Elon Musk turns on Nigel Farage and calls for Reform UK leader to be replaced

It’s all turned sour so quickly...

Basit Mahmood 

Today

Left Foot Forward 

It’s all turned sour so quickly. It was only last month that Farage was boasting about his meeting with Elon Musk, with talks that the tech billionaire would be making a game changing donation to Reform UK, the biggest in British political history.

And yet just weeks later, Musk has turned on Farage, taking to his X platform to call for him to be replaced as Reform UK leader saying that the arch Brexiteer does not have ‘what it takes’.

Farage and Musk have been in disagreement over Musk’s support for the far-right Tommy Robinson. The Trump appointee has called for Robinson’s release in a number of posts in recent days, while Farage has condemned Robinson, telling GB News that Mr Musk “sees Robinson as one of these people that fought against the grooming gangs”.

“But of course the truth is Tommy Robinson’s in prison not for that, but for contempt of court,” he said.

Farage added: “We’re a political party aiming to win the next general election. He’s not what we need.”

Musk has posted a number of misleading posts in recent days about a series of aspects of UK politics, appearing to endorse Rupert Lowe. He also called Labour MP Jess Phillips a “rape genocide apologist”.

Responding to Musk’s post calling for him to be replaced, Farage posted on X: “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

The latest incident is particularly embarrassing for Farage given that just hours earlier on Sunday, the Reform UK leader used an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where he heaped praise on Musk and called him ‘a hero’.

How progressives reacted to Elon Musk turning on Nigel Farage

'Well, that was fast. How’s riding the tiger, Nigel?'

Basit Mahmood 

Toda

Left Foot Foryward

Only last month, Farage, the leader of Reform UK who has been desperate to secure the support of Elon Musk, was boasting about how successful their meeting had been amid reports that the owner of X was considering making a huge donation to Reform.

However, yesterday Musk turned on Farage, claiming that the MP for Clacton does not have what it takes to be leader of Reform UK.

The pair have had a disagreement over the far-right former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson. Musk has called for Robinson’s release in a number of posts in recent days, while Farage has condemned Robinson, telling GB News that Mr Musk “sees Robinson as one of these people that fought against the grooming gangs”.

“But of course the truth is Tommy Robinson’s in prison not for that, but for contempt of court,” he said.

Farage added: “We’re a political party aiming to win the next general election. He’s not what we need.”

Many couldn’t quite believe how quickly the relationship between the two has deteriorated.

The Daily Mirror’s Associate Editor Kevin Maguire posted on X: “Doctor! My sides hurt from laughing.

“Elon Musk says Nigel Farage must go hours after Reform boss calls him a ‘hero.”

British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan posted on X: “Wow. Musk just turned on Farage over Tommy Robinson. Imagine living in a world where even Nigel Farage has more principles and common sense than Elon Musk. That’s just how far right Musk has gone.”

Political editor of the New European, James Ball, shared the news with the words: “Hahahaahah, well, that was fast. How’s riding the tiger, Nigel?”

Labour MP Diane Abbott posted the story on X with the words: “When thieves fall out…”

Nick Lowles from anti-extremism group Hope not Hate, reacted to Musk’s dumping of Farage by asking: “How long before @elonmusk begins funding a new Tommy Robinson led party???”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

Who is Rupert Lowe? Elon Musk voices support for the MP as potential Reform UK leader

‘I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online [...] make a lot of sense’

Olivia Barber 

Today

Left Foot Forward 

Reports had suggested a $100 million donation was on the table for Reform, with meetings taking place at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Nigel Farage even referred to Elon Musk as a ‘hero’, despite stating that the £80m donation figure was somewhat “overexaggerated”.

However, just when things seemed to be going swimmingly between them, over the weekend, the tech billionaire stated that Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead Reform UK. Farage has suggested that this was due to a disagreement over Musk’s support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Why is Elon Musk talking about Rupert Lowe?

Despite not having met Rupert Lowe, the Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, Elon Musk has now said that he could make a good leader for the right-wing party.

In response to a post on an X account asking about Lowe taking over, Musk replied: “I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense.”

Responding to Musk, Lowe said: “I thank Elon for his kind comments.

“I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country – that is my only interest. Nigel is leader of Reform.”
Who is Rupert Lowe and what are his views?

Rupert Lowe was elected as Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in the July 2024 general election.

A farmer owner himself, Lowe has been Reform UK’s Business and Agriculture spokesperson since 2023.

Lowe has multiple jobs in addition to his role as Great Yarmouth MP. He is a director of pharmaceutical company Biopharma Process Systems, which received over £140,000 in taxpayer-funded furlough money during the pandemic despite the company making almost £8 million in profit.

He is also a director at Alto Energy and Dripping Rock, a freshwater fishing company, as well as at three sports companies. He also owns a company called J Brand Limited, which offers data-related services.

A pro-Brexit MEP

Rupert Lowe is a staunch supporter of Brexit and served as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 2019 to 2020.

Lowe has said that Labour’s pledge to reset ties with the EU is “a ploy to drag us closer to the EU” and has said that the chancellor Rachel Reeves “needs to respect the British people’s decision in 2016”.

The Great Yarmouth MP has recently posted on X claiming that “multiculturalism has failed Britain”, adding that “if foreign nationals want to live in our country, they need to live by our laws, speak our language, and integrate into our society”.
Grooming gang national inquiry

Lowe has joined Elon Musk in calling for a national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal, suggesting a link between ethnicity and child sexual exploitation cases.

This comes despite 2020 Home Office research highlighting “significant limitations” in drawing conclusions about ethnicity’s connection to such offenses. The research also found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white.

Regarding Tommy Robinson, Rupert Lowe posted on X when the far-right activist was arrested in July last year after organising a demonstration in central London.

The Reform UK party MP Rupert Lowe, responding to the arrest, tweeted: “Is this action proportionate and in line with how the streets of London have recently been policed? More details are urgently required.”

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was also due to appear in court the following week on separate charges of contempt of court for repeating libellous allegations against a young Syrian refugee.

He is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court due to these false claims.

UK

Starmer hits back at Elon Musk over attacks on Jess Phillips

‘When the poison of the far-right leads to serious threats ... in my book, a line has been crossed.’

Olivia Barber 

Today
Left Foot Forward

Keir Starmer has defended Jess Phillips after Elon Musk made comments attacking both the safeguarding minister and the prime minister’s record as director of public prosecutions (DPP).

Musk recently shared posts on X claiming that Phillips “deserves to be in jail” and calling her a “rape genocide apologist” for opposing a call for a national inquiry into historical child grooming in Oldham.

The prime minister said that “those that are spreading lies and misinformation, they’re not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves”.

Without referring directly to Elon Musk, he also said that people who are “cheerleading Tommy Robinson aren’t interested in justice, they’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case”.

Starmer said that he is proud to call Phillips a colleague and friend, and said she has done “a thousand times more” to protect victims of sexual abuse than those who are attacking her “have even dreamt about”.

Starmer emphasised: “I am prepared to call out this for what it is […] when the poison of the far-right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed.”

The owner of X has spent days attacking Starmer’s stint as DPP, stating that he was “complicit in the rape of Britain”, and even calling for him to be jailed.

During a press conference in Surrey this morning, where Starmer was outlining his plan to tackle NHS waiting times, he said that as chief prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, he tackled child sexual exploitation “head on, because I could see what was happening”.

Last week, Musk called for Tommy Robinson, the founder of the now-disbanded English Defence League, to be released from prison.

He claimed that Robinson had been jailed for speaking the truth about grooming gangs, despite the fact that the far-right figurehead is serving a prison sentence for contempt of court for repeating libellous claims about a Syrian refugee.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

Class Dealignment Has Devastated the Italian Left

In Italy, blue-collar industrial workers are abandoning the Left. As in other countries, they don’t represent the entire working class, but their loss of support should still deeply trouble the Italian left.


A construction worker in Milan, Italy, on October 2, 2023.
(Emanuele Cremaschi / Getty Images)

ByJacopo Custodi
12.31.2024
JACOBIN

“We defend workers better than the caviar left!” Campaigning for November’s regional elections in Emilia-Romagna and Umbria, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was sure to emphasize her party’s connection to ordinary people. She argued that her coalition is “rooted in the heart of society, far from VIP salons and the radical-chic left’s lobbies.” While TV panel shows might make it seem like the so-called “salon left” is influential — Meloni told her supporters — any politician visiting a street market will see how “the people” support her government.


This rhetoric is not new: Italy’s far-right politicians have often used it in their culture war against the Left. They portray themselves as defenders of a supposed traditionalist hardworking people who stand against an elite in its progressive ivory towers. This elite, in their narrative, ranges from the moderate center-left Democratic Party to far-left activists and squatted social centers. In this way, the Italian right developed its own language of class politics, defining it in terms of cultural preferences rather than relationship to production. Terms like “caviar left,” the “salon left,” “ZTL left” (referring to the pricey historic city centers where restricted traffic zones, or ZTL, are enforced), “Rolex communists,” and “radical-chic left” are widely popularized through far-right rhetoric, from Meloni to Lega leader Matteo Salvini. These expressions were so ingrained in their rise to power that they are now familiar in Italians’ everyday language.

This is, without doubt, propaganda. It is a calculated and effective narrative crafted by the far right to present itself as fresh and appealing, adopting the customs, language, and culture of everyday Italians, to appear as though they are “one of them.” This image, however, stands in stark contrast to the reality: Firstly, the current government enjoys excellent relations with Italy’s capitalist elite (and foreign counterparts as well, as Meloni’s friendly ties with Elon Musk indicates). Secondly, under Meloni’s government, the material conditions of Italy’s working class have continued to decline, along with the quality of public services that primarily benefit them, such as public transport and the health care system.

Yet, as is often the case with political narratives, no matter how much they exploit, distort, or alter facts, they are nonetheless rooted in them. Stripping away all the hypocrisy and misleading framing reveals a real and pressing issue: class dealignment. Simply put, this describes the growing tendency of working-class individuals to move away from a political alignment with the Left, despite its historical role as the political voice of this same class. If the Right has been able to develop a culture-based class narrative, this is precisely because left-wing class politics retreated.

This issue has sparked increasing attention and debate among the Left in various countries, from France to the United States. It gained renewed prominence during the recent US elections, where Donald Trump further expanded his support among low-income voters. As Jared Abbott aptly noted, class dealignment for the Left represents “the defining political challenge of our time.” In Italy, too, this is a major challenge: the Left has increasingly distanced itself from its historic working-class electoral base over the last decades, leaving a disoriented electorate that the Right has been partially able to win over.Terms like ‘Rolex communists,’ and ‘radical-chic left’ are widely popularized by far-right rhetoric, from prime minister Giorgia Meloni to Lega leader Matteo Salvini.

However, this issue tends to receive little attention within Italy’s activist-left circles. Some are quick to deny this reality by focusing on minor segments of the working class that remain left-leaning — such as precarious knowledge workers, as we will see shortly — or by emphasizing specific instances of synergy between the militant left and radicalized factory workers. While these examples, like the case of the former GKN factory, are significant and commendable, they hardly reflect the broader national picture.

Others may not deny class dealignment outright, but they still consciously or unconsciously avoid engaging with it. This is likely because the Left’s disconnect from the working class has become a rallying point for the Right that successfully seized and framed it. It is no coincidence that, while the term “class dealignment” itself lacks an established equivalent in Italian language, right-leaning expressions describing this phenomenon are, as we have seen, not in short supply. This may have created a growing reluctance on the Left to engage with the topic, as it now evokes a narrative dominated by right-wing talking points and values.

Unsurprisingly, some figures with a leftist background have gradually shifted to the right precisely by internalizing this pervasive right-wing narrative. A prime example is Marco Rizzo, the former leader of a small Communist Party (one of multiple contenders for this name), who is now allied with minor far-right groups and ultraconservative Catholic figures, in the name of a supposed popular hostility toward the progressive elite.

The Left is right not to buy into the right-wing’s distorted narrative on class dealignment and to distance itself from those who did buy into it, such as Rizzo. However, this should not lead to the comfortable overlooking of class dealignment, simply because it has been popularized in a way that sounds right-wing. Even worse, it should not result in self-consoling denial based on praiseworthy but unrepresentative counterexamples.

In other words, while it is wise to avoid being trapped by the Right’s framing, the Italian left cannot afford to deny or ignore the problem altogether. Class dealignment is a real and pressing issue that demands strategic reflection from those on the Left who aim to build broad working-class support.
The Invisible Vote

Akey element of this story that the Right consciously forgets, is that the working-class votes lost by the Left do not necessarily shift to the Right; more often, they result in abstention. For example, in the 2022 Italian general election, 49.4 percent of individuals with a “low” economic status (1 on a scale from 1 to 5) either did not vote or refused to make a choice (submitted a blank ballot), compared with only 27.5 percent among those with a “high” economic status (5 on the same scale). In the 2024 European elections in Italy, this nonvoting by those with low economic status reached an astonishing 75.7 percent. Rather than abandoning the “woke, elite-centered left” to rally behind the “concrete, people-centered right,” as their narrative suggests, low-income workers simply — and dramatically — abandoned politics altogether.

One of the great strengths of left-wing class politics was its ability to empower workers by fostering a forward-looking sense of class power. This was rooted in its success in achieving collective reforms that improved workers’ lives and in its capacity to build associations and organizations shaped by working-class life and its worldview. While the Left has largely lost this ability, it is not something the Right has succeeded in replicating, nor does it appear willing to pursue.One of the great strengths of left-wing class politics was its ability to empower workers by fostering a forward-looking sense of class power — something that the Right has not succeeded in replicating.

As mentioned earlier, in November 2024, regional elections were held in Emilia-Romagna, a historically left-wing region, and Umbria, which had been governed by the Right. In both cases, Meloni’s candidates were defeated, challenging her campaign claims of ever-mounting popular support. However, what is particularly striking is the voter turnout: 46.4 percent in Emilia-Romagna and 52.3 percent in Umbria. This represents a decline of 21.3 percent in the former case and 12.4 percent in the latter compared to the respective previous elections. This happened even despite a change to let people vote across two days — a longer window that typically favors higher turnout. While specific data on voter demographics is unavailable, it is not difficult to imagine which part of the population stayed home.
A Left for the Educated?

When discussing class dealignment, we must consider an additional, crucial factor: education level and the distinct cultural capital it provides. Education has emerged as a key predictor of voting behavior, with higher levels of education increasingly linked to left-leaning preferences in many elections in Europe. French economist Thomas Piketty even coined the term “Brahmin Left” to describe a Left increasingly reliant on highly educated, culturally elite individuals. Education is not necessarily a good proxy for income or class, and equating them can result in misleading conclusions. Contemporary stratification systems feature weaker correlations between hierarchies, meaning that high cultural status does not always align with economic wealth — and vice versa.

This was evident in the first round of the 2024 French elections. Among low-income individuals (those earning less than €1,250 per month), Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) scored slightly better than the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), but the margin was narrow: 38 percent for RN versus 35 percent for NFP. Both did better among low-income voters than among the general electorate (34 percent for RN, 28.1 percent for NFP). However, when we look at education level, the difference becomes striking: among individuals without a secondary education (baccalauréat), RN support soared to 49 percent, while the NFP’s dropped to 17 percent. In contrast, among those with a bachelor’s degree (bac+3), NFP not only led with 37 percent of the vote but did so with a substantial 15-point lead over both RN and Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble, each at 22 percent.

In Italy, right-wing parties collectively outperformed left-wing ones among low-income voters in the June 2024 EU elections, if only barely. Among voters in the lowest economic bracket, the broad right-wing camp secured 48 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for all left-wing parties. Only in the low-middle economic bracket did the Right have a major advantage: 52 percent against the Left’s 42 percent. However, the differences become much wider when looking at education. Among those without secondary education, the Right had a 59-37 percent advantage. Conversely, among individuals with a university degree, the Left dominated, garnering 61 percent of the vote against the Right’s 34 percent.

What emerges, then, is not only a decline in the Left’s ability to attract working-class voters but, more significantly, a deepening divide in electoral preferences within the working class itself, along educational lines. Manual and low-skilled workers are increasingly leaning toward abstention or right-wing parties, while knowledge workers largely support the Left.Today the ranks of left-wing activists include a disproportionately large number of well-educated but downwardly mobile individuals compared to their representation within the working class.

This issue is also closely related to activism and candidate profiles. Today the ranks of left-wing activists include a disproportionately large number of well-educated but downwardly mobile individuals compared to their representation within the working class. The same trend is evident among candidates, as those with higher education overwhelmingly dominate many contemporary left-wing parties.

For example, based on my estimates from the resumés of all candidates for Italy’s left-wing coalition Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS) at the 2024 EU elections, 80.6 percent hold a master’s degree or equivalent (five years of university education), while only 14 percent of Italians overall do so — a figure that would likely drop further if focusing solely on Italy’s working class. This disparity clearly highlights a serious problem with the representation of the working-class electorate the Left aims to engage. Unsurprisingly, in the European election, AVS got 11 percent among those with a bachelor’s degree, but only 3 percent among those without a school leaving certificate. Yet it seems obvious that the Left’s candidates should represent the working class in all its diversity, not just its most educated segment.
Common-Sense, Progressive Universalism

Education thus complicates the strategic questions around class dealignment. The challenge is not only to build a left-wing politics with working-class appeal, but also to ensure it resonates with its diverse members, across educational backgrounds. This requires focusing on issues shared across the broader working population — despite the differing life experiences shaped by varying education levels — such as job insecurity, rising rent prices, declining public services like health care, and wages that don’t keep pace with inflation.

While the era of left-wing populism in Europe may have faded, one crucial lesson endures: much of its electoral success came from its ability to foster a common identity around clear, shared progressive goals that transcended inevitable differences among the people. Regardless of the policies concerned — including those that primarily benefit particular minority groups — it seems crucial to frame them from a unifying, universalist perspective, i.e., as proposals that contribute to the improvement of society as a whole. That means fostering a sense of shared identification that transcends particular differences, even without denying their existence.

To craft a message that resonates across the entire working class, regardless of education level, it seems essential to use a language and a way of framing things that draws on common sense and is accessible to everyone. If a left-wing project leans too heavily on theory-laden rhetoric, complex linguistic registers, and political etiquette, then it will only reach individuals who have a handle on this vocabulary and these manners.

This creates barriers for people who lack the cultural capital to navigate such specialized cultural codes and conventions. Clearly, this does not imply that we should stop producing deep political reflections or complex analyses. It simply underscores the obvious: the language and cultural register should always adapt to the collective context and the audience. An academic conference is not a political rally, and vice versa.There are exceptions to class dealignment around Europe, from which Italy’s left can learn — both from mainstream center-left parties and more radical-left movements.

Such a discussion about language, aesthetics, and symbols also highlights the importance, for the Left, of drawing on culturally resonant, nationally rooted references — what Antonio Gramsci called the “national-popular” — in a progressive way. This is no simple task, and in recent years Italian right-wingers have excelled at appropriating national identity and belonging, infused with their own traditionalist and exclusionary values. Yet, however challenging, this remains an important strategic objective, since the popular classes, especially those with lower levels of education, tend to be more “nationalized” in their culturalization process. This means they are more responsive to the nation’s symbols, codes, and references, compared to individuals with higher educational backgrounds, who tend to be more culturally cosmopolitan.

Class dealignment is an issue that needs confronting head-on, with particular attention to the challenge posed by different educational backgrounds. There is, however, reason for hope: there are also exceptions to class dealignment around Europe, from which Italy’s left can learn — both from mainstream center-left parties and more radical-left movements. For instance, Spain’s center-left has highest support among lower-income brackets, without the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party being a “culturally conservative” force. The same holds true for the rising star of Europe’s radical left, the Workers’ Party of Belgium, whose support grows in low-income areas and drops in higher-income ones.

The Left urgently needs strategies to more effectively communicate with the entire working class and to represent all its segments within its ranks. This must be achieved without succumbing to the right-wing narrative that creates a false divide between conservative common people and privileged progressives. While this is no easy task, it is a critical one. Such efforts could halt class dealignment and pave the way for winning back working-class voters from abstention or the appeal of the Right.
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Jacopo Custodi is a research fellow in political science at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy and an instructor at Stanford University and Georgetown University. His most recent books are Un’idea di Paese: La nazione nel pensiero di sinistra and Radical Left Parties and National Identity in Spain, Italy, and Portugal: Rejecting or Reclaiming the Nation.

How Ukraine’s Far Right Pushed Its Myths About World War II

An interview with Marta Havryshko

Throughout the Russo-Ukrainian war, each side has cast its enemy as heirs to the Nazis of World War II. In Ukraine, this has fueled comfortable myths about the nationalists of the 1940s, whose role in the Holocaust is routinely ignored.

The monument to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, in Lviv, Ukraine, on January 1, 2024. 

(Ukrinform / NurPhoto via Getty Images)


12.31.2024

Interview by Ondřej Bělíček

JACOBIN

During World War II, Ukraine became the epicenter of the most brutal fighting, and also the most extreme murder of Jewish and Slavic populations. Many Ukrainian nationalists sympathized with the Nazis, hoping that they would help them achieve an independent Ukrainian state. But this was far from Nazi Germany’s goal. From the start of its invasion, it tried to keep the main Ukrainian nationalists at bay — or to exploit their desperate situation to keep the genocidal war going.

Many Ukrainian nationalist forces joined in anti-partisan actions and the murder of Jews for various reasons. After World War II, all these circumstances were used by Soviet propaganda to vilify the Ukrainian nationalists, led by Stepan Bandera, whose real importance the Soviets greatly exaggerated. After the fall of the USSR, memory politics went to the opposite extreme — and pro-Nazi nationalists began to be celebrated by parts of Ukrainian society, especially those in exile.

But how far has the memory politics of World War II in Ukraine been dominated by the far right after the Maidan revolt of 2014? And how has this whole situation escalated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Marta Havryshko, a Ukrainian historian and expert on the Holocaust in Ukraine, currently based at Clark University, answered these questions in an interview with Ondřej Bělíček.
Ondřej Bělíček

During World War II, Ukraine was a center of the fiercest fighting and the genocide of Jewish and Slavic inhabitants. Can you describe the situation in Ukraine during the Nazi-German invasion? How far did Ukraine’s inhabitants collaborate with the Nazis in exterminating the Jewish population?
Marta Havryshko

It’s important to talk about World War II, because amid the current Russo-Ukraine war, the history and memory of this conflict and the Holocaust is used and abused by both sides. What did Vladimir Putin say in his speech when he decided to invade Ukraine? He mentioned “denazification” as a goal of his “special military operation.” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement about the Jewish background of Volodymyr Zelensky and said that Zelensky is a “Kapo” — meaning a Jewish prisoner forced to collaborate with the Nazis. The main idea behind such claims is that Zelensky betrayed his Jewish origin and allied with so-called “Nazi forces “in Ukraine.

In contrast, the Ukrainian leadership is trying to invoke the memory and the history of World War II and the Holocaust to mobilize people in Ukraine to support the government and participate in resistance to Russian aggression. For example, after the liberation of Bucha and Irpin, and after discovering the mass atrocity committed by Russians, some people started to speculate that Bucha is Ukraine’s Babi Yar. These analogies and parallels are also a manifestation of an abuse of history. You can’t relate these events to Babi Yar, because this was the tragedy when during two days almost 34,000 Jewish people — mostly women, elderly people, and children — were killed.

In March 2022, Zelensky addressed the Israeli Knesset and said that Ukrainians made their choice during the Holocaust — and that it was about saving Jews. He erased the important part of Ukrainian history when Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis in killing the Jews. Why did he do that? He wanted to attract the Knesset’s sympathy, because he believed that Israeli support to the Ukrainian cause is not enough.
Ondřej Bělíček

You have researched this topic extensively. Can you tell us what kind of motivations Ukrainian people had to collaborate with Nazis during World War II?
Marta Havryshko

One of the main motivations for political collaboration was the idea that Adolf Hitler could reinstate Ukraine as an independent state. That’s why the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN] that was established in 1929 heavily relied on this idea. Ukrainian nationalists had communication and relations with the Wehrmacht and the Nazi Party. They received training and informational support. They believed that if they showed loyalty to Nazi Germany, the independent Ukraine state would be established.

One of the battalions that was formed early on, Nachtigall, entered Nazi-occupied Lviv on June 30, 1941. Local people greeted them and expressed their satisfaction. Right after entering Lviv, the Ukrainian independent state was proclaimed. But the Germans didn’t want to establish such a state. That’s why many leaders, including Bandera, were imprisoned. They spent most of the war in different concentration camps. Still, many Ukrainian nationalists continued collaborating with Nazis. Why? Because they wanted to have access to power, weapons, and military training. That’s why they were members of local administrations, auxiliary police, and the German military itself.

They participated in the Holocaust by guarding the Jews, convoying them to the killing sites, by directly participating in killings, and by hunting out the people in hiding and handing them to Germans.

Antisemitism also played an important role in political collaboration. The concept of Judeo-Bolshevism was popular among Ukrainian nationalists. They associated Jews with Soviet power and blamed Jews collectively for Soviet crimes in Ukraine, including the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933. The German occupation forces that shared the same sentiment were portrayed as an ally who could help the Ukrainian people to get rid of Jews and their alleged power.Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Holocaust by guarding the Jews, convoying them to the killing sites, by directly participating in killings, and by hunting out the people in hiding and handing them to Germans.

Another motivation for collaboration with Nazis and their allies was a pragmatic opportunism, typical also in other European countries during the war. Many wanted to survive, to improve their economic condition, to gain power, to make a career, to protect their family members from forced labor and repression. Even many concentration camp guards were former Communist Party members, or Red Army soldiers and officers, because prisoners of war died en masse in Nazi captivity. Millions died from hunger, disease, and poor medical treatment. Many would rather collaborate than to die.
Ondřej Bělíček

You already mentioned Bandera in your answer. Can you tell us his story during World War II?
Marta Havryshko

From early in life, Bandera was obsessed with establishing a Ukrainian state. He was born in western Ukraine, which during the interwar period belonged to the second Polish republic. So, formally, he was a Polish citizen who hated all occupiers — Poles, Russians, Hungarians — and other “hostile “groups, including Jews. He dreamt of an independent Ukrainian ethnic state with a fascist political regime.

He became a member and then a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to make this dream come true. He believed that Nazi Germany would support Ukrainian aspirations, but instead, it put him behind bars, where he spent almost the entire German-Soviet War. So, he didn’t participate in the war crimes of OUN and its military wing (Ukrainian Insurgent Army, UPA), but he never explicitly condemned them.

In addition, he bears responsibility for these crimes as a leader of OUN. Some members of OUN and UPA criticized his radicalism, fanaticism, and obsession with power. He started to lose popularity after World War II but regained it after his assassination by a Soviet agent in 1959. His violent death made him a martyr and key figure in the Ukrainian heroic pantheon. Soviet propaganda greatly contributed to this Bandera myth, even more than his own political activities.Stepan Bandera’s violent death made him a martyr and key figure in the Ukrainian heroic pantheon. Soviet propaganda greatly contributed to this Bandera myth, even more than his own political activities.
Ondřej Bělíček

Was Bandera popular among Ukrainians during or after the war?
Marta Havryshko

In the Soviet Union, Bandera was demonized. His name became a byword (banderivtsi, Banderites) for those who were deemed Ukrainian nationalists and dissidents despite their actual attitude toward Bandera and his legacy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bandera became extremely popular in Western Ukraine, where OUN and UPA mainly operated. Numerous memorial sites commemorated him. But most people in eastern and southern Ukraine had skeptical and negative views of him.

This changed a little after the so-called Maidan Revolution in 2014 when the newly established Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM) started to whitewash him and the entire Ukrainian nationalist underground movement. These efforts became stronger after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. Numerous streets in Poltava, Odesa, and Kharkiv oblast were named after him. UINM’s official video depicted Bandera in a Christian iconographic style. Both state and non-state memory actors in Ukraine portray him as a symbol of current Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression.
Ondřej Bělíček

Apart from Bandera, who else was involved in the nationalist movement during the war?

Marta Havryshko

Ukrainian nationalists were divided during World War II. One faction of Ukrainian nationalists obeyed Bandera, while another obeyed Andriy Melnyk. This latter was even more loyal to Nazi Germany than Bandera’s supporters: for example, these people were in favor of the creation of the Waffen SS Division Galicia, officially established in April 1943. Bandera was against this. Why? Because he believed that Ukrainian youth should join the UPA.

Tens of thousands of young Ukrainian men did join Waffen SS Division Galicia. Bandera couldn’t stop this process, so he decided to infiltrate the SS Division. When the Galicia Division was defeated in the Battle of Brody with the Red Army in July 1944, some of its members deserted to UPA. They became part of the Ukraine liberation movement under Bandera and Roman Shukhevych.Many leaders, including Stepan Bandera, were imprisoned. They spent most of the war in different concentration camps. Still, many Ukrainian nationalists continued collaborating with Nazis.
Ondřej Bělíček

Who was Shukhevych?
Marta Havryshko

Roman Shukhevych, like Bandera, was an active member of OUN in the interwar period. When the Third Reich attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, he entered Lviv as a commander of the Nazi-formed Nachtigall Battalion under the command of the German Abwehr. In 1942, this battalion took part in punitive operations against partisans in Belarus, in which numerous Jews and other civilians were killed. Later on, he became a commander of the UPA, which carried out the ethnic cleansing of Poles and hunted Jews in forests. Thousands of Nazi collaborators from the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police joined UPA and served under his command. Those people were already socialized in anti-Jewish violence, so they brought their experience to UPA.
Ondřej Bělíček

Can we find some democratic forces among the Ukraine nationalists?
Marta Havryshko

Yes, there was a socialist faction in OUN led by Ivan Mitrynha, but even he was a proponent of a Ukrainian ethno-state: in his vision of the country’s future, only ethnic Ukrainians could enjoy full citizenship. He demonstrated a special hostility toward Jews, blaming them for “cosmopolitism” and supporting Moscow’s imperialism. In 1941, Mitrynha split up with OUN under Bandera and established his own party — the Ukrainian People’s Democratic Party. “Democratization” of the entire Ukrainian nationalistic movement was a necessity after the military failures of Nazi Germany when its defeat seemed inevitable. OUN understood it was better to seek an alliance with the Western powers, so their political program became less hostile to ethnic minorities.
Ondřej Bělíček

How was World War II remembered during the Soviet times? You already mentioned Bandera, but what about the role of Ukrainians in the genocide of Jewish people? Was this taboo?
Marta Havryshko

During the Soviet period the myth of the “Great Patriotic War” was created. Part of this myth was a complete denial of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland between Nazi Germany and the USSR. Another key pillar was the creation of the concept of “peaceful Soviet citizens” as collective victims of Nazi Germany, which overshadowed the Holocaust as the specific victimization of Jews. The Ukrainian nationalist movement was demonized and dehumanized. Members of the OUN and UPA were portrayed as cold-blooded murderers, rapists, and Nazi collaborators.

Why did they do this? Because OUN and UPA was the biggest anti-Soviet resistance after World War II, that took a lot of resources to deal with. Tens of thousands of its members were killed or jailed in the Gulag, with even family members sent to Siberia. Through the demonization of OUN and UPA, the Soviet regime wanted to protect its power and prevent new armed resistance.The result of the Soviet distortion of Ukraine’s history was that after the collapse of the USSR, there was a great pushback.

Part of this demonization was the creation of different historical myths. One is about Nachtigall’s alleged participation in the Lviv pogrom in July 1941. We can’t exclude the possibility of some members being involved — but not the battalion as such. Still, it is also known that Nachtigall was involved in anti-Jewish violence in the Vinnytsia region in 1941 on its own initiative, not because of German orders.

The result of this distortion of Ukraine’s history was that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a great pushback. Many memory actors started to “rehabilitate” the wartime history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. But the distortion went to the opposite extreme and new myths started to circulate. The ethnic cleansing of Poles, for example, started to be justified, and so, too, the collaboration with the Nazis. Participation in anti-Jewish violence was portrayed as obeying German orders, when Ukrainians had no agency.

But we know that Ukrainian nationalists participated in pogroms against Jews even before the Nazis’ arrival, when the Red Army retreated, and the vacuum of legal power created new opportunities for extremists and opportunists. In many localities, Ukrainians, including members of OUN, attacked Jewish homes, robbed them, raped women and girls, publicly humiliated Jews, and killed many, sometimes in the form of ethnic cleansing.
Ondřej Bělíček

When you refer to this change of narrative, are you talking about the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or already during perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev?
Marta Havryshko

The alternative history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement existed in the West during the Soviet times and was developed by members of the OUN and UPA who ended up there. It was weaponized by the Western political powers as a part of the Cold War. That’s why the Ukrainian diaspora was the main actor in memory politics. It whitewashed the history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement and wanted to construct a very different narrative that opposed the official Soviet one. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this narrative was exported to Ukraine and favored by some far-right political parties like Svoboda.

In 2010, President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine, which sparked heated debates inside Ukraine and abroad. Many people whose grandpas and grandmas fought the Nazis in the ranks of the Red Army felt deeply offended by this decision. They were not comfortable with celebration of Nazi collaborators, when they had their own, true heroes who sacrificed their lives.

These two main memory regimes — the Soviet and the Ukrainian-nationalist — coexisted in Ukraine for a long time. Their influence and dynamic depended heavily on which political forces were in power. Thus, during the presidency of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, the OUN and UPA were not glorified on the national level, but its cult remained in the local level, in Western Ukraine.
Ondřej Bělíček

Obviously the turning point in Ukraine’s most recent history was 2014 — the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war with Russia. How did this change the narrative?
Marta Havryshko

It was the turning point. Many ultranationalists occupied key positions of power and started to build memory politics heroizing the OUN and UPA. The key actor became the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory established in 2014 under the supervision of nationalist historian Volodymyr Vyatrovich. He became a proponent of the “decomunization law,” which honored the OUN and UPA as “fighters for the Independence of Ukraine in the 20th century.” Many experts were skeptical and disappointed by this controversial law because it undermined critical studies about the history and legacy of these groups.Many Ukrainians whose grandpas and grandmas fought the Nazis in the ranks of the Red Army felt deeply offended by the official veneration of Bandera.
Ondřej Bělíček

Do you think that the far-right groups took the opportunity during the Maidan events and imposed their ideology on Ukraine society?
Marta Havryshko

Yes, I’m convinced that the Maidan Revolution enabled ultranationalists to hijack memory politics in Ukraine. They started to impose an ultranationalist narrative. And from the beginning many people were actually not in favor of this. Many people opposed this narrative. They did not want Bandera and Shukhevych monuments and streets in their cities. Some were against the so-called “Leninopad” that started with the damaging of the [Vladimir] Lenin monument in Kyiv on December 1, 2013.

After the Maidan Revolution, more than a thousand monuments of Lenin were demolished and taken down across Ukraine, and likewise other monuments to Communist leaders, Red Army soldiers, and Soviet partisans. Tens of thousands of streets were renamed, as well as towns and villages. It happened without proper discussion with local people and historians. Many of those policies were just imposed by force and locals just had to accept the changes. Those who opposed this were labeled as loyal to Russians or as “traitors to the Ukrainian people.”

Those huge divisions over the Soviet legacy became even deeper after the start of so called “decolonization” in 2023. It basically means that all the Russian heritage that is present in Ukraine is meant to be removed. [Alexander] Pushkin, [Mikhail] Bulgakov, [Anna] Akhmatova, [Isaac] Babel — all these monuments are to be removed. It is absurd, because many important events and cities in Ukraine were established and flourished under the Russian Empire. Many ethnic Ukrainians took part in the building of this empire. They were active agents of its political, economic, and cultural processes, not just objects of imperial powers. By destroying this memory, Ukraine canceled an important part of its own history, making it less diverse and inclusive and more ethno-nationalistic and mythical.

One of the by-products of this “decolonization” is bullying of the people who use the Russian language. Even Olena Zelenska, the First Lady, claimed that you shouldn’t speak Russian because it is the “enemy language.” When you call a language used by at least half of the Ukrainian population an “enemy language,” you will create huge tensions within Ukrainian society. To my knowledge, in Lviv one school has already established “language patrols.” The idea is that Ukrainian-speaking students will police Russian-speaking students. The problem is that Russian-speaking students are mostly internally displaced persons from war-torn eastern and southern parts of Ukraine. So, those who suffered the most in this war are surveilled and bullied by less affected children.‘Decolonization’ basically means that all the Russian heritage that is present in Ukraine is meant to be removed.

Another initiative on the state level is a legislative ban on using the Russian language during school breaks in all schools in Ukraine. This law has not been adopted yet, but it has sparked heated discussions in society. Can you imagine if Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic were forced to use only the Czech language during school breaks — and punished, with their parents fined, if they did use the Ukrainian language? Those children are traumatized. They fled their homes and left their lives behind.

This “decolonization” hysteria has caused a growing number of violent incidents in public spaces when people in cafés, buses, and trams were humiliated and beaten for speaking Russian among themselves. These incidents are more common in mostly Ukrainian-speaking western regions, where local authorities, politicians, journalists, and activists discussed publicly what to do with “non-patriotic” compatriots who don’t give up the Russian language in their private lives. The mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk even established a “language patrol” in the city.
Ondřej Bělíček

I understand that many things dramatically changed after the Russian invasion in 2022. Would you say that the far-right narrative about World War II is now dominant in the Ukraine society?
Marta Havryshko

The Russian full-scale invasion radicalized Ukrainian society dramatically. Many started to be interested in the roots of Russian imperialism and resistance to it. That’s why the history of OUN and UPA became the core of nationalist memory as an example of an uncompromising fight and self-sacrifice for Ukrainian independence.

This memory is full of myths and silence about inconvenient matters that don’t fit a heroic narrative. In addition, this whitewashes the collaboration with Nazis as the “lesser evil.” That’s why it celebrates not only members of the Ukrainian national underground, but members of military units that Nazis created, gave oaths to Hitler, and fought for the interests of Nazi Germany. By that I mean the Waffen SS Division Galicia, involved in anti-partisan punitive actions in Slovakia and Slovenia in 1944.

For a long time, glorifying Waffen SS Division Galicia was a local phenomenon because its members were born in Galicia. That changed after 2022. Many units in the Ukrainian Armed Forces based on far-right groups — the Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, Azov, and Svoboda — started openly celebrating it as a unit that “fought Bolshevism for Ukrainian independence” and wore patches with its logo — a Ruthenian lion.Ukrainian-nationalist memory is full of myths and silence about inconvenient matters that don’t fit a heroic narrative.

The 3rd Assault Brigade, which is a part of the Azov movement, even made an exhibition in the Museum of Kyiv where two photos of Division members were displayed. This exhibition was opened a couple of days after the notorious appearance of Yaroslav Hunka — a ninety-eight-year-old veteran of Waffen SS Division Galicia — in the Canadian Parliament, where he was given a standing ovation in the presence of Zelensky. This caused a huge scandal and political crisis in Canada.

In Ukraine, however, some politicians, intellectuals, and military personnel started to defend Hunka as a “Ukrainian hero.” The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory kept silent and never challenged this problematic discourse. The Center for Countering Disinformation, a working body of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, started to whitewash Waffen SS Division Galicia and claimed that all information about its alleged crimes is “Russian propaganda.”

When I criticized all those troubling developments regarding the celebration of Nazi collaborators, I was harassed, bullied, denounced, and received death threats. Such criticism is a privilege in wartime, which belongs primarily to intellectuals outside of Ukraine. Most Ukrainians can’t afford this due to the self-censorship and fear of being blamed for fueling “Russian propaganda,” meaning “collaboration with the enemy,” which might involve the justice system and imprisonment. Freedom of speech has become a luxury in war-torn Ukraine, in which ethno-nationalist historical myths have become the core of war propaganda.

Contributors

Marta Havryshko is a visiting assistant professor at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Ondřej Bělíček is editor of Czech online daily A2larm.cz.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ARMY

 

INTERNAT'L WEEK OF ACTION FOR POLA ROUPA & NIKOS MAZIOTIS

Jan

02

2025

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EVERY REBEL HEART, A REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE

Practical solidarity: In the face of the world of the state, the bosses and the horrors of their wars, we stand in solidarity with the condemned comrades of Revolutionary Struggle, Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, who through the ranks and action of the organization Revolutionary Struggle, fought steadfastly and uncompromisingly on the side of the class oppressed by the violence and terror of economic exploitation, poverty and political extermination in the sweatshops of wage slavery. With consistency and dedication to the struggle for social revolution, the comrade and comrade took on the political responsibility of their participation in the organisation, as befits guerrilla dignity and revolutionary consistency.

They did not review and defended politically, one by one, the 18 armed and bombing actions undertaken by the Revolutionary Struggle, one by one, on high-important symbols and infrastructures of the state and capital, from 2003 to 2018, achieving significant blows to the correlations of domination: Ministries - of Economy and of Employment -, Evelpidon Courts, Police Departments, Police Officers and riot police, Minister of Public Order, US Embassy, Stock Exchange, Bank of Greece - branch of the European Central Bank - office of the International Monetary Fund in Greece, banks - Citibank, Eurobank -, up to the attempted escape of comrade Nikos Maziotis and other prisoners from the Korydallos prison by helicopter (hijacking), which was personally undertaken by comrade Pola Roupa.

Judicial Power - Repentance - Double Prison: The state bi-historically maintains to the end its practices of war of attrition and subversion, against its armed political enemy, the militant(s) who attacked it by all means, challenging and shaking its imperium in practice.

"Justice" as a pillar of state violence and terrorism, assumes the regime's role of "punishing" not only the class oppressed and undisciplined, but also the execution of the total "punishment" of the armed political enemies of the state and capital, constantly upgrading the criminal arsenal and the "maximum security" prisons and imprisoning the struggling comrades with heavy sentences. At the same time, it acquits cops/killers/nazis, child rapists, politicians, big businessmen-businessmen, etc. And when the time comes for the release of the militants from the "penitentiaries of democracy", the dirty role is taken over by the judicial councils which, in the case of political prisoners, are intended to damage their political choices and revolutionary conscience by extracting "statements of repentance".

DEFINITIVE RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA

On 17 November 2023, comrade Pola Roupa was released from prison with restrictions until 2032. One month later, the mechanisms of the terrorist state, with an appeal by the deputy prosecutor of the Chalkida appeal court against her release, tried to put her back in prison. Last year, on 10 January, the comrade passed a court hearing in Chalkida and since then, the decision has been pending and she remains hostage.

Exactly one year later, on January 10, 2025, the comrade with a new summons and a new positive prosecutor's proposal for her release, will be back before the judicial mechanism, so that the judicial council of Chalkida will decide on her release or re-arrest. And this, at the same time that the comrade is required to pay exorbitant fines which were imposed for her participation in the activities of the Revolutionary Struggle organization and which crush her survival, forcing her and her child into economic extinction, while her companion remains a prisoner of the state.

The selflessness, the militant integrity of the comrade and her contribution against social misery, highlight the revolutionary resistance within the socio-political disaster and against global totalitarianism. Through its ranks, the Revolutionary Struggle organization has made it clear that the state, banks and ministries will accept guerrilla social resistance for all the violence, bloodletting and bloodshed they have unleashed on the exploited and oppressed sections of society.

On the side of solidarity, we stand by the anarchist comrade Pola Roupa in this new judicial trial.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS

After 16 years (mixed) in prison for the action of the organization Revolutionary Struggle and with the completion of 4/5 of the actual serving of the 20-year sentence last month, comrade Nikos Maziotis will pass the next period of time by the judicial council (in Lamia), as he filed an application for release on November 25, 2024. This is the 7th request for conditional release, after 6 consecutive rejections. In the case of a new rejection, he is effectively forced into captivity at least until March 2027, with vindictive and abusive (even by their laws) serving up to the last day of the entire sentence. This despite the fact that he has long ago (since January 2022) fulfilled the prescribed conditions (state of exemption).

The judicial staff of Lamia - as a mechanism of state and economic domination - applies tactics of political extermination, inspired by the tradition of the counter-revolutionary terror courts. It releases and grants regular licenses to Nazi murderers, in contrast to the continuous denial of the conditional release of the anarchist Nikos Maziotis and the cutting of the licenses of militants (D. Koufontinas). It demands a definitive exit from prison only by enforcing the renunciation of value and moral principles. The regime of blackmail of repentance that they attempt to extort from comrade Nikos Masiotis implies the alienation and imprisonment of conscience, in order to achieve absolute discipline through the pervasive control of the core of the revolutionary's consciousness and values.

The anarchist Nikos Maziotis is at a rather critical point in his captivity. We should not leave the comrade hostage in state captivity, because most probably this condition of exemption from conditional release, while he has already served 4/5 of the total 20-year sentence, will not only set a precedent, but foreshadows the future that they have in store for other prisoners in an era of intensifying repressive treatment by the state for the world of struggle.

To strengthen solidarity. To stand by the anarchist comrade Nikos Maziotis.

We call for a gathering in solidarity with comrade Pola Roupa, at the Courts of Chalkida, on Friday 10 January 2025, at 12.00

We call for a gathering in solidarity with comrade Nikos Maziotis, at Lamia Court, on Thursday 16 January 2025, at 12.00

STATE AND CAPITAL ARE THE ONLY TERRORISTS

DEFINITIVE RELEASE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA WHO REMAINS IN A HOSTAGE SITUATION DESPITE HER RELEASE

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS

SOLIDARITY WITΗ THE IMPRISONED COMRADES

Ⓐ

Solidarity Assembly for the convicted members of the Revolutionary Struggle P. Roupa and N. Maziotis

contact e-mail: synallil-roupamaziotis@espiv.net

 

Mountain Camaraderie: A Story of an Anarchist Meeting in Germany

Jan

04

2025

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From avtonom.org
December 23, 2024

A subscriber sent a story about an anarchist meeting in Germany.

The outstanding mountaineer David Lama said that joint ascents are based on similar ideas about routes, tactics and willingness to take risks. Where extreme conditions mercilessly expose hidden personal qualities, camaraderie takes on a special role.

Armed with this knowledge, a group of anarchists from the Äppelwoi Komitee traveled to the mountains of Saxon Switzerland for a weekend of exchanging experiences and networking for the sixth time. The winter and the road did not prevent two dozen comrades from gathering in a hut on the edge of a hill overlooking the mighty Elbe. By collective efforts the house was heated, a grill was organized in the yard, German and Uzbek dishes in vegan interpretation were cooked on the stove (we will not get tired of thanking those responsible, the food, as always, was on the level of Michelin restaurants).

Fed and warmed, the participants discussed the following topics:

- A trade union activist told how to unite on specific issues without building rigid structures like parties
- An information security specialist introduced new threats to activists in the digital environment and taught how to protect themselves.
- An anarchist from the Czech Republic shared his experience of helping anti-fascists in Ukraine.
- The director held a think tank on building circles of dreamers to develop a vision of the future
- Comrades shared a report on their trip to Cologne for the November forum of left-wing anti-war emigration.

The program of the meeting was varied. In the afternoon, the group set out to conquer the Elbe Sandstone Mountains to enjoy the magical scenery and a historical excursion about the anti-fascist resistance, because of which these places were proudly called the “Red Kingdom” back in the 1920s. After a fascinating haiku, the anarchists warmed up in the lodge with tea and mulled wine and wrote postcards to political prisoners.

One participant prepared a prison koryak, which turned out delicious and incredibly sweet (less sugar next time, please!), and an unexpected guest organized a distro so that everyone left dressed in the most fashionable clothes. And, of course, everyone gathered engaged in intense conversations. Sometimes the degree of discussion rose too high, some of the team members opened up from a new side (let's remember that alcohol is a bad companion, especially in difficult conditions), but, one way or another, the participants left the meeting in Saxony with deep and strong impressions.

Mountains don't get lower when you climb them with your comrades. The difference lies in the quality of the experience - whether success or failure. If you share the defeat with your comrades, it becomes less; if you share the joy, it increases. It's like real magic, and it's never enough. So look forward to more Äppelwoi Komitee meetings - more details on instagram and by emailing appelwoiKomitee@riseup.net.

The Äppelwoi Komitee, a discussion club for emigrants from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, has already held six meetings outside the major cities. The program includes lectures, workshops, and networking with comrades from Germany, the Czech Republic, Serbia, France, and Poland. It’s a place to talk through issues, support each other, and take action together to find solutions and build a stronger community. In the discussions, participants try to figure out who they are as emigrants and what they want.

The main goal from September 2023 is to build support networks for anti-authoritarian activists forced to emigrate, who value the principles of direct democracy. Isolation can lead to people becoming less active over time. By sharing experiences and knowledge, we can keep the community connected and growing, building resources and influence.

 

Prague: Anarchist Book Party

Jan

04

2025

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From Anarchistické federace
December 20, 2024

Report from a scaled-down winter version of the anarchist book festival

Last year, the Anarchist Book Festival collective , in addition to its flagship event in May, also organized a smaller meeting in early December . This was met with enormous interest and there was almost no movement in the then-closing Prostor39. Since the idea of ​​a “winter bookfair” was so popular, the collective decided to repeat it in 2024 and organized an “Anarchist Book Party” on Saturday, December 7. It took place in Prague’s Holešovice in parallel at two locations that are only a few minutes’ walk away from each other, namely the Cross club and the 254 autonomous center.

The bookfair itself, i.e. the space with stands of publishing houses and various collectives, took place from two in the afternoon to seven in the evening in the basement hall of Cross. If the attendance had been like last year, people would probably have been constantly bumping into each other, but fortunately it was smaller and exactly matched the capacity of the space. We also presented ourselves here with our stand. We supplemented the older publications of the Anarchist Federation Publishing House with a new book by Colin Ward Anarchism: A Very Brief Introduction and the autumn issue of the anarchist review Existence on the topic of anarchist pedagogy . Anyone who wanted could take some of the older issues of Existence with their purchase for free . Also on offer were posters of the Belarusian Anarchist Black Cross or the book Life in Combat with collected texts by Dmitry Petrov, a Russian anarchist who fell at Bakhmut in the fight against Putin's invasion. There were also stands in the hall from The Anarchist Review of Books , Salé distra (with an amazing wall calendar The Riot Dogs for 2025), the Solidrones collective, K115 , Collectively Against Capital , Safe space bookstore , Utopia Libri publishing house (with the new releases Russian Colonialism: A Guide and There's Something to Live for on This Earth ), Nevim , Alarm and Rubato . If we forgot anyone, we apologize.

At the same time, a lecture program was also taking place in one of the rooms in Cross. However, one of the three points was canceled due to illness, so those interested could finally listen to the presentation of the book Dobré po málú or the presentation of the Anarchist Federation on anarchist strategy. Thanks to the shortened program, there was much more time for this, so a long and interesting debate in the audience could develop after it ended. The presentation itself, which returned to the topic of Existence No. 2/2022 , talked about the need for strategic thinking, about anarchist goals, about consideration for ourselves, about the traps of activism, about what a revolutionary organization can do in non-revolutionary times and what analysis is and is not, about one's own experiences, about the need for rethinking, and about what the conclusions of the earlier federation debate on the search for anarchist politics were.

The next part of the program took place in AC 254. Here the film Lobby USA was shown , followed by a discussion. In the next point, we again contributed from the federal reserves, namely by presenting Guy Debord's book The Society of the Spectacle from the Utopia libri publishing house. Every one of our relationships is mediated by spectacles, says Debord, and we literally see this "show business" (a world where images are shown for the purpose of accumulating profit, a world where images are commodities, and with it the fetishism associated with it) before our eyes. But appearances are deceiving, our grandmothers proclaimed (and sometimes baked delicious plum dumplings). And we do not want to be deceived. Events like this bookfair present a vision in which it is possible to meet directly (not through images à la social networks or market relations) and experience what it is like to be and not just have or seem to be . In our opinion, the lecture was successful and the interest showed that there is also an interest in theory among us.

The lecture was followed by a discussion in which we imagined further inspiration for further reading, which is part of books. A short break, an edit and the event begins. The musical highlight of the entire "Anarchist Book Party" was then an evening performance in AC 254. Bunkerer, Podještědský okultista and DJane Dark Spherez introduced themselves.

And we must not forget the favorite part of our reports dedicated to food. The AC 254 team took care of the material base for our insatiable tummies. In addition to several types of desserts, you could have a plate of vegetable ragout with soy noodles and rice, or just warm up with an excellent miso soup.

Although the organization of the party was decided at the last minute, the event was a success. We are glad that we were able to promptly respond to the organizers' inquiries and contribute with lectures. We also appreciate the opportunity to present our publications, meet together, greet familiar faces and chat with completely new ones. Bookfairs are one of the key anarchist events in the Czech Republic - places where we meet and where sparks are created that ignite metaphorical Molotov cocktails. Next year, the bottles will fall and the flames will engulf many a target - the Anarchist Federation will be 30 years old. But more on that next time.

 

Verseuchung, anarchist journal, #0 and #1

Jan

02

2025

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From Act for freedom now!

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Verseuchung, in German means Infestation, contamination, Infection

EDITORIAL ISSUE 0 :

We cannot save someone. No one can. Likewise we cannot really liberate others.
This forest (a living being) cannot be saved, it will either survive, even though profoundly changed or it will die, asphyxiated by the deadly vapours of this world.

For sure it cannot be saved by their legislations and their technology, but I suspect neither it can by us living here now. And it is not about saving it either. Not that I will not mourn if this forest dies. I will mourn the oak I’ve been living in, and this mourning will become anger added to the flames burning against this world, thirst added to my need for vengeance.

I don’t want this forest to die. But I’m not here to save it. And I want even less that it becomes the crystallized, unmoving and unsurprising version of itself they are proposing. Their least bad options, their grey survival elevated to life in the “best world possible”, their never-ending youth and refusal of death and life… this is no saving, this is a destiny maybe worse than Death itself.

A dead forest is a monument to human alienation, but a “preserved” one would be just one of their technological appendices, a jungle of statistics, assessments and authority rather than unearthed desires, sensibilities and joy. Not the warm refuge for those who fight against this existence, nor the thousand possibilities and discoveries, nor the precious moments of complicity, nor the dark living maze feared or exalted in the imagination of those who live nearby…

A plantation of trees is no forest, and to their preservation in this form of altered survival, I’d rather see this forest crashing into the reefs!

—————- 

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EDITORIAL ISSUE 1

We grope in the pyramids of power. Everywhere, around us, the signs of a world that wants to last forever, that wants to make of itself the emblem of the highest that has ever been created by human beings. No, it cannot be this sycophantic repetition of itself without any horizon of an end what we put at the base of a desire for radical and irreparable rupture. The biological world, from which we come from but that is more and more foreign to us, reminds us in every moment that it is rather the becoming what on which reality is founded upon. Exorcising of finitude and removal of death are just palliatives in front of the unknown. And the flight from doubts and uncertainty serves only those who want to fund religions and powers, to hand out answers, not those who want to embrace unpredictability taking on the risks of freedom. To ensure one’s own future, to make it certain and predictable. Sure, this is the world in which we live and the way we were taught. But, right because of it, shouldn’t it be an alarm bell? We are certain of our survival by eschewing risk.

As long as we secure our struggles in the inconsistency of their conflictuality, postponing it to an hypothetical future, or when we crystallize our spaces, that were born pulsating in the breaking of gates and regulations and the unpredictably iron limits of the law. To legalize and to reproduce. To ascertain one’s own future, one’s own persistence.

At the same time, the becoming cannot start being the favourite easy excuse for the flourishing of opinions. Coherence becomes an immobilizing moral string, that traps us in dogma and incapacity of imagining and putting in place forms of struggle. Its critique should not, anyhow, create confusion between the simplistic grayness of bar chatters and the blazing clarity of the Idea. Like ethics is something else, also the thought that becomes action – and viceversa – has nothing to do with what we tell our self to ease our conscience before putting ourself to bed. It is always about, at the end, the distinction between quality and quantity.

Unfortunately it is not easy to accept the solitude and the incommunicability that certain choices, today like in the past, mean. We perceive every gap as incandescent against our skin. The Promethean one with the Technical System and its poisonous fruits; the organizational one with the Capital and its capacity to mould its defeats and its failures in occasions of perpetual relaunch; the one with the strength of the State and its servants. And yet it is not about, once more, putting ourselves on the same level. Symmetry kills fantasy. We need to start from the acceptation of our limits and of our fallibility to find a way to look our conscience in the eyes without feeling ashamed. We need to stop fooling ourselves and to start knowing ourselves as weak and fragile. Who did we become? Caricatures of guerrilla fighters overwhelmed by occidental well-being? But the toughness of life is elsewhere and elsewhere is to be looked for without concealing it with masks and pretensions, knowing that doubt can never abandon us. And it should never.

Because there cannot be a twinkling more inviting than our own self, otherwise we are just stuffing ourselves with our same lies built with the quantitative leftovers of Dominion. The will, the stubbornness, the renunciation, can be reinvented. Not the christian one, but that of the Ideal, of wanting to live at every cost – here and now – the joy of the uniqueness of our lives. That we need to accept as ephemeral and unpredictable. Enjoy. Every instant.

“As a liberator I am a disappointment. To be disappointed is myself. I conduct my anarchist idea of freedom along steep routes, where the urgency is other, not that of the straight way I had dreamt of. It is urgency of survival, of not letting yourself be submerged and suffocated, of not being slaughtered at the corner of a dark alley of a way in the desert, a whatever track obviously not lightened. Urgency of equipping oneself materially and psychologically to shoot faster and better than the others, of the enemy”
A.M.B. – The Unexpected Guest