MALATESTA’S REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM IN BRITISH EXILE

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28

2024

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Review of The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900—13.  The Complete Works of Errico Malatesta.  Vol. V. (2023). by Wayne Price

The Italian Errico Malatesta (1853—1932) was a comrade and friend of Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Calling himself an anarchist-socialist, he was respected and loved by large numbers of anarchists and workers, in Italy and other countries. He was closely watched by the police forces of several nations. He had escaped imprisonment in Italy and lived in various countries in Europe, the Middle East, the U.S.A., and Latin America. Four times he spent time in Britain. This volume has collected works from his longest stay there, from 1900 to 1913, from when he was 48 to 61.

Britain, secure in its wealth and imperial power, was the most open European country in providing asylum to political refugees—so long as they obeyed local laws. As a result, the UK had communities of anarchists and other socialists from all over Europe. There was also an overlapping colony of Italians. Malatesta lived in London, supporting himself by running a small electrician’s shop. Only at one point, in 1912, did the police and courts make a serious effort to expel him. This set off massive demonstrations of British and immigrant workers and outcries from liberal newspapers and politicians. The attempt at expulsion was dropped.

However, Malatesta was frustrated by being penned up in Britain. He made several efforts to produce an anarchist-socialist paper which would circulate in Italy, but with limited success. He participated in anarchist activities in Britain, but his English, while apparently serviceable, was not fluent (when not speaking Italian, he preferred French). This volume includes his translated articles, pamphlets, and written speeches, as well as interviews of him by both bourgeois and radical newspapers. There are also reports by police spies (at least one of whom passed as a close comrade). They faithfully recorded his speeches and private comments and passed them on to their superiors.

In the course of Malatesta’s lengthy sojourn in London, he discussed a number of topics which were important to anarchists then and are still important. He was not an major theorist of political economy or history, but he was brilliant about strategic and tactical issues of the anarchist movement. This makes the study of Malatesta’s collected work valuable even today.

Terrorism

Around the time the book begins, in 1900, an Italian anarchist who had been living in the U.S., went back to Europe and assassinated Humbert, the Italian king. Apparently Malatesta had met the assassin, Bresci, briefly while in Patterson NJ. Otherwise he knew nothing about the affair. However the press continually tried to interview him about it, seeking to tie anarchism to assassination.

Malatesta always opposed indiscriminate mass terrorism (such as throwing bombs into restaurants). Nor did he call for assassination of prominent individuals, whether kings, presidents, or big businesspeople. In general, it did not advance the cause. His approach had become one of building revolutionary anarchist organizations, to participate in mass struggles. However, he was understanding of the motives of individual anarchists driven to assassination—and not sympathetic at all to the rulers and exploiters whom they killed. The Italian king, he noted, had previously ordered soldiers to massacre peasants and workers.

When US President William McKinley was shot dead by Czolgosz, who claimed to be anarchist, Malatesta called the president, “the head of [the] North American oligarchy, the instrument and defender of the great capitalists, the traitor of the Cubans and Filipinos, the man who authorized the massacre of the Hazelton strikers, the tortures of the Idaho miners and the thousand disgraces being committed in the ‘model republic.’” (Malatesta 2023; p. 75) He felt no sorrow for the death of this man, only compassion for the assassin, who “with good or bad strategy,” sacrificed himself for “the cause of freedom and equality.” (p. 75)

However, he did not advocate this as a political strategy. It was more important to win workers to reliance upon themselves rather than kings, bosses, and official leaders. “…Overthrowing monarchy…cannot be accomplished by murder. The Sovereigns who die would only be succeeded by other Sovereigns. We must kill kings in the hearts of the people; we must assassinate toleration of kings in the public conscience; we must shoot loyalty and stab allegiance to tyranny of whatever form wherever it exists.” (p. 59)

In another incident in London, a small group of Russian anarchist exiles was interrupted in the process of robbing a jewelry store. There was a shoot-out with the police (led by Home Secretary Winston Churchill) which ended in the death of some officers and all the robbers. As it happened, one of the thieves had met Malatesta at an anarchist club, and ended up buying a gas tank from him, claiming a benevolent use for it. In fact it was used to break open the jewelry safe.

Malatesta patiently explained to the police and the newspapers that he had no foreknowledge of the robbery. However he wrote that it was unfair to link the robbers’ actions with their anarchist politics. Was a murder in the U.S. blamed on the murderer being a Democrat or Republican? Were thieves’ thievery usually ascribed to their opinions on Free Trade versus Tariffs? Or perhaps their belief in vegetarianism? No, they were essentially regarded as thieves, regardless of their beliefs on politics, economics, or religion. The same should be true for these jewelry thieves, whatever their views on anarchism.

Syndicalism/Trade Unionism

By the last decades of the 19th century, many anarchists had given up on only actions and propaganda by individuals and small groups. These tactics had mainly resulted in isolation and futility. Instead many turned toward mass organizing and the trade unions. Anarchists joined, and worked to organize, labor unions in several countries. (Often these efforts were called “syndicalism,” which is the French for “unionism.”)

There remained anarchists who opposed unions: individualists and anti-organizational communists. But most turned in the pro-union direction. This gave a big boost to the anarchist movement at the time.

Errico Malatesta had long been an advocate of unions. He had contacts with militant unionists throughout Britain and other countries. In London in this period, he directly participated in unionizing waiters and catering staff. He gave support to the struggles of tailors to form a union, which led to a large strike.

“Syndicalism, or more precisely the labor movement…has always found me a resolute, but not blind, advocate.…I see it as a particularly propitious terrain for our revolutionary propaganda and…a point of contact between the masses and ourselves.” (p. 240)

But once it was decided that anarchists should participate in the labor movement, the next question was how should they participate? What should be the relation between anarchist activists and the trade unions? On this question, differences among anarchists were made explicit at the 1907 anarchist conference held in Amsterdam.

At the conference, Malatesta took issue with the views of Pierre Monatte, who spoke for the French syndicalist movement. Malatesta argued, “The conclusion Monatte reached is that syndicalism is a necessary and sufficient means of social revolution. In other words, Monatte declares that syndicalism is sufficient unto itself. And this, in my opinion, is a radically false doctrine.” (p. 240)

The unions had great advantages, as they brought together working people in enterprises, industries, cities, and regions. They included only workers, and not capitalists or management. They had the potential of stopping businesses and whole economies, in the pursuit of working class demands. They were schools of cooperation and joint struggle.

Yet, the unions’ very strengths also pointed to certain weaknesses. They are institutions within capitalist society. They exist (at least in the short term) to win a better deal for the workers under capitalism. Therefore they must compromise with the bosses and the state. Further, they need as many members as possible, to counter the power of the bosses. They cannot just recruit revolutionary anarchists and socialists. They must take in workers of every political, economic, and religious persuasion. (A union which only accepted anarchists would not be much of a threat to the bourgeoisie.)

These and other factors brought constant pressure on unions to be more conservative, corrupt, and bureaucratic. All anarchists recognized these tendencies among officials of political parties, even among liberals or socialists. But the same tendencies existed for union officials.

Malatesta drew certain conclusions. Anarchist-socialists should not dissolve themselves into the unions, becoming good union militants (as he understood Monatte to be saying). Instead, they should build revolutionary anarchist groups to operate inside and outside union structures. Nor should they take union offices which gave them power over people. But they could take positions which were clearly carrying out tasks agreed to by the membership—but with no wages higher than the other workers. They should be the best union militants, always advocating more democratic, less bureaucratic, and more militant policies, while still raising their revolutionary libertarian politics.

“In the union, we must remain anarchists, in the full strength and full breadth of the term. The labor movement for me is only a means—evidently the best among all means that are available to us.” (p. 241)

A central concept of the syndicalists was the goal of a general strike. Malatesta had certain criticisms. Not that he opposed the idea of getting all the workers of a city or country to go on strike at the same time. This could show the enormous power of the working class, if it would use it—much more powerful than electing politicians. But there is no magic in a general strike. The capitalist class has supplies stored away with which they could outlast the workers—starve them out. The state has its police and armed forces to break up the strike organization, arrest the organizers, and forcibly drive the workers back to their jobs.

In brief, Malatesta did not believe in the possibility of a successful nonviolent general strike (this is not considering a one-day “general strike” set by the union bureaucrats for show). He felt that a serious general strike would require occupation of factories and workplaces, arming of the workers, and plans for their military self-defense. It would have to be the beginning of a revolution. (Hence the book’s title.)

However much he criticized aspects of syndicalism, Malatesta was completely opposed to “…the anti-organizationalist anarchists, those who are against participation in the labor struggle, establishment of a party, etc. [By ‘party,’ he means here an organization of anarchists—WP] ….The secret of our success lies in knowing how to reconcile revolutionary action and spirit with everyday practical action; in knowing how to participate in small struggles without losing sight of the great and definitive struggle.” (p. 78)

War and National Self-Determination

This collection of writings by and about Malatesta ends in 1913. Therefore it does not cover his response to World War I which began the next year—nor his break with Kropotkin for supporting the imperialist Allies in the war.

However, in the period covered here, he could see the increase in wars, both between imperialist powers and between imperial states and oppressed peoples. “…Weaker nations are robbed of their independence. The kaiser of Germany urges his troops to give the Chinese no quarter; the British government treats the Boers…as rebels, and burns their farms, hunts down housewives…and re-enacts Spain’s ghastly feats in Cuba; the Sultan [of Turkey] has the Armenians slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands; and the American government massacres the Filipinos, having first cravenly betrayed them.” (p. 33)

He opposed all sides in wars among imperialist governments—as he was to do during World War I. The only solution to such wars was the social revolution.

But Malatesta supported oppressed nations which rebelled against imperial domination. (Some ignorant people believe that it is un-anarchist to support such wars. Yet Malatesta did, as did Bakunin, Kropotkin, Makhno, and many other anarchists—even though they rarely used the term “national self-determination”.) Malatesta wrote, “…True socialism consists of hoping for and provoking, when possible, the subjected people to drive away the invaders, whoever they are.” (p. 58)

This does not mean that anarchist-socialists have to agree with the politics of the rebelling people. Speaking of the Boers, who were fighting the British empire, he wrote without illusions, “The regime they will probably establish will certainly not have our sympathies; their social, political, religious ideas are the antipodes of our own.” (p. 59) Nevertheless, it would be better if they win and British imperialists are defeated. For the people of the imperialist country, “It is not the victory but the defeat of England that will be of use to the English people, that will prepare them for socialism.” (p. 58) (The British won.)

The Italian and Turkish states went to war over north Africa around 1912. Malatesta condemned both sides, but supported the struggle of the Arab population. “I hope that the Arabs rise up and throw both the Turks and the Italians into the sea.” (p. 321)

He understood that “love of birthplace” (p. 328) was typically felt by people, including their roots in the community, their childhood language, their love of local nature, and perhaps their pride in the contributions their people have made to world culture. But this natural sentiment is then misused by the rulers to develop a patriotism which masks class division and exploitation.

The rulers “…turned gentle love of homeland into that feeling of antipathy…toward other peoples which usually goes by the name of patriotism, and which the domestic oppressors in various countries exploit to their advantage. ….We are internationalists…We extend our homeland to the whole world, feel ourselves to be brothers to all human beings, and seek well-being, freedom, and autonomy for every individual and group…..We abhor war…and we champion the fight against the ruling classes.” (p. 329)

As can be seen, to Malatesta, internationalism did not conflict with support for “autonomy for every…group.” This included groups of people who held a common identity as a nation. Anarchists are internationalist, but
unlike the centralism of Lenin, anarchists do not want a homogenous world state. They advocate regionalism, pluralism, and decentralized federations. This particular passage went on to support the Arabs against Italian imperialism. “…It is the Arabs’ revolt against the Italian tyrant that is noble and holy.” (p. 329)

Yet Malatesta may be faulted for his lack of concern about racism. In supporting the Boers, and even when listing their extreme (antipodal) differences with anarchists, he does not mention their exploitation of the indigenous Africans. Nor does he make other references to racial oppression (such as in U.S. segregation). This must be put beside his fervent anti- colonialism and support for the rebellion of oppressed peoples.

Similarly, he does not mention the oppression of women or its intersection with class and national exploitation. It is not at all that he was misogynist (like Proudhon). I am sure he treated Emma Goldman as an equal at the 1907 international anarchist conference. But, like most male radicals of his time, he had a “blind spot” in thinking about this major aspect of overall oppression.

Imperialism, war, national oppression, and national revolt are issues which are still with us. Look at Palestine or Ukraine or the Kurds, among other peoples. These issues will be with us as long as capitalism survives, as Malatesta knew.

Other Topics

Besides terrorism, syndicalism, and national wars, Malatesta covered quite a lot of topics in the course of these thirteen years, as we would expect.

He condemned a French anti-clerical town council which outlawed the wearing by priests of their cassocks within the municipal borders. Malatesta was an opponent of religion and certainly of the Catholic Church. But he did not believe that people would be won from it by means of police coercion. That would only provoke resistance. At most, it would replace the religious priests with secularist ones, “which would all the same preach subjugation to masters….” (p. 68)

Today, the French government forbids Muslim girls and women from wearing headscarfs in schools and other public buildings—in the name of “secular” government. The left and feminists are divided on how to respond. “Oh, when will those who call themselves friends of freedom, decide to desire truly freedom for all!” (p.68)

Unlike Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus or (more recently) Murray Bookchin, there was not much of an ecological dimension to Malatesta. However he was concerned with the way landlords and capitalists had kept Italian agriculture backward. He believed that under anarchy, the peasants would be able to make the barren lands bloom.

By 1913, his experience with state socialists was mainly with the reformist Marxist “democratic socialists” (social democrats). This was four years before the Russian Revolution, which ended in the dictatorship of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the rise of authoritarian state capitalism.

Yet he was prescient enough to write: “…Depending on the direction in which competing and opposite efforts of men and parties succeed in driving the movement, the coming social revolution could open to humanity the main road to full emancipation, or simply serve to elevate a new layer of the privileged above the masses, leaving unscathed the principle of authority and privilege.” (p. 102) The validity of this anarchist insight (which goes back to Proudhon and Bakunin) has been repeatedly demonstrated.

All the subjects Errico Malatesta discussed in this period had one guiding social philosophy. Quoting the famous lines written by, but not created by, Marx: “…The emancipation of the workers must be conquered by the workers themselves.…Throughout history the oppressed have never achieved anything beyond what they were able to take, push away pimps and philanthropists and politicos, take their own fate in their own hands, and decide to act directly.” (p. 220) This was the principle of Malatesta’s revolutionary anarchist-socialism and remains true today.

References
Malatesta, Errico (2023).  The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900—13.  The Complete Works of Errico Malatesta.  Vol. V.  (Ed.: Davide Turcato; Trans.: Andrea Asali).  Chico CA:  AK Press.

Some Russians Still Deeply Divided by Civil War of a Century Ago, Memorials Conflict Shows

MAKHNOVICHNA BATTLE BANNER

NESTOR MAKHNO
 UKRAINIAN ANARCHIST 

 

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 25 – A serious conflict has broken out in Rostov-na-Donu over a memorial bust of Baron Wrangel, a leader of the anti-Bolshevik forces in South Russia during the Russian Civil War, with monarchists praising him and defending the bust and communists denouncing him and demanding the memorial be taken down.

            What is most striking about this is that both sides present their positions as reflecting Kremlin policy and discuss the future of the bust in terms of Moscow’s current military campaign in Ukraine  (kavkazr.com/a/neokonchennaya-voyna-pamyati-kak-pamyatnik-vrangelyu-raskolol-rostov/32700233.html).

            But lest this fight, which close observers say, is really a struggle between two small groups rather than a division in the population at large, the Kremlin has restricted coverage in all-Russian media of this debate lest it exacerbate tensions and highlight the internally contradictory nature of Putin’s belief in “a single stream” of Russian history.

            Russian political scientist Dmitry Dubrovsky says that “Putin has demonstrated that his sympathies are on the side of the white movement and the emperor and not the revolutionaries.” But at the same time, aware of how that might disturb Russians, he has not expressed himself forcefully and consistently on these issues, thus creating an opening for debate.’

            Memorial historian Andrey Petropavlov says that another factor is at work: Moscow can reasonably distance itself from Wrangel because the divide over the civil war is about the war over all rather than about individual personalities. They can be treated in various ways as the Kremlin struggles to define itself on an issue that still divides the population.

‘           What is taking place in Rostov, he continues, is “an example of an unfinished war of memory in which the Civil War continues in the thoughts” of Russians, a war that will continue as long as the government fails to putout a clear vision of the events of those years and the individuals involved.

            That hasn’t happened, Petropavlov says. The new Medinsky history textbook, for example, refers to Wrangel only once even though it gives more extensive treatment to Yudenich and Chapayev, neither of whom played as important an historical role.

Famine, subjugation and nuclear fallout: How Soviet experience helped sow resentment among Ukrainians toward Russia

Jacob Lassin, Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Russian and East European Studies, Arizona State University 

Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Harvard University

THE CONVERSATION
Sun, February 5, 2023 

A statue commemorating the Ukrainian famine, in which millions died. Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Ukraine and Russia share a great deal in the way of history and culture – indeed for long periods in the past, the neighboring countries were part of larger empires encompassing both territories.

But that history – especially during the Soviet period from 1922 to 1991, in which Ukraine was absorbed into the communist bloc – has also bred resentment. Opinions of the merits of the Soviet Union and its leaders diverge, with Ukrainians far less likely to view the period favorably than Russians.

Nonetheless, President Vladimir Putin continues to claim Soviet foundations for what he sees as “historical Russia” – an entity that includes Ukraine.

As scholars of that history, we believe that an examination of Soviet-era policies in Ukraine can offer a useful lens for understanding why so many Ukrainians harbor deep resentment toward Russia.

Stalin’s engineered famine

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Europe and later of the Soviet Union. Its rich soil and ample fields made it an ideal place to grow the grain that helped feed the entire continent.

After Ukraine was absorbed into the Soviet Union beginning in 1922, its agriculture was subject to collectivization policies, in which private land was taken over by the Soviets to be worked communally. Anything produced on those lands would be redistributed across the union.

In 1932 and 1933, a famine devastated the Soviet Union as a result of aggressive collectivization coupled with poor harvests.

A deliberate famine? Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Millions starved to death across the Soviet Union, but Ukraine felt the brunt of this horror. Research estimates that some 3 million to 4 million Ukrainians died of the famine, around 13% of the population, though the true figure is impossible to establish because of Soviet efforts to hide the famine and its toll.

Scholars note that many of the political decisions of the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin – such as preventing Ukrainian farmers from traveling in search of food, and severely punishing anyone who took produce from collective farms – made the famine much worse for Ukrainians. These policies were specific to Ukrainians within Ukraine, as well as Ukrainians who lived in other parts of the Soviet Union.

Some historians claim that Stalin’s moves were done to quash a Ukrainian independence movement and were specifically targeted at ethnic Ukrainians. As such, some scholars call the famine a genocide. In Ukrainian, the event is known as “Holodomor,” which means “death by hunger.”

Recognition of the full extent of the Holodomor and implicating Soviet leadership for the deaths remains an important issue in Ukraine to this day, with the country’s leaders long fighting for global recognition of the Holodomor and its impact on modern Ukraine.

Countries such as the United States and Canada have made official declarations calling it a genocide.

But this is not the case in much of the rest of the world.

Just as the the Soviet government of the day denied that there were any decisions that explicitly deprived Ukraine of food – noting that the famine affected the entire country – so too do present-day Russian leaders refuse to acknowledge culpability.

Russia’s refusal to admit that the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians has been taken by many in Ukraine as an attempt to downplay Ukrainian history and national identity.

Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine

This attempt to suppress Ukrainian national identity continued during and after World War II. In the early years of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian national movement was concentrated in the western parts of modern-day Ukraine, part of Poland until the Nazi invasion in 1939.

Before Gemany’s invasion, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany entered into a secret agreement, under the guise of the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact, which outlined German and Soviet spheres of influence over parts of central and east Europe.

David Low’s famed cartoon depicting Stalin and Hitler’s pact over Poland.

David Low/British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent

After Germany invaded Poland, the Red Army moved into the eastern portion of the country under the pretense of stabilizing the failing nation. In reality, the Soviet Union was taking advantage of the provisions laid out in the secret protocol. The Polish territories that now make up western Ukraine were also incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and Belarus, subsuming them into the larger Russian cultural world.

At the end of the war, the territories remained part of the Soviet Union.

Stalin set about suppressing Ukrainian culture in these newly annexed lands in favor of a greater Russian culture. For example, the Soviets repressed any Ukrainian intellectuals who promoted the Ukrainian language and culture through censorship and imprisonment.

This suppression also included liquidating the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a self-governing church that has allegiance to the pope and was one of the most prominent cultural institutions promoting Ukrainian language and culture in these former Polish territories.

Its properties were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, and many of its priests and bishops were imprisoned or exiled. The destruction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is still a source of resentment for many Ukrainians. It stands, we believe as scholars, as a clear instance of the Soviets’ intentional efforts to destroy Ukrainian cultural institutions.

The legacy of Chernobyl in Ukraine

Just as disaster marked the early years of Ukraine as a Soviet republic, so did its final years.

In 1986 a nuclear reactor at the Soviet-run Chernobyl nuclear power in the north of Ukraine went into partial meltdown. It remains the worst peacetime nuclear catastrophe the world has seen.

It required the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people in the areas surrounding the power plant. And to this day, approximately 1,000 square miles of Ukraine are part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where radioactive fallout remains high and access is restricted.

Soviet lies to cover up the extent of the disaster – and missteps that would have limited the fallout – only compounded the problem. Emergency personnel were not given proper equipment or training to deal with the nuclear material.

It resulted in a heavy death toll and a higher than normal incidence of radiation-induced disease and complications such as cancer and birth defects among both former residents of the region and the workers sent in to deal with the disaster.

Other Soviet republics and European countries faced the fallout from Chernobyl, but it was the authorities in Ukraine who were tasked with organizing evacuations to Kyiv while Moscow attempted to cover up the scope of the disaster.

Meanwhile, independent Ukraine has been left to attend to the thousands of citizens who have chronic illnesses and disabilities as a result of the accident.

An abandoned fun fair, two kilometers from the Chernobyl power station. 

Martin Godwin/Getty Images

The legacy of Chernobyl looms large in Ukraine’s recent past and continues to define many people’s memory of living in the Soviet era.

Memories of a painful past

This painful history of life under Soviet rule forms the backdrop to resentment in Ukraine today toward Russia. To many Ukrainians, these are not merely stories from textbooks, but central parts of people’s lives – many Ukrainians are still living with the health and environmental consequences of Chernobyl, for instance.

The presence of Russian soldiers on Ukraine’s soil serves as a reminder of past attempts by its neighbor to crush Ukrainian independence.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Emily Channell-Justice, Harvard University and Jacob Lassin, Arizona State University.

Read more:

Russia’s recent invasions of Ukraine and Georgia offer clues to what Putin might be thinking now

Why Putin has such a hard time accepting Ukrainian sovereignty

The US military presence in Europe has been declining for 30 years – the current crisis in Ukraine may reverse that trend

Jacob Lassin receives funding from the National Council for Russian and East European Research.

Emily Channell-Justice does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HOLODOMOR 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MAKHNO 

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

Denunciation of Vladimir Putin’s 2021 essay on the history of Russia and Ukraine is unwarranted

By Roger Annis, A Socialist In Canada, June 21, 2022 (This essay was originally published by Covert Action Magazine, June 20, 2022. Read that version to see extensive, accompanying photos.)

Far from condemning the national aspirations of Ukrainians, the Russian president defends them

In July 2021, Vladimir Putin published a historical essay on Russia and Ukraine on the website of the President of Russia. The essay is a very informative read, written by someone with a deep knowledge of the subject. It is titled ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ and was published in Russian, English and Ukrainian.

Vladimir Putin, historian, pictured in March 2022

The essay’s appearance occasioned a round of gratuitous condemnations by Western media and pro-Western academics. The pro-NATO think tank Atlantic Council, for example, published a series of short comments on the essay that carefully avoided any substantive reporting of the essay content.

A member of the Ukrainian Rada (legislature) is quoted: “Ukraine holds the key to Putin’s dreams of restoring Russia’s great power status. He is painfully aware that without Ukraine, this will be impossible.” He continues, “[The current conflict] is a war for the whole of Ukraine. Putin makes it perfectly clear that his goal is to keep Ukraine firmly within the Russian sphere of influence and to prevent Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration.”

There is nothing new or informative here. Russia IS a great power. The Russian government warned NATO and the world back in December 2021 that a “Euro-Atlantic integration” of Ukraine and the accompanying political and military measures constitute a further escalation of threats against the Russian people and their sovereignty that would not go unanswered. That month, the government published the text of a proposed treaty with the U.S. aimed at resolving the conflict over Ukraine’s future. So, again, the MP is telling us nothing new.

A member of the ‘Kyiv Security Forum’ is also cited by the Atlantic Council survey. He states: “Putin understands that Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian national idea pose a threat to Russian imperialism.”

Here we have an example of the gratuitous term ‘Russian imperialism’ used as an epithet in place of political analysis. The term is more commonly seen or heard from the Western ‘leftists’ suffering self-inflicted amnesia over NATO’s decades-long, expansionist aggression against Russia. They are calling for a Russian “withdrawal” from Ukraine, which amounts to a call to bow to Ukrainian and NATO aggression.

Another accusatory voice of ‘Russian colonialism’ and ‘Russian imperialism’ is the pro-Western Yale University professor Timothy Snyder in an essay published in The New Yorker in April 2022. Snyder’s novel contribution to 20th century history is his 2010 book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, along with various accompanying essays, arguing that the Soviet Union before and during World War Two was a greater evil than Hitler’s Nazi Germany. (A withering rebuttal of Snyder’s extreme-right thesis is contained in a book review by Daniel Lazare published in July 2014 and titled ‘Timothy Snyder’s lies’.)

So what does President Putin actually say in his 14-page essay? The remainder of this present essay is a summary, concluding with brief comment by this writer on several points of Russian and Soviet history in the 20th century which President Putin’s essay arguably overlooked.

The early history of the future Ukraine

Putin begins his essay with the following:

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy. These are, first and foremost, the consequences of our own mistakes made at different periods of time. But these are also the result of deliberate efforts by those forces that have always sought to undermine our unity. The formula they apply has been known from time immemorial—divide and rule…

This is hardly the stuff of denigration of Ukraine. Putin continues with a review of the invasion and occupation of ‘Kievan Rus’ by Mongol forces beginning in the 13th century and lasting nearly two centuries in Russia. (Wikipedia). He describes ‘The Great Northern War’ (1700–1721) by Russia against the Swedish monarchy that established much of Russia’s modern Western borders. He then writes that modern Russia (during the autocratic monarchy of the Russian Tsars) was “a multilingual and multinational entity.”

Of the emergence of the Ukrainian language, Putin writes:

Many centuries of fragmentation and living within different states naturally brought about regional language peculiarities, resulting in the emergence of dialects. The vernacular enriched the literary language. Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Grigory Skovoroda, and Taras Shevchenko played a huge role here. Their works are our common literary and cultural heritage… How can this heritage be divided between Russia and Ukraine? And why do it?

He writes further:

The south-western lands of the Russian Empire–Malorussia [present-day Ukraine] and Novorossiya, and Crimea–developed as ethnically and religiously diverse entities. Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Krymchaks, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Germans, and other peoples lived here. They all preserved their faith, traditions, and customs.

I am not going to idealize anything. We do know there were the Valuev Circular of 1863 and then the Ems Ukaz of 1876, which restricted the publication and importation of religious and socio-political literature in the Ukrainian language. But it is important to be mindful of the historical context…

Speaking of historical context, the years that Putin describes here were the years (and several centuries) during which the future NATO powers were waging wars of colonial conquest all around the globe. The U.S. and Canada, in particular, were waging wars of internal conquest against their Spanish and French-language speakers and wars of genocide or policies of cultural genocide (eg. residential schools) against their Indigenous populations. But that is another story for another time.

Putin traces the early development of Ukraine national sentiments during the 19th century:

The idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia.

Then:

Further developments had to do with the collapse of European empires, the fierce civil war that broke out across the vast territory of the former Russian Empire [following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution] and foreign intervention [ditto].

This pre-1917 history of the future Russia, Ukraine and Belarus occupies about one-third of Putin’s text. Then we move into the most complex and controversial part of Russian and Ukrainian history, that which was opened by the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath


Strike by mostly female textile workers in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in late-February 1917 spark revolution that overthrew Tsarist monarchy

Putin traces the efforts of bourgeois forces in Ukraine following the 1917 Revolution in the Tsarist empire to create an independent and pro-Western Ukraine. He describes the role of Symon Petliura and the “Ukrainian People’s Republic” of 1918-20 which Petliura helped to found. That project foundered due to the decisions of Petliura et al. to ally with German imperialism against the lofty goals of the 1917 Revolution.

THE REVOLUTION IN THE UKRAINE INCLUDED THE ANARCHIST ARMY OF NESTOR MAKHNO AND THE INDEPENDENT BOLSHEVIK PARTY OF UKRAINE (BOROBITZ)

PETLURA'S RADA WAS IN KIEV AND THAT REGION, PETLURA ALONG WITH THE BANDIT SKOROSPASKY WERE ANTI SEMITES WHO PROMOTED POGROMS WHICH MAKNHNO OPPOSED, HE ELIMINATED THE BANDIT LEADER AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION A JEWISH MEMBER OF MAKHNO'S ARMY ASSISSANATED PETLURA, IN PARIS 1923.

The most interesting and relevant section of Putin’s 14-page document is his tracing on pages six and seven of the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, by which time a Soviet Ukraine had emerged and stabilized. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the founding republics of the USSR.

1989 map showing territories of the former Soviet Union now independent republics (Wikipedia)

Putin is highly critical of the self-determination policies of the early, revolutionary government of the USSR and its predecessors as led by Lenin and his Bolshevik Party. He writes:

The right for the republics to freely secede from the Union was included in the text of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, subsequently, in the 1924 USSR Constitution. By doing so, the authors planted in the foundation of our statehood the most dangerous time bomb, which exploded [in 1990-91] the moment the safety mechanism provided by the leading role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was gone, the party itself collapsing from within. A ‘parade of sovereignties’ followed.

In tracing this aspect of the history of the USSR, Putin notes:

In 1954, the Crimean region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was given to the Ukrainian SSR, in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time.

His overall judgment of Bolshevik national rights policies is harsh. He writes:

The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments. They dreamed of a world revolution that would wipe out national states. That is why they were so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts. It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logic behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.

Putin speaks very positively of the economic and social development of Ukraine leading up to the dissolution of the USSR. “Ukraine and Russia have developed as a single economic system over decades and centuries. The profound cooperation we had 30 years ago is an example for the European Union to look up to. We are natural complementary economic partners. Such a close relationship can strengthen competitive advantages, increasing the potential of both countries.”

He then details the long and sharp economic decline of Ukraine since its post-Soviet independence and asks:

Who is to blame for this? Is it the people of Ukraine’s fault? Certainly not. It was the Ukrainian authorities who wasted and frittered away the achievements of many generations.

He writes further:

Even after the events in Kyiv in 2014 [the anti-Russia coup in February of that year], I charged the Russian government to elaborate options for preserving and maintaining our economic ties within relevant ministries and agencies. However, there was and is still no mutual will to do the same. Nevertheless, Russia is still one of Ukraine’s top three trading partners, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are coming to us to work. They find a welcome reception and support.

These are historical descriptions worthy of study and debate. They hardly constitute the ideology of an “aggressor Russian state” against Ukraine.

Putin details in several pages the economic, political and cultural decline in Ukraine since 2014. He goes on to summarize:

The coup d’état [of February 2014 in Kiev] and the subsequent actions of the Kiev authorities inevitably provoked confrontation and civil war.

Far from condemning the national aspirations of Ukrainians, Putin voices respect and tolerance for them. He writes near the end of his essay:

In the anti-Russia project, there is no place either for a sovereign Ukraine or for the political forces that are trying to defend its real independence. Those who talk about reconciliation in Ukrainian society, about dialogue, about finding a way out of the current impasse are labelled as ‘pro-Russian’ agents. But for many people in Ukraine, the anti-Russia project is simply unacceptable. There are millions of such people, but they are not allowed to raise their heads.

He underlines further his respect for Ukrainian nationhood in the closing section of his essay:

The entire Ukrainian statehood, as we understand it, is proposed to be further built exclusively on this [anti-Russia] idea. Hate and anger, as world history has repeatedly proven, are a very shaky foundation for sovereignty, fraught with many serious risks and dire consequences.

And further:

Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine and ready to discuss the most complex issues. But it is important for us to understand that our Ukrainian partner defend its national interests not by serving someone else’s, that it not be a tool in someone else’s hands to fight against us.

Putin closes his essay with these three paragraphs:

We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians’ desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing – Russia has never been and will never be ‘anti-Ukraine.’

It is impossible to read Vladimir Putin’s words as those of a ‘Great Russian chauvinist’, as pro-NATO apologists, including self-declared socialists, are doing (see here and here). Meanwhile, the real great power chauvinists and their ideologues—in the NATO countries—have little to say in answer to Putin’s carefully presented history. They resort to superficial name-calling and epithets.

Rethinking the national self-determination policies of Lenin and his Bolshevik Party

President Putin’s essay should serve to stimulate more historical study and debate of Russia, Ukraine and the historical relations between the two.


132-page booklet, first published in 1914

STALIN PROMOTED THE RIGHTS OF NATIONS TO BE INDEPENDENT IN THE USSR

The self-determination policies of the 1917 Revolution should be front and center in that. Sadly, the prevailing anti-Russian propaganda in the West gets in the way of this, including among historians and left-wing thinkers. Instead, all we get are blind condemnations.

Two vital areas of study of the self-determination policy are largely missing from the president’s essay.

One is the portrait of the world and the far-reaching aspirations for national self-determination or independence at the outset of World War One.

The self-determination policies of Lenin and the Bolsheviks were crafted precisely in response to the clamor for national freedom by the subjects of the large empires of the day—Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, the USA and others. Self-determination for the oppressed peoples of the Russian Tsarist Empire, in particular, was a key driving force of the 1917 Revolution which began, let us recall, with the toppling of the Tsarist monarchy in February of that year.

Two is the calamitous, four-year military intervention against the early Soviet Union by the world’s imperialist powers, aimed at overthrowing the Bolshevik-led government and the 1917 Revolution itself.

That intervention ultimately failed, but it was accompanied by an economic blockade that lasted for decades longer (interrupted by the Western powers for a few years only for the sake of the exigencies of their wars against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan). The extreme economic hardship caused by the blockade contributed greatly to the factional breakdown of the Soviet government and leadership following the death of Lenin in 1924.

Overall, imperialist intervention and blockades contributed greatly to the rise of authoritarian socialism in the early Soviet Union and to its eventual demise decades later.

Looking back, one can fairly judge and criticize the self-determination policies of the Bolshevik Revolution. But the fact that the most idealistic and far-reaching of these policies did not succeed or were seriously compromised is not an argument per se against them. Rather, it is an argument for more study and learning of the exact reasons why some of the policies (not the entirety) failed or were compromised during the 1930s and in later decades.

The self-determination policies of the early Russian Revolution were astonishing and world-shaking in their scope. They helped to transform the Russian empire into the modern state of the Soviet Union. They inspired peoples around the world to take up struggle against imperialism and for national independence, including another world-shaking event, the Chinese Revolution of 1949.

What’s more, the echoes of the Bolshevik-led self-determination policy can easily be seen in the present-day structure and constitution of the Russian Federation.

It is a truly federated and multilingual country. Examples of this were seen recently in the referendum vote in Crimea in 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, and in the rebellion of the people of Donbas against the extreme-right coup in Ukraine in 2014.

Vladimir Putin voiced this at a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council on March 3, 2022 which honored the soldiers of the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. He told the meeting:

I am a Russian. As they say, all my relatives are Ivans and Marias. But when I see heroes like this young man, Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a resident of Dagestan and an ethnic Lak, and our other soldiers, I can hardly stop myself from saying: I am a Lak, a Dagestani, a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordovian, an Ossetian… It is impossible to name all of the more than 300 nationalities and ethnic groups that live in Russia. I think you can understand me. I am proud to be part of this world, part of our powerful and strong multinational people of Russia.

These and many other such examples which could be cited are compelling evidence that the embers of the self-determination policies of the Bolshevik Revolution remain alive in the Russian Federation and the former Soviet sphere. Even more, these policies remain extremely relevant in an imperialist-dominated world that routinely seeks to crush self-determination and national independence aspirations of oppressed peoples.

The principles of peace, social justice and national determination are often voiced but always trampled into the dirt by the imperialist powers that dominate todays’ planet and human society. But that doesn’t mean the policies should be discarded. Rather, it means we must redouble efforts to realize them.

Background and additional reading:

Causes of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine and the history of Russia-Ukraine relations, talk by the late U.S. historian Stephen Cohen, broadcast on YouTube (24 minutes, date is October 2015. Stephen Cohen was one of the world’s leading scholars on the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. He passed away in 2020 at the age of 81. He is the author of Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938 , first published in 1971. It is, arguably, the most important book in English for understanding the first 20 years of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union.]

The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war, lecture by John J. Mearsheimer, October 2022 (60 minutes. This lecture was delivered by John Mearsheimer to the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. He addresses the July 21 historical essay by Vladimir Putin at the 26-minute mark of the lecture. [John Mearsheimer is a professor at the University of Chicago and a proponent of the ‘foreign policy realism’ school within U.S. academia. He advocates that U.S. imperialism and its allies should target China, not Russia, for ‘containment’. See this recent interview with him (18’30” mark).]

75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War: Shared responsibility to history and our future, essay by Vladimir Putin, published on the website of the President of Russia, June 20, 2020 …The events of the Great Patriotic War have long become a distant memory, so why does Russia celebrate May 9 as its biggest holiday? Why does life almost come to a halt on June 22? And why does one feel a lump rise in their throat? They usually say that the war has left a deep imprint on every family’s history. Behind these words, there are fates of millions of people, their sufferings and the pain of loss. Behind these words, there is also the pride, the truth and the memory. For my parents, the war meant the terrible ordeals of the Siege of Leningrad where my two-year old brother Vitya died. It was the place where my mother miraculously managed to survive. My father, despite being exempt from active duty, volunteered to defend his hometown…

[The above essay is an overview of events leading up to the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in June 1941. The Russian president writes: “…I believe that it is academics with a wide representation of respected scholars from different countries of the world who should search for a balanced assessment of what happened. We all need the truth and objectivity. On my part, I have always encouraged my colleagues to build a calm, open and trust-based dialogue, to look at the common past in a self-critical and unbiased manner. Such an approach will make it possible not to repeat the mistakes committed back then and to ensure peaceful and successful development for years to come…”]

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Why Ukraine lost a hundred years ago and why It can and should win today

Mon, June 13, 2022
The New Voice of Ukraine

And the lessons of defeat are even more valuable than victories – because they can help us avoid mistakes.

So why did the Ukrainian state collapse a hundred years ago?

Let’s quickly reject the simple answers. Because simple answers to complex questions are simply wrong.

Read also: A history of adversaries, not brothers. Why did this war happen?

Ukrainians are not worse than other nations which also rebuilt their states on the ruins of empires after the First World War. We are no less zealous than Poles, Lithuanians, or Finns. No less sacrificial.

The political elite of Ukrainians was not slow or indecisive, as some say. We were second after the Finns to declare independence. The challenges faced by Ukrainians were more serious than those of our neighbors.


But I do not call for idealizing our politicians of that time or the general state of Ukrainian society. Mistakes played a significant role in their defeat.

So let us try to understand the objective and subjective reasons for the fall of the Ukrainian state, born out of the 1917-1921 revolution. To understand what mistakes we must not repeat.

Let’s start with the objective circumstances, which were almost impossible to influence.

The national consciousness of Ukrainians gradually grew along with the national movement of the 19th century. This was the potential that leaders had to deal with.

Read also: Seven popular myths about Russia's aggression against Ukraine

By the beginning of the revolution, the movement had already entered the political stage of development. That is, its main spokesman was not only poets, writers, and artists. At the beginning of the 20th century, Ukrainian political parties were formed.

The Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, led by Mykola Mikhnovsky, outlined in 1900 its main task – to create an independent Ukrainian state. It defined its direction for the next century.

But the low level of education or its complete absence, the catastrophic economic situation of a large mass of Ukrainians left them behind in the process of national self-awareness or even active participation in the national movement.

Another objective problem was too little awareness of us in the world. At that time, there was no political emigration that could talk about Ukrainians. It began to form just after its defeat.

And those of our compatriots who left their homeland earlier because of poverty and moved to Europe or America, fought for their survival abroad. Their first public association started to appear. Ukrainians in the world were still far from being lobbyists for the Ukrainian national movement.

And finally, the last and most important problem was a large number of powerful enemies. Those who created the Ukrainian state in the early 20th century were opposed by:

The Russian Bolsheviks – the strongest enemy who also counted on the support of some Ukrainians;

UKRAINIAN BOLSHEVIKS THE BOROBITZ WERE AUTONOMOUS FROM THE RUSSIANS

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: UKRAINIAN REVOLUTION CENTENARY 1917-2017 

Military formations of the so-called “White Russia”, which was supported by some European states; ANTI SEMITIC REACTIONARIES

The restored Polish state also enlisted the help of other Europeans. ANTI SEMITIC CATHOLICS

None of the other nations that won their independence had to face such strong, multifaceted and large-scale external aggression.

And now let’s talk about the mistakes that could have been avoided.

First of all, insufficient attention to the development of the armed forces. The creators of the Ukrainian army not only did not have the necessary support from the political elite – they were forced to prove the need for the army.

Politicians believed that after the bloody First World War, all nations would refuse to resolve issues using force, and Ukraine would be the first in this process. These romantic ideas cost Ukrainians dearly.

The lost time and potential of the first months of the revolution were difficult to make up. And it was not possible to “get together in the middle” with the aggressor, so we had to form an army after a full-scale invasion.

The leaders’ belief in the possibility of reaching an agreement with Russia was a gross mistake. It didn’t matter if it was “red” or “white” Russia. None of them were going to put up with the existence of an independent Ukraine.

An even more dangerous delusion was that many Ukrainians believed that this war for independence did not concern them. They believed that their lives would not change much from the victory or defeat of either side.

That it was possible to sit quietly and imperceptibly in a “house on fire”. The decades following this showed that the occupiers will come to the last house and take whatever they want. Including your life.

But the most important mistake was the inability of Ukrainian politicians to distinguish political rivals from enemies of the state. Fierce discussions about different visions of Ukraine’s future were inevitable and quite natural. The problem became that at some point, these disputes became more important than confronting the enemy.

This mistake was very costly to everyone – Hrushevsky, Petliura (ANTI SEMITE), Vynnychenko, Skoropadsky (ANTI SEMITE), Makhno ANARCHIST ARMY OF UKRAINE – they rethought this only in exile. Ukrainians who remained in their homeland paid even more for this mistake – decades of bloody repression awaited them.

And now let’s compare this with today’s Ukraine, to understand why we can win this war with Russia.

The vast majority of Ukrainians today consider themselves Ukrainians. Thus, there are almost no issues with national self-awareness that our predecessors faced.

They don’t just know about Ukraine. We are a state whose independence and integrity are recognized by almost all countries of the world. The Ukrainian diaspora works effectively in many of them. The struggle of Ukrainians for freedom is one of the main topics of the world media.

For the first time in our history, we receive not only economic but also military assistance, including offensive weapons.

The degree of Russian aggression today and a hundred years ago is roughly comparable. But we are dealing with only one enemy, even if he attacks from the territories of two countries. And against this enemy is the whole civilized world. And so, it is easier for us than for our ancestors.

As for the mistakes of the past, which we cannot repeat, the situation is worse here. Society and government began to realize the importance of the army only after the start of the war in Russia in 2014. Having wasted two decades of independence on wasting its military potential.

But even after the start of the war, Ukrainians weren’t consistent. In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky won, claiming that the war could not be ended by military means. And most Ukrainians believed this was possible.

And so they agreed that the priority of state policy was the construction and repair of roads, not the development of the army and the purchase of weapons.

A new wave of aggression in 2022, which reached Kyiv, changed the situation. Parliament began to allocate more resources to the Armed Forces. The President spoke about the Ukrainian army as the main guarantor of independence.

Most Ukrainians are actively involved in the war – in the Armed Forces, the Territorial Defence, and volunteers. A well-known proverb sounds different now: “I’ll meet the enemy first as my house is on the edge.”

But what about the main political problem of a century ago – the inability of political leaders to cooperate? Unfortunately, the further away from the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, the less confident they are that they have learned this lesson.

Do Ukrainian politicians really understand that they can have friends, allies, competitors, rivals, and opponents? But our enemy outside the country, in Russia, is waging a war against us all.

Competitors, rivals, opponents may see a different Ukraine in the future. Enemies simply do not see a future for us. They can pretend to be allies or even friends, formulate tempting proposals to fight opponents, but we must not forget – their goal is to destroy our state.

Read also: Top five Russian propaganda WWII myths debunked

And so comparing Ukraine a hundred years ago and today, we have better objective circumstances for victory. And even better conditions for overcoming subjective obstacles. We have a chance for our children to read about our era. Unlike our predecessors, we know what defeat in the war with Russia means. We know that peace can cost more than a war.

After all, we have learned our lessons, haven’t we?

Squatters occupy London mansion owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in protest over Ukraine war


Anarchist group says it ‘will go further’ to see more oligarchs’ properties occupied

Lamiat Sabin,Zoe Tidman

THE INDEPENDENT, UK

Squatters have occupied a London mansion owned by a Russian oligarch in protest over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Several activists from the group known as the London Makhnovists took over the luxury townhouse in Belgrave Square on Monday, claiming that it now “belongs to Ukrainian refugees”.

They hung a Ukrainian flag from an upstairs window and unfurled a banner that reads “this property has been liberated”.

Another banner reads: “Putin go f*** yourself.”

The property is owned by Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire industrialist with close links with the British political establishment, who was targeted by government sanctions last week.

Sign The Independent’s petition to help the people of Ukraine

He was described as “a prominent Russian businessman and pro-Kremlin oligarch”, who is “closely associated” with both the Russian government and Putin.
Anarchist activists speaking from the balcony of 5 Belgrave Square
(Lamiat Sabin)

The house at 5 Belgrave Square was worth £25 million back in 2002, and is one of the many UK properties in Deripaska’s property portfolio – having been owned via an offshore British Virgin Islands company.

When The Independent asked the activists how long they plan to be at the property, one of the squatters shouted from the balcony: “Until Putin stops the war.”

The group is named after the 1917 Ukrainian anarchist movement known as the Makhnovists, that was led by Nestor Ivanovich Makhno.


In response to the The Independent asking how they entered the house, the activist joked that the “ghost of Nestor Makhno manifested itself and opened the door.”
The area cordoned off while six police vans are parked outside the house
(Lamiat Sabin / The Independent)

The activists described their group as a “property liberation front”, and are demanding that properties of oligarchs are seized to house refugees.

One of the activists vowed to “go further” to occupy properties – adding “no more oligarchs’ mansions!”

They also said: “Do we want to live in a society that protects mansions of oligarchs, or that houses refugees?”

Government website for Ukraine sponsorship goesdown within minutes of going live


A passer-by was overheard saying: “Good for them. F*** Putin.”

Later, the Met Police said they searched the mansion and are “satisfied” that no protesters are inside – adding that four men are still sitting on the edge of a balcony.

In a statement, police said: “We continue to engage with those on the balcony as we balance the need for enforcement with the safety of all involved.”

Police officers in riot gear enter Oleg Deripaska’s mansion
(REUTERS)

An activist accused police of “restricting the protest” and claimed that “the only thing standing in the way of refugees being housed is the police”.

Officers had cordoned off part of the street in the area where embassies of many countries are located.

Officers at the scene declined to answer reporters’ questions.

Six police vans were outside the property, including those of the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group

.

Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group watching over the property
(Jonathan Brady/PA)

In a statement, the Met Police said officers were called to the property at 1am on Monday, and found that “a number of people had gained entry and hung banners from upstairs windows”.

The anarchists said, in a statement, that they had taken over the mansion “in protest against Putin and his world” and wanted to show solidary with Ukrainians whose lives are devastated by the invasion.

In Ukraine, about 600 civilians have been killed – according to the United Nations, more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee, and Russian troops’ bombardments have destroyed infrastructure and homes across the country in the invasion launched on 24 February.

A university in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on fire – allegedly caused by Russian troops’ shelling
(Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)

“This mansion belongs to a Russian oligarch, complicit in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the squatters said in a statement.

They said the residence would “serve as a centre for refugee support, for Ukrainians and people of all nations and ethnicities”

.


This map shows the extent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
(Press Association Images)

While the activists occupied the house, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan repeated his call for some oligarch-owned London properties – that he called “gold bricks used to launder money” – to be used for housing displaced Ukrainians.

“I think the government should be seizing them, and before selling them – because they’ll take some time – they should be using them to house those Ukrainians who are fleeing Ukraine, who we’ll be offering a safe haven in London,” he told Times Radio.


“It’s a form of poetic justice, but also it’s a good use of these many, many empty properties sitting across London simply with dust being gathered inside rather than them being used to house people who need homes.”

Over the weekend, housing secretary Michael Gove said the government wants to “explore” the option of using sanctioned oligarchs’ properties to house Ukrainian refugees.

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015.

Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered.

To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.