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Title: Belarussian Anarchist Federation
Date: 2006
Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-02 from [[http://www.i-f-a.org.gridhosted.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/anarkiista_debato.pdf][www.i-f-a.org]]
Authors: International of Anarchist Federations, Belarussian Anarchist Federation
Topics: Belarus, IAF
Published: 2020-04-03 07:02:30Z

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.

How did you get involved in anarchism? How did you first hear about 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 didn’t 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.

How did you learn about anarchism in Belarus? What did you read?

Pauluk: I read about anarchism in the

library; there were books by people like

Kropotkin. But not much was available.

We didn’t have contact with other

anarchists either in the west or in other

eastern European countries. There

wasn’t even much communication with

other anarchists in Belarus.

So there was a federation of anarchists at that time?

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 didn’t hear about anarchism

from them, but from books.

So how did things develop from there?

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 ‘Thank you President for bread

and milk’. 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.

Who were these other anarchists? Were they from the federation?

Pauluk: Yes, they

were

from

the

Minsk group.

What attracted you to anarchist ideas?

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, when did you start becoming an anarchist?

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

shouldn’t 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.*]

How many anarchists are there in

Belarus?

It is difficult to say

because we don’t

have

membership

like

you

do.

Participation in the

federation is only

possible when you

act.

About

200

maybe.

After you had the

student

actions,

what did you do?

Were you more

involved in the

federation?

The

federation

consists of a number

of

different

initiatives.

Is it like in Poland?

Yes, it is like that but in Poland they

have more local groups. This is because

of the history of Poland — 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, ‘happenings’ on the

street, which made fun of all political

parties, both the government and the

opposition.

Why do you think humour is such a

good weapon?

We took a risk because had never done

it before, we didn’t know where it

would lead us, but it led to the fact that

the movement began to grow. But of

course we didn’t invent it ourselves; we

were attracted by a Polish initiative that

was used under the dictatorship where

they organised many street parties and

happenings.

Were you at all influenced by the

street parties in the west, like 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.

After you did these initial actions,

what happened next?

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

didn’t work anymore and the

government began to put pressure on all

unions so they couldn’t practice

syndicalism anymore. One of the people

became a local councillor!

What about your paper?

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 — the government etc.

Did you do this along with the street

parties and ‘happenings’?

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.

Where did you get the idea of this

newspaper?

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.

And was it mainly popular amongst

young people?

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 ‘Legalise It’.

The name of the newspaper, Navinki, is

the name of a mental hospital and it also

means ‘small news’. The main

newspaper is called just ‘news’ 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.

What is your circulation? Do you sell

it?

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.

What happened to the paper?

Maryna: We were closed by the

authorities. We wrote about the

President and ‘insulted people’s

morality’. Pauluk was called to court

and fined 700 Euros. This was

impossible to pay. They came to his

parents’ house and confiscated things

from his parents.

What do you now?

We publish an illegal magazine,

because illegally you can publish what

you want.

How big is the movement now?

The thing is, we don’t have

membership, so it is difficult to say.

When people aren’t satisfied with the

work of one group they may join

another group or start their own

initiative and work independently.

Have you been able to maintain an

interest

amongst

young

people as

they have

become

older and

because of

the

repression?

Everyone

who comes to the movement

understands that there can be repression.

So they don’t 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.

What do you think is the most

important activity to do now?

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.

What do you think about the other

organisations that you have come 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 didn’t 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 ‘the man in the pub’.

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.

FAB Congress 2005

On the 2nd 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 12th 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

FAB’s 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

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