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Title: Anarchism in Russia
Author: Mikhail Tsovma
Date: 1993
Language: en
Topics: Russia, Libertarian Labor Review, anarcho-syndicalism
Source: Retrieved on September 8, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050908034428/http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr14-24/15g.shtml
Notes: From Libertarian Labor Review #15, Summer 1993. Translated by Jeff Stein.

Mikhail Tsovma

Anarchism in Russia

The majority of anarchist groups remain at the margins of social and

political life, unable to propose any significant alternatives. The

groups that were created by dozens last year have tended to

disintegrate, the number of participants in anarchist groups stabilized

approximately at the level reached in 1989, when the first country-wide

anarchist federation (KAS) was created. Today the movement is still

split in spite of all the talk of cooperation between different

tendencies. In major cities like Moscow, anarchists can enjoy the luxury

of creating 5 groups of four people, but in the provinces the number of

activists is usually not more than ten people.

This year has seen feverish activity by the Federation of Revolutionary

Anarchists (FRAN) — numerous pickets, leftist meetings and

organizational attempts. Created in 1992 as a federation of libertarian

communist groups, FRAN now has activists in half a dozen towns in

Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine. Its local groups usually cooperate with

various Trotskyist and Communist sects (usually the most “revolutionary”

ones). On Nov. 7, 1992, they even organized a demonstration to

commemorate the anniversary of the Bolshevik coup d’etat (which they

consider to have been an anti- capitalist revolution). The poster which

advertised the demo was signed by IREAN (Moscow group of FRAN) and two

Trotskyist groups (each one consisting of only one to two members). The

flags of the Fourth International and CNT-AIT and wildcat symbols were

put together at the demonstration. After their own march through the

streets of Moscow they went to the Stalinist demonstration — odd place

to try to recruit members for an anarchist group.

FRAN is also attempting to create a union which would become the Russian

section of the International Workers Association. During last year’s

East-West syndicalist conference in Berlin, IREAN was made the publisher

of the East European bulletin “of the friends of IWA.” Two issues have

been published (in Russian) and the tendency is quite clear — the

Confederation of Anarcho- Syndicalists (KAS) is in fact cut off from

this bulletin.

It is very characteristic that the decision to become an IWA section

preceded the creation of the union — very few of the FRAN activists

previously made syndicalist propaganda or tried to organize independent

unions. Obviously, the attempt to become the Russian section of the

International is a great motivation in itself as it gives those people

seeking high esteem the requisite status.

At the same time, the oldest and still the biggest anarcho-syndicalist

federation in Russia, KAS, declared (in May 1991) that it does not yet

seek affiliation to any specific international tendency, but is open to

cooperation with various anarchist and syndicalist groups. The results

to date are not so great, but still they are much more real than the

claims of FRAN.

Another field of activity which attracts activists from different

anarchist groups is ecology. Every summer this or that source of

pollution (nuclear power plant, chemical or other heavy industry

enterprise) becomes the target of anarchists and radical ecologists.

This year two campaigns will be organized — one against the storage of

nuclear wastes in Siberia, and the other against a metallurgical plant

in Cheropovets. Though there’s still a lot to be desired in the

efficiency and organization of these actions, they at least have the

potential to unite the libertarian viewpoint and popular protest

movements.

Recently some groups revived their publications. Thus at the end of

1992, Moscow anarcho-syndicalists relaunched Obschina magazine, and

anarchists in Irkutsk and Kemerovo are also thinking about launching new

papers. Small publications oriented mainly to other anarchists also seem

to be developing. This is a good sign as for quite a long time the

anarchist press was constantly collapsing.

It is necessary to mention that many groups declaring themselves

“anarchist” do a good job of discrediting the anarchist movement in

general. Thus at the end of last year, at the Congress of the

Association of Anarchist Movements (ADA), a group was created called the

“Association of Anarchist Movements (Marxist- Leninist). No comments

about this group, but its worth mentioning that many people equate

anarchist with various foreign Marxist- Leninist guerrillas. Anarchist

news bulletins constantly inform that this or that “anarchist” group

made a protest to support the RAF, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), the

IRA, Basque terrorists or Red Brigades. Moscow IREAN is particularly

notorious for this kind of action.

The liberal wing of the anarchist movement also seems to be quite

confused about anarchist theory. Thus, at the end of last year the St.

Petersburg Anarcho-Democratic Union declared its support for the

government’s economic “reform” policies. Two Moscow-based libertarian

capitalist “anarchist” groups — the Moscow Union of Anarchists and the

Union of Anarcho-Universalists — have degenerated into commercial

distribution enterprises. The leader of the Moscow Union of Anarchists,

Alexander Cheryakov, even started publishing an advertising paper full

of ads featuring “pretty girls for wealthy businessmen.”

The conclusion is obvious. The Russian anarchist movement is in a

terrible state and a lot needs to be done before we can present a real

alternative to the present destructive developments in Russia and the

other former Soviet republics. One of the tasks will be a clearer

definition of what anarchist ideas are and how they can be implemented

here and now. Surely this process won’t lead to the creation of the

“united anarchism” that some people dream about, but it will help

activists from different groups try out their ideas. At this point the

anarchist press both here and abroad is filled with short sloganistic

manifestos which stand in for serious analysis and careful programs.

Today the KAS program, adopted in 1989 and devoted mainly to an analysis

of the Soviet regime, remains the only such consistent attempt to put

forward a libertarian socialist program. The realities of a “free

market” Third World capitalism are still waiting to be considered by

Russian anarchists.

For readers of anarchist publications from other countries Russian

anarchists may seem rather weird, and so they are. It is quite doubtful

that anarchists should try to copy all the ideas and actions of their

comrades in the First World. But surely there is a difference between

difference and idiocy.

There’s a very long way to go, and we should start moving.

Wages and Living Standards

Inflation in February 1993 was 29 percent a month. A recent economics

ministry study found that one-third of Russia’s population was living

below the officially defined subsistence level. While prices rose by 26

times last year, the average wage increased only 13.5 times.

Unemployment continues to grow, but at a slower pace than predicted.

Russia’s “official” unemployed, fewer than 1 percent of the workforce,

account for only a fraction of the number who are chronically out of

work. Starved of credits and raw materials, factories shut down for as

many as several weeks a month rather than carry out mass layoffs.

The Russian government’s “solution” to unemployment is a familiar line —

Women: back to the home.” More than 70 percent of Russia’s officially

unemployed workers are women. But Labor Minister Gennady Melikyan says

he sees no need for special programs to help women return to the

workforce. “Why should we try to find jobs for women when men are idle

and on unemployment benefits?” Melikyan said. “Let men work and women

take care of the homes and their children.”

A few years ago women made up 51 percent of the Russian workforce. But

government cutbacks, aimed largely at middle-level administrative staff,

have disproportionately hit women. The government’s drive to turn women

back into housekeepers and baby- minders is reflected in a new law on

the family pending in the Supreme Soviet. The first draft would have

nullified women’s right to abortion and banned women with children from

working more than 35 hours a week. Following protests from women’s and

human rights groups, the most controversial clauses were dropped, but

the current draft eliminates the state’s obligation to provide day care

for the children of working women.