Declaration of Internationalists against the war in Ukraine

WAR ON WAR!

NOT A SINGLE DROP A BLOOD FOR THE “NATION”!

The power struggle between oligarchic clans in Ukraine threatens to escalate into an international armed conflict. Russian capitalism intends to use redistribution of Ukrainian state power in order to implement their long-standing imperial and expansionist aspirations in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine where it has strong economic, financial and political interests.

On the background of the next round of the impending economic crisis in Russia, the regime is trying to stoking Russian nationalism to divert attention from the growing workers' socio-economic problems: poverty wages and pensions, dismantling of available health care, education and other social services. In the thunder of the nationalist and militant rhetoric it is easier to complete the formation of a corporate, authoritarian state based on reactionary conservative values and repressive policies.

In Ukraine, the acute economic and political crisis has led to increased confrontation between "old" and "new" oligarchic clans, and the first used including ultra-rightist and ultra-nationalist formations for making a state coup in Kiev. The political elite of Crimea and eastern Ukraine does not intend to share their power and property with the next in turn Kiev rulers and trying to rely on help from the Russian government. Both sides resorted to rampant nationalist hysteria: respectively, Ukrainian and Russian. There are armed clashes, bloodshed. The Western powers have their own interests and aspirations, and their intervention in the conflict could lead to World War III.

Warring cliques of bosses force, as usual, force to fight for their interests us, ordinary people: wage workers, unemployed, students, pensioners... Making us drunkards of nationalist drug, they set us against each other, causing us forget about our real needs and interests: we don`t and can`t care about their "nations" where we are now concerned more vital and pressing problems – how to make ends meet in the system which they found to enslave and oppress us.

We will not succumb to nationalist intoxication. To hell with their state and “nations”, their flags and offices! This is not our war, and we should not go on it, paying with our blood their palaces, bank accounts and the pleasure to sit in soft chairs of authorities. And if the bosses in Moscow, Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Simferopol start this war, our duty is to resist it by all available means!

NO WAR BETWEEN “NATIONS” – NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES!

The statement is open for signature

http://www.aitrus.info/node/3608

The Declaration of KRAS-IWA about the power struggle in Ukraine

http://www.aitrus.info/node/3540

In Ukraine, the spreading struggle for power between rival factions of the bourgeois oligarchy, unfortunately, involved significant sections of the population. Confrontation acquired brutal character and is accompanied by loss of human life. Anarcho -syndicalists can not support any of the warring sides in the conflict. They are equally hostile to Yanukovych regime with its neo-liberal economic policies and repressive laws that criminalize any protest (including workers picketing of enterprises and independent Internet activity) - and to the "opposition", in which the tone is set by Liberal, Nationalists and by openly Nazi group.

Both camps are equally conservative and nationalist, and any significant difference between them is not visible: neither in social-economic area, nor in domestic or foreign policy. Neither submission to the European Union, nor the submission of the Russian oligarchy does not solve the problems of the working people of Ukraine. Moreover, the victory of one or another group of the bourgeoisie, aiming to seize power or tending to hold it, may turn to workers in the country to social disaster.

We consider just the resistance of workers against Yanukovych`s neoliberal policies and dictatorial government. But we consider unacceptable any participation in joint mobilizations alongside the bourgeois nationalist and openly fascist "opposition".

We encourage libertarian groups and activists of Ukraine to act independently, to put forward their own social-economic slogans and demands and to defend them through the working resistance and social-revolutionary struggle.

KRAS, the Section of International Workers Association in the Russian Region

The Brown Masquerade

In the Kingdom of Masks 

Increasingly often there appear political groups that declare themselves to be anti-Stalinist and call themselves «anarchists» or «left communists» but closely resemble the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in one respect: their phraseology is completely at variance with their real politics. 

On the whole, the programmatic declarations and manifestos of these groups are consistent with what they call themselves. Their activists mouth the correct internationalist phrases. However, these groups cooperate – on a consistent basis – with open Nazis. And when you read on the internet or listen to the propaganda and polemics of activists of these groups, you see with astonishment that the correct internationalist phrases unexpectedly acquire some quite opposite meaning, just as in Orwell's Newspeak. In some miraculous fashion it suddenly turns out that real internationalism is national socialism, that the best way to resist national oppression is to fight for the even more complete domination of already dominant nations, and that a proletarian revolutionary line is fully compatible with the justification of ethnic purges and support for homophobia. 

Caution: platformist party and psychosect in one bottle!

In recent years, we can observe a significant growth of the activities of the so-called "Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-syndicalists, Nestor Makhno" (RKAS) led by a teacher of Eastern martial arts, S.Sh, aka “Samurai”, from Donetsk (Ukraine). It was established in 1994 in the Ukraine as a group of young people interested in anarcho-syndicalism, but they refused to join the IWA. The RKAS changed its structure several times almost completely. Unchanged was only the leader himself, who became interested in martial arts and in the mid-2000s decided to rebuild their group on that basis. Several years ago, he expanded the RKAS activity at the international level, recruiting groups or individuals from some countries, who were instructed to create a new international organization with the same name "RKAS". But a little later, this project exploded (as it was expected): the foreign participants retired with scandal after confrontation with dictatorial manners inside.

Flooded New Orleans: who are the looters?

From the editorial board of the journal Heretic:

The following article is about the tragic events in New Orleans in 2005. Although several years have passed since this tragedy, we considered it necessary to recall these events because nothing has changed since then. Throughout the world people remain defenseless in the face of natural disasters solely because on the one hand the state impedes self-organization from below, while on the other hand it does not want to spend money to provide effective security for the population. Modern technologies and scientific achievements make it possible if not to make people completely safe from natural disasters then at least to minimize their harmful consequences. This shows that the chief problem facing mankind is capitalism and the state that guards it. This fact is clearly highlighted by the author of the article, Stephen Shenfield. 

Football Wars

In 1969 rioting by fans during a World Cup match between Honduras and El Salvador appeared to trigger a four-day military conflict –the so-called football war. In fact, the Salvadoran generals merely used the rioting as a convenient occasion for launching a planned attack on Honduras. The main cause of tension was land disputes between Salvadoran migrants in Honduras and local farmers.

Camp of the “Radical” Opposition: First Conclusions

Russian Anarcho-Syndicalists Assess the Anti-Putin Protests

Note. The following statement appeared on May 18, 2012 on the website of the Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists — the Russian section of the International Workers’ Association (KRAS-MAT) (http://aitrus.info/node/2171)

Russian nationalists are actively involed
in the protest rallies

Camp of the “Radical” Opposition: First Conclusions

Now that the authorities have broken up the protest camp of the radical anti-Putin opposition at Chistye Prudy (Pure Ponds) in Moscow, the time has come to sum up the first provisional results of the new wave of political protests in Russia. The opposition intends to continue the protests, but it is now quite possible to draw certain conclusions and extract lessons of some sort.

First of all, it is quite obvious that the overwhelming majority of the population have observed the latest round in the struggle for political power with complete indifference. Some by habit will complain about the passivity and servility of Russian citizens, but this time such indifference was an absolutely healthy reaction of the working people: it is no business of theirs who will make up the ruling bourgeois grouping, considering that no change in social policy is at stake. As always, of course, it was possible to find both paid or volunteer supporters of “order” and a rag-tag crowd of politicians with grudges, glamorous personalities (who, by the way, were only yesterday on Putin’s side), “brains of the nation” and marginal toughs, but on neither side even in the enormous capital could they be counted in the advertized “millions.” The demonstrations of the authorities and the opposition were attended at most by a few tens of thousands. In the provinces they are of interest to hardly anyone; there only hundreds or at most a very few thousand cared about the political standoff. The majority of people have quite different problems: low wages, rising prices, less access to education and healthcare, lack of money to pay for residential and municipal services, and so on.

Vladislav Bugera. An excerpt from the Notes about sense of responsibility

The political writer signing his articles with pseudonym Marlen Insarov proved to be a shallow man. Once we had viewed each other as comrades and friends, we published our articles in the magazine "Proletarian revolution" and in the collections of articles published by the Group of proletarian revolutionary collectivists (GPRK). When Insarov wrote an article "On the history of Marxism in Russia (1918-2002)" I persuaded him to mention as little as possible names of living left-wing activists for no disclose them. He readily agreed - and then I thank that he has some sense of responsibility. So I did not understand, and I wonder again and again all 6 years after our break how it was possible: why he considers as his friend and aggressively seeks to cooperate with a weirdo (who love to use Satanist nicknames, for example three sixes; and we going to call him on Triple Six), who once told a confidential information about me to a notorious provocateur-woman, and subsequently he did not even think to acknowledge his mistake. It is clear that the people are in the view of this weirdo only things and he is too lazy for feel any responsibility or fault to them. But why Insarov, seems to be capable of a sense of responsibility, misses to understand my story about how Triple Six disclosed me?...

The further, the more I was struck by the fact that Insarov attracted to co-operate with the GPRK all possible trash without paying attention not only to the fact that it is trash, but also to the fact that they are morally depraved persons sawing of him as the great militants. And once he pulled the whole ugly organization “Lotta comunista” for cooperation. I was immediately alerted during the first meeting them by complete lack of inner-Party democracy: the leaders are not elected by fellow party members, but they co-opt into its ranks those lower-level party members who they are pleasing. Insarov turned his back on this problem, citing the example of Russian populists (“Narodniki”), who were in the same situation, as he said. It turned out that my suspicion was justified: the members of Lotta were completely shameful, they hated each other. They explained very clearly why they didn`t care a button about each other, but Insarov closed his eyes and ears, persistently trying to keep all possible mixture in a single team. And he did it more and more - just as how a psychotic process began to develop in him around 2002-03. (...)