Автоном

Support avtonom.org, revolutionary media struggling inside Russia

Автономное Действие

Autonomous Action is an organisation of anarchists and libertarian communists, founded in year 2002. Our goal is to create basis for a new culture, based on self-organisation, radical resistance against capitalism, fascism, militarism, sexism, homophobia and any other forms of discrimination. We are currently working to restore libertarian and anarchist movement in Russia, after a period of stagnation and repressions.

"Avtonom 37": help us publish it!

"Avtonom" magazine is the most well-known and fancy anarchist paper of the exUSSR, published since year 1995. Now, the next, 37th issue is ready to be published. It will tell you:

  • how the state is destroying education system;

  • about sweatshop exploitation in "Magnit" chain stores;

  • who profits on Syria war;

  • what are the impressions about the Donbass war for an anarchist from Kiev and for a communist from Luhansk region;

  • about feminism in Muslim countries;

A Call for Solidarity with the Avtonom-journal, several issues of which are now banned in Russia!

On Thursday the 28th of November, the Lenin district court of the city of Tyumen upheld the request of the prosecutor of said district in recognizing five articles of the journal Avtonom as “extremist.”

On anarchism and violence

Some claim, that anarchism opposes violence, as for anarchists means and ends meet. But only second statement is correct, wherease first is not. This because in anarchism violence is not only means, but in a certain sense a goal in itself.

With this, I do not mean childish boasting about hanging last bourgeois to guts of last priest or anything like that. Destruction of class enemies as individuals is not a revolutionary goal. As Kropotkin wrote, one may hardly avoid some excesses from side of most angered people, but obviously it is goal of anarchists to minimise them.

Avtonom #33 English summary. Autumn 2011

Backside of the cover: Digital weapon of the proletariat. Announcement of the antijob.anho.org – collective on campaign to record violations of the workers rights and to publish them online.

Page 1: Editorial Valeri Listyev. , with a very brief analysis of the current situation.

Society

Page 2: Into the wild. Teenage anarchist writes about her collusion with the Russian juvenile institutions.

Page 4: School of slavery and obedience. Heller criticizes modern system of education.

Page 8: Discourse of glamour as a semiotic system of the social reality. An attack against production of images.

Page 12: Arab spring – from bourgeois revolution to bourgeois massacre. Sakharniy Holm is frustrated on how things went in Libya.

Avtonom #32 English Summary. Winter 2011

Page 2: An Invitation to anti-fascist demonstration of 19th of January to commemorate our comrades Stanislav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova, murdered that day back in 2009.

Page 3: Editorial: A struggle with the unknown. Valeri Listyev writes about uncertainities of the current situation.

Society

 Page 3: Army of Clowns against assault rifles. A short history of Rebel Clown Army and other creative anti-militarist initiatives in UK, USA, Israel and Russia.

Page 4: On voluntary basis. A piece by I.P. on necessity of communitarian experiments.

Page 6: Touchy patriotism. Pyotr Ryabov writes about artificial creation of patriotic mythology in today's Russia.

Notes of a co-conspirator

Today, two years have passed since our comrade Ivan Khutorskoy was murdered in Moscow. On occasion, we publish an article which was written for Avtonom journal in Russian, and translated for Abolishing the Borders from Below in English.

“You are made of some different fabric. You are way more prepared than me for this kind of shit. I figured it out, when you told me by telephone, that Vanya is not anymore” - a young comrade put it like this once, in the frame of one discussion. We were standing on the platform of a metro, wagons of steel were scurrying on metallic rails. Their metallic clamps were squeezing
my insides. Yes, my young friend, I am definitely ready for this shit.

Upon the death of Vanya, in spirit I was already in my 4th decade, although my physical age will correspond to that much later. My twenties I had spent in a skinhead-casual frenzy, spiced with an anarcho-communist baggage of ideas. For me, all those years passed side by side with two guys. One of them left all of that behind a long time ago, now he is more into stuff like wifes/mistresses/kids/cars. Another one was Vanya. If I will be alive, healthy, and out of jail  my fourth decade will not be boring either, but it will not be the same.

Avtonom #31 English summary, Autumn 2009

Avtonom is journal of libertarian communist organisation Autonomous Action, which has local groups in 14 cities of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. 

We are interested to expand our mailing list - if you know people who would be interested to read our materials, please contact them for us! Currently all correspondence abroad is done by Moscow group, so please send us any stuff you have. In another hand, mailing out is so expensive that we would like to post our journal only to people who understand what is written in it, or have friends and comrades who do.

Anarchists and the Second Chechen War

Situation in Northern Caucasus and Libertarian reaction

 

 

 

 

/*-->*/

This article was originally published in Avtonom #30 in the Autumn of 2008. whole issue is available in PDF format  here. It was translated for Abolishing the Borders from Below #35 in Autumn of 2009  with a number of mistakes  corrected and some information updated..

It is of little doubt that the total failure of any attempts to oppose the Second Chechen War was the most bitter defeat of the Russian anarchist movement during the past decade. A feeling of total powerlesness in front of the brutal realities of the Chechenyan meat-grinder was pressing so heavily on the imagination of anti-authoritarians during the first half of the decade, that the movement was onlyable to recovere slightly when the intensity of the war gradually calmed down. 

Avtonom #29 English summary. Theme of the issue - Democracy

Dear friends,

Once again we are doing mailout abroad much late, 4 months after printing, but we won't say we are sorry because we have been very busy with other things... if you want our rag sooner next time, drop us a note and we will see what we may do. Actually we would be happy for any feedback, much of you folks have stopped sending us your papers so if we do not hear anything, soon you won't see the most shining xUSSR anarcho-journal anymore!

Author columns

Антти Раутиайнен

June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...

5 months ago
Антти Раутиайнен

Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...

5 months ago