David Graeber says in his excellent book Debt:
The First 5,000 Years of History:
"In fact, markets developed not as a way of convenient exchange between
acquaintances or random passers-by, but as the only possible way for the
state to feed and support its troops. The state could collect taxes in
any form convenient for it: livestock, slaves, precious stones. By
collecting taxes in coins (on one side of which a portrait of a
statesman was usually printed, as a symbol of power, and on the other -
value), while simultaneously paying for military service in money, the
state created an effective mechanism in which residents were forced to
support the army."
That is, the transfer of so-called "assets" back and forth from the next
billionaire oligarch to the next ministry and back does not change
anything. Actually, even liberal oppositionists are beginning to
understand this - in this sense, the new series "Traitors" from FBK is
in some sense iconic. It also shows that there would be no "free market"
without close interaction with government agencies. You can call it
"corruption", or you can simply say that the state and the capitalist
"free market" are such a two-faced Janus where it is difficult to
separate one from the other.
Well, it's even more strange to think that "private companies", on
average, are somehow more fair and beneficial to society than
state-owned ones. Private business exists in the interests of owners and
shareholders, its strategy is "to minimize costs and increase dividends
so that shareholders buy a new yacht." The owners of Alfa Bank or Lukoil
do not care about the poor people called "citizens", they have their own
tasks. Like in the song of the group "Pornofilms" "Kill the Beggars."
Naturally, the state of affairs in the so-called "democratic countries"
is not very different from Russia. Yes, the political regime there is
not so cannibalistic, but the shareholders of Boeing or British
Petroleum don't give a damn about the poor people called "citizens". So
it would be relevant to play a song by the Dead Kennedys, whose cover is
the song "Kill Beggars." Kill the poor!
So the means of production (the same factories, newspapers and ships, as
well as social networks, Internet search engines, data centers and 3D
printers) should not be in the hands of private businessmen, and not in
the hands of government officials. Moreover, in fact these are the same
hands.
No, instead we propose collective and decentralized management of
production - both tangible and intangible. Only this will make it
possible to create a society of true equality - both in Russia and
throughout the world. And, in turn, only this will help us move towards
true freedom for each individual and society as a whole. And this
movement is unlikely to ever end.
Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist
assessments of current events. Listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and
other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org, subscribe to our social
networks and e-mail newsletter.
Issue prepared by Mani
https://avtonom.org/news/individualnoe-obshchechelovecheskoe-i-klassovoe-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-160
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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