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NEWS & VIEWS FROM (THE FORMER) SOVIETSKY SOYUZ
No.4 December 1995-April 1996
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IN THIS ISSUE:
- Chronicle
- Remembering Kropotkin
- Keep on Regrouping
- The Rainbow that Burned Down a House
- Student Riot in Moscow
- Commentary
- May Day in Russia and the New Zhironovsky
- Back to May Day...
- Bielorussia: Tough Days for Gomel Anarchists
- anarcho-ecological groups in Russia and their activities, *
both in the recent years and the ones that they plan for the
next summer
- syndicalist Confederation of Labour - is it happenning? *
- Three Weeks in Harmony *
- There Are Squatters in Moscow *
- Too Few Syndicalists, Too Many Syndicalisms *
- Who Needs Mutual Aid When You Have Friends in Pyongyang?
- Socialists Always Write the Stupidist Articles About
Anarchists
- Meetings We Can Have, But Don't Invite Your Sister *
- "The Wonderful world of ZAIBI", THE most interesting
(anti)music (anti)group and some of its ideas
- The Great Unknown of Russian Anarchism: Alexei Borovoi
(1875-1935)
- (Some) Anarchist publications and groups in the former
USSR
* These articles were never finished - Sorry!
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CHRONICLE
On December 2-3, 1995 anarchists from 6 cities of Russia participated in the
congress of lately disfunct Association
of Anarchist Movemnts (ADA) with the aim to give it new life. The delegates
adopted a new version of agreement on
cooperation and ruled that self-proclamation of membership will no longer be
the practice and that groups and
individuals willing to join the Association will have to do it according to
the new agreement on coopeartion.
On December 10 anarchists in Moscow, St.Petersburg and Kazan organized demonstrations
and pickets commemorating the first
anniversary of the aggression in Chechnya. In Moscow anarchists participated
in several demonstrations together
with socialist and human rights groups and spray-painted downtown streets. In
St.Petersburg anarchists together with
Soldiers' Mothers Committee and human rights activists hold a demo of 150 people.
In Kazan there was a small picket, but
after it even local Muslim nationalists were distributing anarchist leaflets
condemning the aggression against Chechnya.
Moscow. February 8 - anarchists and scientists commemorated the 75th anniversary
of Kropotkin's death by a small
gathering at Novodevichyea cemetary. February 10 - there was a small public
meeting with speeches.
On February 18 Muscovites living close to the Neskuchny Garden and anarcho-ecologists
prevented works on
construction of two new houses for the rich that will destroy part of the garden.
Moscow. January 18 - Ministry of Nature Presesrvation. 14 activists were taken
to a local cop-shop, but soon
released.
March 5 - "Rainbow Keepers" staged a theatrical protest against the
construction of super-railway Moscow-
St.Petersburg that will cut Central Russian provinces in two with a huge concrete
knife and will be another financial
disaster (estimated cost of construction is 7 billion US$ which is likely to
increase and is unlikely to pay for
itself ever due to the extremely hugh cost of the tickets). A symbolical railway
train was destroyed outside the Moscow
stock market where they started to sell shares for therailway.
REMEMBERING KROPOTKIN
On February 8 scientists and relatives of Kropotkin accompanied by anarchists
from Moscow, Petrograd, Tver and
Saratov held a memorial meeting at Kropotkin's tomb, commemorating an anniversary
of his death. Later during the
day they visited the house where he was born, currently occupied by Palestinian
embassy. Workers of the embassy were
greatly enlightened about who the hell this man was.
KEEP ON RE-GROUPING
The end of February was marked by the recreation of "An-Press" newsbulletin
and the establishment of the group "The
Movement of Rigid Anarchy", which is described as "neither left, nor
right, but really black anarchist". However, after
the publication of one issue "An-Press" slipped back into non-existence,
while Petrograd anarchists launched a new
initiative - to recreate now the defunct Association of Anarchist Movements
(ADA), a loose thing, hardly even a
network. No news since then.
THE RAINBOW THAT BURNED DOWN A HOUSE
On March 23, Moscow group of "Rainbow Keepers", a self- proclaimed
"radical" ecological group, composed mainly of
anarchists, burned down somebody's cottage (somebody being some rich bastard)
in one of the national parks on the
outskirts of Moscow, that was built in obvious violation of the current ecological
standards. This action led to what
"Rainbow Keepers" called a "surprising response" from ISAR,
an international organiazation set up by the CIA-controlled
National Endowment for Democracy, which is sponsoring many environmental groups
in the former USSR. ISAR refused to
finance projects of "Rainbow Keepers" charging them with "terrorism".
The paper of "Rainbow Keepers" declared that
they were never dependent on financial support from outside (which is bullshit)
and that they are not going to "correct"
the activities of their organization because if ISAR's refusal. Well, that's
good, but I'm still not going to applaud them - this is hardly a heroic act.
STUDENT RIOT IN MOSCOW
On April 12 there was a trade union day of action and the student union affiliated
with the (old, "official") FNPR
trade union federation also had a rally near the White House. Activists of "Student
Defense" (self-proclaimed radical union) showed up and made some chanting.
The rally was officially closed after half an hour, but the activists of "Student
Defense" organized a demonstration to the Kremlin. "Leaders"
were arrested right away and police also captured all the megaphones (they say
that they were singled out because the "official" student union cooperaterd
with the police). Police attacked the demonstration beating some people with
rubber batons and taking them into police vans. Some demonstrators responded
by throwing bottles. Then the crowd proceeded towards the center while the pigs
tried (succesfully) not to let them into the main street (Novy
Arbat). Anyway, the demonstration went towards the center of the city through
Arbat (a smaller pedestrian only street,
parallel to Novy Arbat). Several people in masks attacked police van with rocks.
Police attacked again breaking the
demonstration and dividing it. The head of the column went further breaking
some shop windows on the way and throwing
some bottles and rocks into the General Headquarters of Russian Army. Near the
Kremlin the remaining demonstrators
were divided once again and later the head of the column was attacked and beaten
(the "body" was dispersed in the
underpasses). 22 people were taken to pig stations. Most of them spent the night
there and were taken to court the next
day. Five of them were found not guilty, three got some fines and the rest got
away with a warning. (This is more or
less the version distributed by the "Student Defense" activists, I
left out some glorious descriptions.) This event was in no way organized by
the "Student Defense" and thus most of the people (who probably were
at the demo for the first time) didn't know how to react to police attacks -
they didn't even join hands when the pigs were arresting people. The slogans
at the demonstration varied from "Capitalism is shit" and "We
won't go to war!" to "Chechnya is shit - the victory will be ours"
and "Give us beer".
COMMENTARY: FUCK THIS SHIT!
"Student Defense" is a contradictory mixture of Stalinists, Kim-Il-Sungists,
some anarchists and those who look at it as
a "business". The first and the later obviously play the most active
role and manipulate the organization for their
own goals. The anarchists are there to create a "cool" facade of the
organization. One of the Stalinist leaders was
quoted as saying "If young people don't come to us under red banners, let
them come to us under black banners".
Recently there were some more worrying signs - in St.Petersburg neofascists
from the Cells of National-Syndicalist Offensive joined the union, while in
Moscow so-called "anarchists" from IREAN (who participate in the "Student
Defence") became good drinking buddies of Limonov, the leader of National-Bolshevik
Party, also with some cases of defecation to the NBP and contributing to fascist
papers (see Laure's article on Limonov's party). Among the fascists of various
sorts - from Nazi skins to new right intellectuals - there's a strong tendency
to use parts and pieces of leftist and even antiauthoritarian theories for
the purpose of creating a more intelligent and poppy image of fascism. Recently
Limonov's paper run a tribute to Guy
Debord, a review of some article by a Polish fascist who favourably comments
on Polish anarchists and a very
favourable review of "anarchist" paper "Chornaya Zvezda"
p ublished by IREAN.
Idiotic tendencies among some of the IREAN activists - which include not only
comradely relations with fascists and
Stalinists, but also regular seminars sponsored by the Northern Korean embassy
- lead to a split in the group
already a while ago when anarcho-syndicalists left to form the Group of Revolutionary
Anarcho-Syndicalists (GRAS).
There is also something you can do - organize an active boycott of IREAN and
Dmitry Kostenko in particular: don't
send any materials to these assholes unless you really sympathize with the things
that they do. I guess it will
also be reasonable to remove Kostenko from the international A-Infos network.
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MAY DAY IN RUSSIA AND THE NEW ZHIRONOVSKY
Laure Akai
People must have gotten the message that the politics of their impoversation
are not transitional and that the word
reform is a crock of shit. Either that or their patriotism is all worked up
from watching the preparations for victory
day - too many war films on TV or something - because the crowd was a little
bigger this May Day than last - although
not as angry as a few years ago when they battled the police. There were actually
two "non-government" parades
(the smaller left groups unable to organize anything else because of a strict
ban which would have resulted in
immediate arrest): one was held by the trade unions and the Communist Party
(Zyuganov, who likes to distance himself
from extremism as much as possible), and the other by the usual red-brown melange
of half hysterical idiots.
I went to the first march but as they both ended near the Bolshoi Theater,
near a large statue of Marx, I caught part
of the second one an hour or two later. The difference between the two might
be summed up by saying that the first
crowd suffered from a "law-abiding citizen complex"; while the CPRFers
and the trade union bureaucrats seek change
through "legal", governmental avenues, and more or less support "democracy",
the red-browns have less faith in the
government and most support some type of dictatorship of one kind or another.
Amongst the red-browns therefore one could
definitely encounter the angrier crowd - but not all anger is equal. This probably
explains why most of the self-styled
anarchists, artists, punks - and youth in general - attended the second march.
Naturally, all sorts of objectionable characters were to be seen today. If
you looked right you could get a free copy of
"Russkiy Poryadok" (Russian Order) or "Chornaya Sotnya"
(Black Hundreds). Stalin was there of course, but it seems
his popularity is dropping as the anti-semites' is rising. Mostly extreme nationalism
and xenophobia. The one thing
that was new this year however was the widening popularity of the National Bolshevik
Party - the Bolshevik Nazi Party -
which deserves some attention.
The National Bolshevik Party is not a "grass roots" organization
like the National Salvation Front, Russian
National Unity or the Black Hundreds. Like the LDPR (the Liberal Democratic
Party of Russia), the National Bolshevik
Party exists to put its main figureheads into political power; the likelihood
that it will be the LDPR of the next
election is rather great. The main personality in this party is Edward Limonov,
a former emigre "writer" who became
famous for a scandalous book about life in America. A notorious personality
with an enormous ego, Limonov is a
master of self-promotion. Having emigrated to America in the 70s, obviously
with naive expectations of life in the
capitalist West, Limonov found that the best America had to offer a poet of
his negliable talents was a job as a bus
boy. So he cleverly decided to invent a hitherto nonexistant literary genre
- the anti-Western emigre novel. Poorly
imitating the punk (the word post-modern makes me puke - and it's too sophisticated
for him anyway) literary fashions of
America at the time, Limonov seemed to introduce a new style in Russia literature
with the publication of his extremely
crude novel "It's me, Eddy". (Which of course compared to the stale
realist drool that was most of modern Russian
literature until perestroika, seemed innovative and interesting to a lot of
people.) Limonov of course was the
main literary character in all of his novels, all the better to create his public
persona. He began to write anti-
Western, Russian nationalist articles as well, which became more extreme as
perestroika and the post-perestroika regime
developed. He is the author of "Limonov vs. Zhirinovsky" where he
claims that Vlad is a coward and a zionist fake in
an attempt to appear tougher and to syphon off some LDPR support (votes). And
apparently his strategy is working.
Part of the National Bolshevik Party's strategy for gaining support is to monitor
different movements, act concillatory
to them and to mimic their politics and style in order to attract their marginal
supporters. (See my earlier report
entitled "Friendly Fascism".) The party's main organ is "Limonka
- the Newspaper of Direct Action" which took
lessons in style from the anarchist press - literally. (At the demonstration
I saw a least one so-called anarchist
peddling the rag.) They recently printed rave reviews of "Chornaya Zvezda"
(Black Star) and commended the Polish
fascists for infiltrating (called "working with") the Polish anarchists.
Former anarchist and punk rock legend Yegor
Letov has long since gone over to the NBP and this greatly helps their image
with youth. For the more intellectually
inclined, they offer up Alexander Dugin, editor of "Elementy", a journal
supported by French fascists. This is
great for those who feel better having some theorectical mumbo-jumbo ready to
justify their irrationality, even if
they don't understand any of it themselves.
The NBP describes itself as nationalist socialist but distinguishes itself
from the nazis of Hitler fame; they do
not have a view of the Russian nation based on race, but on adherence to Russian
Civilization. Their program is
simplistic and is designed to push all the right national patriotic buttons.
At the basis of their program are the
following ideas:
Russian is a great civilization which is being threatened by its enemies, mainly
the United States and the people which
it has put into power in Russia. As a great civilization it is historically
determined to spread and naturally the
smaller "lesser tribes" should Russify themselves. Russia was never
a colonial empire because non-Russians had
positions of power, but Russia should, and by natural law is predestined to
be an empire. The Crimea is Russian territoy,
as is parts of Estonia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Osetia, Kharkov and the Donetsk
Basin. A strong army is the mark of a
strong nation. We need a strong central government which will ensure the happiness
of the Russian family. Russia for
Russians and all will be OK.
From their program:
"Russian rule freely spread into Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus;
it was not imposed by force as our enemies
suggest, but by the development of Russian Civilization." "Empire
- Yes. Empire is the state form which stems from civilization." "Russia
was never a colonial empire." "The West... is our enemy. It has successfully
attacked us with its most modern weapons: "democracy" and "human
rights"... The future of Russia is in union with Islam. Both the Orthodox
and the Isalmic have been fighting Western agression for thousands of years."
"Cleanse Russia of foreign influence." "Law and Order! New Order!
Russian
Order!" "Corporatism." Etc., ad nauseum.
A lot of people were selling "Limonka" today; it seems that the NBP
has taken the place of the LDPR and Zhirinovsky
amongst the dispossessed. Limonov, Dugin and Letov will be running in the next
election; don't be surprised if they get
in.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
(Aside from the normal anti-Chechen, anti-American crap, "Limonka"
has been running some definitions of fascism, some
of which are good for a laugh. These guys would be almost as funny as Zhirinovsky
if it weren't for the fact that they're
totally serious. From this issue:
"Fascism is the sweetness of forbidden fruit."
"Fascism is male nature."
"Fascism is when your can protect your girl and kick ass first."
"Fascism is respecting the opponent you want to kill."
"Fascism is an eagle eye, sharp teeth, a strong hand, and soft, soft lips
to kissed your beloved."
If anybody here had half a brain, we could make a great musical.)
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BACK TO MAY DAY...
In Moscow anarchists failed to join forces and thus were spread in the ranks
of trade union and Communist
demonstrations. Small group of "radical anarcho- syndicalists" (GRAS)
and some of their comrades which form
the "Volya" union made a small picket and distributed leaflets on
the outskirts of the trade union manifestation.
They were later joined by activists of KAS and non-party anarchists. IREAN marched
together with the young and old
commies in a mainly chauvinistic crowd.
In Kiev, Ukraine, activists of "radical" "Direct Action"
union were banned from demonstrating and police effectively
controlled the streets. In Khabarovsk, an anarchist crowd of 50 blocked the
traffic on one of the central streets, 9 people were arrested.
In Chelyabinsk 5 local anarchists marched with the communists and were interviewed
by local TV station.
In Nizhny Novgorod anarchists and punks burned national flags, but apparently this interested nobody.
No concrete information about anarchist rallies in other cities and places.
(Also see a piece on Bielorussian
anarchists.)
BIELORUSSIA: TOUGH DAYS FOR GOMEL ANARCHISTS
On April 26 anarchists joined an alternative demonstration organized to commemorate
the anniversary of Chernobyl
disaster. Since the Bielorussian authorities (the same as Ukranian and Russian)
were not in favour of any dissident
voices, they concentrated some great police forces. However, the demonstrators
managed to break several police lines and
march through the city. The police was rather brutal and it turned out that
their not so successful measures on Chernobyl day made them angry and they took
revenge on anarchists at the May Day demonstration. Activists of Bielorussian
Anarchist Federation together with the Bielorussian Confederation of Labour
made a separate rally nearby the Communists. They were attacked by police and
three people were arrested. They were beaten in the police van and then in the
pig station. Later on the police arrested to young punks who carried home black
banners after the demonstration, they both were beaten up and tortured -
pigs strangled them with the flag and put a gun to their heads. (In Kiev anarcho-ecological
picket was also attacked by police, though not so brutally.)
THREE WEEKS IN HARMONY
In July-August... (article not finished)
THERE ARE SQUATTERS IN MOSCOW
(article not finished)
TOO FEW SYNDICALISTS, TOO MANY SYNDICALISMS
(article not finished)
____________________________________________________________
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WHO NEEDS MUTUAL AID WHEN YOU HAVE FRIENDS IN PYONGYANG?
One of the great pleasures of life is when life's hypocrites, assholes, pretenders
and manipulators finally become so apparently exposed that they are no longer
credible. I hope, at last, we can say goodbye to our great scummy chum, Dmitry
Kostenko, recently departed for Pyongyang to receive the favours of the government.
Kostenko, the so-called anarchist revolutionary (who
actually joined up with anybody who would send him abroad) left Moscow boasting
of the ill-wishes he sent to the
Conference in Hungary. (Whether or not he actually sent them, or was bullshitting,
we don't know.) Basically he condemned the 'Western' anarchists for coming by,
trying to tempt the poor, uncorrupt Russians with money and causing problems
in the anarchist movement here. Although we understand that this is bullshit,
because Dmitry was probably more money hungry than the rest (his first meeting
with me being for the purpose of conning me out of dough), and we have seen
all sorts of other individuals and groups, highly dependent on handouts, turn
their self-hatred outwards and condemn all such 'charity', we are also aware
that Dmitry's attitude is one shared by many, albeit it they seldom vocalize
it. (At least not in mixed company.)
It is clear that many people, communists, socialists, anarchists, face Russia
with a very missionary attitude; it
is important for them to support projects in Russia but they are too naive about
what they are doing. Many publications
in the West publish false or distorted histories; these stories fit their propaganda
but don't match reality. It's time that bullshit about the revolutionary potential
of the Russian population (as if they're ready to overthrow capitalism tomorrow)
stop appearing without question. That the stories of revolutionary groups and
unions be more carefully scrutinized. Let's look what's happening to the
'anarchists' everyone was trying to help a little time back. They join up with
Limonov or Zhirinovsky, they commemorate Kim Il-Sung or they 'disappear' tens
of thousands of dollars from the workers' movement. Donate your money back home
and save yourself from your own charitable impulses.
SOCIALISTS ALWAYS WRITE THE STUPIDIST ARTICLES ABOUT ANARCHISTS
But why do anarchists, who supposedly know better, feel compelled to print
them? Here I am talking about Tatiana
Shershukova's article on "Personalities in the New Russian Anarchism",
which has recently appeared in a Dutch pamphlet,
with some otherwise interesting articles. This article is shit. Not that there
are great lies in it, but the information gives a very distorted picture of
the anarchist movement. It talks about different personalities, the self- styled
leaders, some of whose evident authoritarian personalities have led at least
three of them to denounce anarchism and take up party politics with the most
disgusting of groups. These three people (and some others mentioned) are non-personalities
in the anarchist movement.
And of course there are dozens of people, committed and sincere, whose names
will never appear anywhere in the
history books because they haven't tried to make careers manipulating people
with their words. This is anarchist
history from the wrong perspective. It is from the prospective that all movements
need leaders to be legitimate. If there are no leaders from today, we'll take
them from yesterday.
Are we to believe that in all of Russia there are only six personalities in
the anarchist movement, concidentally six
people who traditionally tried to form confederations often are asked to speak
on behalf of its members? Well, the
people who read this kind of information are really done a diservice, because
they miss the most interesting things of
all. These are apparently the same European types I met years ago who were shocked
to find out that there were more
than two @ bookstores in the States and that no, we weren't waiting around for
the spiritual guidance of Murray
Bookchin, who tends to appear more at the free-lunch crowd than amongst the
anarchists.
akai
MEETINGS WE CAN HAVE, BUT DON'T INVITE YOUR SISTER
(article not finished)
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THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF ZAIBI
After my teenage obsession with rock'n'roll was finally gone, I found myself
in a pretty difficult situation.
Russian rock that was much talked about here during the first years of perestroika
was living through a rather
conservative transformation - after a period of orchestrating the turn to democracy
it went deeper and
deeper into crass commercialism and political that was always personal was more
and more withering away. In fact
there was still a lot of talk about the supposedly "over-politisation"
of Russian rock, but this was mainly due to a
lack of knowledge about the Western music. Anyway, several years passed and
rock'n'roll is finally daed here and no
signs of revival are to be seen. The things that they play is the same shit
that we listen to.
The stage of primitive accumulation is hardly the best time for the development
of counter-culture, no wonder that what
passed for counter-culture in Russia has easily commercialised and became an
easy entertainment for the yuppi-punks that flood the porchy bars where you
have to pay 10-50 bucks just to get it. But still, while economic and political
situation are hardly supportive of underground culture, the group and ideas
that I want to write about appeared on Russian soil, although they sort of stick
out and may themselves be wondering why this whole thing is possible here.
I first read of ZAIBI (which is an abbreviation that stands for "For Anonymous
and Free Art") in some magazine where one
of their first albums was reviewed. The reviewer found himself in a difficult
situation since he had to describe
not only the contents of a cassete that was given to him in a heavy plumbum
box, but also who were these people - on the
latter no information was available, since this art was anonymous. I never had
a chance of getting a hold of their music - I doubt that they ever made more
than 50 copies of their plumbum boxes and I think they refused to distribute
their music without the box that made it weigh substantally.
My nexy encounter with them was live and they left me in ruins. Imagine two
skinny short-haired men banging a drum,
making a farting sound with some metal tube and raping the violin and a fragile
woman. Their music was monotonous and
depressing. Their lyrics left one shocked or confused. Was their "Homosexuals
of All Countries, Unite! All Power to the
Soviets of Homosexuals!" a song about gay conspiracy (a theory rather popular
among aged Stalinists and chauvinists
here in Russia) or was it a vision of some queer utopia? Now I think it was
neither and both - an absurd song that can be
interpreted both ways, and it was great - the conspiracy interpretation was
obviously present and it scared the
homophobes, and the utopia too. Anyway, everything was up to the audience, as
with Laibach, but there were no objects for
consumption attached to it. This first concert indeed left a deep impression
on me since I saw that the group clearly was
"political" and considered itself part of the revolutionary tradition.
What else - they were really interesting. They
were nihilistic and they chose the right targets for their hate.
"There is the same shit as here
New is the same shit as old
Good musak is the same shit as bad musak
What we play is the same shit that you listen to
Musical instruments is the same shit as 000 instruments
...
High shit is the same shit as low shit
Art is the same shit as the people that it belongs to
Knowledge is the same shit as power
Time is the same shit as money
Our suppresors is the same shit as our followers
...
The West is the same shit as the East
Bolshoi Theater is the same shit as Malaya Zemlya (*)
Soviet power is the same shit as electrification
Party is the same shit as our ruler (**)
...
There's no shit but shit"
There was a twist of postmodern cynicism about this all, but in the same time
there was some hidden energy and strong
feelings attached to it that make one think that there must be something but
shit for those who sing it. Maybe it was
just the desire to be an 'artist', but the way they put it in their manifesto
was far from bourgeois self-affirmation
or postmodern 000: One must be an artist not in spite of the hard conditions,
but due to them.
tsovma
------------------------------------------------------------
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THE GREAT UNKNOWN OF RUSSIAN ANARCHISM
ALEXEI BOROVOI (1875-1935)
In November 1995 there will be two big dates - 120 years of Alexei Borovoi
and 60 years since his death. Until recently
the name of this man was unknown even among the anarchists. Nevertheless the
impact of his ideas and personality on the
anarchist movement since 1906 when he gave the first 'legal' lecture on anarchism
in tsarist Russia until his death in
exile in Vladimir/Vyatka was profound.
Alexei Borovoi was born in 1875 in Moscow. After graduating from the law faculty
of Moscow University he became a
teacher and worked at different 0000. Already back in the university he became
acquainted with Marxism that was
extremely popular in Russia at the turn of the century and also was involved
in some minor student activities. After
his trip to France in 1904-06 he came back to Russia already as an anarchist.
In Paris he encountered the works of Henri
Bergson which was one of the major influences on him and also witnessed the
practice of the flourishing syndicalist
movement. His Marxism was shattered, although for the rest of his life he admitted
that the synthesis made by Marx to
socialism was indeed profound and always adviced his students to read the works
of the grand man.
In April 1906 he gave a lecture on "Social ideals of modern humanity"
in which he examined liberalism, socialism and
anarchism. His lecture made a big furror and later was published as a pamphlet
by "Logos" publishing house. In 1907
he gave another major lecture on "Revolutionary vision" which was
greatly inspired by Stirner and Nietzche. In 1906-
1908 Borovoi published several anarchist books (namely Bakunin and Malatesta)
with "Logos" publishers that also
published his second lecture. Already during the first Russian revolution he
got in contact with some anarchists,
but he never was involved with any of the groups because of his contempt for
their narrow terrorist tactics. Borovoi's
anarchism was of different kind - more poetic and individualist, although he
never was attracted to liberalism
of any sort. In 1908 he was interrogated by the police for the publication of
his second lecture and shortly afterwards
escaped from Russia with the help of his friend's passport. He spent several
years in France and came back only in 190000.
In 1917 after the Febryary revolution Borovoi was involved with some anarchist
groups that re-appeared in Moscow and
launched a fortnightly anarchist publication "Klich" (The Call) where
he propagated the idea of a syndicalist "Federation of Mental Labourers".
Revolutionary syndicalism and critique of parliamentarism were the topics of
his pamphlet "Revolutionary creativity and parliament" that was written
as a series of articles in 1900-00 and published as a book in 1917. Throughout
the whole revolutionary upheaval he gave numerous lectures that were greeted
with enthusiasm (see for example Makhno's memoirs). In 1918 he published a thick
volume on "Anarchism" that incorporated some of his previous writings
and some of the notes for his future works. Although the book was obviously
published in a "raw" form, it nevertheless was and still is a good
reading on the
subject. In his "Anarchsim" Borovoi propagated his own vision (and
he made no secret of it) which was rather
critical of the then fashionable Kropotkin-style anarcho-communism and instead
was greatly inspired by Stirner, Nietzche, Bakunin, Bergson and French syndicalists.
He participated in the conferences of the Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists
(KAS), which in fact never really took
off the ground as an organisation in spite of the notable influence that its
activists - Volin, Maximoff, Shapiro and others - had on the factory committees
movement. Anarcho-syndicalist "Golos Truda" publishing house published
Borovoi's "Individual and Society in Anarchist Philosophy" (1921).
Alexei Borovoi dived into the work that he was most suited to do - he edited
posthumous Kropotkin (1921) and Bakunin collections (1926) and probably their
collected works. His and N.Otverzhenniy's book "The Myths about Bakunin"
(1925) - mainly a collection of literary debates with Marxists on Bakunin and
Dostoevsky - was one of the last books published by "Golos Truda"
until it was finally shut down by the government in 1926.
By the mid twenties all organized anarchist groups were either brutally suppressed
by the Cheka or were led by the
infiltrators to a shameless end of declaring their "historical compromise
with Marxism". In 1921 Borovoi was
banned from the University (this wasn't done even by the tsarist regime) and
was subjected to long periods of
unemployment which were accompanied by occasional jobs of an accountant and
that sort. (His desperate appeals to the
education Department for a job of a teacher - "I can teach history of the
middle ages as a 000 Marxist" - were not
noticed.) Nevertheless, Borovoi was still exercising his influence on young
students who were attracted to
libertarian ideal. In 1921 even the students of Communist Academy (which was
then located in the premises previously
occupied by the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups) decided to make a discussion
on "Anarchism vs. Marxism" and
inviting Borovoi and Bukharin to defend their visions, but the discussion was
banned by the Bolshevik authorities.
After the shutting of the "Golos Truda" publishing house(the manuscripts
of unpublished books are to be found in
Borovoi's collection in the Russian Archive of Literature and Art - RGALI),
the only outlet for semi-legal and thus
quite moderate anarchist activity was the Kropotkin Museum. There too anarchism
was met with contempt, mainly by
Kropotkin's widow and her friends who tried to make an emphasis on Kropotkin's
scientific legacy. The other
"danger" came from the "mystical anarchists" who were trying
to push forward their esoteric visions for the real essence
of anarchism. Borovoi and the remaining anarchists fought virulently against
both, but in vain - they all had left the
Kropotkin Committee in 1927. Although this topic needs some considerable studies
there are some indirect evidences that
there were attempts to make clandestine anarchist groups using the status of
Kropotkin museum and most probably
Borovoi was one of the people behind that. Anyway in 1931 he and some other
anarchists including Italian syndicalist
Francesco Ghezzi were arrested and sent in exile. Borovoi spent his last years
in Vyatka and Vladimir and died on
November 00, 1935. He was buried in Moscow, on the German Cemetery.
Not long before the Nazi invasion into the USSR his family donated his archive
to the Russian Archive of Art and
Literature as he wished. Among the most precious things there are his unfinished
memoirs "My Life", his unpublished
book on Dostoevsky, the manuscripts of "Golos Truda" publishing house,
photos of Kropotkin's funeral and numerous
documents of his life that will make possible to write his biography one day.
(Unfortunately his memoirs describe his
life only until the 1917 and the rest of his life can be reconstructed only
through documents and diaries.)
* * *
Although Borovoi was undoubtedly the most interesting anarchist thinker of
the beginning of the century (Kropotkin
aside) and he excerted a strong influence -whose vestiges can be found both
among the numerous young anarchists of the
post-revolution period and in the manifestos of the "underground anarchists"
who bombed the Moscow city
Bolshevik party committee in 1919 - his name passed into oblivion and hardly
anybody knows it these days. Among the
reasons for that of which Stalinist repression was the main one also is the
nature of Borovoi's ideas - his ideas were
pretty heretical and openly stood in contradiction to what Borovoi himself called
"traditional anarchism". He realized,
that anarchism was a pretty chaotic set of ideas and reconciliation was hardly
possible between 000 00.
What is probably a serious gap in the history of Russian anarchism - is the
lack of an outline of the tradition that
was, in my opinion, so fruitful and so significant in the Russian anarchism
of the 1905-1930s.
Kropotkinite anarchism syndicalist counter-current - back to Bakunin, Borovoi's
originality - against rationalism, against static
ideal society
unfortunately, his ideas seem to have a great historical value, but can be
applied to contemporary radical social
theory only in the most general sense --------------
In November 1995 we plan to hold a memorial conference in Moscow devoted to
Alexei Borovoi, his life and ideas. In
1994 anarchist "Cube Press" published his brilliant essay on Bakunin's
philosophy and we are looking forward to publish
some of his works either in book format or as separate pamphlets. If you want
to assist this or get more
information on Alexei Borovoi (mainly Russian-language articles and texts, but
also a tribute to him from
"Revolution Proletarienne") you can get in contact with the Alexei
Borovoi group (Mikhail Tsovma). We would appreciate
your assistance in obtaining (photo)copies of any materials on Borovoi, especially
the German edition of his first
lecture on anarchism that was published somewhere between 1906 and 1917. The
only other translation of his works that
we know about is "Anarchism and Law", a chapter of his book on "Anarchism"
that was published by some anarchists in
Buffalo (without date).
We also hope to get a videocopy of a documentary on Kropotkin's funeral, featuring,
among others Alexei Borovoi,
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.
Some quotes:
Liberalism is philosophy of the priviledged classes, socialism is philosophy
of fork and knife, anarchism is
philosophy of a human awakened!
___________________________________________________________
(Some) Anarchist publications and groups in the former USSR
POB 500, Moscow
107061 Russia - contact address for the loose informal network of some Moscow
anarchists (KAS, Rainbow Keepers,
etc.) and publications - "Volya", "Vugluskr", "Aspirin
Won't Help"; the same address can be used to contact Laure Akai
and her (only) seemingly defunct zine "Mother Anarchy" (multi-lingual,
but mainly in English)
POB 19 Seversk-13
Tomskaya oblast 636070
Russia - Seversk anarcho-syndicalist group, part of KAS and Siberian Confederation
of Labour, also their papers
"Syndicalist" and "Worker"
POB 31, Elektrogorsk
Moskovskaya oblast 142530
Russia - Group of radical anarcho-syndicalists (GRAS) and "Volya",
a syndicalist union; also their publication "Direct Action"
POB 199
Kazan 420059
Tatarstan/Russia(?) - Alliance of Kazan anarchists and their paper "Kazan
Anarchist"
POB 14
Nizhny Novgorod 603082
Russia - Class War Federation (?) and its publication, ironically called "The
Sun"
POB 88
Gomel 246028
Bielorussia - Bielorussian Anarchist Federation,
part of Confederation of Revolutiuonary Anarcho-Syndicalists (KRAS), and their
paper "Anarchy"
POB 327
340122 Donetsk
Ukraine
194021 St.Petersburg, pr.Parkhomenko 33-76
Alexander Maishev/An-Press
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Contact us:
via e-mail: cube@glas.apc.org
via regular mail: POB 500, 107061 Moscow, Russia
Materials published above reflect only personal opinion of the author(s), but
this doesn't mean they should be treated
differently from the positions of the so-called federations.
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