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Title: Belarussian Anarchist Federation Author: Belarussian Anarchist Federation Date: 2006 Language: en Topics: IAF, Belarus Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-02 from http://www.i-f-a.org.gridhosted.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/anarkiista_debato.pdf
Two comrades, Pauluk and Maryna, from the Belarusian Anarchist
Federation, an organisation then applying to join the International,
attended the meeting and made a presentation on the situation in their
country at the London Anarchist Bookfair.
---
The collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in yet another repressive
regime taking power, making it extremely difficult for ana rchists and
others to operate politic ally. This interview focuses on the history of
anarchism in Belarus, as se en through the personal experiences of these
two comrades. It provides insig hts into the situation for anarchists in
the ex-Soviet influenced countries and shows how anarchist ideas and
practices emerge in places where there has not been a strong anarchist
tradition in recent years. The works of our comr ades also illustrates
how people in diffe rent situations take the ideas and mak e them their
own, through creative and imaginative initiatives.
it?
Pauluk: I have been in the anarchist movement since 1994. All Soviet
people, sooner or later, hear about anarchism . During our childhood, we
watched f ilms about the Civil War and there wer e always anarchists in
them. The pro paganda portrayed them negatively . But it had the
opposite effect. The anarchists were shown as people w ho, in between
fighting the Reds and Whites, were drinking and dancing. So from
childhood we had the impression that anarchists were fun loving! I was
impressed with the critical position towards the changes in the
political system. Lukashenko, the current President, used the democratic
movement to get elected and then the repression started. So I got the
impression that the problem didnāt lie just with the democratic movement
but was somewhere deeper. So I started to try and find out where the
root of the problem was. I read about anarchism and by the end of 1994 I
sympathised with anarchist ideas.
Pauluk: I read about anarchism in the library; there were books by
people like Kropotkin. But not much was available. We didnāt have
contact with other anarchists either in the west or in other eastern
European countries. There wasnāt even much communication with other
anarchists in Belarus.
Pauluk: Yes, already in 1992, founded by 8 people. There are still 6 of
the original members involved. In 1994, there were about 20 people, but
scattered around the country in just two cities so I didnāt hear about
anarchism from them, but from books.
Pauluk: In October 1994 students organised some actions against the rise
in prices on bread and milk. It was a street performance action, with
the slogan āThank you President for bread and milkā. It was the first
big action organised against the President who had been in office for
two months. The organisation of this action was influenced by anarchists
and so because of this I met other anarchists and by the end of the year
I was a confident anarchist.
Pauluk: Yes, they were from the Minsk group.
Pauluk: Taking into account that I was coming to the anarchist movement
from the democratic side, I was attracted by the idea that anarchism
seemed the only real democracy. Democracy that the democrats were
talking about was just a lie, an illusion of democracy. I was reading
about other left ideas in general, including Trotskyism, Maoism,
everything possible. Amongst these ideas, anarchism was the only thing I
could imagine.
Maryna: It is difficult to say because I was very young when the Soviet
Union crashed. I was interested in the punk movement. It seemed natural
that we shouldnāt have what we had in the country. Then I met Pauluk and
he just gave a name to what I was thinking about. It was what I wanted,
what I was thinking about. That was in 1998 when I first got involved in
student demonstrations.
---
[The following questions are mostly answered by both Maryna and Pauluk
after discussion between them.]
It is difficult to say because we donāt have membership like you do.
Participation in the federation is only possible when you act. About 200
maybe.
involved in the federation?
The federation consists of a number of different initiatives.
Yes, it is like that but in Poland they have more local groups. This is
because of the history of Poland ā there is anarchist intercity
relations. The Belarusian federation also has local sections, but the
work is done around initiatives. One initiative was the anti-Party
initiative. The purpose was of this initiative was to stop young people
get entangled with the work of political parties because they use the
youth as a cheap workforce. So we organised different humorous actions,
āhappeningsā on the street, which made fun of all political parties,
both the government and the opposition.
We took a risk because had never done it before, we didnāt know where it
would lead us, but it led to the fact that the movement began to grow.
But of course we didnāt invent it ourselves; we were attracted by a
Polish initiative that was used under the dictatorship where they
organised many street parties and happenings.
Reclaim the Streets?
No, just from Poland. We read about what was happening in Poland in
newspapers. In the 1990s, there was a drought of information, it was
difficult to get. But now it is possible to get information from the
internet. So the things we did attracted many people, mostly young
people. There was a lot of publicity in the press, saying how anarchists
organised another funny action. So people became interested, thinking
that anarchists must be very amusing people.
Maryna: I remember that I was involved in the nationalist opposition
movement for some months and in one of the meetings the leader told the
audience about how they conducted an action and anarchists were in a
separate block. They were hungry and the anarchists said we have some
sandwiches and offered them around. The leader was trying to laugh at
this but it showed how anarchists were being noticed by people, even
inside other political movements.
One thing was a counter-cultural group that influenced the movement that
organised actions against the military. They were formed in 1995 and by
the end of 1995 they were already in touch with and participated in
actions of the Anarchist Federation. At that time, it was the three main
cities, Minsk, Hroda and Homel that were the basis of the Federation.
There were many actions carried out by different initiatives in the
federation so it is difficult to talk about all of them.
One is the syndicalist group. They organised strikes in places like the
trolley bus depot, they published a lot of propaganda and they had a day
of solidarity with the unemployed. These days of action always ended
with arrests of the participants. The result of this was that many
activists lost their jobs. It is difficult to continue to be a
syndicalist without a syndicate. They didnāt work anymore and the
government began to put pressure on all unions so they couldnāt practice
syndicalism anymore. One of the people became a local councillor!
There were several papers before our paper. We got the idea of doing a
newspaper from our anti-Party actions. It is a continuation of our work
to make fun of all authority ā the government etc.
By the end of 1998 it became more difficult to do actions because the
President issued a decree, which made it likely that you could be
arrested for participating in these actions. We continued to organise
them but not as frequently as before. So we had to replace them with
something.
It was always in our heads because we had published some newspapers, so
the idea was born quite naturally. And when the first issue was
published we realised we had done the right thing because it was
extremely popular.
No it was popular amongst everyone who was interested in politics. With
the newspaper, all politicians knew about us. First it was a little
newspaper, but after a year we registered it officially. We celebrated
our first year with an action under the slogan āLegalise Itā. The name
of the newspaper, Navinki, is the name of a mental hospital and it also
means āsmall newsā. The main newspaper is called just ānewsā so we are
making fun in two ways. Our request to register the newspaper officially
was refused because the authorities said that it had the name of the
mental hospital. We made a scandal in the newspaper, so they became
afraid and accepted our registration.
It is difficult to say, about 10,000 copies. First it was a monthly and
then a weekly. But the circulation reduced because some outlets for
circulation were closed. Also, we had a problem that the official
distributors only took our newspaper in small quantities. The private
distribution networks were often afraid to take the paper because of
repression.
Maryna: We were closed by the authorities. We wrote about the President
and āinsulted peopleās moralityā. Pauluk was called to court and fined
700 Euros. This was impossible to pay. They came to his parentsā house
and confiscated things from his parents.
We publish an illegal magazine, because illegally you can publish what
you want.
The thing is, we donāt have membership, so it is difficult to say. When
people arenāt satisfied with the work of one group they may join another
group or start their own initiative and work independently.
they have become older and because of the repression?
Everyone who comes to the movement understands that there can be
repression. So they donāt discover that; they know it already. There is
one main way that we lose comrades: they emigrate for different reasons
such as problems with the authorities. But they keep in contact. Maryna:
My personal opinion is that they do not do much anymore. They are too
busy with making ends meet. We are at the stage where we only have young
people and they are still active, but there are some people who are just
at home, raising children.
Right now the movement and the initiatives are all growing. When someone
comes to anarchism we want to give him or her all opportunities to
participate in the way they want. We are trying to build more of a
network so we have organised social forums that can involve everyone. We
want people to see that they are not alone and that the movement is very
wide, one united front of struggle against the system. And, a person can
find his or her place in this. It is difficult to find ways of doing
something because the State tries to monopolise all possible activities.
They try to get people to communicate only through state organisations.
in contact with when you have been abroad?
Our first contacts were with Russian Anarchists. It is a funny fact that
anarchists from Minsk and from Hroda were put in contact with each other
by Russian anarchists. From our western contacts we got a lot of
information about anarchism in the modern world. Our anarchism was based
on historical anarchism, Kropotkin, Bakunin, and no one really knew what
was going on in the west. We knew about the Spanish Revolution but not
about what happened after the war, like 1968. And when the Iron Curtain
fell, it was a discovery to know what was really happening, your ideas
and what discussions were going on.
But the western countries didnāt seem to be familiar at all with what
was happening in the post-Soviet countries. We also noticed that there
are long theoretical discussions, often about small points, while we
discuss more concrete issues. We want to discuss issues that we could
talk about to āthe man in the pubā.
In Russia we find that they are often having debates about who is the
better anarchist. To conclude, this interview shows how anarchist ideas
and action emerge in a variety of contexts. For Maryna anarchism is the
name given to what she was thinking anyway. Disillusions with the
so-called new democracy propelled Pauluk into the library, where he
found the ideas that helped him make sense of what was going on. Though
they had no initial contact with anarchists outside their country, their
movement benefited from hearing about what was going on in other
countries.
Similarly, the comrades in the International have been inspired by the
courage, imagination and commitment of the Belarusian Federation. Their
experiences show how important it is to spread anarchist ideas as widely
as possible. There are millions of people who are looking for
alternative perspectives, fed up with the current political and
religious ideologies. We need to make sure that they come into contact
with both anarchist ideas and anarchism in action in order to strengthen
and enrich the global struggle for a new society.
On the 2^(nd) of October while at the Congress of Democratic Forces the
Belarusian opposition was arguing, electing its united candidate for the
forthcoming presidential election campaign of 2006, Belarusian
anarchists held their Congress to discuss questions which are really
important for the Belarusian society as a whole.
More than 50 delegates from Minsk, Homel, Lida, Vitebsk, Ivatsevitchi
and other Belarusian regions took part in the 12^(th) Congress of FAB
(Belaruusian Anarchist Federation). The Congress discussed pressing
issues of Belarusian society, determined tasks of Belarusian anarchists
in the current social and political situation in the country, as well as
planned some concrete steps for development of the anarchist movement in
Belarus.
One of the most important results of the Congress was the decision about
FABās joining IAF (the International of Anarchist Federations)approved
by consensus of all participants. Representation of Belarusian
anarchists in the International will attract more attention to
Belarusian problems. Moreover it will strengthen international
solidarity and support from foreign comrades that is very important for
Belarusian anarchists, especially after recent repressions against
activists of the antifascist movement.
The Belarusian Anarchist Federation can be contacted via email at
anarchy@tut.by