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international / history of anarchism / review Wednesday February 28, 2024 08:50 byWayne Price
A review of the writings and speeches of Errico Malatesta, the great Italian anarchist and comrade of Bakunin and Kropotkin. Material is taken from the 13 years he spent in London exile. His views remain relevant--and controversial among anarchists. The Italian Errico Malatesta (1853—1932) was a comrade and friend of Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Calling himself an anarchist-socialist, he was respected and loved by large numbers of anarchists and workers, in Italy and other countries. He was closely watched by the police forces of several nations. He had escaped imprisonment in Italy and lived in various countries in Europe, the Middle East, the U.S.A., and Latin America. Four times he spent time in Britain. This volume has collected works from his longest stay there, from 1900 to 1913, from when he was 48 to 61.Britain, secure in its wealth and imperial power, was the most open European country in providing asylum to political refugees—so long as they obeyed local laws. As a result, the UK had communities of anarchists and other socialists from all over Europe. There was also an overlapping colony of Italians. Malatesta lived in London, supporting himself by running a small electrician’s shop. Only at one point, in 1912, did the police and courts make a serious effort to expel him. This set off massive demonstrations of British and immigrant workers and outcries from liberal newspapers and politicians. The attempt at expulsion was dropped. However, Malatesta was frustrated by being penned up in Britain. He made several efforts to produce an anarchist-socialist paper which would circulate in Italy, but with limited success. He participated in anarchist activities in Britain, but his English, while apparently serviceable, was not fluent (when not speaking Italian, he preferred French). This volume includes his translated articles, pamphlets, and written speeches, as well as interviews of him by both bourgeois and radical newspapers. There are also reports by police spies (at least one of whom passed as a close comrade). They faithfully recorded his speeches and private comments and passed them on to their superiors. In the course of Malatesta’s lengthy sojourn in London, he discussed a number of topics which were important to anarchists then and are still important. He was not an major theorist of political economy or history, but he was brilliant about strategic and tactical issues of the anarchist movement. This makes the study of Malatesta’s collected work valuable even today. Terrorism Around the time the book begins, in 1900, an Italian anarchist who had been living in the U.S., went back to Europe and assassinated Humbert, the Italian king. Apparently Malatesta had met the assassin, Bresci, briefly while in Patterson NJ. Otherwise he knew nothing about the affair. However the press continually tried to interview him about it, seeking to tie anarchism to assassination. Malatesta always opposed indiscriminate mass terrorism (such as throwing bombs into restaurants). Nor did he call for assassination of prominent individuals, whether kings, presidents, or big businesspeople. In general, it did not advance the cause. His approach had become one of building revolutionary anarchist organizations, to participate in mass struggles. However, he was understanding of the motives of individual anarchists driven to assassination—and not sympathetic at all to the rulers and exploiters whom they killed. The Italian king, he noted, had previously ordered soldiers to massacre peasants and workers. When US President William McKinley was shot dead by Czolgosz, who claimed to be anarchist, Malatesta called the president, “the head of [the] North American oligarchy, the instrument and defender of the great capitalists, the traitor of the Cubans and Filipinos, the man who authorized the massacre of the Hazelton strikers, the tortures of the Idaho miners and the thousand disgraces being committed in the ‘model republic.’” (Malatesta 2023; p. 75) He felt no sorrow for the death of this man, only compassion for the assassin, who “with good or bad strategy,” sacrificed himself for “the cause of freedom and equality.” (p. 75) However, he did not advocate this as a political strategy. It was more important to win workers to reliance upon themselves rather than kings, bosses, and official leaders. “…Overthrowing monarchy…cannot be accomplished by murder. The Sovereigns who die would only be succeeded by other Sovereigns. We must kill kings in the hearts of the people; we must assassinate toleration of kings in the public conscience; we must shoot loyalty and stab allegiance to tyranny of whatever form wherever it exists.” (p. 59) In another incident in London, a small group of Russian anarchist exiles was interrupted in the process of robbing a jewelry store. There was a shoot-out with the police (led by Home Secretary Winston Churchill) which ended in the death of some officers and all the robbers. As it happened, one of the thieves had met Malatesta at an anarchist club, and ended up buying a gas tank from him, claiming a benevolent use for it. In fact it was used to break open the jewelry safe. Malatesta patiently explained to the police and the newspapers that he had no foreknowledge of the robbery. However he wrote that it was unfair to link the robbers’ actions with their anarchist politics. Was a murder in the U.S. blamed on the murderer being a Democrat or Republican? Were thieves’ thievery usually ascribed to their opinions on Free Trade versus Tariffs? Or perhaps their belief in vegetarianism? No, they were essentially regarded as thieves, regardless of their beliefs on politics, economics, or religion. The same should be true for these jewelry thieves, whatever their views on anarchism. Syndicalism/Trade Unionism By the last decades of the 19th century, many anarchists had given up on only actions and propaganda by individuals and small groups. These tactics had mainly resulted in isolation and futility. Instead many turned toward mass organizing and the trade unions. Anarchists joined, and worked to organize, labor unions in several countries. (Often these efforts were called “syndicalism,” which is the French for “unionism.”) There remained anarchists who opposed unions: individualists and anti-organizational communists. But most turned in the pro-union direction. This gave a big boost to the anarchist movement at the time. Errico Malatesta had long been an advocate of unions. He had contacts with militant unionists throughout Britain and other countries. In London in this period, he directly participated in unionizing waiters and catering staff. He gave support to the struggles of tailors to form a union, which led to a large strike. “Syndicalism, or more precisely the labor movement…has always found me a resolute, but not blind, advocate.…I see it as a particularly propitious terrain for our revolutionary propaganda and…a point of contact between the masses and ourselves.” (p. 240) But once it was decided that anarchists should participate in the labor movement, the next question was how should they participate? What should be the relation between anarchist activists and the trade unions? On this question, differences among anarchists were made explicit at the 1907 anarchist conference held in Amsterdam. At the conference, Malatesta took issue with the views of Pierre Monatte, who spoke for the French syndicalist movement. Malatesta argued, “The conclusion Monatte reached is that syndicalism is a necessary and sufficient means of social revolution. In other words, Monatte declares that syndicalism is sufficient unto itself. And this, in my opinion, is a radically false doctrine.” (p. 240) The unions had great advantages, as they brought together working people in enterprises, industries, cities, and regions. They included only workers, and not capitalists or management. They had the potential of stopping businesses and whole economies, in the pursuit of working class demands. They were schools of cooperation and joint struggle. Yet, the unions’ very strengths also pointed to certain weaknesses. They are institutions within capitalist society. They exist (at least in the short term) to win a better deal for the workers under capitalism. Therefore they must compromise with the bosses and the state. Further, they need as many members as possible, to counter the power of the bosses. They cannot just recruit revolutionary anarchists and socialists. They must take in workers of every political, economic, and religious persuasion. (A union which only accepted anarchists would not be much of a threat to the bourgeoisie.) These and other factors brought constant pressure on unions to be more conservative, corrupt, and bureaucratic. All anarchists recognized these tendencies among officials of political parties, even among liberals or socialists. But the same tendencies existed for union officials. Malatesta drew certain conclusions. Anarchist-socialists should not dissolve themselves into the unions, becoming good union militants (as he understood Monatte to be saying). Instead, they should build revolutionary anarchist groups to operate inside and outside union structures. Nor should they take union offices which gave them power over people. But they could take positions which were clearly carrying out tasks agreed to by the membership—but with no wages higher than the other workers. They should be the best union militants, always advocating more democratic, less bureaucratic, and more militant policies, while still raising their revolutionary libertarian politics. “In the union, we must remain anarchists, in the full strength and full breadth of the term. The labor movement for me is only a means—evidently the best among all means that are available to us.” (p. 241) A central concept of the syndicalists was the goal of a general strike. Malatesta had certain criticisms. Not that he opposed the idea of getting all the workers of a city or country to go on strike at the same time. This could show the enormous power of the working class, if it would use it—much more powerful than electing politicians. But there is no magic in a general strike. The capitalist class has supplies stored away with which they could outlast the workers—starve them out. The state has its police and armed forces to break up the strike organization, arrest the organizers, and forcibly drive the workers back to their jobs. In brief, Malatesta did not believe in the possibility of a successful nonviolent general strike (this is not considering a one-day “general strike” set by the union bureaucrats for show). He felt that a serious general strike would require occupation of factories and workplaces, arming of the workers, and plans for their military self-defense. It would have to be the beginning of a revolution. (Hence the book’s title.) However much he criticized aspects of syndicalism, Malatesta was completely opposed to “…the anti-organizationalist anarchists, those who are against participation in the labor struggle, establishment of a party, etc. [By ‘party,’ he means here an organization of anarchists—WP] ….The secret of our success lies in knowing how to reconcile revolutionary action and spirit with everyday practical action; in knowing how to participate in small struggles without losing sight of the great and definitive struggle.” (p. 78) War and National Self-Determination This collection of writings by and about Malatesta ends in 1913. Therefore it does not cover his response to World War I which began the next year—nor his break with Kropotkin for supporting the imperialist Allies in the war. However, in the period covered here, he could see the increase in wars, both between imperialist powers and between imperial states and oppressed peoples. “…Weaker nations are robbed of their independence. The kaiser of Germany urges his troops to give the Chinese no quarter; the British government treats the Boers…as rebels, and burns their farms, hunts down housewives…and re-enacts Spain’s ghastly feats in Cuba; the Sultan [of Turkey] has the Armenians slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands; and the American government massacres the Filipinos, having first cravenly betrayed them.” (p. 33) He opposed all sides in wars among imperialist governments—as he was to do during World War I. The only solution to such wars was the social revolution. But Malatesta supported oppressed nations which rebelled against imperial domination. (Some ignorant people believe that it is un-anarchist to support such wars. Yet Malatesta did, as did Bakunin, Kropotkin, Makhno, and many other anarchists—even though they rarely used the term “national self-determination”.) Malatesta wrote, “…True socialism consists of hoping for and provoking, when possible, the subjected people to drive away the invaders, whoever they are.” (p. 58) This does not mean that anarchist-socialists have to agree with the politics of the rebelling people. Speaking of the Boers, who were fighting the British empire, he wrote without illusions, “The regime they will probably establish will certainly not have our sympathies; their social, political, religious ideas are the antipodes of our own.” (p. 59) Nevertheless, it would be better if they win and British imperialists are defeated. For the people of the imperialist country, “It is not the victory but the defeat of England that will be of use to the English people, that will prepare them for socialism.” (p. 58) (The British won.) The Italian and Turkish states went to war over north Africa around 1912. Malatesta condemned both sides, but supported the struggle of the Arab population. “I hope that the Arabs rise up and throw both the Turks and the Italians into the sea.” (p. 321) He understood that “love of birthplace” (p. 328) was typically felt by people, including their roots in the community, their childhood language, their love of local nature, and perhaps their pride in the contributions their people have made to world culture. But this natural sentiment is then misused by the rulers to develop a patriotism which masks class division and exploitation. The rulers “…turned gentle love of homeland into that feeling of antipathy…toward other peoples which usually goes by the name of patriotism, and which the domestic oppressors in various countries exploit to their advantage. ….We are internationalists…We extend our homeland to the whole world, feel ourselves to be brothers to all human beings, and seek well-being, freedom, and autonomy for every individual and group…..We abhor war…and we champion the fight against the ruling classes.” (p. 329) As can be seen, to Malatesta, internationalism did not conflict with support for “autonomy for every…group.” This included groups of people who held a common identity as a nation. Anarchists are internationalist, but unlike the centralism of Lenin, anarchists do not want a homogenous world state. They advocate regionalism, pluralism, and decentralized federations. This particular passage went on to support the Arabs against Italian imperialism. “…It is the Arabs’ revolt against the Italian tyrant that is noble and holy.” (p. 329) Yet Malatesta may be faulted for his lack of concern about racism. In supporting the Boers, and even when listing their extreme (antipodal) differences with anarchists, he does not mention their exploitation of the indigenous Africans. Nor does he make other references to racial oppression (such as in U.S. segregation). This must be put beside his fervent anti- colonialism and support for the rebellion of oppressed peoples. Similarly, he does not mention the oppression of women or its intersection with class and national exploitation. It is not at all that he was misogynist (like Proudhon). I am sure he treated Emma Goldman as an equal at the 1907 international anarchist conference. But, like most male radicals of his time, he had a “blind spot” in thinking about this major aspect of overall oppression. Imperialism, war, national oppression, and national revolt are issues which are still with us. Look at Palestine or Ukraine or the Kurds, among other peoples. These issues will be with us as long as capitalism survives, as Malatesta knew. Other Topics Besides terrorism, syndicalism, and national wars, Malatesta covered quite a lot of topics in the course of these thirteen years, as we would expect. He condemned a French anti-clerical town council which outlawed the wearing by priests of their cassocks within the municipal borders. Malatesta was an opponent of religion and certainly of the Catholic Church. But he did not believe that people would be won from it by means of police coercion. That would only provoke resistance. At most, it would replace the religious priests with secularist ones, “which would all the same preach subjugation to masters….” (p. 68) Today, the French government forbids Muslim girls and women from wearing headscarfs in schools and other public buildings—in the name of “secular” government. The left and feminists are divided on how to respond. “Oh, when will those who call themselves friends of freedom, decide to desire truly freedom for all!” (p.68) Unlike Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus or (more recently) Murray Bookchin, there was not much of an ecological dimension to Malatesta. However he was concerned with the way landlords and capitalists had kept Italian agriculture backward. He believed that under anarchy, the peasants would be able to make the barren lands bloom. By 1913, his experience with state socialists was mainly with the reformist Marxist “democratic socialists” (social democrats). This was four years before the Russian Revolution, which ended in the dictatorship of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the rise of authoritarian state capitalism. Yet he was prescient enough to write: “…Depending on the direction in which competing and opposite efforts of men and parties succeed in driving the movement, the coming social revolution could open to humanity the main road to full emancipation, or simply serve to elevate a new layer of the privileged above the masses, leaving unscathed the principle of authority and privilege.” (p. 102) The validity of this anarchist insight (which goes back to Proudhon and Bakunin) has been repeatedly demonstrated. All the subjects Errico Malatesta discussed in this period had one guiding social philosophy. Quoting the famous lines written by, but not created by, Marx: “…The emancipation of the workers must be conquered by the workers themselves.…Throughout history the oppressed have never achieved anything beyond what they were able to take, push away pimps and philanthropists and politicos, take their own fate in their own hands, and decide to act directly.” (p. 220) This was the principle of Malatesta’s revolutionary anarchist-socialism and remains true today. References Malatesta, Errico (2023). The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900—13. The Complete Works of Errico Malatesta. Vol. V. (Ed.: Davide Turcato; Trans.: Andrea Asali). Chico CA: AK Press.
international / the left / review Wednesday November 22, 2023 05:26 byWayne Price
Trotsky's "Transitional Program" has both strengths and weaknesses from the viewpoint of revolutionary anarchist-socialism. It is an important document of historical socialism, although deeply flawed. This is a discussion, from the viewpoint of revolutionary anarchism, of Leon Trotsky’s Transitional Program, perhaps the central text of Trotskyism. (Trotsky 1977)There are huge differences between anarchism and Trotskyism, centered on the state. Yet there is also a significant overlap. Both are on the far-left, opposed to Stalinism, in all its hideous varieties, as well as to social-democracy (“democratic socialism”). Both propose the overturn of the existing state and capitalism, by the working class and all oppressed, to be replaced by alternate institutions. There are many varieties of Trotskyism as of anarchism, some more in agreement than others. Given this overlap, there have been quite a few Trotskyists who have become anarchists, of one sort or another—and anarchists who have become Trotskyists. Personally, I have done both. In high school I became an anarchist-pacifist, and then in college turned to an unorthodox version of Trotskyism. Eventually I became a revolutionary class-struggle anarchist-socialist. However, I still remain influenced by aspects of unorthodox-dissident Trotskyism (also by libertarian—“ultra left”—Marxism, and other influences.) This is not a discussion of Trotsky’s earlier years in politics, when he opposed V.I. Lenin’s authoritarian approach (similar to Rosa Luxemburg’s views). Nor of Trotsky’s collaboration with Lenin in leading the Russian Revolution. Following which they created a one-party police state, the foundation for Stalinism. The Transitional Program is from the last period of Trotsky’s life, when he fought against the totalitarian bureaucracy. This was until he was murdered by a Stalinist agent—about a year after the document was written. (For a critical overview of Trotskyism, from a libertarian socialist perspective, see Hobson & Tabor 1988.) Anarchism and Trotskyism have certain things in common as well as major distinctions. It may be useful to explore these similarities and differences, from the perspective of analyzing Trotsky’s Transitional Program. In my opinion, it is an important historical document of socialism, but remains deeply flawed. The Program’s Expectations This document was adopted in 1938, as the founding program of the new “Fourth International” of Trotsky’s followers. Its official title was “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International.” It became known as the Transitional Program. Mostly written by Trotsky, he held extensive discussions about it beforehand. (Trotsky 1977) Of course, a work written this long ago, before the upheavals of World War II, must be out of date in various ways. There is a section on the “fascist countries,” although the explicitly fascist regimes are now gone. Another section is on the USSR, a country which no longer exists. One is on “colonial” countries, but the colonial empires of Britain, France, and so on have been mostly destroyed. Yet fascism, Stalinism, and imperialism are still with us. We can judge the Transitional Program by comparing what it predicted to what actually happened. Trotsky’s program is based on a belief that the world was going through “the death agony of capitalism.” Aside from the Marxist analysis of capitalist decline, empirically there had been the First World War, the Great Depression, a series of revolutions (mostly defeated), the rise of Stalinism, and the rise of fascism. It was widely expected that a Second World War would break out soon—as it did within a year. The state of world capitalism looked pretty dismal. Trotsky had expected the war to be followed by a return to Depression conditions. So did most bourgeois economists as well as most Marxist theorists. Under such conditions, he believed, there would be continuing revolutionary upheavals throughout the world. The Soviet Union would either be overthrown in a workers’ revolution or would collapse back into capitalism. These developments would give the Trotskyists, although few at first, a chance to out-organize the Stalinists, social democrats, and colonial nationalists, and lead successful socialist revolutions. In fact, there were upheavals and revolutions following the world war—from the huge wave of union strikes in the United States, to the election of the Labour Party in the U.K., to the big growth of Communist Parties in Italy and France, to the Communist-led revolutions in eastern Europe (Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece—the last failed) to the independence won by India and the great Chinese revolution, among other Asian revolutions. These were followed by decades of revolutionary struggles throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Despite the Trotskyists’ best intentions, almost all the upheavals and attempted revolutions were led by liberals, social democrats, and“Third World” nationalists—but worst of all was the disastrous misleadership of the Communists. In places where they had a working class base, such as France and Italy, they followed reformist programs. In other countries they channeled popular revolutions into one-party, authoritarian, state-capitalisms (as in Yugoslavia and China, and later Cuba). This could happen because the “developed” countries did not collapse into a further Depression. Instead they blossomed in a period of prosperity, often referred to as “Capitalism’s Golden Age.” The world war had reorganized international imperialism, with the U.S. now at its center. There had been an expanded arms economy, a concentration of international capital, and a major looting of the environment. This period of high prosperity (at least for white people in the imperialist countries) lasted until about 1970. The Soviet Union had difficulties after this too, but lasted until about 1990. Then it finally fell back into a traditional capitalist economy. In discussions before the international conference, Trotsky considered the possibility of a temporary period of prosperity. “The first question is if a conjunctural improvement is probable in the near future….We can theoretically suppose that [a] new upturn…can give a greater, a more solid upturn….It is absolutely not contradictory to our general analysis of a sick, declining capitalism….This theoretical possibility is to a certain degree supported by the military investment….A new upturn will signify that the definite crisis, the definite conflicts, are postponed for some years.” (Trotsky 1977; Pp. 186-7, 189) At one point he even speculated that the U.S. might have “a period of prosperity before its own decline …[for] ten to thirty years.” (p. 164) In other words, there might be a period of apparent prosperity within the general epoch “of a sick, declining capitalism.” This possibility does not seem to have been taken very seriously by the Trotskyists. In any case, the prosperous period was not brief or brittle, as the Trotskyists expected, but lasted for decades. In my opinion, Trotsky (and other Marxists and anarchists) were correct to conclude that we are living in the general epoch of capitalist decline. Developments since the 1970s have supported this belief. But he downplayed the probability of the results of the world war creating an extensive period of prosperity within the overall epoch of decline. In particular, he overlooked the possible effects of the technological and ecological effects of the war and its aftermath. Of course, he could not foresee the nuclear bomb and nuclear power. Also, he did not realize that the massive use of “cheap” petroleum would provide a boost to the capitalist economy. And then its aftereffects would create the ecological disasters of global warming, international pollution, species extinction, and pandemics. These are all signs “of a sick, declining capitalism.” Few radicals of Trotsky’s generation focused on ecology. This is even though Marx and Engels had considered the negative effects of capitalism on the natural world (as has been examined by John Bellamy Foster and other ecological Marxists). Among anarchists, Kropotkin and Reclus had explored ecological issues. More recently, so has Murray Bookchin, even before the eco-Marxists. In the current period, conditions of crisis and pre-revolutionary situations may be recurring—economically, politically, and ecologically. These conclusions imply that at least some of Trotsky’s proposals for a revolutionary program may still be useful for anarchists to consider, even as other aspects are rejected. The Most Oppressed Perhaps the most libertarian part of the Transitional Program is its insistence on revolutionaries reaching out to the most oppressed and super-exploited layers of the working class. Trotsky is not against better-off unionists, not to mention intellectuals, but he most wants to win the worse-off workers. During militant struggles, he writes, factory committees may stir workers whom the unions do not reach. “…Such working class layers as the trade union is usually incapable of moving to action. It is precisely from these more oppressed layers that the most self-sacrificing battalions of the revolution will come.” (p. 119) “The Fourth International should seek bases of support among the most exploited layers of the working class, consequently among the women workers.” (p. 151) “The unemployed…the agricultural workers, the ruined and semi-ruined farmers, the oppressed of the cities, women workers, housewives, proletarianized layers of the intelligentsia—all of these will seek unity and leadership.” (P. 136) “Open the road to the youth!” (p. 151) (Elsewhere, in his discussions with U.S. Trotskyists, he criticized them for not reaching Black workers.) Bakunin, who always looked to the most oppressed, could agree! Councils and Committees When the working class was in a militant and rebellious temper, Trotsky advocated that revolutionaries advocate the formation of councils and committees—not instead of existing unions but in addition to them. In particular, he called for “factory committees” which would be “elected by all the factory employees.” (p. 118) These would begin to oversee the activities of the bosses and their managers. They would organize regular meetings with each other, regionally, industrially, and nationally—laying the basis for a democratic planned economy. He also writes of “committees elected by small farmers” as well as “committees on prices.” (pp. 126-7) This focus on democratic committees of workers and others does not (to Trotsky) necessarily contradict a belief in governmental economic action. He is all for “a broad and bold organization of public works.” But this should be done under “direct workers’ management.” (p. 121) Further, “Where military industry is ‘nationalized,’ as in France, the slogan of workers’ control preserves its full strength. The proletariat has as little confidence in the government of the bourgeoisie as in an individual capitalist.” (p. 131) This last sentence is certainly one with which an anarchist would agree! The Transitional Program considered how a new workers’ revolution in the Soviet Union would change the economy. It would have a “planned economy” but in a democratic form—managed by committees. “[To] factory committees should be returned the right to control production. A democratically organized consumers’ cooperative should control the quality and price of products.” (p. 146) Anarchists might agree that society should be organized through radically democratic committees. But anarchists would disagree with the notion that all committees should be representative. The Transitional Program does not mention face-to-face direct democracy. Perhaps, in Trotsky’s concept, the workers will gather together in order to elect the factory committee, and then go back to their work stations, waiting for orders from the committee? Anarchists are not against choosing delegates to go to meetings with other committees or to do special jobs. But an association of committees must be based in directly-democratic participatory assemblies, if people are really to control their lives. A society of democratic committees should culminate in an association of overall councils or “soviets” (Russian word for “council”). “The slogan of soviets, therefore, crowns the program of transitional demands.” (p. 136) Under capitalism, these soviets would be a center of power which would be an alternative to the state—a “dual power.” In the course of a revolution, the soviets would replace the bourgeois state as the center of society. To Trotsky, this would make it the basis of a “workers’ state”—“the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Instead, anarchists work towards the federation of councils and committees, of the workers and all oppressed, federated with all voluntary associations. They would form overall councils (although we probably would not use the term “soviet”!). This federation would be the alternate to capitalism and the state. The Transitional Program states that the soviets must be pluralistic. “All political currents of the proletariat can struggle for leadership of the soviets on the basis of the widest democracy.” (p. 136) Democracy would include “the struggle of various tendencies and parties within the soviets.” (p. 185) Presumably this would include anarchists as a “political current”or “tendency.” Trotsky proposed the competition of various parties and tendencies within the soviets, implying that one would eventually win the “struggle for leadership.” He does not mention the possibility of mergers, alliances, and united fronts—as if one tendency could have all the best militants and all the right answers. Yet the October Russian Revolution was carried out by a coalition of Lenin’s Communists, Left Social Revolutionaries (peasant-populists), and anarchists. The first Soviet government was an alliance of the Communists and the Left SRs, supported by the anarchists. It was the Leninists whose policies created the one-party state, and made it a matter of principle. In the Transitional Program, Trotsky never explains why Lenin and himself established the Soviet Union as a one-party state. In all his writings, he never explained why they made a principle out of it. Within the USSR, the Trotskyists opposed Stalin, bravely going to their deaths, but still advocating a one-party state. It was only in the mid-thirties that Trotsky came out for multi-party soviets. A federation of soviets and of committees in workplaces and neighborhoods would be able to take care of overall problems, including economic coordination, collective decision-making, settling of disputes, setting up a popular militia to replace the police and army (managed through committees), and so on. But anarchists insist that it would not be a state. A “state” is a bureaucratic, centralized, institution, over the rest of society. Inevitably it would serve a ruling minority. The Trotskyists regard a soviet-council system as the basis of a new (“workers’”) state, once it is led by (their) truly revolutionary party. This might seem like an argument over phrases. But once accepting that your goal is a “state,” then you are not limited to a radically-democratic council system. Trotsky continued to call the Soviet Union under Stalin a “workers’ state”—if a “degenerated workers’ state.” He fully recognized that the Russian working class (not to speak of the peasant majority) had absolutely no power under Stalin’s bureaucratic dictatorship. Nevertheless, Russia kept “nationalization, collectivization, and monopoly of foreign trade.” (p. 143) That, to Trotsky, is what made Russia still a “workers’ state”—however much “degenerated.” Trotsky advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy, but meanwhile it had to be defended from capitalism. To Trotsky then, the key criteria for a state of the working class was not that the “state” was the self-organization of the workers, but that property was nationalized, etc. Following this logic, the “orthodox” Trotskyist majority regarded the new Communist states after World War II as “deformed workers’ states.” The countries of eastern Europe, China, etc., all had nationalized property and monopolies of foreign trade. So they too were “workers’ states” —just “deformed.” And Cuba and maybe Vietnam were “healthy workers’ states.” A minority dissented. They regarded the Soviet Union (like its imitations) as a class-divided society, ruled by a collectivized bureaucratic class, which exploited the workers and peasants. Some called it “state capitalism,” others a “new class” system. Anarchists agree overall with this view—but believe the system’s roots lay in Lenin and Trotsky’s policies. The key question is not so much the analysis of the Soviet Union, a country which no longer exists (replaced by Putin’s Russia). It is: What is meant by socialism (or a “workers’ state” or a society moving toward socialism)? Is socialism defined by nationalization of industry, or by the freedom and self-management of the working people—the anarchist view? National Self-Determination Most of the world was (and is) the victims of imperialism. Therefore the Transitional Program expected “colonial or semicolonial countries to use the war in order to cast off the yoke of slavery. Their war will be not imperialist but liberating. It will be the duty of the international proletariat to aid the oppressed nations in their war against the oppressors.” (p. 131) Historically many anarchists similarly supported wars of oppressed peoples “against the oppressors”: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and many others. (See Price 2022; 2023) But today quite a number do not. They do not accept that imperialism divides the world between imperialist and exploited nations. They reject all wars between states without distinguishing between oppressor and oppressed countries. This issue has divided anarchists over the Ukrainian-Russian war. Yet to many of us, the situation seems clear: the Ukrainian people are waging a defensive war of national self-determination, while the Russian state is engaged in imperialist aggression. Anarchist-socialists must be on the side of the oppressed, especially when they fight back. It is possible that another imperialist government—in competition with the one oppressing the rebellious country—might give aid to that country (as the USA is aiding Ukraine). The Transitional Program says that revolutionaries should not give support to that “helpful” imperialist state. “The workers of imperialist countries, however, cannot help an anti-imperialist country through their own government….The proletariat of the imperialist country continues to remain in class opposition to its own government and supports the non-imperialist ‘ally’ through its own methods….” (p. 132) At the same time, “…the proletariat does not in the slightest degree solidarize…with the bourgeois government of the colonial country….It maintains full political independence….Giving aid in a just and progressive war, the revolutionary proletariat wins the sympathy of the workers in the colonies…and increases its ability to help overthrow the bourgeois government in the colonial country.” (p. 132) This is not nationalism but internationalism. “Our basic slogan remains: Workers of the World Unite!” (p. 133) In contemporary terms, revolutionaries should be in solidarity with the Ukrainian workers and oppressed people in their military struggle—“giving aid in a just and progressive war.” (Interestingly, several current Trotskyist groupings do not support Ukraine against Russian imperialism, despite their formal belief in “national self-determination.” This says something about the present state of Trotskyism.) Yet revolutionary socialists do not give political support to Biden’s US government nor to the Zelensky Ukrainian government. Our goals are the eventual revolutionary overturn of these states, as well as that of Putin’s Russia. The same approach goes for other anti-imperialist national struggles around the world, most of which are directed against the U.S. and its allies. [This was written before the latest irruption of the Israeli-Palestinian War. Following the above approach, revolutionary anarchist-socialists should be on the side of the Palestinian people struggling for national self-determination against the Israeli state, while opposing the reactionary politics of Hamas as well as its reactionary and criminal tactics. Again, many Trotskyist groups of today do not follow this approach.] An anarchist perspective on national self-determination would be in agreement with that of the Transitional Program—with one important difference. Like Trotsky, the anarchists’ ultimate goal of supporting a nation’s struggles is to “overthrow the bourgeois government,” in both the imperialist and oppressed countries. For Trotsky, this is to be followed by establishing “workers’ states.” But anarchists want to replace all bourgeois governments with non-state associations of councils, committees, assemblies, and self-managed organizations. The Transitional Method Trotsky objects to the traditional Marxist approach to program, as developed by the social democratic parties (especially in pre-World War I Germany). That approach had two parts: a “maximal” and a “minimal” program. The maximal program was the ultimate goal of socialism. It was raised in speeches at yearly May Day parades. Like the Christian’s hope of heaven, it had little to do with day-to-day living. The minimal program was one of union recognition, better wages and conditions, public services, and democratic rights. These demands were limited to what could be achieved under capitalism. Trotsky was concerned with the wide gap between the objective crises of capitalism in decay and the consciousness of most workers and oppressed people. He proposed a “bridge” between the crises and workers’ thinking. These demands would offer a “transition” from the old minimal, partial, and democratic demands to socialist revolution. “This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.” (p. 114) For example, to deal with the effects of inflation on wages, he proposed “a sliding scale of wages.” All wages, salaries, and public benefits should be attached to the level of prices. Wages would automatically rise when prices rose (judged by committees of working class consumers). Unemployment should be dealt with through a “sliding scale of hours.” The more unemployment, the shorter hours should be overall, without losses in pay—as in “Thirty Hours Work for Forty Hours Pay.” These are essentially socialist principles: the total amount of wealth produced should be divided among those working and dependents; the total amount of work that needed to be done should be divided among those able to work. The title of one section in the Transitional Program pretty much summarizes the method: “The picket line/defense guards/workers’ militia/the arming of the proletariat”. Unlike the minimal program of liberal union bureaucrats or of social democratic politicians, transitional demands are not limited to what the capitalists can afford—or say they can afford. The transitional demands start with what people need. If the capitalists are able to pay this (in wages or public services), then they must be forced to do so. If they cannot pay what people need, then they should no longer be allowed to run society for their private benefit. Let the working people take over and run the economy to satisfy everyone’s needs. “‘Realizability’ or ‘unrealizability’ is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle.” (p. 116) The revolutionary implications of this method were clearer in a period of severe economic crisis, when basic needs could not be met for most working people. This was the case in the depths of the Great Depression. But in a period such as the 1950s post-war boom, there was an even greater gap between immediate, limited, demands and the need for revolution. A large proportion of white workers and newly middle class people were living better than ever before (in the U.S., and then in other imperialist countries). The underlying threats (of nuclear extermination or ecological destruction) could be downplayed. The transitional method had less usefulness. Now the post-war prosperity is over. With periodic ups and downs, world capitalism has overall been stagnating and declining. Wars are continuing and ownership of nuclear bombs is spreading. Despite efforts by climate reformists to find ways of limiting the damage, global warming is crashing through the veneer of capitalist stability. Something like the Transitional Program—or at least the method of transitional demands—is needed more than ever. Along with Trotsky’s demands, there needs to be a program of ecological transitional demands: democratic ecological-economic planning; worker’s control/management of industry to transition to non-polluting, green, useful production; expropriation of the oil-gas-coal corporations; socialization of the energy industry under workers’ and community control; public subsidizing of ecologically-balanced consumer coops and producer coops; support for organic farms in the country and in towns and cities; etc., etc. Revolutionary Organizations The “Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International” was written as a program for a specific organization, intended to be an international revolutionary party. It was hoped that this body, beginning small, would replace the Second (Socialist) International and the Third (Communist) International (or “Comintern”). And thereby save the world. It begins: “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.” (pp. 111) The fundamental crisis of decaying capitalism periodically inspires the mass of the working class to rebel. This shows the possibility of successful revolutions. But, during the preceding non-revolutionary periods, the leaderships of the main workers’ parties and unions have “developed powerful tendencies toward compromise with the bourgeois-democratic regime.” (p. 117-8) The anarcho-syndicalist unions were included in this. As a result, the unions and parties (which the workers had previously come to trust) hold back the revolution. They lead the people to defeat. “In all countries…the multimillioned masses again and again enter the road of revolution. But each time they are blocked by their own conservative bureaucratic machines.” (p. 112) This generalization was most observable during the revolutionary years after World War I, up to the rebellions following World War II. During the post-war prosperity, there was less likelihood of the “multimillioned masses” becoming revolutionary. Therefore, even the best revolutionary party (or federation) would have had difficulty overcoming bureaucratic “tendencies toward compromise.” Yet there were revolutions and almost-revolutions. As mentioned, there were upheavals in poorer Southern countries, including the Vietnam war of national liberation, the Cuban revolution, and the South African struggle against apartheid. In eastern Europe there were attempted revolutions, such as the 1953 East Berlin workers’ revolt and the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Western Europe had the almost-revolution of France’s May-June 1968, among others. In all these cases, a revolutionary leadership might have made a difference (perhaps preventing the victory of Stalinism in Vietnam and Cuba). Among anarchists, many have also advocated revolutionary organization. This includes Bakunin’s Brotherhood, the St. Imier anarchist continuation of the First International, the syndicalists’ “militant minority,” the views of Errico Malatesta, the Platform of Makhno, Arshinov, and others, the Spanish FAI, and Latin American especifismo. These conceptions agree only somewhat with Trotsky’s perspective of a political organization, composed of revolutionaries who are in general agreement. An anarchist grouping does seek to coordinate activity, to develop theories and practice, and to influence bigger organizations and movements (such as unions, community associations, anti-war movements, etc.). They try to win the workers and others from the influence of their political opponents, including reformists and Stalinists. Trotsky sought to build a centralized (“democratic centralist”) Leninist party internationally. While supposedly democratic, the International and the national parties would be managed from the top down. Anarchists have proposed organizations which are internally democratic and organized in a federal fashion. And, unlike political parties, no matter how radical, their aim would not be to take power, to rule over the councils and committees. They want to inspire, organize, and urge the oppressed and exploited to free themselves. Anarchism and Trotskyism In the Transitional Program, Trotsky mentions anarchism (or anarcho-syndicalism) only a few times. In France, he points out that the union federation once organized by anarcho-syndicalists had turned into a business union (and had supported World War I). During the 1936-9 Spanish Civil War, the leaders of the anarchist federation—and the union federation they led—had betrayed the revolution by joining the capitalist government. From the viewpoint of revolutionary anarchism, his criticisms in these situations are legitimate. Trotsky lumps the anarchists overall with the social democrats and Stalinists as “parties of petty-bourgeois democracy…incapable of creating a government of workers and farmers, that is, a government independent of the bourgeoisie.” (p. 134) If the term “government” is used as a synonym for “state,” then anarchists have had no interest in creating any kind of “government.” However, the word could be used to mean democratic coordination of popular councils and workers’ organizations. This is what the Friends of Durruti Group advocated during the Spanish Civil War. In that sense, the question is whether anarchists can lead in organizing society “independent[ly] of the bourgeoisie.” Trotsky ignores the revolutionary anarchists who denounced the French and Spanish union officials for betraying the program and principles of libertarian socialism. It is such anarchists, eco-socialists, syndicalists, internationalists, anti-state communists, and true revolutionaries on whom an up-to-date revolutionary program depends. The Transitional Program has virtues and insights, which have been pointed out here. The “method of transitional demands” remains valuable—even more valuable now than in the recent past. The vision of a federation of councils, committees, and assemblies is important, if we leave out Trotsky’s conception of a centralized “workers’ state.” To anarchists, the Transitional Program remains as an important document in the history of socialism, but one which still has serious flaws. References Hobson, Christopher Z., & Tabor, Ronald D. (1988). Trotskyism and the Dilemma of Socialism. NY: Greenwood Press. Price, Wayne (2022). “Malatesta on War and National Self-Determination” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32666 search_text=Wayne+Price Price, Wayne (2023). “Anarchists Support Self-Determination for Ukraine; What Did Bakunin Say?” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32774 Trotsky, Leon (1977). The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution. (Eds.: George Breitman & Fred Stanton.) NY: Pathfinder Press. Includes: The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International. Pp. 109—152. Discussions with Trotsky. Pp. 73—108. Preconference Discussions. Pp. 153—199. *written for Black Flag: Anarchist Review (UK virtual journal)
international / miscellaneous / review Tuesday November 21, 2023 17:47 byWayne Price
In many ways Comfort reminds me of another anarchist-pacifist, as well as poet and novelist, Paul Goodman (although Goodman seems to have been one of the few influential anarchists whose path did not cross with Comfort). Goodman wrote that he had been criticized for “spread[ing] himself thin on a wide variety of subjects, on sociology and psychology, urbanism and technology, education, literature, esthetics, and ethics….It is false that I write about many subjects. I have only one, the human beings I know in their [human]-made scene.” (1962; p. xiii) As this book shows, the same could be said of Alex Comfort. The Joy of Alex Comfort: A Review of Eric Laursen’s Polymath; the Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort Author of The Joy of Sex.Wayne Price Alex Comfort (1920—2000) is best remembered as the author of the bestselling The Joy of Sex. Not as many recall him as an anarchist and pacifist, who was also a significant poet and novelist, a medical doctor, an authority on mollusks, a founding figure in gerontology (the study of aging) as well as sexology, and a writer on humanistic views of religion. Even one of these activities would have been enough to mark a significant life. All together, they do indeed make him a “polymath,” as his biographer labels him. To Comfort himself, he regarded these “professions” as aspects of his overall process of living. They reflected his anarchist philosophy of individual responsibility and communal sharing. To cover each of Comfort’s life-activities requires a lot of space which accounts for the size of this book. The book might have been better trimmed by an editor; for example, there is really too much about the ins and outs of British book publishing. And readers will have varying interests in Comfort’s activities. A good deal is properly taken up about Comfort’s place in British poetry, but personally it is a topic I am not concerned about. I was most interested in Comfort’s radical politics and in The Joy of Sex as a cultural phenomenon, as well as his personal life story. But that’s me. Comfort called himself a pacifist. “Sometimes, however, he found that the pacifist community was more committed than he to absolute nonviolence.” (p. 148) He admired the guerrilla methods of the French resistance and of Michael Collins’ IRA. It was mass regular armies to which he objected. During World War II, he was not draftable due to a crippled hand. He was part of a campaign against Allied bombings of civilian areas. The campaign was ineffective, but some who supported the war, such as the U.S. bioregionalist Lewis Mumford, also condemned the British and U.S. civilian bombings. These culminated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After World War II, Comfort became more active in the British anarchist movement, including writing pamphlets and books. The movement tended to be divided into two factions. One was mostly anarcho-syndicalists, who focused on union and working class organizing. Their goal was a working class revolution. The other did not deny that the class struggle remained real, but focused on apparently cross-class issues such as disarmament, civil liberties, and culture. They tended to see social conflicts as not so much between classes as between the individual and a repressive society. (These perspectives are not necessarily exclusive.) Rather than an eventual revolution, they looked toward a gradualist, reformist, series of changes. (See Price 2015.) The slant away from the more traditional working class orientation reflected post-war conditions. While strikes and union struggles continued, overall Britain followed the U.S. into the post-war prosperity (which lasted until about 1970). Meanwhile the Soviet Union solidified into Stalinist totalitarianism. Many interpreted this as disproving the value of revolution. The advantage of this turn was its relevance to a non-revolutionary situation. It led to exploration of issues, such as sexuality and aging, which overlapped with class but were not based in it. Nor did this have to lead to isolated individualism. The anarchists and radical pacifists became leaders of major anti-war and disarmament movements, which shook British politics. (In the U.S., radical pacifists played important roles in the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, even after most leftists had been driven out of the unions.) Comfort was one of the prominent leaders of the UK disarmament movement. With other activists, he went to jail for civil disobedience. There were also disadvantages in this turn away from class struggle. It meant losing contact with workers when class-based mass strike waves did break out. It meant a lack of strategic power and perspective. Only the working class, due to its role in production and the economy, has the potential power to shut down society and to start it up in a different way. Even the large nuclear disarmament demonstrations did not have the power to force a change in government policies. Rejecting revolution, they underestimated the danger that the capitalist class and its state would violently resist peaceful and democratic attempts at fundamental change. We are in a much more crisis-ridden situation then in Comfort’s time. The catastrophe of climate change (and other ecological disasters), economic stagnation, the spread of wars (with the danger of nuclear war), as well as other difficulties, are increasing even while governments are stalled and incompetent. In this period, anarchist reformism has less use. In his personal life, Alex Comfort was fairly conventional, leaving aside his having two wives in two households for some years. The author does not think that this worked out to anyone’s satisfaction. Eventually Comfort divorced wife number one and married wife number two. His biggest success was The Joy of Sex, which was a runaway international bestseller. Comfort, his publisher, and the illustrators, had worked to create a book which was clearly not pornographic yet not an academic-medical tome. Artfully done, with Comfort’s friendly commentary, the book struck at just the right moment. The idea of sex as a mutually cooperative and respectful pleasurable activity became widely accepted. The book was such a success that Comfort eventually came to describe it as an “albatross” around his neck; attempts to become known for his championing of issues related to aging were overwhelmed by his reputation as the “sex guru.” In later years Comfort focused most on problems of aging. While in the U.S., he collaborated with Maggie Kuhn of the “Gray Panthers,” to build a movement of militant elders. Somewhat to my surprise, he is not reported to have been involved in the movement to end the U.S.-Vietnam war, either in the U.S. or Britain (although when living in the U.S. he was a resident and had to be careful in opposing the government). In many ways Comfort reminds me of another anarchist-pacifist, as well as poet and novelist, Paul Goodman (although Goodman seems to have been one of the few influential anarchists whose path did not cross with Comfort). Goodman wrote that he had been criticized for “spread[ing] himself thin on a wide variety of subjects, on sociology and psychology, urbanism and technology, education, literature, esthetics, and ethics….It is false that I write about many subjects. I have only one, the human beings I know in their [human]-made scene.” (1962; p. xiii) As this book shows, the same could be said of Alex Comfort. References Goodman, Paul (1962). Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals. NY: Random House. Laursen, Eric (2023). Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort Author of The Joy of Sex. Chico CA: AK Press. Price, Wayne (2015). “Colin Ward’s Anarchism.” https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-colin-ward-s-anarchism *written for www.Anarkismo.net
mashriq / arabia / iraq / imperialism / war / feature Saturday October 14, 2023 20:31 byMelbourne Anarchist Communist Group
The Israeli military has ordered the residents of the northern half of Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours. It is impossible for over one million people to do this in such a short time. The order can only be interpreted as a public relations formality and prelude to genocide. All workers and soldiers in a position to prevent this have a duty to act. [Français]
russia / ukraine / belarus / imperialism / war / news report Wednesday October 11, 2023 22:55 byAssembly
Full original version: https://assembly.org.ua/ustalost-rozhdaet-zlost-pytki-harkovskogo-volontera-v-tczk-i-chto-o-nem-izvestno/ News about the latest militaristic and repressive measures has been flowing in such a stream for weeks that it sometimes interrupts attention to events at the front. There is an increasing impression that the Kremlin and the Office of Zelensky are starting to fight not so much with each other, but with those who do not want to fulfill their “duty to their homeland.” The Ukrainian parliament will soon consider bill No. 10062 on a unified electronic register of conscripts and those liable for military service – modeled on the neighboring chamber, where summons will now be considered served from the moment they appear in it. The Ministry of Defense allowed to draft into the Armed Forces of Ukraine those who are of limited fitness due to hepatitis, cured tuberculosis, asymptomatic HIV, mental problems, etc. Bill No. 9672 proposes to cancel the deferment from the army for recipients of the second higher education, post-graduate students and those who first attended the university after 30 years. Doctors are being stormed with large-scale checks for trading in disability documents. Women from among medical staff and pharmacists will be registered with the military from October 1st, and those who have a military record will have to update their data; after the launch of the e-register, they can be screened out when trying to leave Ukraine. Threats of extradition and punishment to men who went abroad, deceiving the authorities (as the authorities themselves did to them all their lives). The Border Guard Service of Ukraine has already begun to publicly show “educational work” with violators of the western border, forcing them to listen to the anthem and the priest’s sermon, after which they are handed over to the enlistment officers. To detect such citizens in the bushes, the border patrols began using drones with thermal imaging cameras, supposedly so necessary for the front. Then, presumably, they will start to drop grenades or hunting nets on the migrants. In turn, the deputy head of the Russian Guard in Donetsk, former separatist field commander Alexander Khodakovsky called for the creation of barrier detachments for Russian soldiers – because “many are ready to wait from prison for their loved one, who threw away their weapons and refused to fight, just so as not to die.” Against such an informational background, the story of a Kharkov resident at the military recruitment office of Staryi Sambir in the Lviv region received a huge resonance. This is not the first time that they tried to send into the army those captured trying to escape from the “country of dreams”, this time the mobilizers just did a little less work and video records were transferred to bloggers, instantly exploding social networks with anger. The inmate was kept there from September 12th to 19th, beaten on the head with a pistol, starved, not provided with medical care, threatened with death and that “the police would not look for him.” Even before this video, hardly many people doubted that the cops act in conjunction with the enlistment kidnappers, while the State Bureau of Investigation reported on the 19th that the deputy chief of one of the departments in the Sambir districtal recruitment center and its driver are detained. They face up to 10 years in prison under Part 3 of Art. 406 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (violation of statutory rules, relationships by military personnel using weapons). The Bureau requested that both be taken into custody without bail; the court in Lviv sent them under round-the-clock house arrest for 2 months. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention has found suspicious property worth 4.4 million hryvnias owned by the chief of the same facility. Of course, even if they are found guilty and imprisoned, it will not change anything systemically – power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The investigation established that the suspects illegally detained at least two men – residents of Kharkov and Krivoy Rog. After being detained by border guards during unauthorized crossing the border with Poland, they were taken to the enlistment office, where the servicemen tried to force them to go through the medical examination. One of these refusers was kept for 10 days, another one for 7 days. The resident of Krivoy Rog says that his name is Roman Kuzmenko, born November 12, 1985. Our compatriot is 43 years old and he was hospitalized with a concussion; he introduces himself as Vadim Spokoynyi (Ukrainian spelling – Vadym Spokiynyi). “Vadym is an animator. His stage name is Max. The first weeks Vadym was in Kharkiv – he volunteered a lot, helped people, tried to entertain children in bomb shelters so that they would not be so sad and scared. Later, he moved to Staryi Sambir with his acquaintance Dina. They didn't have a home here, so they temporarily lived in a van near the river. I helped them find accommodation. Later, his father also moved in with Vadym, he has a disability, does not walk much, is practically bedridden. His father somehow found the strength to come to the Military Commissariat. But they didn't let him in. They didn't even let me see each other. It's terrible. He is not a criminal and is not in a pre-trial detention center”, his local comrade Sofia Ryzhenko told the LMN newsletter. She does not know whether Vadim has official guardianship over his father. “Can you imagine what it's like to be an animator and work with children? He is very kind, harmless. Well, how can you force a person to sign that he will go to war, if he is afraid of it or cannot?”, the girl asks a rhetorical question. The fact that he, with such a peaceful character, showed an iron will and managed to withstand many days of attempts to break him is what is most shocking in this situation. Those living in Staryi Sambir note that this is not the first case of such imprisonment of citizens by the enlistment officers. And, as a Kharkov resident named Ivan shared with us on September 20th, hell was going on there long before the full-scale Russian aggression: “I got into this recruitment center in 2016. I almost got beaten there too. Barely escaped. They even wanted to send me then to the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation, the official name for hostilities in Donbass], despite the fact that I had a referral for a surgery in Kharkov. They said I didn't need surgery. I was registered there, went to sign up through the enlistment office, I had documents that I was undergoing surgery, and receipts for payment. Two drunk doctors came (like a medical commission). They said I didn't need surgery. They decided so without practically examining it. They said that the ATO would be just right for me, since I go to the gym and am in good physical shape. I said that I would probably refuse and am informed a little about my rights. They fucked my brain for a very long time and didn’t hand over the documents, and I also communicated in Russian. This really threw them up. Military commissars generally communicated as with cattle. Like you're pissing to go to the ATO, etc., etc. Although they themselves saw this ATO only on television. Something like this, in short.” The Ukrainian public is more and more asking the question: how does this state with such everyday practices differ from the Russian one? In particular, Yevgenia, the wife of the Russian mobilized Yevgeniy P. from military unit 61899, turned to the Russian liberal pacifists ASTRA. For refusing to go to the assault with injuries, he and other soldiers were sent to the basement in Zaytsevo (a village controlled by the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” near the Kharkov region), where they are threatened and forced to continue fighting. The detainee told his wife about this on September 18th by phone, after which contact with him disappeared. In May, in Bakhmut, he received a fragment wound in the leg, due to which he was sent to the hospital. However, Yevgeniy was not given aid there; the fragment was not removed, his wife says. He was sent home for rehabilitation for a month. A month later, the commander changed, the new one sent a unit to Naro-Fominsk near Moscow. The entire company with wounds was locked in the barracks and kept there for a week. The surgeon then concluded that they could all continue to fight despite their injuries. They were taken in the direction of Svatovo and abandoned in the forest without any means of subsistence. “My relatives and I cut off all the hotlines, reached the head of the unit, but our requests and prayers for the salvation of the guys are simply ignored, citing the fact that, they say, there is a war, etc. This is just madness and absurdity, the boys with wounds were thrown just like cannon fodder!”, the woman told this media. Ukraine is a prison of the people. Russia is a prison of the peoples. That's all the difference. |
Tue 19 Mar, 20:43 Malatesta’s Revolutionary Anarchism in British Exile Feb 28 08:50 0 comments An Anarchist View of Trotsky’s "Transitional Program" Nov 22 05:26 2 comments The Joy of Alex Comfort Nov 21 17:47 0 comments Resist Genocide Oct 14 20:31 6 comments A volunteer from Kharkov was tortured by the military after trying to leave Ukraine Oct 11 22:55 1 comments Anarchists in Rojava: Revolution is a struggle in itself Oct 04 23:52 1 comments An Attempted Marxist-Anarchist Dialogue Oct 03 07:13 1 comments A Talk on the Ukrainian-Russian War Aug 31 03:36 5 comments Support Sudanese anarchists in exile Aug 23 18:19 20 comments A Guide to Anarcho-Syndicalism and Libertarian Socialism Aug 03 19:17 4 comments In Support of “Turning the Tide” Aug 02 03:38 4 comments Seize the Hospitals! ...But How? Aug 01 14:09 2 comments AKBELEN FORESTS ARE CALLING EVERYONE FOR RESISTANCE Jul 30 15:47 11 comments The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism Jun 30 08:01 9 comments Reflections on Identity Politics and Revolutionary Organizing Jun 28 19:29 3 comments Anarchists Support Self-Determination for Ukraine May 28 07:21 12 comments Joint Statement of European Anarchist Organizations May 01 21:08 9 comments May Day 2023 May 01 14:08 3 comments El movimiento Apr 25 02:18 18 comments Seeking the Anarchism of Love Apr 03 12:59 4 comments Solidarity with Alfredo Cospito From Rojava Mar 27 23:06 19 comments Sky Anarchy Mar 24 13:59 2 comments Capitalism Is the Disaster Mar 23 06:26 4 comments Thoughts on Revolution Mar 22 04:45 11 comments Capitalism’s war without end or Class War? Feb 26 22:44 16 comments Are Anarchists Giving in to War Fever? Feb 18 01:22 16 comments International anarchist call for solidarity: Earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan Feb 15 21:43 27 comments CAB's announcement to the fellow organisations and comrades Feb 01 05:08 4 comments Australia: State of the union movement Jan 27 18:58 3 comments Lessons for Anarchists About the Ukraine War from Past Revolutions Jan 24 08:40 3 comments more >> |