Ban on pumpkins ---- First of all, our congratulations on the holiday
that is known in different countries as Halloween, Samhain, All Saints'Eve, Day of the Dead, and so on. In the Northern Hemisphere, summer has
ended and winter is beginning, the perfect time to commune with spirits.
In modern Russia, however, celebrating such holidays now looks
especially underground and countercultural: government agencies are
already banning the organization of Halloween celebrations in schools
and kindergartens, because, well, you understand - this is " imposition
of a system of ideas and values alien to the Russian people ." The RSUH
University hastened to salute and sent out a letter to its employees
stating that "posts about events on October 31 should not contain words
and phrases that are associated with Halloween (for example, pumpkin
treats, mystical, etc.) ."
It would be funny if it weren't so sad. It's unclear why the state
thinks it has the right to decide which "systems of ideas and values"
are alien to the Russian people and which are not. And why should the
"Russian people" unanimously share one single system of values, as if
they were not a nation made up of living people, but a box of tin
soldiers. However, perhaps the gentlemen in the Kremlin perceive the
population of the so-called "Russian Federation" in approximately the
same way - as a box of soldiers that can be arranged in any desired
patterns. Sometimes the people themselves perceive it this way. As the
essay "The Question of Dirty Work under Anarchism" (by the way, we
highly recommend it) says: "citizens have become so accustomed to
delegating everything to the state that they have acquired the
conviction that it knows much better what is happening in society than
society itself."
Since we are deeply disgusted by this logic, we hope that you have
properly celebrated or will celebrate the turn of the year to the winter
side, in spite of Putin, his company and the servile bosses at the
Russian State University for the Humanities. If you are going to sing
songs with the dead in the rusty wind, as in the song by Aquarium, then
at least it should be fun. And don't forget the pumpkin.
North Korean Tin Soldiers
Meanwhile, tin soldiers are soldiers for a reason, so that they can be
sent to war. Putin, of course, also sends the soldiers under his command
to war in Ukraine. However, both sides are currently experiencing a
serious shortage of people in the army. The Ukrainian state is not rich,
and is solving the problem in the simplest way available to it: forced
mobilization. We have already written that although we support the fight
of Ukrainians against Kremlin aggression, we cannot and will not approve
of forced conscription to the front. Moreover, judging by the news from
the east of Ukraine, those forcibly mobilized are not particularly
effective in countering the Russian offensive.
If we talk about Russia, then compared to Ukraine, it is a rich country,
and the Russian authorities are afraid of forced mobilization like fire,
since they got burned by it back in September 2022. So they solve the
issue with money - stupidly increasing payments to those who
"voluntarily" decide to go to the front as cannon fodder. Those who were
ready to self-dispose for 200 thousand rubles, apparently, have already
ended - now in some regions they are paying one and a half million or more.
But what is even more interesting is that the Kremlin is apparently
diversifying its sources of tin soldiers. Only the lazy have not written
about the fact that several thousand soldiers from North Korea have
already arrived in the Kursk region , close to the line of combat
contact. That is, even before this, 60% of the artillery shells in the
Russian army were of North Korean manufacture, and now manpower has
arrived. Apparently, Kim Jong-un sold his soldiers to Putin at a
reasonable price. It is difficult to imagine that some North Korean
soldiers were so imbued with Z-propaganda that they volunteered to go
fight for the "Russian World". Frankly speaking, it is more likely that
some of them hope that in the "fog of war" they will have a chance to
escape somewhere from both Putin and their beloved leader Kim Jong-un.
From a military point of view, these several thousand inexperienced
North Korean soldiers are unlikely to have a major impact on the
situation at the front. But politically, of course, this precedent of
sending entire military units from Korea to the front is very
significant. The alliance between the two dictatorships is growing
stronger, as is the alliance between the Russian Federation and Iran -
which, incidentally, is also a dictatorship, only of a
religious-fundamentalist nature. What is important for us is that this
alliance of dictatorships literally embodies everything that anarchists
oppose: authoritarianism, a totalitarian state, religious fanaticism,
mossy patriarchy and, in general, a complete focus on the past. At the
same time, despite public statements about opposing the "godless West,
which cares only about profit," neither North Korea nor Russia forgets
about capital accumulation: Kim Jong-un has a personal island, a whole
squadron of expensive sports cars and a yacht, and you know all about
Putin's palaces.
What is all this leading to? To the fact that every year the
confrontation between the coalition of the so-called "West" (the USA
plus Europe) and the so-called "union of dictators" is becoming
increasingly more pronounced, and this confrontation is increasingly
taking on a military, not just economic, character. We will not guess
what this will lead to in the near future, but it is important to say
the following. Bourgeois representative democracy has many critical
shortcomings and shameful pages in history, and humanity, undoubtedly,
still has to overcome this stage of its development. But even the worst
representative democracy is still better than Putin, Kim Jong-un and the
Iranian ayatollahs who execute women because their headscarves are not
tied correctly.
An interesting parallel to this can be found in an article from Jacobin
magazine about the attitude of Georgian trade union and leftist
activists to the local parliamentary elections that took place on
October 26. The Antijob collective translated the article into Russian .
Georgian trade unionists admit that both the ruling party and the
opposition are, in fact, right-wing, reactionary forces, but it is still
important not to let the reactionary force itself win completely: "This
is a question of protecting democracy, in the sense of containing the
ruling party and not letting it turn into this victorious, authoritarian
bourgeoisie that will expand capital even faster... For the development
of the labor movement, we need democracy, even if it turns out that it
has two right wings."
The definition of "victorious authoritarian bourgeoisie" could just as
easily be applied to the dictatorial regimes of Russia, North Korea and
Iran.
Apple is on the side of Putin and Kim Jong-un
As the joke goes - "you won't believe it, but..." Apple has once again
banned Russian users from accessing VPN. This time they blocked the
Amnezia VPN app - a service that facilitates the creation and use of
numerous VPNs that users themselves support. It is only blocked in the
Russian AppStore app store, apparently at the request of Roskomnadzor.
In fact, Apple already did this in July, we talked about it in one of
the "Trends" issues .
In general, there is nothing special to add here, except for the fact
that I repeat once again: do not fall for the advertising of Apple and
iPhones as supposedly "oriented towards user security". The entire Apple
ecosystem is a solid "black box", oriented not towards your security,
but towards the company's profits, and nothing more. If top managers
decide that in order to preserve profits, they need to cooperate with
the most cannibalistic regime - they will cooperate. And you won't even
be able to do anything, because the iPhone ecosystem is designed in such
a way that you can only install applications approved by Apple. Right
now, the entire European Union is trying to force Apple to allow users
to install applications from stores other than the "official" AppStore
through the so-called "Digital Markets Act", but the corporation is
kicking back as best it can .
And it's no wonder - if it were possible to use other stores, who would
need the AppStore, from which applications can be removed in one day at
the request of Putin, Kim Jong-un or another ghoul? And then goodbye to
the super profits that Apple receives from transactions inside each
application, and goodbye to control and de facto monopoly.
It would be better to use smartphones on Android and its derivative
operating systems. They are also strongly glued to the Google Play app
store, but at least they are not nailed down like iPhones. Maybe this is
one of the reasons why Apple has not yet been fined two undecillion
rubles in Russia , unlike Google? "Undecillion" is, by the way, 10 to
the power of 36, which exceeds the entire world GDP, but judges in
Russian courts do not bother with such trifles. Perhaps they have
already convinced themselves that mathematics and all sorts of degrees
are "ideas and values alien to the Russian people." Like Halloween.
Support political prisoners!
We have already written about how in early October in Yekaterinburg
people were detained at the Food Not Bombs action, they were feeding the
homeless. An administrative protocol was drawn up against one of them
for "violating the rules of participation in a public event." Well, here
is the good news: he was acquitted, the case was closed with the wording
"due to lack of evidence of an offense . "
It may seem like a small thing, but it is still a reminder that no
struggle is useless, and even in Putin's Russia, small victories are
possible. Hopefully, they will grow into big ones.
And of course, there are still not fewer political prisoners in Russia,
so don't forget to help them! Right now, a new collection has been
launched to support political prisoners, and among them are the
defendants in the "Chita case", anarchists Lyubov Lizunova and Alexander
Snezhkov.
November 8th will be the anniversary of the defendant in the "Network"
case, anarchist Viktor Filinkov , write him a letter, he will be happy!
Finally, the guys who are currently on trial in the "Tyumen case" really
need your support. They need money for travel expenses and payment for
lawyers' participation in court hearings. By the way, you can order
merch at the link , which will also help pay for lawyers.
Who, if not us, will support our comrades who find themselves alone with
the "dead in the rusty wind"? Only us. That is, you, those who are now
listening or reading these words.
Well, that's all for today! We remind you that in "Trends of Order and
Chaos" the participants 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 .
The issue was prepared by Mani
https://avtonom.org/news/pesni-s-mertvymi-na-rzhavom-vetru-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-182
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