NIHILIST — Ukrainian anarchist online zine

It happens that the fascists behave like revolutionaries. They fight with the police, expose large property fraud, use their flags at the strikes. This is their common tactic. They manipulate something precious and close to target audience’s heart by using flattery. When there is a need to agitate the masses of dissatisfied — fascists will build barricades, turn over cars and embody other dreams of an embittered citizen. And then, on a wave of universal trust, they come to power and turn the country into hell. Under their vigilant leadership, the «fatherland» will always be «in danger». Not the time for revolution, my dear! You’d better look for enemies not think about radical measures of justice.

Among leftist pacifists, it is widely believed that those Ukrainian anarchists who took an anti-Russian position, had made their choice under the influence of state or nationalist propaganda. Allegedly, life in an aggressive, authoritarian environment, broke their will and forced them to obey. I would like to stop this nonsense, because the anarchists came to the anti-Russian position not because of, but in spite of propaganda.

The authority shout like on bullhorn that Russia violated treacherously our sovereignty. Are state borders an argument for those who profess anarchist views, after all? Absolutely not. The state and its jurisdiction is not a value, and the more this state comes to freedom, the more resistance it deserves. In the current conflict, the Russian state is the more terrible enemy of freedom, and therefore, logic and common sense force to oppose it, first of all.

I write this only to make people stop talking about «the division of the left into supporters and opponents of the Novorossia». Novorossia is a non-class project: the workers in it are fighting against other workers, and not against the capitalists. The workers are not fighting under the leadership of the workers’ party, but under the leadership of the Moscow oligarchs and Russian fascists (not those, of course, on the battlefields). Novorossia is an anti-humanistic project: its agents deny the diversity of religions and life-styles, any right of an unarmed person. And all these facts are known to us, unless we are afraid to face the truth.

It should be noted that ethnocultural and even just linguistic unity in the formation of the nation plays an important part, but it is, by no means, paramount. Examples being of a Swiss nation made up of several compactly residing ethnic groups, or the antagonism of the nations of the former Yugoslavia, which sometimes has a purely confessional and political background, with actual cultural and linguistic homogeneity, is clearly demonstrated. A nation is a product of the development of capitalist production relations in a particular territory and the basic structural unit of the world capitalist economy. On the subjective plane, this is a product of socio-political action, that is, created (in many cases artificially, virtually from scratch, then to be used by the state, as in the case of Ukrainian and Russian nationalisms) at a certain historical moment, a community that relies on developing economic relations. National identity can not be measured and defined in any way, but ideological. In other words, a nation exists as long as its representatives coexist in a homogeneous socio-economic space, believe in a common goal, and support the actions that lead to it.

Which 'armed formations' and within which territories is unclear and who exactly these anarchist would be fighting alongside isn't stated.

The text alongside others makes clear this groups ideological opposition to the state and nationalism but also appears to acknowledge that what they are advocating is still in practice aligned with the interests of the Ukrainian state 'in the circumstances'.

Whilst there is a history of independent anarchist armed formations in the past acting within and across national state boundaries as auxiliaries to rising class struggles against their respective states, the approach of this group seems a long way from that?

We have been confronted with the fact that some individuals who have aligned themselves to the anarchist movement are trying to consider certain emancipatory traditions of certain members to be the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN, UPA).

We understand the reasons of such ideological mutations. They provide an opportunity to build alliances with those representatives of Ukrainian nationalists who are trying to invent another and more decent ideological pedigree. Let’s recall the past of the organized nationalism of the «Bandera trend», focusing on the events of the 40’s. After all, the events of this period are often falsified.

Until the end of the 19th century, in a number of the largest and most influential powers, the army had been a kind of hard labor where an ordinary man, a soldier, could count on survival only. Powers, privileges and career opportunities had been in the hands of the commanding officers, treating soldiers as supplies. The only exceptions being the forces of those countries in which the revolution had won.

Thus, volunteers went en masse into the army of the first French Republic, for ideological reasons. The military patriotism of that time gave formerly disenfranchised French the opportunity to make an independent decision and rely on its fruits.

The old empires had been able to achieve goodwill from the patrials only towards the 20th century, but far from all social groups. The German Empire could count, for example, on patriotic high school students, ready to rush for the fatherland into trenches. In the Russian Empire, the students of military schools joyously died for their faith, the tsar and the fatherland. The ideological heir of the Empire — the White Movement — and all allegedly «Voluntaria».

Even if many of those thousands of people are outright fascists?

Why are Eastern European "anarchists" so frequently drawn towards fascism?

According to a widespread prejudice, «ideological anarchism» excludes a classical military organization based on a one-man command and obedience to orders. This comes not only from the anti-anarchist propaganda of the Bolsheviks, who represented the anarchists as an uncontrollable rabble. Even the anarchists themselves, competing in a level of ideological purity, sometimes claim that true anarchism is so much anti-authoritatian that it excludes a one-man command from military tasks. This can usually be heard from insurgent anarchists, who reduce all forceful actions to the coordination of the set of affinity groups.

But if this can be effective for direct action, then to protect the revolution, and even more to counter foreign invasion, this method is not suitable. How can you fight the thousands-strong army formation with the autonomous groups of 10-20 people who at any moment can split up? A war with anyone requires supplies, strict discipline and guarantees that units will not give up their weapons.

But even those who glorify the role of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) in the Spanish revolution, can’t ignore or deny the fact that they have typical army principles. Dissolve these prejudices by the example of the Confederal Militia — the armed forces of Spanish revolutionaries during the civil war of 1936-1939.

Do you try to make contact with anarchist groups in Russia?

And if I may ask, how many people are working on your site and organisation? Does it represent just some isolated young intellectuals or do you have influence on the (political) scene?

The common sense ideas of nationalism? It's certainly unfortunate that so many proles have nationalist ideas. Doesn't mean radicals have to pretend to share them.

You for a start, supporting the war against the separatists in Eastern Ukraine, a war that is very popular with fascists.

Events in the Crimea and in the East were classic counter-revolution and intervention in one bottle. In Russia, there is a similar regime of bureaucratic kleptocracy, which acted as the suzerain of Yanukovich. To demand peace and an agreement with the Russian Federation — to give guarantees that the bourgeois revolution will be strangled by political methods. There are no other tasks for Russia and the clients of the owners of Donbass and cannot be.

The counter-revolution acquired the character of a clerical-conservative reaction. In the Donbass, we see the realization of the very «conservative revolution» that the far-right thinkers of the West and the East have long dreamed of. The ideology of the DPR / LPR is an original form of Russian totalitarian nationalism. That is, it is fascism in the «anti-fascist» wrapper.