Belarusian anarchists took part in the congress in St. Imier

Belarusian anarchists took part in the congress in St. Imier

From Pramen

Members of the Pramen collective, activists of the ABC-Belarus and other Belarusian anarchists took part in the international anarchist congress in St. Imier, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the creation of the Anarchist International. The congress itself was attended by more than 4,000 people from different parts of the world, including South America, Africa and Asia.

During the congress, comrades from ABC-Belarus gave a presentation about the situation of repression in Belarus and called for more support for repressed comrades. At the congress itself it was possible to find information about the repressed and to sign postcards for them.

One of the main topics this time was the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is still a position among some anarchists that the peoples of Ukraine need to surrender in order to preserve the so-called peace. This position has repeatedly exploded in discussions, including in a provocative format: some so-called comrades tried to create scandals during presentations and workshops, including those organized by Ukrainian and Belarusan comrades.

Our participation in the congress is a continuation of the policy of developing international ties between Belarusian anarchists and groups from other regions.

There are 44 Comments

As can be seen from this report, many and perhaps most, Belarusian anarchists support the Ukrainian people in their war of self-defense and self-determination. (The same is true of Ukrainian and Russian anarchists.)

It's not surprising that anarchists in Russia and Belarus vehemently oppose the geopolitical interests of their local ruling class. What is (almost) surprising is anarchists of NATO aligned countries vehemently supporting the geopolitical interests of their local ruling class. We're still waiting for you to get off your armchair and volunteer to defend the glory of the nation Wayne!

This Anon reduces the issue to that of the inter-imperialist conflict, "the geopolitical interests of their local ruling class." It doesn't seem to occur to them that the Ukrainian people (mostly workers and farmers, not just their "local ruling class") are fighting for their lives, their existence as a people, their language, and their freedoms (limited as these are in a capitalist democracy), against an invading enemy which is smashing their villages and cities, blowing up their infrastructure, massacring their people, raping their women, and kidnapping their children. To them it is not simply a matter of the Ukrainian rulers not of the imperialist states from which they have gotten arms. Most of the anarchists of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarusia can see this, even if you can't.

Their lives? their existence as a people?

The Russians are not a horde of Orcs out to rampage and murder indiscriminately Wayne, it's a political war for the control of territory and resources, and in a large sense it's a civil war, as a bulk of the so-called "Russian" forces are actually so-called Ukrainians, scared kids who were forcefully conscripted from the donbass region to fight other scared conscripted kids. The ethnic/genetic differences between "white" russians and ukrainians is absolutely negligible, almost everybody has close relatives from both countries.

Their language?
The bulk of the devastation is unfolding in territories where the populations are majority russian speaking and culturally russian. These were regions that voted against leaving the USSR and later became footholds of the "pro-russian" federalist Party of Regions. All the major industrial infrastructure in these regions date back to the soviet times. Since the Maidan coup in 2014 the Ukrainain state has been openly belligerent against its "own" civilian populations in these regions, intermittantly bombing residential areas and carrying out terror campaigns led by Banderist, Right Sektor and Azov neo-nazis. Some western-ukrainian nationalist politicians and TV commentators have openly called for making an ethnic purge and population replacement the whole region, citing that they are unambitious an not productive enough. Almost 300 children were killed by ukrainian bombs, bombs launched by their "own" nation before the outbreak of the russian intervention.

Their freedoms? democracy?
There is no political freedom. Since the outbreak of the war the Ukrainian state has outlawed all left-wing parties and indefinitely suspended elections. Because of general conscription males are forced to hide or flee if they do not want to become cannon fodder for the defense of the current regime. Soliders and police patrol the streets hunting for evaders. It's cool the Zelenskyy wants to legalize weed though I guess.

forgot to mention about how having the wrong political opinions, looting/scavenging for food, or being "a PoC" will get you duct-taped to a pole with your pants pulled down and "saboteur" sharpied on your cheeks, or a lot worse.

No the Russians are not a horde of Orcs. They are merely mass bombing and shelling villages, towns, and cities and massacring their populations--not only in eastern Ukraine but in Kyiv and throughout the whole country.

The "bulk" of the Russian forces are from Russia--conscripts and people recruited from prison. The Russians have forced some Ukrainians into their army, perhaps, but the difference between that and conscription in Ukraine is that the Ukrainian people are for the war to defend themselves from imperialist aggression.

Eastern Ukrainian Russian-speakers in their majority voted for Ukrainian independence in 1991 (although many may have wanted some more autonomy).

It is irrelevant that "The ethnic/genetic differences between "white" russians and ukrainians is absolutely negligible" So what? The point is that the Ukrainian people in their big majority want political independence from imperial Russia. They voted for it. Now they are fighting for it. What you or I think is not important, nor is what Putin thinks. That is why it is called national self-determination.

Perhaps? According to official statistics 140,000 residents of the DPR and LPR, people born under the Ukrainian flag, have been forcefully mobilized, and it has been reported that up to 30,000 had died on the front by last year already. The Russian state had expressed its intention to mobilize 300,000 men, and since it is unclear how many were actually mobilized, or if the DPR and LPR recruits were included in this number, this means that nearly a third or possibly up to half of the "Russian" fighting force are young men 18-27 years of age who were born Ukrainian citizens. These are not trivial numbers to brush off with a "perhaps".

"the difference between that and conscription in Ukraine is that the Ukrainian people are for the war to defend themselves "
Ok so now you are defending forced conscription under a state of martial law as long as it's the "good guys" dong it. Do you have any facts to back up your claim that the majority support the war? I think if a person is being forcefully conscripted and not volunteering it would indicate that they not "for" it.

Taking in account that you've been bending reality to your own will in the comments, I think any furthers "facts" should be linked to anything, otherwise those should be considered just some aggressive pro-russian propaganda.

Why do you not do the anarchist thing and fight BOTH Russian AND Ukrainian states from OUTSIDE? Do you not see the same TRAP that befell anarchists from previous centuries when working with authoritarians making promises?

Can you imagine how big the political movement should be to be able to fight both Russia and Ukraine at the same time? Your proposal is even more fantastic than european anarchists today destroying EU states, creating confederation independent from russian capitalist and have a space of freedom and equality.

We can't fight all the direction and give a good example to western comrades, many of whom prefer to stick to theoretical discussion abandoning revolutionary project completely behind the comfort of so called first world.

"So what?"

So this is racist separatism, as they are ethnic Russians only from a splinter region of the former Russian Empire, that only existed as a political territorialization, and as such, always under the pressure of foreign interests. This amounts to be claiming that South Koreans are a distinct people, and call them a different name given by some region in South Korea.

The point is that the Ukrainian people in their big majority want political independence from imperial Russia."

The point is the claim of "independence" will always sound ridiculously inauthentic as far as a "people" are not opposing *other* imperialisms they're literally being entrenched with.

And again... who -and more like *what*- is the "Ukrainian people"?

It is unclear if you on purpose try to distort reality, or prefer to stick to information that was long proven false. It doesn't make sense to go into details of everything, because the comment is just jumping on alternative. For example the story about all banned leftist parties - the ban went against the parties that were clearly pro-russian. Unfortunately most of those parties were still hiding behind socialist and communist ideas since collapse of the soviet union. Take a look at reports from the SBU raid on the villa of the leader of the communist party of Ukraine to understand how it works in the eastern europe.

"Maidan coup" was a popular uprising against rising attempts of Yanukovich to build up repressive regime and get close to Moscow.

And so on and so forth.

Wayne is an elder who has seemingly never done anything in his life besides read, write and “teach”(?). Just as significantly, his sincere left wing politics would get him jailed or worse in a country where there are no independent parties, unions, or political speech of any kind. I think we can drop the joke about him actually going to join up with Azov, it’s the second-most tired bit in any thread involving the obsessed WP. Oh yeah, Slava my Polish dupa!

that canNOT be seen in this report, wayne. what it says is that people don't think that the ukrainians should surrender.

no one here has been talking about anyone surrenduring.
not joining the military is not the same thing as surrendering.

spelling i tout for you in case that makes a difference some how to some one at some point.

The initial statement by the above anarchists was, "some anarchists [say] that the peoples of Ukraine need to surrender in order to preserve the so-called peace." To which you respond, "no one here has been talking about anyone surrenduring." This means you don't understand their statement.

Some anarchists say, to the Ukrainian people, "We are, of course, against both sides in the war, the invading and mass-murdering Russian forces and the Ukrainian workers and other people. This means that we urge the Ukrainian people to oppose their own side of the war, to refuse to participate in the war, to refuse to serve in the armed forces, and even to sabotage the Ukrainian war effort, by blowing up trains and war supply depots."

It is this which is referred to as a policy of Ukrainian "surrender." And so it is.

it is possible to resist the invaders without joining the ukrainian military.

why am i still typing...

Please come to Ukraine and teach us how we can resist fascists invading troops without cooperation with the army. We would love to know that.

Join Russian army and fight invaders from Inside their lines. Sabotage Russian tummies with anarchist tactics by hiding tainted feces inside blini and borscht. Good war, comrade.

Please give us an example on how you are going to join the russian army and be able to sabotage the war machine that crashes any opposition within it's ranks and will chop your head off somewhere in between brutally murdering ukrainians. Your ignorance is vulgar and it is hard to imagine a revolutionary giving advices on situation they can't even imagine due to their socio-political upbringing.

What you call "People's War" is actually surrender to the most vulgar of nationalist populism.
What you call "surrender" is actually People's War

Huh? I didn't write anything about "people's war" so I am not sure what, if anything, you are writing about.

Maybe this: if the anarchists could organize a Ukrainian militia or guerrilla forces independent of the state's army, that would be optimal. Since they are far too weak to do this at this time, some of them have chosen to join the army. Others help the war effort by volunteering for medical services, distribution of food, and other such useful but non-military activities. Either choice is useful to oppose the invasion.

"if the anarchists could organize a Ukrainian militia or guerrilla forces independent of the state's army"

There's no such possibility, Wayne. Anarchists don't organize along racist lines defined by statist (nationalist) politics aimed at enforcing an ethnic agenda that defines Ukrainians as a distinct people from Russians. Your continuous attempt at intoxicating anarchism with nationalist propaganda is ridiculous.

Comrade, you come late to the discussion. While you arrogantly assert what "anarchists don't" do and do do, I have repeatedly shown that anarchists have historically supported struggles for self-determination of oppressed nations--including lengthy sets of quotations from Bakunin and Malatesta and other anarchists. Also, you can even see from this thread, many of today's anarchists in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarusia support the Ukrainian side and even participate in the war. Others do not, which is partially what we are arguing about here.

Whether the Ukrainians are a "distinct people from Russians," is not a matter of race, as you think. The Ukrainians themselves have decided to be independent from Russia in their overwhelming vote in 1991 (including Russian-speakers). Now the imperialist Russian state is attempting to take over Ukraine. Me, I am in solidarity with the oppressed at all times, including those oppressed because of nationality or imperialist aggression. I regard solidarity with the oppressed as the center of anarchism. You apparently have another idea.

You didn't answer that question, Pwayne, and instead you're straw manning with the same Ukie racism I"m denouncing... How impolite of you!

So again, what (who) are the "Ukrainian people", and what makes them so distinct from Russians?

Congratulations Wayne. Read some history books, it's not like this border seperates black muslim Africans from white Mormon Anglo-Saxons. The Ukrainian and Russian people have been living together for thousands of years. 200 years ago ALL of the people from Kiev to Moscow spoke the same language, i.e. Old Russian. Now, the "Ukrainian language" is the evolved Old Russian language whilst Russians speak a variety of other regional dialects including modern Russian, just as English is evolved from Old English.
Identity politics and State ideology is behind this ugly war.
Ironically you are indirectly responsible for the demise of fools who measure their personal value on belonging to a nationalist State.

You still don't get it. It is not a question of the objective nature of Ukrainians, Russians, or Moldavians.

Historically there has been an Ukraine for centuries, oppressed by Russian Czars and then by Russian Stalinists. For the 70 years of the Soviet Union there was a Ukrainian Republic as part of the USSR. None of which makes "Ukrainians" necessarily a biologically or linguistically distinct people.

But in 1991 the Ukrainian people (including Russian-speakers) voted overwhelmingly to become an independent country. That was their choice. We who believe in freedom should respect that choice, even if you think they would have been wiser to merge with Greater Russia, as you seem to believe.

Putin's imperialist Russian state has decided to override that choice, to force the Ukrainians to merge with Greater Russia, and to kill and smash as many Ukrainians (civilians as well as soldiers) as is necessary. Anarchists--lovers of freedom and opponents of all forms of oppression--oppose this aggression and support the Ukrainian workers, farmers, and others in defending themselves.

All other considerations are secondary.

Now let's look at the people of Donetsk and Crimea voting *overwhelming* majority in referendums for independence from Kiyv. Yes yes, lookee here. Yes, that was their choice, too.

See? If you wanna advocate for "democracy" and use it as argument for your bullshit about the "Ukrainian people", well that's a double-edged sword.

Also always funny when you bring up "freedom" in reference of a state (Ukraine) that's been under martial law and conscripts all males and keeps them from leaving the Greater Ukraine.

Will be waiting for your defense of the Ukrainian state's Raison d'État. Or maybe not.

You don’t get it, the issue is freedom. If Ukrainians want to keep tearing down monuments to anti-Nazi partisans and replacing them with monuments to Nazi collaborators, they should be FREE to do so! Also, while you’re looking up 1991 referenda in Ukraine, definitely don’t look up the 1991 referendum in Crimea where they were 95% for independence *from Ukraine*.

Also, don’t look up any Ukrainian electoral maps from the past 30 years at all, or you might notice there is a very obvious and measurable rift between the northwest and southeastern halves of the country. We don’t need facts, we just like to say FREEDOM a lot. Slava NATO! Slava freedom fries!

Comrade! Solidarity of The Oppressed is exactly the foundation of Anarchism! I too express this solidarity every day by tweeting, writing in comment threads, blogging, and emailing any and every one I can to let my solidarity be known the world round! Solidarity Forever! S..ol...idarity.. Fooooreverr...Sol...

“Perhaps most”? Wayne, this (very short) report back cites “explosive” disagreement, even though it seems to have been written by someone sharing your perspective, casting lack of support for the far-right, western-backed Ukrainian state as a demand for surrender. A hopeless straw man because since when do @s run around demanding that states do things?

Why is Wayne Price so gung-ho about other anarchists, besides himself, going to Ukraine to support a bunch of nationalists? I don't ever see him suggesting others go to place like Ethiopia, Burma, or Yemen to help fight off the Saudi invaders?

I have never (that's never) urged US anarchists to go to Ukraine to support the Ukrainian people (who are not "a bunch of nationalists", as you contemptuously write). You made this up out of whole cloth. I have written repeatedly written in support of the Ukrainian anarchists who mostly support their people's struggle. That's all.

jfc, Wayne. one of a host of your critics didn't say anything about US anarchists either. they said "other anarchists." you are very clearly mistaken (again, and again), and that you could be so obviously mistaken by a fact that is so easily proven forces me to wonder what you think "lie" means?

Nor did I ever write that "other anarchists" should go to Ukraine. Even with the correction it is still a lie (an untruth which is known to be an untruth).

I do not feel qualified to urge "other anarchists" of whatever countries to go to the war zone of Ukraine and face the high risk of getting killed. Nor would I urge anyone NOT to go. It would be their choice. I have expressed support for those Ukrainian anarchists who have joined the military struggle as well as those Ukrainian anarchists who have supported their people in non-military ways.

I don't mind even sharp disagreement, but I dislike having opinions ascribed to me which I do not hold..

Denying war crimes and constantly centering yourself are both good ways to discourage people from engaging with you in good faith, Wayne.

You seem to be looking for an excuse for those who disagree with me to lie about my views (not "engaging with you in good faith"). But even if my views are really terrible, there is no excuse for lying about what I am saying (the same goes for me). I did not urge anarchists to go to Ukraine and volunteer for the war, and it is a lie to say I did and then criticize me for it.

By now, in a healthy political setting, someone would have written that they were sorry they misunderstood me or misstated my views, and apologize. Not going to happen here.

I do not know what it means to "center" myself. Outside of meditation, that is.

As far as I know, the "war crimes" in the Ukrainian war have overwhelmingly been done by the Russian invaders. This, is not to say that Ukrainians have not had a few atrocities of the their own, especially during the earlier phase of the war in the Donbass. These should all be investigated and tried. But, again, it is clear that the Russians are the major war criminals. Their very invasion was a war crime.

True! A little bit of war crimes is totally okay. Anarchists since malatesta have always agreed that it’s okay for right wing nationalists to do war crimes to civilians, as long as the other side are really bad too. Anarchists have always supported the lesser of two evils and ignored the ethical and political ramifications of state violence and militaristic dehumanization. Couldn’t be more spot on, War Crime Wayne.

It's wonderful Wayne that you are fomenting a war which mostly kills xenophobic nationalists. Moah destruction of State infrustructure and weaponery. Keep up the good anarchy work buddy!

Hey, you dear anarcho-militarists, didnt you see the sign saying NO PHOTOS at the ice hall?

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