ACG: Can you introduce your organisation? Your activities etc.? ---- Czechoslovak Anarchist Association, CAS for short, is a new organisation that operates in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. After a few months of discussions and preparations we had our constitutional congress in the autumn of 2023 in the city of Brno in Moravia. CAS was founded by older participants of the movement, almost exclusively blue collar workers. Some of us were active in other Anarchist organisations which are now defunct. In the past, besides Anarchist Federation (AFED), the Federation of Social Anarchists (FSA), which was affiliated with International Workers Association (IWA), also used to be active in Czechia. Also, the Anarcho-Communist Alternative (Anarchokomunistická Alternativa - AKA), Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists - Solidarita that followed an example of Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland. Also strong was Anti-fascist Action (Antifashistická Akce) that was connected to FSA.
We see ourselves as Social Anarchists, i.e. Anarchist Communists.
Since AFED was the only active organisation and we've had our political differences for a long time, the outbreak of war in Ukraine was the last straw and we decided to start a new organisation in order to return the anarchist movement its class and internationalist character. Also to show that anarchism isn't just a lifestyle but a path towards emancipation of our oppressed class and last but not least to reinforce the fact that it is in contradiction with our principles to collaborate with the State, to join the Army, to take part in militarism and murder.
Currently, we mostly focus on educational and agitation/propaganda work - running our website and social media platform, publishing printed anarchist newsletters and pamphlets within the Anarchist Library for our self-education but also to introduce anarchism to the wider public. At the moment we are working on building the structure of our organisation and establishing local groups. And as soon as it is possible we will start organising public events/actions.
Some of our members are involved in Black and Red Scouts, Manufacturing Co-operative Solidarita and Seeds not Bombs initiative. Our members in Central Bohemia are organising music events under the banner 'Make Music Not War'.
Are you in contact with other organisations in different countries? Are you affiliated to any international federation?
We have to admit that our language skills are not very good which limits us to maintain contact with other countries. Currently we are in contact with you (ACG) and comrades from ACN. And with friends in Slovenia and Poland.
We are not a part of any international federations, maybe in the future but first we need to strengthen our own organisation.
We believe it would be beneficial for our movement in the rich North to support our comrades in the South. Support them materially so the movement in poor countries can grow because that's where a huge revolutionary potential can be found.
In short, what's the political situation in the Cexh Republic and Slovakia?
For both countries, as former satellites of USSR, low class consciousness is very typical. That helped transform both countries into colonies and assembly lines for Western European and American corporations. The wild restoration of capitalism after 1989 created a new elite of millionaires that became rich thanks to embezzlements and scams (so called tunnelling - misappropriation of whole factories). Agriculture was destroyed as well as many factories and industries. Unions are toothless and don't defend the interests of workers. Sporadic strike is more of a miracle than exception and thus the workers are in permanent defensive thanks to their own passivity. In the last few years the Czech Republic is exclusively ruled by right wing political parties, the strongest party is ANO and it has an oligarch leader. Social Democrats historically discredited themselves and are unable to get seats in the parliament. The Communist Party was also pushed out and lately is heading more towards nationalism.
In Slovakia, Social Democrats are currently in power but their victory is above all thanks to agreement of a large part of the population with the party's decision not to support Ukraine militarily.
More than drawing from left wing programmes, Slovakian Social Democrats are inspired by the Hungarian populist Orban. The second strongest party in Slovakia are the Liberal Democrats.
Young generations are indoctrinated by school and the media to liberalism and communism is of course the worst swearword. Frustration and hate is spreading mostly amongst the generations that lived through the state socialism era and now they think back with nostalgia of the times of social security but also of order. Many people now support call outs and fill town squares for bizarre right-wing groups that call for leaving the EU and NATO, refusing to support the Ukrainian war effort but also full of hatred for immigrants and so on. These right-wing groups are currently organising demonstrations against the reforms of the current right-wing government. The Left isn't able to mobilise itself and is leaving a vacuum that is filled by these populists. The Anarchist movement is marginal, and furthermore divided, to be able to mobilise any resistance.
In short, what is the history of Czech Anarchist Movement?
The Czech Anarchist Movement has a rich and long history. It began in the late 1870's or early 1880's.
The prominent anarchist pioneers were also present at the birth of the Workers Movement in Bohemia. In the years 1880 - 1889 the movement was mainly influenced by Johan Most.
It had to work under very hard persecutions and therefore many anarchists emigrated to France, England but mostly to the USA. A strong Czech anarchist movement was active in Chicago and Czech Anarchists actively participated on the May events in 1886. Several Czech workers were shot dead by the police at demonstrations connected to the Haymarket event. Czech Anarchists were part of the International Working People Association (IWPA) and later on they were actively involved in and setting up of IWW branches.
Back in Czech from the year 1900, anarchists were mostly involved in building union organisations. The strongest presence of anarchists was amongst the miners. But large numbers were also amongst textile, glass, and construction workers. The stronghold of Czech Anarchism was in Northern Bohemia and particularly in the North Western Coal mining region where they gained the upper hand over social democrats. They were publishing newspapers and pamphlets, organised unions, and workers educational groups, founded production and consumer co-operatives. They also organised several major miners strikes, for example in 1906 when 20 000 miners took part in the strike and they stopped work at 120 mines.
Development of the anarchist movement was being constantly slowed down by repressions, whilst socialists were allowed to function without difficulties in exchange for reconciliatory politics towards the State and capitalism and seats in the Austro-Hungarian Empires parliament.
After WWI young generations of anarchists from more intellectual organisations, Czech Anarchist Federation revised their program, their leaders entered politics and the chief Dr. Bohuslav Vrbensky even became a member of the parliament of Czechoslovak Republic. Later on, they founded the Socialist Party and eventually joined with the new Communists Party. It had about 3000 people.
After the War, the syndicalist organisation of anarchist miners (Czechoslovak Association of Miners) was established with about 14000 members. They refused the proposition from Dr. Vrbensky to join the Communists Party but they also didn't develop any anarchist theory or praxis and focused exclusively on the workplace struggle. Because of the economic crisis and mass unemployment in the 1930s their numbers dropped to about 3000 and they merged with another miners organisation.
After WWII the anarchist movement didn't re-establish itself. The dictatorship of the Communist Party, that started 3 years later, wouldn't allow it anyway and would crush it right at the beginning.
For the resurrection of the Anarchist Movement we had to wait for a long 40 years.
And what is the situation now?
After the fall of the Communist Party the Anarchist Movement was restored in Czechoslovakia. Especially in the 1990s there was an upswing within the younger generations. The movement continued to grow until 2002 and peaked during the IMF and World Bank summit in Prague.
Many local anarchist groups were active besides the national organisations CSAF (now AFED), ORA Solidarita, Anarchokomunistická alternativa, Federace sociálních anarchistu - IWA and Antifashitická akce (run purely by anarchists) and Anarchofeministická skupina (Anarchofeminist Group). There was more or less only one active organisation in Slovakia Zvaz Priama Akcia - IWA (Union Direct Action) and it is still active. Throughout the years Food Not Bombs groups were also active in Czechia and Slovakia. After 2008 the movement saw a big decline, many older activists left. And for many years the only organised movement has been represented only by AFED which doesn't have a good effect on the shape of our movement. For many, Anarchism became only a lifestyle, "youth revolt" or an occasional revolt and the anarchist movement isn't able to work continuously and systematically. Nonetheless this year's Anarchist May Day saw an upsurge of young people interested in anarchist ideas and young people are the future of every movement. We believe better days lie ahead.
Czechia and Slovakia has a big population of immigrants from Ukraine. Can you describe the situation of Ukrainian workers?
Firstly, several tens of thousands of Ukrainian workers emigrated to Czechia and Slovakia long before the outbreak of war. They ran away from their country because it was plundered by its own capitalists.
The wages they got paid could only keep them away from starvation and they lived in poverty. They left to find their new home here because the old "fatherland" didn't give a shit about them and only worked for the interest of capital. In Czechia only, we talk about 300 000 people.
And after the outbreak of war, another 380,000 people ran away to Czechia. Every week another 1,300 more arrive. At the moment there are about 100 000 able-bodied men of fighting age in CZ that should be going back to Ukraine and join the army. But they left intentionally because they didn't want to take part in the war - they didn't want to become murderers but also didn't want to become cannon-fodders. As they themselves said during our conversations: "I'm not gonna die in war, it's not my war!"
We had conversations with many Ukrainian workers, from factory workers to public transport drivers. Many of them arrived with wives and kids. Their answers and reasons are almost identical - as we said earlier, they are refusing to die for a country that let them starve and work their arses off for Ukrainian capitalists. Most of them are convinced that it's a war between USA and Russia. They are not planning to return after the war ends.
Most of them are working as labourers and this type of work isn't paid well in Czechia. Still, by their own words, they earn three time more than in "their country" and can afford higher standard of living. Of course, many middle-class people also left Ukraine, some of them succeeded but others had to find blue collar jobs and despite of this they don't want to go back. We spoke with one couple like this. They work in the automotive industry but the wife used to teach at a university and husband was a manager. When the war started, they sold their house, took out all their savings so they could bribe officials and the border control so that he as a man falling under the mobilisation could cross the border. Now the borders are guarded and people are dying while attempting to cross but still despite this some people manage to get out. Of course, poor people cannot afford to pay the bribes. Ukraine became one big concentration camp for its working class, where the ruling class can have them massacred as they please, in the frozen trench war that can only end by mass rebellion. So far, we can see growing numbers of local revolts against army recruitment officers. It's gratifying to see that although Ukrainian workers don't regard themselves as anarchists, they are acting like anarchists and refuse to follow orders of the rulers to pick up arms according to the slogan "Your war, our dead."
Any information about Russian refugees and mobilisation resisters or directly from Russia?
The Czech media and government stirred up strong anti-Russian feelings so Russian people are mostly leaving Czechia. Currently there's approximately 40,000 Russian citizens living in Czechia, if anyone is arriving it's mostly students. As well as the Ukrainian workers, the Russian workers came here to find jobs. We haven't spoken with Russian war resisters but with some Russian students and of course they don't agree with the war and don't like Putin.
In the UK we often hear the argument that as anti-militarists from the West we don't have a right to comment on the situation in Eastern Europe. What is the situation of anti-militarist voices from Central and Eastern Europe?
We believe that as anarchists we have the right to comment on any events anywhere, whether we live there or not. On the contrary, it's our duty to express ourselves and comment where anarchism is misinterpreted and deformed. If some "anarchists" in the East abandoned their revolutionary and anti-state principles of anarchism, it's a logical step that they are being criticized. It's normal.
The Czech anarchist movement perished in the period between the World Wars because of reformism and abandonment of principles and it's a shame that it wasn't in closer contact with the international movement, maybe it wouldn't have made this fatal mistake.
Currently this is what's happening with Czech AFED that abandoned anti-militarism and internationalism, supports ideologically and mainly financially nationalist "anarchists" in Ukraine that joined the state's army and follow orders of their officers and government, help to spread nationalism, patriotism, and militarism. Czech AFED is currently the most active organisation in this direction. Discussion with them is impossible and they refuse any dialogue knowing well that their arguments regarding anarchist theory would fail. Hopefully time will tell and they'll realise that they were wrong. Now they are very visible and have platforms because they have well-established information channels and wide reach. Moreover, they are supported by people with left-liberal or centre-liberal politics and doing them service, yet they were labelled "extremists" by these same people not that long ago.
The division in the already very marginal Czech anarchist movement that is in crisis is therefore their fault and we have no choice but to work on building the anarchist movement and showing the direction that it should take so it can find its place as an idea that leads to emancipation of the working-class.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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