Therefore, Russian anarchism is on the defensive, trying not to be swept off the map, although sending clear messages against Putin's war (not the Russian people). And among these militant people, it is logical to find people who have so much dislike for the government that they enlist in the Ukrainian militias. We will see later why.
Second, we have the responses of the Ukrainian anarchist collectives. To tell the truth there was little until now. Maybe 3 collectives in kyiv and 1 in Kharkhov, with more libertarian people in other cities like Lvov. According to other articles, the anarchist movement was swept away in 2014 by the climate created by the Maidan and the Donbass war. Anarchism did not know how to find its place, it suffered a crisis and disappeared for a few years. Around 2017-18 it reappeared, generating some collectives, such as
Rev Dia (Revolutionary Action) in Kiev and
Assembly in Kharkhov.
And between both groups, there is a big difference in how to do things. The Kharkov group managed a social center and intended to reach the population through culture and mutual aid and self-management activities. The kyiv group, on the other hand, was engaged in a positional struggle against street fascism, which was very powerful there.
The performance of the Kharkhov group in this war has been to participate in mutual support groups in the city. Its function is to get people out of there, feed them, look for people and get shelter. At this time, there is no concrete news of what the group does, and stories of people they knew who have died appear on its website. They have never called to join the militias and are obviously against the invasion and bombing of their city.
Instead the Kiev groups have been assembled into a
militia . This should not have too many people, maybe 50 or 70 individuals. In fact, perhaps it is not a single militia but two different ones. The first formed by
Rev Dia and his associates and the second by the groups Bandera Negra and
Cuartel Negro , although they seem to collaborate with each other.
As Revdia says on its website:
The point is that now the war is not between Ukraine and Russia, but a war for the future of all the countries of the former USSR. The Russian authorities have long been the guarantor of dictatorial regimes throughout the USSR. He has supported them in difficult times, as he did in Belarus and Kazakhstan.
In Russia itself, a model dictatorial regime was being established. Freedom of expression was completely banned and he was jailed for 15 years for participating in a peaceful demonstration. If the Putin dictatorship wins the war in Ukraine, it will not only become a reality for the Ukrainians, but it will also prevail in Russia and other countries. For a long time there will be no chance to change this order. Furthermore, it will give Putin the ambition to expand his dictatorship in the new countries. Not to mention that all activists of any kind of movement will be annihilated, including anarchists, regardless of the position on the war they have supported.
The war in Ukraine may be the last chance to overthrow and abolish the dictatorship. That is why it is so important to use all possible methods to end the dictatorial horde.
When the government distributed weapons, anarchism also asked for them and got them. They joined the territorial defense units and made an international call for solidarity. This call has especially attracted anarchist militants from Belarusian and Russian territory who want to fight the Russian government army. This is what they
say over there :
If the Russo-Ukrainian war has done anything good, it is that it has forced the Ukrainian authorities to hand over some weapons to the population. Again, this doesn't guarantee anything, but it does increase the chances of freeing the town. Not only from foreign oppressors, but also from their own.
His point of view is simple: "they attack us, they are killing our people and we have to defend ourselves, regardless of the ideology that is defended. Let's take up arms." And for this they align themselves with the anti-fascist supporter
of the Kiev Arsenal, apparently the only anti-fascist supporter in the Ukraine - the rest are Nazis. In this amalgamation of attracting volunteers at all costs, there has never been an eagerness to politicize the struggle. Anarchism is more of a label they use, an identity, but they have not appealed to the civilian population. There are still compas trying to find out if they have a humanitarian section like the Kharkhov collective had.
Worse still is when we read the messages they post on their telegram channel. It increases the confusion to see their videos, and especially their stories. In one of them they even say that they have passed part of the international aid received to army soldiers, tank units, and even to people from the National Guard. And this sounds alarm bells. There are those who do not want to spend 9,000 euros on night vision goggles and end up being used by the army instead of by the person who asked for it. And even more so when we know that NATO countries are sending equipment and weapons valued at billions of euros. We cannot understand this subordination to the army, much less without a political explanation.
In the desire to enter into combat there are those who have joined the army or the fascist militias, given that they have weapons. It must not be precisely the most politicized people in the movement. Speaking clearly, we should already know that in all groups there are those who have very clear theory and principles and there are those who don't care, and they are with our movement rather out of friendship, sympathy or neighborhood rather than ideas. In antifascist environments this has always been very common.
According to a
mini-report these days , thousands of people are entering the Nazi Azov battalion, so that it is no longer a battalion but a regiment - which is also locked up in Mariupol presumably living its last days. Now it's like a mini-army. There are already two Azov battalions in Kharkhov and one in kyiv. There are recruitment centers throughout Ukraine. And it is only part of the fascist militias. There is also the Aydar battalion or the Pravy Sektor battalion, among others. In the army, soldiers have been bombarded for 8 years by fascist propaganda of all kinds, without any kind of filter from the authorities, so in general there is a lot of ultra-nationalism in the army, although it is not as developed as in the militias explicitly Fascists and Nazis.
In short, without too much information and with confusing messages, that scene in kyiv is leaving us in complete surprise and doing us a disservice. We cannot support a fight that is not clear about what it wants, beyond killing enemies. At least until a territorial control plan is outlined, that some of their support for the civilian population is reported - which we think they do - and that relations with the Nazis are publicly and clearly cut off. We do not know if at this point it will be possible or if they have enough to survive. There will be something to this. In the same way, days ago, the anti-fascist media warned that if you sign up at an embassy, you might end up in the Azov units.
Thirdly, we must receive the flow of refugees. There are already 2.8 million people and the number continues to grow. At this moment half of kyiv has already fled and only the working-class neighborhoods remain, as always. There are compas on the border with Poland and with Romania. In this case,
Polish [
other link ] and
German collectives are quite active in giving their solidarity support. These are initiatives that are much closer to us both geographically and psychologically. In addition, refugees begin to arrive in all corners of Europe.
www.fossewaytapes.co.uk
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
www.businessinsider.com
rev.org.ua
partiarazem.pl
freedomnews.org.uk
rebellion.global
praleski.org
www.acmeanjin.org
