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Title: Antifa in the Wild East Author: Anonymous Date: January 21, 2009 Language: en Topics: Anti-fascism, Russia Source: Retrieved on 23rd April 2021 from https://libcom.org/library/antifa-wild-east-internet-warrior-sets-record-straight Notes: Published in Abolishing the Borders from Below #33.
Anti-fascism in Russia is not a political but a social movement. It is
not some irrelevant lefties who imagined that “fascism is an immanent
threat” and started to “fight” it. And that is how it should be —
fascism is not a threat in Russia – they do not have a slightest chance
to take over. At least 95% of the population hates them. State and
capital are the real problem.
As there is no real parliamentarism in Russia, threat of right-wing
electoral populism is also much smaller than in most of the European
countries. Usually authorities intervene quickly to dismiss nationalists
from the elections with dubious legal grounds. Thus only dangerous
fascists are the most marginal, and hated by even most of the other
nationalists – those who kill migrants and other marginalized groups in
the streets.
I do not even quote the statistics of how many people got murdered by
Nazis in Russia this or last or any year, as those statistics only
involve cases which make it to the news. But no matter how many it is,
society does not care a fuck – or if cares, in form of demanding more
powers to cops. Obviously none of those not directly touched by the
problem is interested to fight it on their own. Society is almost
perfectly atomized, people mind their own business. This is obviously
due to bandit capitalism finishing off with the horizontal structures
already in agony due to the authoritarian Soviet rule, but it is the
shape of things to come in the West as well. Russia is not
underdeveloped in terms of the “civil society” — it is overdeveloped, 20
years ahead of the West. Whatever “leftist” there currently exists in
the Western Europe, it is becoming more and more irrelevant and in 20
years nothing will remain of it. Then moral politics will be dead, and
only interest and lifestyle politics will remain.
Of course there is some imagined “civil society” in Russia. It is
created by market law of supply and demand – as xenophobia in Russia is
considered a problem in the West, there is a supply of grants thus a
demand will arise as well. Whatever these NGO’s “monitor”, nobody cares.
But of course their voice is heard anytime you need a “specialist” to
demand more money or powers to cops. More these people have such links
to grassroots antifascists which Nazis may scandalously expose, worse
for grassroots antifascism. To avoid confusion, when I refer to “Antifa”
in this article I do not mean these people — nor do I mean liberal
political parties, all of which even have elements happy to cooperate
with more moderate fascist organisations.
I have a gut feeling that most of the killed Nazis are due to “migrant
Antifa”. Only other group fighting back against Nazis, youth subculture,
is way behind them. There are for sure plenty of migrants and minority
nationals in youth subcultures as well, but these usually come from
mixed or otherwise integrated families, and are in a sense outside of
the diasporas – actually such people are also plenty among the Nazis,
maybe even more than among Antifa. Thus these two “Antifas” do not
really mix. And I am fine with that – I do not cry if some Ingushetian
kills some Nazi, but I believe it should be mainly Russians finishing
off with the Russian fascism, and Ingushetians finishing off with the
Ingushetian fascism. I do not want a race war – Nazis already make
shitloads of noise after cases when migrants have killed their
activists, thus I do not spread these stories.
Mostly “migrant Antifa” also works outside the concept of Antifa. There
are some notable exceptions – such as when football fans in Mahachkala
of Dagestan yelled “Antifa!” in terrace as a reply of Stavropol fans
shouting “Russia for Russians!”, but mainly migrants understand their
conflict differently. Their code of honor does not allow a revenge
against fascists as an entity, but they try to search individual Nazis
who violated them and pay an eye for an eye. This of course usually only
goes for mountaineers, Central Asians and Chinese are usually two
atomized to have any kind of organised blood feud. Also traditionalist
diasporas are organised according to traditional hierarchies, on top of
which is their own bourgeoisie, which occasionally likes to make loud
statements for example about their “2000 fighters ready to fight
skinheads”, but in practice wants to avoid conflict with Russian
authorities at any price, and is mainly interested to silence any
protests against Nazi rampage inside their community. It would be a
rather stupid idea to attempt to build any coalition against fascism
with minority nation elites.
Thus most of the credit for fighting Nazis goes to subcultural youth.
But this is also social, not political – wearing a Mohawk is not a
political statement. Thus of course this “Antifa” comes with any ills
the society has in general – some are sexist, some are homophobic, some
are alcoholics and junkies, some may be just plain loonies or lumpen
criminals (and not that gentleman “Arsene Lupin” flavor).
In the West, I am always puzzled with people who first of all identify
themselves as “squatters” or “Antifa”. What the fuck is the alternative
these people are proposing, a Tobin Tax? Fortunately in Russia almost
all the horizontal grassroots activists consider themselves anarchists
or in few cases (non-authoritarian) communists. Actually in most of the
cities Antifa is organised by a mixed scene of anarchists, punks and
skinheads – Moscow is perhaps only city where anarchists are a clear
(but significant) minority in Antifa. I am obviously concerned if
someone considering himself anarchist is clearly homophobic and sexist,
but if someone is just “Antifa” I do not really care. I do not say that
these ills should be ignored, but one should be realist – no matter how
many columns I write to some zine on how antifascism should be against
homophobia and sexism, these will only influence a minority. Subculture
always reflects values of the society – and as long as consumerism is
order of the day, punks will always be way more interested about tattoos
and collecting records than going to demonstrations. And in Moscow in
particular most of the anti-fascists are themselves former Nazis – one
should be happy just for the fact that they are now beating up their
former comrades and not migrants.
There is a discussion though about sexism in the Russian Antifa
movement. This because in Russian Nazi movement there are many women in
prominent, even leadership positions – actually in terms of gender
balance they are not doing worse than Antifa. For example cameraman and
oldest member of the Ryno group, which is currently facing a court in
Moscow for murdering 20 people, was a woman. Thus there is a discussion
if female Nazis should be beaten up as well. In general Antifa has taken
an anti-sexist position, and Nazi women are beaten up as well. But due
to prevailing sexism in the society, this often backlashes against the
Antifa. For example, when female Nazi Polina Sidorova got wounded during
Antifa attack against Nazi concert in club “Niagara” in Moscow in autumn
of 2006, Nazi video collective “Format 18” made an effective propaganda
video to raise funds for brain surgery she needed. Thus some of the
Antifa argue that Nazi women should not be beaten up, at least not by
men. Of course Nazis themselves are not the gentlemen they claim to be –
for example when Aleksey Krylov was murdered in Moscow last March, Nazis
attempted to also kill a girl going to concert in the same company with
him.
Following news about anti-fascism in Russia one may easily get the
picture an evil and unstoppable horde of Nazis which keeps slaying
hapless anti-fascists. Another victimization issue, another reason for
Western activists to feel guiltiness. Guiltiness, which I have at times
indirectly exploited myself, as money for lawyer, medical and funeral
bills is indeed often very much in need. This is why it is always the
first priority to translate these horror stories. And stories of
victories seldom get translated at all, as nobody wants to be visited by
officials from UBOP (Department for Fight against Organised Crime) or
FSB (ex-KGB). In former Soviet Union, activists already years ago
established closed communication networks which cross borders, but in
the West these are still mostly non-existing. These are not stories
everyone should read – thus you do not hear that violence porn except
maybe many years late.
Talking about violence, you do not often come across pacifists in the
Russian movement, thus if I see some criticism of Russian antifascism
written from pacifist point of view, it is quite likely written by
someone not from around here. If you are subcultural in Russia and
living in a smaller place, you most likely have to fight at least once
in a week. This is why even most of the hippies around know how to kick
some ass.
Violence is for sure romantic, our society is totally fascinated with
it, to most of the movies people go to see some violence. And stories
from real life often beat movies, thus I often eagerly share them
although I never participated myself. And it is not there just for the
beauty of it – after all, there is not a single historical example of
fascism being crushed by non-violent means (state capitalism of the late
80’s was hardly comparable to fascism). Nazi by definition is someone,
who is out there to kill you (unless you are a Nazi yourself, or ready
to pretend to be one). Unless he is crushed, he will get you sooner or
later. If this is not the case, he is not a Nazi but just someone who
thinks too much of himself. Obviously most Nazis are just pretenders,
even in Russia – they do not deserve to carry the NSDAP flag. But some
Nazis are worth of the name, and thus any action against them is a mere
self-defence, even if it happened a year or 20 years before they were to
come after you.
Nazis in Russia are perhaps far from seizing power, but for me and my
comrades it is either us or them. It is easy to make hollow statements
such as “using violence makes you a fascist as well”, but I have no use
for moral superiority if I am dead. Anarchists have been beating and
killing fascists ever since they came around, and I will never piss on
the grave of the comrades who made all those attempts on life of
Mussolini, Hitler and Franco. There are plenty of reasons why
anti-fascists violence in Russia of today should be non-lethal, but all
of them are of only pragmatical, not of moral nature.
But whereas beating up Nazis is not a moral problem (perhaps it is even
a moral imperative), pragmatic record of Antifa in Russia is more in
doubt. It is not clear if Nazi movement is going down due to general
tendency towards welfare, stability and control in Russia, due to state
repression or due to Antifa. Probably all of these factors play some
role, Antifa being the least significant. But Antifa has certainly put
some individual Nazis and crews out from the game, and shown that Nazis
may be beaten by whoever, at times even more effectively than with
sophisticated state machinery of control and violence.
But I am doing fine with pacifists as long as they are comradely. Good
part of other activities of Russian anarchists except anti-fascism are
completely in the realm of the non-violence, often these means simply
work even if you do not treat them as a dogma – thus there is a field
for cooperation. I have a huge respect of those pacifists who are
consistently anti-state and do not call cops to do dirty work for them,
and for whom pacifism is not just a mask which hides cowardice. Most of
the “warriors” who have a beef with pacifists have seldom been there
done that violence themselves.
At least in Moscow, in 90% of the cases it is the Nazis who get the
beating. If you never heard any of them getting killed, it is because
Antifa did things with some skill and they also had good luck – but for
sure all of them who had an encounter with Antifa will remember it for
rest of their lives. Actually probably one of the reasons why Moscow
Nazis are so brutal is that they got beaten up so much. In 2001–2002,
when Moscow Antifa got really launched, it was 1 antifascists to every
50 Nazis, so it was way more easy to find Nazis than Antifa – and in the
streets it is almost always those who have the initiative who do the
beating. And even still, as Nazis are much worse to conspire and they
simply do not care about their rank and file, they take much more
damage. Actually after all these years, Moscow Nazis have still not
managed to kill a single fighter of Moscow Antifa (despite some serious
attempts) – Sasha Ryukhin was in the very periphery of the movement, and
Krylov had no connection to movement at all.
Moscow anarchists were occasionally beating Nazis and
National-Bolsheviks since the early nineties, just as the first
RASH-skinheads who came around 1998–1999. But only in 2001–2002 some
people decided to give that a priority, and since then some ass was
kicked about every week. First 2–3 years of Moscow Antifa are documented
in the book “Dat’ Pizdy”. In the beginning National-Bolsheviks were few
times picked up as a target practice, but although they have some
boneheads they are not really involved in anti-migrant violence, and as
individuals they are pitiful losers, so they are not anymore beaten up
by anarchists or Antifa.
One must understand that what comes to anarchists, this is a war which
we started. Russian Nazis were killing migrants ever since they began to
organise, and occasionally boneheads had fun terrorizing some hapless
gutter punks. But they di d not cared a fuck about the anarchists before
they started to get beaten up — not that Moscow Antifa was organised by
anarchists only, but anarchists were always public about their support
for the direct action. Perhaps harsh reaction of the Nazis, who decided
to revenge not only against Antifa but anarchist, activist and hardcore
punk scene as a whole, was a surprise to someone – to me it was not.
After all, they are Nazis – they are bad on public relations but good on
terror. Differently from Antifa, for Nazis it is beneficial to escalate
the conflict – back in the fistfight days they lost much more of their
cadres to Antifa, but fewer people switch sides now when it is about
life and death.
To me, it was clear from the day one that Antifa activity will result
some burials, and at times I wonder if it is really worth of it. In
another hand, in counter-revolutionary times there are few fields you
may work in from the beginning, and at least Antifa is on public demand
for certain constituencies. Washing your hands from it would mean
relying to your race privilege – it could be possible only as long as
there are no significant anarchist presence in migrant communities.
Not that Antifa in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia cares a lot about
strategy. Mostly it is just people who like to beat up Nazis – doing
something useful and having fun in the same time. That is not where I
get my kicks, but I do not judge. Whoever claims to hate violence is
most likely a hypocrite – he just wants to have it in a sterile, safe
form such as TV serials, movies or computer games. To me a Nazi has less
rights than some digital zombie in my computer screen, as computer
monsters do not murder real people just because of their skin color.
For sure there is also the point that violence corrupts, continuous fear
makes people embittered and brutal. For example case in last August,
where 4 rather irrelevant Moscow Nazis got stabbed before they even
pulled their knives was also for me too much. But again, this is a
flipside of having a social, not a political movement – you do not need
a membership ticket to get into Antifa. Whoever confuses excesses with
general strategy, does not understand what fascism is real about and
what are we fighting against. Violence alone has nothing to do with
fascism – fascist violence is based on hatred of everything
non-conformist and different, and conditioning of that hatred by a
bureaucratic machinery to an extent that you do not see a difference
between your own will and will of the system. No excess of an individual
may ever be fascist, as fascism is never a free moral choice of an
individual but something you do for your “Reich”.
First gene ration of Moscow Antifa never did any claims or statements.
They were not interested about leaflets, stickers or publishing
journals. It was just a group of people – some from anarchist scene,
some from punk scene, some from football hooligan circles, some former
Nazis – who got together for just a one goal: to beat up Nazis. And they
did their job well – they lost fights very seldom and never took any
serious casualties. It is not correct to claim that this way nobody ever
learned about the Antifa – Nazis learned to know them very soon, and
they were terrorized. First generation understood the laws of the
atomization of the society – that nobody fucking cares about murdered
migrants or homeless. Thus they did not even tried to get public
sympathy. Even cops do not really care, as long as there is no moral
panic and their bosses do not demand from them to act. There has been a
moral panic against Nazis since the nineties, and thus Nazis have
suffered – cops randomly arrest them without charges, take fingerprints
and photos, occasionally torture for 1, 2 or 3 days by suffocating and
beatings and then let go. By avoiding publicity, Antifa for a while
managed to avoid most of this.
But as usual people change, there is a big turnover and at some point
some people got the idea to give some interviews to journalists and to
show up in TV. After this, for sure a moral panic – how may someone
pretend to do job of the cops better than the cops!? There was a
discussion in state Duma, in beginning of the year 2007 ultra-right wing
deputy Viktor Alksnis made a public enquiry where pen-names of 10
“leading Moscow anti-fascist terrorists” where published (“Bonecrusher”,
“Dill”, “Foot”, “Journalist”, “Pit”,”Radist”, “Satan”, “Shkobar”,
“Tigran”, “Zog”), some with supposed real names and home addresses. Heat
was on, and number of people were forced to leave Russia for other
countries.
In a way I am involved in an effort to turn a social movement into a
political one – I may point to days or even contemporary places where
anti-fascism is different, where there were ideas and alternative models
of the world. But maybe I am wrong – this far public discussion in
Russia about antifascism has done nothing good for the movement, except
gained the movement few more comrades who maybe would have found us
anyway. After all those TV documentaries and endless internet debates,
nothing has chanced – people are still murdered, still nobody fucking
cares except those people who are being murdered. As far the general
tendencies in the society remain the same, any attempts to create
“movement infrastructure” in form of publications, policies,
organisations, meetings or discussions is the straightest way to torture
chambers and jail. Thus most likely I will do other things, and do not
interfere with activities of those who like to beat up Nazis for
whatever reasons they may have.
I will be there though when another lawyer, hospital or funeral bill is
necessary, but I hope the time of the appeals will also soon be over.
This because after all the amounts are not that big – usually around
1000 Euros for one fundraiser. In terms of financial flows of
international activism, these are not such a big amounts. If we had a
number of constant, reliable long-time sponsors we would quit writing
fundraisers altogether and it would save much time and effort.
As we have managed to put issue of “anti-fascism in Russia” to agenda of
international activist movement, I am often asked what could be done to
help us. It feels kind of stupid only to ask for money, as this is
reducing solidarity to something measured by monetary value. But it is
often hard to imagine what else would be necessary – as I already said,
fascists in Russia are not taking over and in the end only Russians may
deal with the Russian fascism. Obviously most stupid thing to do when
Nazis attack someone would be to set up a demonstration at your local
Russian consulate – issue of street fascism has nothing to do with the
state. This would only repeat the message everyone from liberals to even
less extreme nationalists are repeating – more powers to cops so that
they could curb “skinheads”. Russian state is not protecting Nazis –
sometimes they try to play down or even deny the problem due to protect
their image, but Nazis are facing heavy repression which is probably the
main reason why their movement is going down. But no matter how much
cops torture random boneheads, it is no way they may stop the menace
altogether – Nazis will be active just as long as they feel indifference
of the society. And tactics of “decentralized resistance”, inspired by
famous fantasy book Turner Diaries, have proved itself to be successful
in Russia – no matter how much Nazis are repressed by the state, some
cells will always survive. And in practice bureaucracy, competition and
even hatred between different government repressive structures and very
narrow focus on short-term gains mean that Nazis are surviving even the
vilest government repression, thus you may never count on government on
finishing of with the Nazism.
Sometimes some individual officials may have hopes of using Nazis for
their own purposes, but in general Russian police does not protect
Nazis. There are cases of one police structure protecting their Nazi
informers against charges pressed by other structures, or individual
polices covering up their Nazi relatives – but in general these are
exceptions. some individual cops or even districts may be Nazis (for
example the notorious St. Petersburg district number 76) , but with
others it is the contrary – there are number of cases when cops arrested
anti-fascists after an action, but as their chief was a Chechen or
Armenian they let them go without charges. But most of the time cops
just solidarise with whoever pays them more money. When Antifa attacked
concert of Nazi metal band “Korroziya Metalla” last June and some got
arrested, cops let them go without charges as they hated boneheads, but
anyway cops sold home addresses of the arrested to Nazis as Antifa was
stupid enough not to make a better tender in prior. Actions in
consulates could make sense if it is the state directly attacking
anti-fascists – but in any other cases the best kind of solidarity for
Russian anti-fascists would be to make an action against your local
Nazis, and then put it into international context in a claim.
See you in the streets in the internet!
Anonymous anarchist from Moscow