Russian Anarchism: After the fall
russia / ukraine / belarus |
anarchist movement |
news report
Saturday February 26, 2005 00:48
by Laure Akai and Mikhail Tsovma - published by WSM

Although many classical anarchist theorists and figures came from Russia, the advent of the Soviet State effectively crushed the movement. Now anarchism is reborn in Russia. Laure Akai and Mikhail Tsovma write from Moscow to tell us a little about the trials and tribulations of the Russian anarchist movement in the early 1990's
After the Fall
A New Beginning for Russian Anarchism?
It was only natural that anarchism would reappear
in this country where the state has played such an omnipresent role
in social life. The role that the state has played in usurping other
forms of organisation has led people growing up in this society and
those who visit it to contemplate the mechanisms of the state.
Negative judgements of these mechanisms are usually formed, so of
course some people would come to realise that the state cannot be
reformed.
Even though a disproportionate amount of classical anarchist
theorists and figures came from Russia, the movement lived a short
life; the anarchist movement per se only really started up shortly
before the 1905 revolution and was prematurely executed shortly after
the consolidation of Soviet power. After a few years of Stalinism, by
1938 there were no signs of anarchist activity to be found. Still,
ideas die hard and the spirit of anarchism was revived in at least a
few individuals and small groups after the Thaw1. The first
self-proclaimed anarcho-syndicalist group was
created in 1958 but it was short-lived, due to the effective work
of the KGB. . Throughout the '60s, up until the Perestroika period,
various groups sprang up now and again, but all were rather small and
insignificant.
As one can imagine, the beginning of Perestroika and Glasnost
signalled the start of a new era. A new type of movement, referred to
as 'the informal movement' would grow and take the place of the
dissidents. The informals differed from the previous generation of
oppositionists in several vital regards. The dissidents were very few
in numbers and lived in their own ghetto, with few supporters amongst
the intelligentsia; the informals were much larger in number and
found more support in the intelligentsia and elsewhere as political
ideas and cultural activity moved out of the dark recesses of
society. The informals also worked in a wider range of activity than
was possible for the dissidents. They often operated through official
organisations, such as ideological, youth and cultural groups and
they tried to turn the language of socialist ideology against the
Soviet state. It was in the informal movement where the modern
Russian anarchist movement took root.
Many of the anarchists who came out of the informal movement
started off as critical Marxists. The first members of the Moscow
Obschina group met while working in the clandestine Organizing
Committee of the All-Union Marxist Workers' Party. Many of these
people were historians and therefore had access to anarchist works
that normal people were forbidden to read. They started to publish a
samizdat magazine called Obschina (Commune) and eventually
established an organisation, the Confederation of
Anarcho-Syndicalists (KAS).
The early post-Perestroika anarchist movement was rather atypical
in several aspects. First, it existed in a time where there was an
unusually high interest in politics, due partially to the fact that
everything was new and that history was being reclaimed from the
Ministry of Truth2, and partially to the fact that people were hoping
for something better to be offered for their future. Second, it was
created by people who had no experience of non-governmental
organisation from which to draw lessons. Third, it was able to
attract a rather substantial number of people in a short time; KAS
had up to 2,000 members at one point. All of these things however
contributed to what many people regard, perhaps inappropriately, as
the fall of the Russian anarchist movement.
Interest in politics has waned considerably in the past decade.
Partly this can be explained by the deep shock of Dr. Gaidar's
therapy and by the fact that happiness is measured in terms of
material acquisitions now more than ever before. Also, the novelty of
pluralism has somewhat worn off, and no grassroots movement ever
managed to grow out of the informal movement, essentially leaving the
people as disenfranchised from politics and as disillusioned as ever
before. The informal anarchists, not quite comprehending what
strategies they could work, thought only on a massive scale; no doubt
they imagined that the workers could mobilise to take control of
their factories on some significant scale and some tried (and
succeeded) to get into office at a local level, hoping to effect some
pro-worker legislation no doubt. (As for taking control of factories,
it would have been a tall order in a country where people are so used
to being ruled but also, the privatizers had something else in mind
and apparently their promises of future material wealth held out more
promise to workers.)
It is hard to say exactly how many anarchists there are in the
former Soviet Union, particularly because there have been too many
people and groups that label themselves anarchists but cannot be
identified as such by their politics. (Such gross mutant groups, like
anarcho- monarchists and anarcho-democrats have existed; they
obviously must be dismissed as quacks). Still one can safely estimate
the number of people who consciously consider themselves anarchists
and who have some contacts with others as 200-300 people.
The largest federations were FRAN (the Federation of Revolutionary
Anarchists) and KAS which accounted for about 150 people. This
however will probably change since the creation of other
organisations - Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists
(KRAS), which wants to join the International Workers Association
(IWA).; the Ukrainian-based, Revolutionary Confederation of
Anarcho-Syndicalists (RKAS), which considers affiliation with the IWA
not to be on the agenda right now and the Siberian Confederation of
Labour (SKT) which wants to concentrate on creating a syndicalist
union and is not interested in taking sides in the conflicts between
various sections of the international syndicalist movement. Many
smaller groups exist inside and outside of these groups; a typical
group may have between 3 and 10 people and like everywhere else, they
are connected by their similar ideas on what anarchism is and what
needs to be done. There are also a number of individuals around the
country who are quite active but belong to no group.
If previously an anarchist could be considered to be a person who
read one of the journals, signed up and was a warm body at meetings,
nowadays anarchists are forced to take a much more active role. Most
of the self-styled leaders who wrote programs and manifestos in the
early days of post-Perestroika anarchism are gone, and although a few
individuals have been more active than others in propagandising their
ideas, small groups must meet and decide the eternal question: what
is to be done? In this regard they are not unlike small groups in
other parts of the world, particularly in isolated places with no
real contacts with any sort of radical community.
Projects
Anarchists have started different projects, with varying degrees
of success. In Moscow some anarchists and other sympathetic listeners
gather every Thursday to give lectures on various topics, including
anarchism and other philosophies. This is very important for people
as we lack good books on anarchism in Russian and people need to
understand it better. Still, the question then becomes one of how is
to conduct these lectures on a larger scale and how to advertise them
so that people can show up and listen. And how to attract people when
so many are indifferent to politics? Some people wanted to form a
cultural centre but the person who found space wants to run things
herself. Instead of creating a space for different collectives to
use, the space has become a hang out joint, sometimes visited by
skinheads and other idiots but occasionally host to some discussion
or concert as well. In Tver and Kharbarovsk, concerts are sometimes
held and in every city with some anarchist presence you might find a
picket now and again.
One thing where anarchists have been somewhat productive is in
creating zines3 and papers, although they are of varied quality.
Still this activity is limited as printing costs are prohibitively
high and typically people cannot afford to buy them; the publications
must be subsidised if they are to have any distribution. At least a
dozen come out sporadically, ranging from idiotic movement gossip
sheets to larger zines with several interesting articles.
A number of groups have tried to make contact amongst workers,
most notably some Ukrainian anarchists now part of RKAS (the
Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists, not to be
confused with the Russian group KRAS, the Confederation of
Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists). Some people have formed
'unions', but many of these are purely symbolic, usually consisting
of two or three people. Obviously, these people are at a loss over
what to do. There are no (and have not been) any grassroots movements
here, in years, and so everything must be started from scratch.
The anarchists face an uphill battle here. People are very
accustomed to having the state handle everything for them and this
attitude is antithetical to the anarchists' principles of self
organisation. The state also did a good job of destroying most ties
people had with each other; community was to extend no further than
the nuclear family, a structure which dominates Soviet life and
creates various barriers to organisation. (Although few people here
realise this.)
Isolated into their minute cubicles, many people have retreated
into the home, preferring it to the harsh new world of capitalist
Russia. There are no real leftist events, depriving anarchists of one
of their traditional grounds for recruiting new people and there is
little alternative media so to speak of. (The exception being in
Kharbarovsk where local anarchists do a radio show.)
Those problems could be expected and we imagine that they plague
people in other parts of the world as well. There are many places in
the world that have very weak anarchist movements for much the same
reasons; perhaps only the fact that there was Bakunin, Kropotkin and
Makhno can explain why a small movement has grown in Russia. There
are also problems endemic to the Russian scene. Most people are
rather poor and it is difficult to fund activities so some people
became rather dependent on fund raising from abroad, often creating
mythologies around their groups and engaging in political
prostitution. Also, due to the strange alliance between 'left'
authoritarian forces and 'right' authoritarian forces, some people
wishing to add warm bodies to the count often hang out with not only
leftists but fascists. Naturally those people with half a brain have
been trying to disown these people from the anarchist movement and
the injustice they do to the movement is probably far more grave than
anything else.
Slowly but surely a few dozen people are trying to develop their
ideas about anarchism and figure out how to organise something.
Personal politics are not an issue as yet and this reflects their
status in society as a whole, but this will change. Gradually
anarchist texts will be translated into Russian and some native works
are bound to appear as well. The developmant of an anarchist movement
may dependent on what will happen in the near future; threats of a
return of wholesale authoritarianism always loom on the horizon and
it is unclear whether or not material conditions will improve. Still
one thing is clear: we are now laying the foundations for the future.
Footnotes by Red & Black Revolution
1 After Stalin died and Kruschev came to power, when the
penalties for oppositional activity and the level of
surveillance were reduced slightly.
2 An Orwellian reference (1984) to the fact that before
Glasnost history could only be written in a way that
vindicated the current leadership of the Communist party and
its past actions. History was a machine for justifying the
party.
3 In the west a zine is typically a small circulation,
crudely produced magazine distributed through personal
contacts and by post rather than through selling in shops or
other locations. We presume this is also the meaning here.