The ruptures of militant anarchism in Brazil

Nov

15

2024

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From Freedom News by O Amigo do Povo

“Where we come from and where we are going”: a reflection on Brazilian anarchism, then and now

~ from O Amigo do Povo ~

Brazilian anarchism lost influence over the masses with the decline and later, the end of revolutionary syndicalism in Brazil between the 1920s and 1930s. This syndicalism already had certain limitations when compared to the model of the historical AIT and its relationship with Mikhail Bakunin’s Alliance. The limitations can be summarised as purism, a-politicism and lack of understanding of the reality of Brazil, in addition to the centrality of anarchist organisation. What remained of anarchism in Brazil for more than half a century were small initiatives of propagandists, educationists and memorialists of anarcho-communist groups, composed of a mix of the old generation of anarchists in contact with young university students and punks, mostly from the petite bourgeoisie.

Between 1995 and 1996, through contacts between anarchist activists in Brazil and the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), a new era emerged for anarchism in Brazil, culminating in the creation of the Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL) in 1997 and, later, the Forum of Organised Anarchism in 2000. Despite the limitations and lack of theoretical and strategic unity of some local groups, it was in this context that Brazilian anarchism once again gained a small presence in the class struggle. Of note were the actions of the Gaucho Anarchist Federation (FAG) and, later, the Collective of Pro-organisation Anarchist of Goiás (COPOAG), with its work among waste pickers in the National Movement of Waste Pickers (MNCR), and the Libertarian Socialist Organization OSL-RJ (future UNIPA), with its urban occupations and secondary school movements in the outskirts.

Of the initiatives that stood out in the class struggle in the early 2000s, FAG’s activities lost traction among waste pickers and other social movements, adopting a shift towards post-structuralism. The Colective Anarchist Pro-organisation of Goiás, which was Bakuninist, ended in 2008. The only organisation that continued to advance, both in theory and in practice, was the group from Rio de Janeiro, which became the Popular Anarchist Union. At that time, the Popular Anarchist Union had already been debating the importance of building a revolutionary theory through Bakunin’s thought, criticising individualism and highlighting the importance of strategic action, as in the debate between CONLUTAS and INTERSINDICAL that existed within the Forum of Organised Anarchism. In this sense, the Popular Anarchist Union broke with Forum of Organised Anarchism and launched itself as a national organisation, criticising revisionism and eclecticism.

The Popular Anarchist Union, which was a local group in Rio de Janeiro until 2007, due to its more successful performance in the national context of degeneration of the left with the Worker’s Party governments, such as in the revolutionary bloc in Conlutas and in the promotion of a combative tendency in the student movement with the Class-Based and Combative Student Network, experienced relatively large quantitative and qualitative growth in the 2010s building centres in the Federal District, Ceará, Center South, Goiás, Mato Grosso, among others. Meanwhile the Forum of Organised Anarchism, which became the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination (CAB), despite its growth, changed little in terms of strategic unity and mass line, often acting as an auxiliary line of reformism or practicing welfare in social movements, resulting in less influence in the class struggle.

Garbage collector in Juazeiro, Bahia, 2007. Photo: Glauco Umbelino CC BY 2.0

In 2013, with the June uprising and the growth of its influence in several cities, the Popular Anarchist Union contributed to the call for the National Meeting of Popular, Student and Revolutionary Trade Union Organisations and the national reconstruction of Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil, becoming a reference for class-based tendencies in Brazil, mainly in the student movement with the Class-Based and Combative Student Network and in basic education with the Class Resistance Opposition group. There was a significant increase in the participation of Bakuninists in the class struggle, such as in the high school occupations of 2015 and in universities in 2016.

The Popular Anarchist Union, which established itself as the only bastion of revolutionary class-based anarchism in Brazil during the Worker’s Party governments (2003-2016), began to make its first mistakes after Dilma’s impeachment, by adhering to the coup narrative and, consequently, favouring the fight against the Worker’s Party “coup-mongering” and the defence of bourgeois democracy. This can be explained, in part, by the contradiction of its growth having occurred in intermediate sectors, such as the student movement of federal universities and the civil service. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination lost itself in social-democratic and identity-based narratives, having little influence in the class struggle.

After losing its way in the conceptual dispute with the reformists following Dilma’s impeachment, the only Bakuninist organisation in the world also failed to fully understand the changing context and the decline in struggles after 2016. Even in a new context of right-wing governments and a decline in struggles, it helped to convene the second National Meeting of Popular, Student and Revolutionary Trade Union Organisations, with a proposal de-contextualised from Western Europe by the anarcho-syndicalists of the International Confederation of Labor (CIT) with the creation of the SIGAs, parallel unions, breaking with the only model that was working: the class-based and disciplined tendencies. Thus, they created free unions aimed mainly at libertarians and doctrinaire revolutionaries, focusing only on agitation and propaganda, like the outdated models of the factory-gate unions of the 20th century.

The Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil continued to present errors in reading the context and promoting hasty and misguided structural changes, and as a result, several internal disagreements arose, mainly on issues such as the “Coup”, “Bolsonaro Out”, “identitarianism” and the “stay at home” policy. In this context, between 2021-2023, there were many ruptures in The Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil, some public, others not. In the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, there were also disagreements on two main issues: the advancement of the national organisation with political and strategic unity and the criticism of liberalism/identitarianism, which culminated in a split, mainly of the southeastern organisations of the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, which formed the new Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL) in 2023.

With all these changes in the situation in recent years – right-wing governments, the pandemic and the return of the Lula government, even more bourgeois – splits were created that today divide militant anarchism in Brazil into four main lines: Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, Libertarian Socialist Organization, Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil and its dissidents, such as GLP/Jornal Amigo do Povo, Ofensiva Revolucionária, among others.

Our humble position, the result of these ruptures and more than 20 years of activism even though we are not an anarchist group today, but rather a group of class-based activists, is summarised in advancing where the historical Popular Anarchist Union (2003-2016) was unable to do so. We want to make a quantitative and qualitative leap not only with intermediate sectors, but mainly with strategic sectors and the marginal proletariat, continuing with disciplined activism and theoretical and strategic unity as a legacy of Bakunin and Makhno. We must go to the people and continue fighting for the social revolution.

 

Book review: No Harmless Power

Nov

01

2024

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From Freedom News by bob ness ~

This warts-and-all bio of Nestor Makhno is folksy and refreshing

I’m an old-fashioned guy, a romantic, even. In my heart of hearts what I really, really want to do is to ride down capitalism with cavalry and lop off its head with our sabres. We tried that already, but it didn’t work. When something doesn’t work, we try something else. We’re still trying.

Over the years, there has been a lot of talk among anarchists about why cavalry didn’t work against capitalism. Failure often illuminates more than success. The anarchists’ historic retreat across Ukraine in the summer of 1919 was a thing of grief and glory. Some things that happened there had effects that never went away. Consider tachankas. These highly mobile weapons transformed cavalry warfare. This played a dramatic role in the Russian Civil War. Their evolution forked. One fork evolved into the sound truck, which strikes fear in the hearts of riot cops. The other fork evolved into the technical, a (usually light) pickup truck with a heavy machine gun in the back. They cast Makhno’s shadow far and wide. There’s even a war named after them. They called it the “Toyota War”. Look it up.

Many reliable sources trace the invention of this vital piece of improvised military hardware to Makhno himself. This alone is enough to cement his name in the annals of military history. Then there was his renowned tactical prowess. But he was more than an inventor who knew how to fight. What anarchists like best about him were his politics. They are legendary.

We all know at least the legend of the Makhnovists. It’s anarchist canon. At least we think know it. Even less do we know what really happened. For decades it was a major effort to find a book about him or even a book he was mentioned in. What could be found ranged from slander to hagiography. What we really need is a warts-and-all bio that includes an account of the people around him. To that end I recommend No Harmless Power.

Allison really did his homework. He devotes a long chapter to very brief bios of anarchists that even I had never heard of but who all had Makhno-era links to Ukraine. Some were born in Ukraine and grew into anarchists there. Others came from as far as Japan, like Ōsugi Sakae. There is lots of fascinating trivia in this story. One anarchist cavalry commander had had both feet amputated in WWI. A cavalryman with no feet! Sometimes his battalion dismounted and fought as dragoons. His men wheeled him into battle in a wheelbarrow. That’s a story you don’t hear every day, not in the works of ableist historians anyway.

Then there’s the gossip. Makhno really did drink too much sometimes (it’s not what killed him though; that’s a lie). Ida Mett thought his partner Galina was a gold digger… stuff like that. Who slept with who last and who owes who money have plagued our praxis forever. Somehow, we manage to work around it.

Allison explains Makhno’s predilection for drag as having grown out of his school drama program. At first glance it does seem out of character. He was a pretty butch guy. Some of his feats smack of classical machismo. But he wasn’t afraid to be thought of as a harmless old woman sitting on a tree stump, munching on sunflower seeds within earshot of some enemy brass who were discussing strategy. To them, (s)he was as invisible as the stump (s)he sat on. That’s how disguises are supposed to work. That’s also how patriarchy works. Patriarchy is a scourge upon humanity, but on occasion it can be turned against its practitioners.

Makhno wore other disguises, too. Sometimes he would dress as an enemy soldier of one sort or another. He had many enemies, and they wore different uniforms, which made them easy to deceive. It was in a Cheka uniform that he escaped into exile. This had been the idea of his righthand man, Lev Zinkovsky, the head of the anarchist intelligence service. I would have liked this book more if Allison had devoted more time to this part in the struggle. After all, a war without spies never happens. Anywhere. Ever. Fortunately, we have “Kontrrazvedka: The Story of the Makhnovist Intelligence Service”, by V. Azarov to flesh out this part of our story.

There could have been a chapter devoted to another fascinating character, Maria Nikiforova. She played a much bigger role in the story of the Makhnovshchina than Sakae, which is not to denigrate Sakae in any way. Sakae was a shining example of anarchists in action, but he managed to get deported before he could even meet Makhno. Nikiforova, on the other hand, fought in the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (on horseback with a sabre, and with a squadron of cavalry at her back and under her command). Fortunately, we have “Atamansha: The Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc”, by Malcolm Archibald to fill us in.

When Allison gets to the Platform, he goes deep into the machinations and personal interactions involved in the debate surrounding this document, but on the Platform itself he’s pretty neutral, at least in print. That’s wrong of him. The Platform was a colossal mistake; its adoption would have been an even bigger one. It needs to be condemned in no uncertain terms, and this needs repeating, even today. Emma Goldman herself spoke out against Platformism. Bolshevism without Bolsheviks?! Preposterous. They’d just become Bolsheviks, and we’d be back to square one. Besides, all states excel at decapitating frontal attacks. Only a decentralised movement is immune. It has no capit to decate. Why give it one?

Despite these flaws, No Harmless Power is an excellent book. Its folksy style provides a refreshing counterpoint, for example, to Skirda’s more pedantic “Anarchy’s Cossack”, which is also an excellent book.

Allison’s judicious use of snark and vernacular does much to make it accessible to modern sensibilities. It gives us moderns a look inside the anarchist movement as it used to be and to a certain extent still is today. It’s more about the people than it is about the ideology. Anarchism itself should be more about the people than the ideology. All anarchists would do well to read this book. We’d all do well to read all of anarchist history. Without history the wisdom of our ancestors eludes us. So does their folly. We need for that not to happen. So read history. Start today.

No Harmless Power: The Life and Times of the Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno, by Charlie Allison; Illustrated by Kevin Matthews and N.O. Bonzo. PM Press, 2023. 256 pages

 

Malcolm Archibald: 50 years of Black Cat PresS  

EDMONTON, ALBERTA

Nov

01

2024

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I WAS HIS PRINTERS DEVIL 

From Freedom News by Sean Patterson

In this interview, the founder of Edmonton’s anarchist publishing house looks back on its legacy

For the past five decades, Black Cat Press (BCP) in Edmonton, Canada, has served as a local hub for the city’s radical community and as an important publisher of anarchist material. Over the years, BCP has produced many notable titles, including the first English translations of the collected works of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno in five volumes. Other stand-out works from BCP include The Dossier of Subject No. 1218, the translated memoirs of Bulgarian anarchist Alexander Nakov; Lazar Lipotkin’s The Russian Anarchist Movement in North America, a previously unpublished manuscript held at Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History; and Kronstadt Diary, a selection of Alexander Berkman’s original diary entries from 1921.

Amongst reprints of classic works by the likes of Kropotkin, Bakunin, and William Morris, BCP has also highlighted the work of anarchist researchers from around the globe, including Alexey Ivanov’s Kropotkin and Canada, Vadim Damier’s Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th Century, Ronald Tabor’s The Tyranny of Theory, and Archibald’s own work Atamansha: The Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc.  

Sadly, Black Cat Press closed its doors in 2022, an economic victim of the Covid pandemic. Any future hopes to revive the press were subsequently shattered in the wake of a second tragedy. On June 26, 2024, an early morning house fire started by arsonists destroyed BCP’s remaining equipment and inventory. The loss of BCP is painful not only locally for Edmonton but nationally as one of Canada’s few anarchist publishers. Sharing BCP’s five-decade-long story will hopefully inspire others to follow in the steps of BCP’s legacy and the broader tradition of small anarchist publishing houses.

This month, BCP founder Malcolm Archibald sat down with Freedom News to reflect on a lifetime of publishing and his personal journey through anarchism over the years.

—

You have been involved with the anarchist community for many years. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you first became interested in anarchism?

Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the Cold War, I certainly had no exposure to anarchism. Nor did my family have any predilection for left-wing politics. The only book on socialism in the public library was G. D. H. Cole’s History of Socialist Thought, which I devoured. In 1958, at age 15, I attended a provincial convention of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) as a youth delegate. The CCF in Nova Scotia was a proletarian party with a strong base in the coal mining districts. After that, I was hooked on left-wing politics.

I became interested in anarchism by reading books about the Spanish Civil War. The first real anarchist I met was Murray Bookchin at a conference in Ann Arbor in 1969. Bookchin understood that many student radicals were anarchists in practice, even if they called themselves Marxists, so he emphasised the libertarian elements of Marx in his propaganda.

What anarchist organisations/groups have you been involved with over the years?

As a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, I was on the staff of underground newspapers, including an anarchist tabloid, The Walrus. Later, I helped start an anarchist magazine in Edmonton called News from Nowhere (printed by Black Cat Press). In Edmonton in the 1970s we had a branch of the Social-Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (SRAF), but most anarchist activity was centred around the IWW, Black Cat Press, and Erewhon Books. Anarchists were also involved in the newspapers Poundmaker (circulation 19,000!) and Prairie Star. In 1979, the North American Anarchist Communist Federation (NAACF, later simplified to ACF) started up, and I was active in two of their branches for a number of years but was unable to get much traction for the organisation in Edmonton.

When did you start Black Cat Press, and how did it evolve over time? What are some key moments in its history you’d like to share with our readers?

Black Cat Press started when I purchased an offset press and copy camera in 1972. The previous owner had tried to earn a living with this equipment and ended up in a mental institution, which was not auspicious. BCP became a “printer to the movement” in Edmonton, used by almost all the left groups and causes. In 1979 BCP became the unofficial printer of the ACF and printed a number of pamphlets for that organisation.

From 1989 to 2001, BCP shared space with the Boyle McCauley News, the monthly newspaper of Edmonton’s inner city, with an all-volunteer staff. The newspaper generally tried to print positive news about the community, but an exception was the issue of juvenile prostitution, a terrible blight until we started printing stories about it and the authorities finally took action.

In 1994, the government printing plant where I worked was shut down, and BCP began to operate full-time with three partners who had been laid off at the same time. Our customer base included social agencies close to our shop in Edmonton’s inner city plus various unions. In 2003, I purchased a perfect binding machine and was able to start printing books. Our first book was Kropotkin’s Anarchist Morality, a perennial favourite. Eventually, about 30 titles were printed, which were distributed by AK Press, independent bookstores, and literature tables at anarchist book fairs.

How did you come to translate Russian-language radical and anarchist texts?

I studied Russian at university and later took night courses in German, French, Ukrainian, and Polish. I first became aware of Nestor Makhno in the 1960s from a book by the British historian David Footman. Ending up in Edmonton, it turned out that the University of Alberta Library held four books by Nestor Makhno, bibliographical rarities.

I’m constantly amazed at the richness of the anarchist tradition in the Russian Empire and the USSR. For many years, The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich was the only survey work on the subject, but recently, two histories have appeared in Russia and one in Ukraine. It is a measure of the depth of the movement that these histories are practically independent of one another and pay hardly any attention to Avrich.

My first works of translation from Russian were physics articles, which don’t give much scope for originality. In translating historical texts, most of the effort goes not into the actual translation, but research on the names of places, persons, etc. and preparing annotations. I try to provide the reader with maps, graphics, and indexes, which make it easier to understand the text.

Although I generally do not work with literary texts, I did translate some poems by Nestor Makhno. He wrote a poem called “The Summons” while in prison in 1912. A search of his cell in 1914 discovered this poem, for which he was given one week in a punishment cell. While in this cell, he composed another poem, which he wrote down as soon as he was allowed back to his regular cell. But another search discovered the second poem (more bloodthirsty than the first one), and he ended up in the punishment cell again. So, it wasn’t easy being an anarchist poet!

Some of your major contributions to anarchist studies are the translations of Russian and Ukrainian primary sources. In particular, you translated and published the first English edition of Nestor Makhno’s three-volume memoirs. Can you describe this translation project?

The University of Alberta library holds copies of Makhno’s memoirs, including both the French and Russian versions of the first volume. I started translating these memoirs as early as 1979 when BCP published a pamphlet entitled My Visit to the Kremlin, a translation of two chapters in the second volume. This pamphlet was eventually published in many other languages.

Most of the work involved in preparing translations of Makhno’s works went into research about the people and places he mentions. An effort was made to provide enough material in the form of notes and maps to make the narrative intelligible to the reader.

Black Cat Press recently closed its doors after fifty years in business. The economic environment for publishing is increasingly difficult in general, and especially so for small anarchist presses. What are your thoughts on the current prospects for anarchist publishing, and what changes might have to be made to maintain its long-term viability?

Most anarchist publishers have to order a substantial press run up front and then hope to sell the books over a (hopefully) not-too-long period. BCP was ahead of its time in using a print-on-demand model where inventories were kept low so that capital wouldn’t be tied up in stock that wasn’t moving. The publishing arm of BCP was not much affected by the pandemic; rather, it was the job printing that suffered, forcing the business to close.

How have you seen anarchism (particularly in Canada) change over the decades? Canada has rarely seen an organized anarchist movement in the same way as some groups in Europe or the United States. Why do you think this is so, and do you see any hope for an organized Canadian movement in the future?

When I became active in the anarchist movement in Canada in the 1970s, the anarchists were all poverty-stricken, trying to survive in minimum-wage jobs. The next generation was much better off and had a lot of money to throw around. Now, the current generation is back to being dirt poor again, lacking the resources to make an impact. But I think the prospects for the future are good because (a) the old left (communists, Trotskyists, i.e., the alphabet soup brigade) are intellectually and morally bankrupt, and (b) the New Democratic Party (in Alberta, at least) is environmentally irresponsible. This leaves a lot of room on the left for anarchists to stake out their territory and attract young people into the movement.

Malcolm Archibald at the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair, 2013.

Thanks to Kandis Friesen for sharing previously collected interview material.

 UKRAINE

Collaboration of pro-war anarchists with the far-right

Oct

14

2024

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From libcom.org
September 23, 2024

Masks are off, or the failure of the "anti-authoritarian resistance" myth

Yesterday post by a recently appeared internationalist blog. Screensaver with Makhno's monument during the war is from the translator. Some references are edited on September 27 at the request of the authors.

Stupidity does not stop being stupid because someone died for it.

- Nicolás Gómez Dávila

And now that we have finally dotted the "i"s in the issue of neo-Nazism of the "Azov" brigade, let's move on to our pro-war anarchists.

About 3 months ago, pro-Ukrainian anarchist channels began to spread information about an anarchist who died at the front... who fought in Azov! They also said that he was in the so-called "anti-authoritarian platoon", but after nothing really came of this "anti-authoritarian platoon", he decided to join the neo-Nazi brigade.

Information about him was disseminated by such a pro-war anarchist group as the "Ecological Platform".

And do you know what's most remarkable?

Back in 2018, Azov members attacked and beat activists of the Ecological Platform.

But now 2024 has come, and the Ecological Platform is already honoring a fighter died in the ranks of Azov!

By the way, another self-proclaimed "anarchist" Ruslan Tereshchenko, who helped the Ukrainian government suppress the separatist uprising back in 2014, also died as part of Azov. But the pro-Ukrainian anarchists have already decided not to talk about his membership in Azov. Judging by the messages of these same pro-war anarchists, this may be due to the risk of losing support from "Western comrades".

Well, considering that the pro-war anarchists themselves have to to regretfully admit that their adventure with the support of the so-called "national liberation" movement is increasingly losing support in the anarchist community, where internationalist sentiments are gaining strength, this is a very reasonable consideration!

But these are far from the only examples of cooperation between pro-war anarchists and the far-right.

The hole, as they say, turned out to be even deeper...

How it all began in the winter of 2013-2014. These words turned out to be not obvious to everyone at the time. Added by the translator

So, let's begin the study of the connections of anarcho-militarists with the far-right directly with BOAK:

As is known, after the death of BOAK founder Dmitry Petrov near Bakhmut in 2023, as well as his "comrades-in-arms" Finbar and Cooper, it turned out that they all collaborated with Korchinsky's far-right "Brotherhood" battalion (in which such people as neo-Nazi Vita Zaverukha[1] also serve), and, according to Korchinsky himself, they all joined the ranks of his unit.

BOAK itself, however, denied this information, writing the following[2]:

"Dmitry, Finbar and Cooper, who died in the battle near Bakhmut on April 19, were indeed there together with the members of the "Brotherhood". However, the indisputable fact – confirmed by the words of the guys themselves, their friends and our comrade, who was in the same unit with the guys - is that they never joined the ranks of this organization. Joint participation in the battle, as well as preparation for it, was a temporary solution imposed on them by the army command.

These warriors gathered together specifically to create an anarchist unit, but were forced to use extremely limited opportunities for this. Arriving for training with their group, they were faced with the fact that they would train together with the members of the "Brotherhood", and later – that they would go on the next mission together. For the sake of their goal, the anarchists were ready for any trials, so they were not stopped by the unpleasant necessity of such temporary proximity. After all, personal comfort is nothing compared to with challenges and the possibility of achieving the ideals of the anarchist movement."

Submission to decisions "imposed by the army command" on cooperation with the far-right in the name of "achieving the ideals of anarchism"!

I wonder if the BOAK members themselves were not amused when they wrote this nonsense!

And what kind of "imposed by the army command" decisions are these? You yourself were constantly demagogues that "you are not fighting on the side of the state, but on the side of the people." Well, this "people" who gave you orders imposed this "unpleasant decision" on you! Why are you indignant!

This BOAK message ends with calls for revenge, after which, by the way, the newspaper that "dared" to report on BOAK's connections with the "Brotherhood" began to receive threats[3].

Nevertheless, despite all the denials from the BOAK, later there was confirmation of the information that at the time of the death of Petrov and his "comrades-in-arms", they were members of the "Brotherhood", and this is what volunteer Danil Yugoslavsky testified to[4].

It turns out that independent evidence corresponds to the official statement of Korchinsky, and on the side of the BOAK there are only unfounded allegations!

What can be said here: while "the damned dogmatists are cowardly wiping their pants in their dusty offices", our pro-war anarchists are already in full swing "building a new Makhnovshchina" under the command of Zelensky, Korchinsky and Prokopenko!

Another would-be anarchist, Alexei Makarov, who is now being actively promoted by "our" supporters of the war[5] [6], also collaborated with the "Brotherhood". Makarov himself joined the "Siberian Battalion", where his "comrades-in-arms", judging by the footage of the interview with "Mediazona", wore the "Dead Head" patches and the flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army – UPA (the same organization that participated in the Holocaust, the Volyn massacre, and also killed Gypsies, Russians and Czechs) [7] [8].

Ukrainian "anti-fascist" (sic!) Yuriy Samoylenko, who was also glorified by the resources of pro-war anarchists and who died in September 2022, also joined the "Right Sector" unit before his death [9] [10].

We can see another deceased fighter, Sergei Petrovichev, who called himself an "anarchist" and "anti-fascist" and also became an official "martyr" on the same photo with Korchinsky [11], and at an event of the neo-Nazi organization "White Rex". Also, in various photos we can see his regular meetings with the leader of the far-right "OUN Volunteer Battalion" Nikolai Kokhanovsky (with whom he literally hugs on camera) and the famous neo-Nazi Martsinkevich. And finally, a photo of himself in a T-shirt with a fascist graphic image[12].

Let's also mention the Solidarity Collectives, whose members gave an interview to French anarchists in 2023 and who were actively promoted by the pro-war anarchist magazine Égalité [13].

In their interview, they stated that "they fundamentally do not help far-right groups like "Azov", but at the same time they help the "Kalinowski Regiment". The same "Kalinowski Regiment", which was founded and led by... a member of "Azov", who fought in it since 2014 and even rose to the rank of instructor there[14].

In Kalinovsky's regiment, under the command of the Nazi, there also fought such Belarusian national anarchists as Yevgeny Zhuravsky[15]
and Emil Yanovsky, who wore a patch with the OUN fascist symbol [16] [17].

How can one not recall old man Magid:

"It is funny to read articles by Ukrainian "anarchists and leftists" who support the state army of Ukraine, the ATO and the "fight against separs". In practice, the entire difference between the Ukrainian left and the Ukrainian right has been reduced to the attitude towards gay and lesbian issues. The leftists are for them, and the so-called "Right Sector" are for conservative values.

It seems that all these people, the Ukrainian leftists and rightists, stand on opposite sides of the barricades only at gay parades, so that later after them they can unite amicably in a state-patriotic burst of unity."

It should also be noted that pro-war anarchists constantly hide behind the name of Stanislav Markelov, writing his name on their shells[18].

That same Markelov, who devoted his entire life to fighting Nazis and nationalists, speaking out against Chechen fighters, Russian imperials, Ukrainian Banderists, and Belarusian national democrats[19].

And pro-war anarchists, who, I remind you, also fight in the neo-Nazi "Azov", which dispersed rallies dedicated to his memory[20], and also collaborated with BORN fighters, at whose hands Markelov was cynically and vilely killed[21] [22][23], hide behind his name.

In connection with this, I have a rhetorical question:

Isn't all this an insult to his blessed memory?

***

And finally:

But how did we get to the point where people who are at least "anarchists" at the level of declarations went to serve in a brigade of Nazis and war criminals?

I have one guess on this matter. Tracking the resources of pro-war anarchists (and I emphasize that I will be touching on the most media-friendly and authoritative people in the pro-war camp, who are also interviewed by foreign anarchists), I have identified two intentions that are more or less inherent to them:

Firstly, complete unscrupulousness in the means.

Thus, the infamous Anatoly Dubovik not only engaged in rudeness and the most brazen dirty slander against internationalist anarchists[24]
[25], but also, together with Sergei Shevchenko and Alexander Kolchenko, engaged in doxxing - publishing the home addresses of anti-war anarchists with a direct call for their murder[26] [27].

(And, yes, this is the same Kolchenko who was arrested in annexed Crimea for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the "United Russia" office, which, as it turned out, was located in a residential building, and then after his release, when a journalist asked him, "Did he think that random people could get hurt?" he was unable to give a clear answer[28].)

It is also worth noting that other followers of Dubovik also voiced calls to "eliminate" the anti-war anarchists with state force[29].

However, all these meannesses towards the internationalists did not prevent such platforms as the Czech magazine Kontradikce, the website Anarchist Federation and "Pramen" [Ray] from providing a platform for the dissemination of Dubovik's slander and even inviting him and Shevchenko for an interview!

Moreover, even after the editors of the same "Pramen" were refuted Dubovik's lies with evidence, they... no, they did not apologize to the internationalists for spreading slander, and, no, they did not apologize to their readers for misleading them – they deleted the message with the internationalists' detailed response to this very slander[30]!

Moreover, the same people, who had previously seriously complained about the internationalists because... they ban their critics[31], cowardly banned and deleted messages with this very response in various chats!

Also, pro-war anarchists in Europe regularly try to disrupt events of anti-war anarchists, spreading the same vile slander against the internationalists – in their alleged support for Putin and other ridiculous nonsense[32].

Secondly, chauvinism.

See for yourself:

Dubovik, who wishes death and suffering to ordinary civilian Russians, while justifying the war crimes of Ukraine[33].

Shevchenko, who calls Palestinians "cattle"[34].

Kolchenko, who glorified chauvinists and pogromists from the UPA[35], just as the so-called "left-wing" nationalists from the "Autonomous Resistance"[36] had done before, who also did not hesitate to put on a portrait of Makhno and some of whom even called themselves "anarchists"[37], but in fact were only "national Bolsheviks in embroidered shirts".

The pro-war "anarchist" media blogger Yigal Levin (known for constantly lying and making up stories about his alleged combat experience in the Israeli army, while posing as a "military expert"[38]), who after the start of the war actively promoted our "trench anarchists"[39]. In addition, he also openly stated that "Russophobia is a matter of hygiene and survival"[40], openly justified Israeli war crimes in Gaza[41], and called Azerbaijan's violation of the ceasefire, the bombing of civilian areas in Karabakh[42] and the expulsion of 120,000 Karabakh Armenians[43] "an example of how conflicts can and should be brought to their logical conclusion"[44].

Or the same pro-war group "Nihilist", which after the war began writing not only militaristic, but also openly Russophobic texts[45].

Complete unscrupulousness in means + chauvinism: here we have come to the point where pro-war would-be anarchists "amicably came together in a single patriotic impulse" with neo-Nazis, war criminals and other cannibals.

It would be strange if they did not come together!

At the same time, unfortunately, such national-anarchists still have a support network in Europe[46].

In this regard, we strongly urge all anarchists who have not figured out the situation and who support this nationalist adventure:

Come to your senses!

Distribution of the material is highly encouraged!