We recently received this anonymous contribution, and we publish it as a part of ongoing discussion on the Russian invasion against Ukraine. Text does not necessarily reflect collective views of Autonomous Action.
Tekmil is an instrument of collective reflection. The historical root of what we know as tekmil can be traced to authoritarian communist traditions, such as Stalinism. Although, Mao was the first one among these traditions to put so much emphasis and importance to the methods of criticisms and self-criticism. Overall, we can state that critique and self-critique has been valuable for revolutionary movements in general, and has never been alien to non-authoritarian revolutionary movements in general.
In the context of Rojava, tekmil can be translated as "report" - further, one can trace the development and transformation of this meaning depending on the situation. Still, the literal translation makes sense to keep in mind - humbleness and shortness are valued in tekmil. It contains many cultural codes, mechanisms and ideological assumptions, and it requires an understanding and a solid philosophical and ideological foundation.
The worst thing Putin has done in Ukraine is to reconcile the authorities with the people. The president has turned from an object of universal criticism into the Ukrainian Charles de Gaulle.1 The general of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry offers to deliver himself to the Russian army in exchange for the release of civilians from the besieged city and becomes a national hero. The entire population of Ukraine, from the homeless to the oligarch, unites in a common struggle.
“Autonomous Action” (Avtonom) has always been a group that spreads anarchism in the Russian-speaking world. We don’t care about national borders. But no matter which states our activists are based, social change in Russia is very important to us.
Unfortunately, we must once again delay our festival, this time due to war. Our concept was always to be an open meeting of Russian (and not only Russian) activists in Helsinki. But now borders are closed, and it is unclear if any open social activism in Russia will be possible from now on.
But we plan to organise our festival anyway. We still have spaces and organising group. Our preliminary new dates for the festival are 6th-9th of January 2023.
I’m not surprised by the violence. I am not surprised because I know about the violence that occurs in Russia every day. Senseless cruelty is seemingly the norm for some Russians. I don’t have a ready answer to why this is the case. It’s worth asking sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists for an explanation.
Translation from Crimethinc., as part of a collection of anti-war texts from Russia.
ON MARCH 5TH, a solitary picketer stood in a public plaza in Ivanovo, a small city northeast of Moscow, with a homemade sign stating: “*** *****”.
This week, The Final Straw Radio spoke with Petr, a Russian anarchist member of the group Autonomous Action, who is living in Europe right now. For the hour we speak about the invasion of Ukraine, a bit about the resistance inside of Russia to the war drums and the Putin regime, the dangers of a nuclear conflict, the impacts of increased sanctions and anarchists organizing across the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus against the war and against tyranny.
Hi, it's Sunday and you are listening to our podcast «Trends of order and chaos». This is episode 44. Here are the main events of the past week: the week of the war.
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The theory of the state is the reef on which the revolutions of our century have been shipwrecked.1 During the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the people brought about the fall of the regime, but the institutions of the state remained intact. Elsewhere the revolutions were drained in protracted civil wars. Everywhere that the old regime has seemed to be thrown down, it has found new sources of strength and risen again. What would it look like to finally break with this cycle?
In the past, insurrections have managed to defeat the state, rather than just a particular government. Insurrection is something more than a wave of riots, militant protests, blockades, occupations, and so on. It is the opening of a rupture, the search for that point after which no turning back is possible. If the revolutions of our time haven't defeated the state, we argue this is because there haven't been insurrections: there have been nonviolent uprisings, riots, armed struggles, and civil wars, but not yet insurrection.
We visited Yango premises in the Lauttasaari neighbourhood of Helsinki, on the night between the 9th and 10th of March. Yango is a Taxi application of Yandex, an IT company connected to the Russian state. Yango has hastily hidden its company symbols from the premises, but there has been no announcment of withdrawal from Finland. We do not care if business with connections to the Russian state are against the Russian invasion or not. Capital of these companies is maintaining the Russian war machine every day.
War in Ukraine has already increased the level of repressions in Russia, but there are not yet any new criminal proceedings against anarchist or anti-fascist activists. In this new exceptional situation, we are channeling some of our resources to humanitarian needs which go beyond our usual narrow focus of supporting repressed anarchists and anti-fascists.
In picture: action of Left Bloc activists against FSB.
A group of Ukrainian anarchists living in Kyiv declared that they have joined popular resistance against Russian invasion and organized their own group- leading to many debates among anarchist circles. As long as we do not exactly know their own circumstances, one might think that they are purely pro-NATO people, confused nationalist-anarchists or even neo-Nazi supporters. Actually, they are not! According to their declarations before and during the war, they do exactly know what NATO, capitalism, nationalism and imperialism is; and they are against all of them.
The Russian army has invaded Ukraine. Putin has lost his senses and his army is bombing cities, shooting civilians, and killing children. More than one million people have fled the country in order to escape from Putin’s “liberators.”
As the full scale military operation began this morning, it is important to show that the Russian people don’t need this shameful war. There were dozens of antiwar protests all over the country in the past days mostly in the form of single-person pickets, which according to Russian laws don’t need any notifications. But the majority of protestors were detained nevertheless.
Hello, it is Saturday, and we are continuing our podcast "Trends of order and chaos". This is episode 43. Of course, you know perfectly well what is the main topic of the last week.
Yesterday, on February 21, an extraordinary meeting of the Russian Security Council was held. As part of this theatrical act, Putin forced his closest servants to publicly “ask” him to recognize the independence of the so-called “people’s republics” of the Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR] and Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] in eastern Ukraine.
The results of the first 30 years of “democracy” in Ukraine are, to put it mildly, unconvincing. The economy and the media are in the hands of rival oligarchs, corruption is at staggering levels, economic development lags behind many African countries, and in addition, the country has become the center of the neo-Nazi movement around the world. And these problems are basically home-grown, not the result of the Kremlin’s intrigues.
On Thursday, February 10, a Russian court handed down sentences for terrorism to three teenagers from the Siberian town of Kansk. The boys were arrested in the summer of 2020 for posting leaflets with political slogans on the local FSB building. After searching their phones and uncovering a “plot” to blow up a virtual rendering of an FSB building in the video game Minecraft, investigators charged the teens with making explosives and training to participate in terrorist activities.
Maroon communities of Americas are of interest to anti-authoritarian left of the area, looking for inspiration outside White/European context. One way to explain history of Cossacks of Ukraine to an American Leftist would be to define it as European analogue of a Maroon society. Listen this...
I will give a presentation about repression against anarchists and anti-fascists in Russia at the Baltic Anarchist Bookfair in Tartu next Saturday at 1 PM EET/Moscow time (12 PM CET) at Hell (Tiigi 76A). You can also follow the presentation on Twitch. Short summary fo the talk: After...
In September 2024, I gave a presentation in Dresden about struggles against the right-wing government in Finland. Freedom published a text based on that presentation last September, but due to character limitations I had to skip an introduction to the Finnish party system. This background is...
Repression targets Chita anarchists already jailed for war resistance and anti-regime graffiti The regional prosecutor’s office for the Trans-Baikal region in eastern Siberia has submitted a petition to a local court to recognize the “Trans-Baikal Left Association” as a terrorist...