Background of the Nizhni Novgorod Victory

In Russian mainstream media, turn of the Nizhni Novgorod was handled with little revealing headlines - "Case of Nizhni Novgorod anti-fascists was returned to investigators". Thus few understood, that as a matter of fact this was perhaps the sweetest victory of Russian anti-fascist movement this year, this far.

It is very unlikely, that the case will return to court one more time. As it usually happens, judge was not brave enough to point out the criminal deeds of police. Most likely the case will be quietly buried during the new investigation. And nobody will be responsability for the torment and uncertainity, to which accused have been subjected during last one and half years. And to which they will be subjected for undefined period of time still, expecially those two who were forced to go underground and to leave their hometown.

But even still, I consider this as an exceptionally sweet victory. Because it was almost impossible to mobilise people behind this campaign. It is one thing to work under framework like the Khimki struggle, or when an anti-fascist everyone know, such as Alexey Olesinov, is being accused. It is a whole another thing to defend people from a provincial town, of whom almost nobody knows, and who are not jailed due to their participant to a significant protest movement, but merely because state wants to destroy any smallest resistance whatsoever.

I would not say that movement for Khimki hostages was a mass movement, but at least there was some movement, I never felt like like nobody cared. But for Nizhni Novgorod comrades, even in Moscow our march could only gather around 15 people. In autumn of 2011 it was alread obvious, that it made no sense to announce yet another "days of action", and we had to concentrate to spreading information and to fundraising.

And it became the costliest case during the 9 year history of the Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow. Even though it was obvious also for the liberal human rights activists that the case was a straight up frameup, "Agora" human rights association did not provided a lawyer. Only they know the reasons, but I suppose they simply did not have money at that point. Savings of local Nizhni Novgorod activists were exhausted after first half years of the investigation. They managed to work hardly to gather some meagre means after that, for which they should be held in esteem - at times it happens, that accused fall down to a total apathy during investigations. Eventually, when all the money was exhausted, Union of Political Prisoners, Memorial and Agora all contributed to travelling costs of the lawyers. But ABC Moscow ended up spending more, than all of these organisations alltogether. We spent money money from our own fund, but also helped to transfer money from benefit events organised abroad, for example in Bruxelles and London.

This was the first time during history of our group, when we had such a responsability. Before, we always preferred to supporting "many but little" to "few but lot". Around five years ago, we usually contributed hundred euros to a case. In all of the cases we were working on before Nizhni Novgorod, main brunt of the costs was on relatives and friends of the accused - we could contribute just a very small share.

We decided to pay Dmitry Dinze for Pavel Krivonosov, because Krivonosov was accused with the "extremist clause" from the beginning, and differently from Bystrov, who had a family acquintance lawyer, Krivonosov had only an official state lawyer during the first half years.

Other two accused, who were staying in Nizhni Novgorod, were giving testimony and demoralised, thus we concentrated to supporting Krivonosov and Bystrov.

Dmitry is a famous lawyer, who had success for example in defending members of the Voyna-art group. It was not an easy decision to get Dinze involved - he is way more expensive than a provincial lawyer, his method demands a plenty of expertises which all cost money, and each of his travels to Nizhni Novgorod costed some serious money - and as the case got prolonged, travelling costs were mounting. And it was obvious, that if we select Dinze for Krivonosov, we would not have enough money to change lawyer of Bystrov if it was necessary. But in the end, family acquintance lawyer was much more better than such lawyers usually are. And it was definitely a right decision to pick Dinze, it was much due to his efforts that the case collapsed in the court.

Nizhni Novgorod is not Moscow, nor St. Petersburg, and we were afraid that it is a truly wild perifery, in which judges are completely controlled by police force and other local authorities, and the whole rotten system works faultlessly in order to jail whomever authorities want to jail. But it turned out it was not like that - most outrageous juridicial miscarriage is yet not possible in Nizhni Novgorod, or at least not always.

It is often sad, how people consider lawyers to be ultimate saviours. How people are only counting on their lawyers, fulfilling blindly even most stupid advice, such as to be low key, even when it is obviously a political case. But the case in Nizhni is a practical example, that a good lawyer may do a lot, even when there is no momentum to build a strong movement on a national or international level around a political case. Of course it is more empowering to win through a mass movement and pressure from below, but any kind of victory is better than a defeat.

Antti Rautiainen

(previous articles on topic: https://avtonom.org/en/nn)

London Anarchist Bookfair 2012

I was invited to speak, and I agreed immediately - LAB is the biggest (or perhaps secondmost biggest, after San Fransisco) anarchist bookfair in the world, could be also the biggest annual anarchist event in the world. One may only crudely estimate number of participators, as entrance is free. Free programs were handed out, with a suggested donation of one pound. 2600 pounds were collected, which is a rather good estimation of number of participators.
Event took place in premises of the Queen Mary University in the London East End. Organisers paid a lot for rent - 6000 pounds, but commercial exhibition centers would have been even more expensive. Besides rents, also tickets of speakers and printing of propgram demands money. Event is financed with donations, benefit concerts, both those willing to have a table and those who want to organise a lecture have to pay a bit.

Event went on from 11 AM to 19 PM, there were 10 paraller lectures and videos were constantly screened in one room, 3 different creches for children and youth of various ages (from 2 to 8, from 8 to 12 and from 11 to 16 years), that means, event was much more short but also more intensive that similar events in Russia. This was due to financial restraints - an event of 2 days would have been two times more expensive. University premises were obviously too small - biggest auditorium had a capacity of up to 400, but some events were interesting for much more people. Corridoors were at times jammed due to crowds, due to overcrowding territory was heavily littered towards the evening. Event really needs a bigger venue, but apparently it is impossible to find one with any kind of reasonable cost. Apparently, London Anarchist Bookfair reached limit of those possibilities, which are available for a free event in that city, current market of venues does not allow it to grow further.

Organisers made an effort to involve disabled - place was wheelchair accesible, some lectures had translators to sign language or paper translitteration.

Differently for such events in Russia, no food was served - apparently this was a condition from the university. But around the university, there were plenty of cheap pubs and ethnic restaurants.

As it took time to check stalls at I had two speeches to do, I could only listen 3 events myself. First was Michael Albert's "Occupy Vision, Theory & Strategy", my impression was mixed. Among works of Albert, I am most interested about such economic stuff as "A Quiet Revolution In Welfare Economics" with Robin Hahnel. But his topic was completely different, basically a short introduction to his recent pamphlets, published on the wave of the Occupy movement. It was kind of introduction to his second lecture, goal of which was to recruit new adepts to "International Society for Participatory Society" , , but I missed that.

Albert has his own preferred economic model called "Parecon", I would say it is something between Market Socialism and Bakuninist Collectivism, but that could be inaccurate. I am not that much interested of this particular model towards which I am sceptical at least, but Albert is an interesting speaker as one of the very few people in libertarian socialist spectrum, who both understand economics and may talk about it.

As for the rhetorics, Albert was not a bad speaker, but as far as the content goes, it was 90% water on how bad is capitalism and how we really may get rid of it if we want to. And also on why anarchists and leftists have failed to get they point across. I was not in a need of a motivational speaker, and thus I had problems to concentrate to get the little substance there was around. But I invited him to speak in our lecture series in Helsinki university via skype anyway, as a number of people able to talk about economics in anarchist circles may be counted with fingers of one lumberjack hand.

Next lecturer was Martin Wright from London I was promised "a pugnacious attack on lifestyle anarchism, snobbery, rampart sexism, academics and polyamory by a veteran anarchist", and I was definitely eager to hear that. Genre of the lecture was somewhere in a middle ground between a serious talk and Stand-up comedy. Humour has always played a big role in the movement of Great Britain, but for me it has a mixed record. Some stuff meant to be fun is indeed fun, such as 1980's Class War tabloid, but pretty often also not. For example, in Norfolk, a "humorous anarchist paper" Now or Never is being published,  but I never found anything fun in it. Wright was at times fun indeed, but also he was a typical example of this widespread British analysis, according to which main reason of unsuccess of anarchists are the other anarchists. Right now Wright is participating to group ALARM - All-London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob,  . I liked their table, it had mostly posters and a free xeroxed paper, which had only articles about MMA and trouble of anarchists in Nizhni Novgorod in Russia. These folks have their priorities right. Behind the table, some kids sipping British version of Jaguar. That was all great, but still I was wondering, if punks liked the lecture first of all because of it kind of justified ignorant existence. You may never master mysteries of chessboxing, if you only train chess, or only train boxing.

Wherever you find many anarchists, there is also plenty of beef. Each year, organisers are receiving a letters demanding to ban someone from the bookfair. It is seldom that any of these propositions have political grounds. For example, three years they got a long letter, relating to a dispute dating back to 1985. Organisers wary about "policing" such issues, anyone whose work or organisation accords with anarchist principles can have stall. Obvious exceptions are green capitalists and trotskists. This year some sad trotskists had a table outside in the rain, apparently people felt too sorry to revenge for Kronstadt and Makhno, and they weren't punched. Someones stall was poured mayonnaise, but I did not heard reports of settling scores more violently.

So, in the end all the kinds of types were around, from some people from Dial House to insurrectionalists and adepts of especifismo. I did not bought any books for myself, as I will have to carry 25 kilos of them for Helsinki infoshop anyway. But I could not resist 12 pount Bakunin hoodie, sold by the Anarchist Federation. Also, I was given collection of bulletins of Russian Prisoner Aid bulletins fom 1923 to 1931, printed by t, I love that stuff! It was nice to have a chance to thank in person various people, who sent us stuff to Moscow for so many years, such as KSL and Aufheben. I should have arranged paper orders for Helsinki infoshop, but as I was busy with other things I forgot all that, hopefully someone else from Helsinki did that as it was quite a many people from the city.

Unfortunately, I did not saw any of my childhood heroes - neither Ian Bone nor Stuart Christie.

It was a bit strange, that as far as I know nobody used the opportunity to organise events in Friday or Sunday. Obviously, organisational group had no resource for that, but I do not undertand, why no other group is eager to use biggest annual concentration of anarchists in the city to do anything else than parties or drinking. Apparently, most of the London anarchists prefer hanging in their own circles to organisation of wide, open events. The same in Moscow, with exception of Libcom 2011, until this year only Autonomous Action has had interest to organise meetings or infrastructure for wider anarchist movement.

After Wright, I had two of my own talks. First on anarchist prisoners in Belarus. I was invited to replace some local Belarusian, who vanished few weeks before the bookfair. I expected, that troubles of anarchists in the potato republic would be of interest to maximum 3 people, but eventually much more came. One of the good sides of the UK anarchists is that due to imperial past, they consider most exotic places being of interest, including places which are of interest to no-one else. I shared a nightplace with an activist of Abahlali baseMjondolo from Durban of South Africa, he was positively surprised for a small action we did for them during football championship of 2010 . I missed his speech but I heard it was well attended and liked.

My next speech was with Gabriel Levy about Pussy Riot and other repressions in the former Soviet Union. Apparently, idea of the organisers was to draw attention to other human right problems on the wave of Pussy Riot hype, such as shooting of strikers in Zhanaozhen of Kazakhstan. This was obviously a rather naive idea - when I had finished my 20 minutes on Pussy Riot and Levy began his part on grievances of oil workers, few dozen peoples immediately left the auditorium. I do not understand, why oil workers, leadership of the "Left Front" which is now facing a charges with 10 year penalty for "treason" in Russia, national bolsheviks and tortured disappearing inhabitants of Ingushetia and Dagestan do not want to position themselves ad LGBT or queer-feminists, as that would guarantee a whole another level of interest to their problems.

Last lecture I attended was "Anarchist Economy" with David Graeber, Michael Albert, Iain McKay (not to be confused with singer of Minor Threat) and some fourth dude (later I learned it was Joseph Kay from libcom.org). Auditorium of 400 people was fully packed, people were standing on stairs and it was hard to even get it. Apparently, queer feminism has not took all of it over yet, and middle-aged men have still their lebensraum in anarchist movement.

No surprise, there was no any discussion on economics, instead another talk for 12 year olds on how capitalism is evil, accompanied with a sort of competition of the most witty anecdote on the topic amongst the speakers. In my opinion, Graeber won that one, even though he laughed himself more than audience did. Few critical questions from the auditorium and attack of McKay against Parecon managed to scratch a bit the otherwise self-complacent atmosphere of dull consensus. Obviously, current level of the movement and format of the event does not allow anything more, but definitely we have something more to strive to.

Other events I did not attended were most various - some historical (such as about Chartist uprising of 1839), planning of upcoming protests against G8 the next year, "anarchism and spirituality", "anarchism and sexuality" and so on. Participators were most diverse, as I expected, but good half were subcultural people, after all this was the city were punk was born. But the dominant outlook did not influenced the contents - biggest share of the workshops were on social issues, for example against workfare, "housing estate is revolting", "building a fighting union with your workmates", in this context I do not see reason to always whine about prevalence of "lifestyle anarchism" in UK, maybe it was some years ago the case but definitely not anymore.
Antti Rautiainen
 

Impressions from the Baltic Anarchist Meeting 2012

Almost two months have passed since the Baltic Anarchist Meeting http://www.bam2012.org/ was organised in Tallinn of Estonia 25th-27th of May, but only now I had time to write some impressions. I haven't come across any other reports yet, but I hope they would show at some point up as I missed many of the discussions. 

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Enough of people

who are sorry with the fact I got kicked out from Russia. You know nothing about it, you have never been in the same situation and you will never be. I do not want to think about the whole issue, so do not say anything. 

Consider a situation, when your feet got torn off in some accident. Would peoples condolences bring your feet back?
No they would not.

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Links on my exile from Russia

I gathered links on articles in English, Russian, Finnish and Swedish on my exile from Russia. Technically, I am not deported - it is just my residence permit annulled, and I am refused a visa.

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Antti Rautiainen denied Russian visa request

On Thursday, the 14th of June anarchist and member of the Moscow - Autonomous Action, Antti Rautiainen, was denied his Russian visa request. The refusal was not exaplained. 

Rautiainen had a Russian temporary residence permit, but it was annulled at the end of March. According to authorities, he had made "calls to violently overthrow constitutional order or Russian Federation." He was given 15 days to leave the Russian Federation.

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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. 

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My assumption of guilt

 (originally published 25th of November 2009 at http://avtonom.org/en/node/5257)

   

Russia is a promised land for conspiracy theories. When last week Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgeniya Khasis, Nazi activists suspected of having murdered leftist human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist and anarchist activist Anastasia Baburova, were arrested and taken to court hearings to decide about detention measures, the rumor mill went grinding.

The number one spinners were anti-migration bloggers, very much concerned about the human rights of their Nazi comrades. Now they scream about a "New Guantanamo", although I do not think they had anything against the previous one. Some of the real human rights activists swallowed the hook, but the fact is that hoods on the heads of the accused are in the common best interest both for themselves and the investigation – if their faces are broadcast all over the tv, witness testimonies become unreliable.

My own feeling however is that investigators have picked up the right people, although not necessarily all of them. And I believe, that Tikhonov was not merely the executor, but also the planner of the murder. What it comes down to is an unknown man who had been spotted by anti-fascists at a previous press-conference held by Stanislav Markelov, photographed and thrown out fromthe event by anti-fascists (his photos have been distributed via various anti-fascist and mainstream media, for example here, I believe that he was a scout involved in the plot, but after being revealed was replaced by Khasis.

Despite all its faults, the Russian judicial system is probably more capable of passing a verdict than I am – but I can argue why I feel this way.   A bullet in the head in the middle of the city is not a job for a fumbling teenager's first time in action. Andrei Fazilyev and Kirill Vahruchev, who half-accidentally clubbed anti-fascist Stas Korepanov to death in Izhevsk in March of 2007 got 13 year sentences – apparently they could not even afford proper lawyers. Another half-accidental killing, that of Ilya Borodaenko in the protest camp in Angarsk of Siberia in summer of 2007 could have had some influential sponsors, judging from the fact that the Nazi gang who did the job had been previously detained the same night and then released. However cannon fodder was not that important for the influential sponsors that they would care about the detention, during which young Nazis were tortured so cruelly that at least one of them attempted to commit suicide. Nikita Tikhonov however is not from this series – he made few mistakes, and his lawyer obviously knows his job. And such lawyers are not free in Russia. Everything Tikhonov has done and said after his detention, is a series of well-calculated moves to minimize his up-coming sentence.   Different from knives, stunt guns, telescope batons and pepper gas, which are sold on almost every street, it is not easy to obtain illegal firearms in Russia. Thus, whoever assumes all the risks assosciated to purchasing illegal guns, is obviously representative of a class which does whatever it takes in order not to get its clothes and hands dirty when working – that is, the intellectual class.   Tikhonov, if anyone, is a Nazi intellectual. This is clear to anyone, who has ever opened up a copy of the "Russkiy Obraz", a magazine which Tikhonov set up about a decade ago with his friend Ilya Goryachev, with whom he studied history in the most prestigious history faculty of Russia – that of Moscow State University. You will not find conpsiracy theories about the elders of Zion or Freemasons, Nazi BDSM uniform fetishism or other usual Nazi features in "Russkiy Obraz." The Russian word "obraz" has many meanings - "Obraz Zhizn" means "Way of life", but depending on the context "obraz" may mean appearance, image, conception, outline, character, type, mode, way or icon. As for the roots, first of all Obraz is the name of one organisation of Serbian nationalists. The ideological foundation of the original project was in solidarity with Serbian nationalism, which was a logical choice – it was the Balkan wars which proved that ethnic cleansings are still current in Europe today, and it was natural to propose the same for multinational Russia. Today the "Kosovo scenario" is the main scarecrow for all migration critics in Europe, in this sense Russkiy Obraz was even ahead of its time.   Goryachev and Tikhonov were maybe not the Benoit and Evola of Russia, but they managed to create a new, more credible project for the extreme right. The print run of "Russkiy Obraz" was not big, maybe 500 copies, but due to its intellectual level it had influence, and soon fans of the most important Russian White Power-band, Kolovrat ("Swastika") also grouped around it.   As a curious historical detail, the leader of Kolovrat Denis Gerasimov played for a while in hardcore punk band "Skygrain", which launched a total oppositional movement. Skygrain was not the first straightedge band of Russia, that was "Koleso Dharmy" founded 1993 in Volzhk, which nowadays is active in Tampere of Finland as "Wheel of Dharma" . However, Skygrain was the first to play American-style hardcore with an anti-fascist message in Moscow, thus they started up anti-fascist subculture in Moscow (Nowadays the singer of Skygrain, Kiril"Student" is active in the group Argument 5.45.    Gerasimov was drafted to the army. The story goes that he went to Chechnya, got his head smashed and returned a Nazi. Kolovrat was the headlining band in a concert organised by Goryachev in Bolotnaya square, just a few steps away from the Kremlin gates this past 4th of November. This was perhaps the first open, legal concert of the group in Russia for a decade, and a result of the careful tactics of Russkiy Obraz.   There is a continuous, fierce fight on hegemony going on in the Russian far-right, and right now Russkiy Obraz has the upper hand against many other groups. On the other hand, it does not attempt to maintain distance from Nazi-skinheads, unlike the "Movement Against Illegal Migration" DPNI which strives for a more moderate image. Russkiy Obraz has also managed to gain good contacts to many influential people, such as the deputy of ruling "United Russia"- party Maksim Mishchenko, a regular guest during "Russkiy Obraz"events. We will see, if Goryachev's hasty attempts to distance himself from hisold friend in public are enough to save status of Russkiy Obraz as the favourite Nazis of Kremlin.   According to Aleksander Potkin, former leader of DPNI, Tikhonov was working as a speechwriter for Duma chairman and leader of the "United Russia"party, Boris Gryzlov in 2001-2003, while he was serving as minister of internal affairs for the Russian federation. This was of course quickly denied by "United Russia", which is hardly surprising as Gryzlov is probably the third most important politician in Russia, after Putin and Medvedev. In any case Tikhonov was a professional in political media, whose contacts and skills played an important role in transforming Russkiy Obraz from a minor samizdat mag to one of the leading brands of the Russian far-right.   But why is it that Tikhonov abandoned a promising career as a Nazi intellectual, and disappeared first into the underground and now to jail for what will most likely end up in a sentence of a few decades? In order to explain this, you have to rewind back more than three years, and go back to the 16th of April 2006. On that day, 9 days before his 20th birthday, anti-fascist Alexander Ryukhin was stabbed to death on his way to a hardcore-punk concert. Within afew months three teenage Nazis were arrested – one of them had used his personal electronic metro ticked in a metro station not far from the place of the murder. After few days of "workout", they were ready to confess – however the murderer himself, "Alexander Parnov", had already disappeared underground. For police, this would have been good enough – half-solved crimes look bad in the statistics-obsessed Russian system. But due to the efforts of Stanislav Markelov, police was forced to put out an arrest warrant on Tikhonov as well, who apparently was the main organiser of the action.  

What exactly happened on that April day? Personally I doubt that Tikhonov planned a murder, I believe that Parinov acted without his permission. If you want to kill someone, it is not very clever to take three inexperienced teenagers along, who are likely to screw up in one way or another. On the other hand, before that day the atmosphere in the Moscow Nazi scene was that of all-mightiness – in the previous years, a small circle of people had murdered dozens of migrants, and in Tikhonov's and Parinov's circles it was completely common to murder with impunity. However, even if murder was planned, I am certain that Tikhonov was forced to go underground against his own plans, and not so much due to police efforts as to the efforts of Stanislav Markelov.

But as the clever guy that he is, Tikhonov quickly reorientated, and went on to collecting guns and whatever else wouldbe necessary for an underground cell. I believe, that Stanislav and Anastasia were not the first, nor the last persons he murdered during these 3 years – a good candidate for Tikhonov's work is for example the murder of Caucasian Rasip Halulov on the 3rd of September this year. He was on his way to court where he was accused of membership in a group which beat up and stabbed Nazi activists in the Moscow metro. Halulov's group was named "Black hawks" in the media, although apparently they never called themselves that.   According to this article  Tikhonov was busted because amateurs, independently from government officials, had broken into the correspondence of Yevgeniya Khasis on Russian Facebook copy "Vkontakte" . It was logical, that Tikhonov was caught due to someone else's mistake – he is probably too clever himself to screw up in that way. But this is the necessary flip-side of the underground way of life – as your contacts to the outer world are limitted, you have little choice in picking the people you work with. And it is hard to assassinate someone completely on your own, as an assassin should not reveal one's face, but for a scout it is almost impossible to hide without gaining undesired attention.   The Russian mainstream media has speculated a lot as to Yevgeniya's nationalitysince she has a Jewish surname. But this just shows the ignorance of journalists towards the Nazi movement, as the nationalities of Nazis should no longer be of surprise to anyone. Already mentioned murderers of Stanislav Korepanov had Tatar surnames. Maksim Martsinkevich, who ran the popular "Format 18" website where videos of cruel beatings of migrants were published, had Polish roots. Roman Ragimov, the Nazi who beat a Tadzhik man to death in Kirov in 2003 was Azerbaijani. The father of David Bashelutskov, who cruelly murdered Azerbaijani man in Volgograd and was arrested in the beginning of this year in Moscow for his membership in Nazi pagan group which planted bombs to a mosque, a McDonald's outlet and other places, was Armenian. Alexei Dzhavashishvili, recently arrested leader of the "White wolves" Nazi group, who is accused of 11 murders and one attempted murder, is Georgian. The most diligent Nazi serial killer in Russia thus far, Arthur Ryno who was recently sentenced for 20 murders and 12 attempted murders, had a Chukchi father. Yevgeniya is also not the first Jewish person in the ranks of underground Nazi groups – according to some sources Nazi sympathizer Alexander Koptsev, who wounded 9 persons with a knife in a Moscow synagogue, is Jewish. Rostislav Hoffman, suspected of being a member of the Borovikov Nazi gang from St. Peterburg which murdered at least six persons, is also Jewish. Hoffman himself, was apparently executed during an internal purge of the group. The multinationality of Nazi movement is not a merely Russian phenomenon – for example probably the most famous Swedish (former) Neo-Nazi Jackie Arklöv had a Liberian mother.   As to Yevgeniya, according to mainstream news, she was raised by an alcoholic single mother, so one can speculate about a failed relationship with the father – which is also the case with many more of the aforementioned people. But this would take us on a tangent, as Nazism is not a diagnosis – mentally ill persons do not murder in such a systematic and deliberate way, not for an idea. To claim that Nazis are mentally ill, would be an underestimation. And the term "Neo-Nazi" is a similar kind of underestimation – although present day Nazis have a continuously increasing spectra of ideas, the core of their ideology is still the same as in the 1930's. These people are by no means harmless clowns dressing up infunny outfits, they already manifold deserve to be called the same names as their predecessors.  

Not so long time ago I thought

that we should be above all the feuding in the anarchist scene, be open to every direction, and so on.

But then I understood, that it that it no way convinces other people, and they will despise you, whatever you do:

-If you attempt to maintain contacts with everyone and to be open, they will declare that you are opportunists, who aim to control the whole movement. And in general, they will consider you hypocrites and moralists, who consider themselves to be higher and more righteous, than everyone else.
-If you in contrary take sides in all the feuds, on one side, or against all of the sides, they will declare that you are fucked-up sectarians.

Anarchists have even worse self esteem than people in general. Thus, there will always be haters in the scenes. And hate and contempt is not only due to envy, anarchists just simply love to hate and contempt other anarchists. Because hate and contempt are anti-authoritarian. If a comrade had even for a minute an illusion, that he had some success, made something meaningful, you should immediately announce, that it is all bullshit and he is worth of nothing. Even a slightest contentment is a way to leadership and authoritarianism. A person, who even for a second did not felt his total nothingness, is on a slippery road. You should immediately attack him, write an anonymous flame comment, say that he is a sectarian or an opportunist (or both of them on the same time), so that he would faster return to herd of the anarchists.

Process training as a placebo

Quite a few people in activist community believe, that training activist with decisionmaking processes is a way to more sustainable and resultative activism.

And at times this is right. Years ago when I was a young activist, I had many inspiring and empowering expreriences in such trainings. However, often I see way too high expectations what comes to usefulness of such trainings, and especially developing a special branch of activism, which concentrates solely on activist trainings, is a waste of time.

Oftentimes, meta-activism may be more attractive than activism itself. In late 1990's there was a huge boom of video and other media-activism, and in some protests you could see just as many peoples with videocameras as activists themselves. And at times, it was the same with some other supportive functions, as there was a huge emphasis on legal support groups and street medics and such. And for sure, all of these were necessary, but no matter how much more rewarding filming protest may be comparing to actual participating to it, it is pointless to priorise supporting roles to the activity itself. And same goes with activist trainings.

In almost any country, activist communities have a big turnover rate, which is a huge cause of frustration to anyone who is around a bit longer while. At times, hopes arise, that a better process would motivate people to be around for a more time.

However, I believe that in most of the cases this hope is in vain. As list of typical reasons of people quitting activism, in a decreasing order of frequency, goes something like this:

1) Lack of results
2) Not feeling of fulfilment
3) Not common activist interests with other activists around
4) Not getting along with other activists around
5) Nobody to do stuff with in the first place
6) Need to work
7) Need to take care of kids
8) Need to study
9) Need to party and have more fun
10) Burn out after getting too involved
11) Lack of process skills

Points 1-10 are pretty much due to objective realities which surround us, it is the least frequent problem which process training may help.

Big turnover rate is (mostly) result of first ten, mostly objective conditions. Of course it would be good, if you could with some effort to have people to stay around a bit more longer while, but if you may reach out to some new, more enthousiastic people with less effort, it obviously makes more sense.

It is pretty much normal to lack results. Many activists are obsessed with success, and they pick up secondary or totally irrelevant issues just in order to gain success. Of course, sometimes it does not make sense to pick up a totally hopeless issue, but chance of success may not be the only criteria of picking up issues. It is always big money and much of the government against you, so one should not have too high expectations.
And with lack of success, for sure there may not be much fulfilment. Obviously, there are plenty of fields in life, which may provide both more personal success, and more personal fulfilment than activism. It is not necessary a tragedy, if someone decides to prefer these other fields. In contrary, propably it is better for him/her. There are already enough bitter and frustrated people around, disappointed with their lives and achievements.

As for point 10, for sure it is bad to burn oneself out, and we should take measures that nobody burns out. But we often have deadlines as well – for example any kind of street action propably has to have a deadline. And when deadline approaches, usually people start disappearing from around you, and it could be at some point, some tasks depend exclusively on you. Then it is a decision – either you do the shit, whatever it takes, or nothing comes out from the project at the first place. Second alternative means, that not only all your efforts are in vain, but you may also hamper any efforts to do whatsoever in your area/context in the future. There are situations, when over-reaching your capacity is the lesser evil.

As for point number 9, I am serious with this, and I do not even have to quote Emma Goldman to make the point. Sometimes you may unite partying, having fun and relaxing with revolution, but oftentimes not. I am sure, that everyone reading this has observed attempts to unite party and protest, which have been all party, no protest. As for me personally, I have seen in my life way much more awesome parties, than awesome or even mediocre protests. So if I ever have to make a choice between these two, I would not think a second.

Even point number 4 is pretty much result of objective conditions. No matter how good process you have, we are different, and sometimes we just do not get along. Getting along with someone does not necessarily sync with political views – you may be best friends with someone with very different opinions, and not get along at all with people, who share your political views and approaches. Of course we may always work on this to some extent, but in the end, I think evolution has encoded us to split at times and to go to different ways. If we all got along and liked each other, we would all still be living in rift walley of Africa.

So sometimes it is nobody's fault, that you just do not get along. But sometimes it is somebodys fault. Because some people just are assholes, and it is very naïve to believe, that no activist is an asshole. If you have been hanging a year or two around, you have most likely already figured out, that activists are not at all better than people in general. Activist is a person who has some ideas and political goals, but this has basically nothing to do if he is a nice person or not. And if we (occasionally) have a sense of community, it is because of (occasionally) shared ideas and goals, not because we are good people or best friends with each other.

Moreover, often the most asshole people are also the most liked and popular. Many people just love to hanging in their self-confident aura. Often the most asshole people are also the most creative. And if you think about it, it makes sense – talent ←> self-confidence <→ assholeness. It is often a good idea to drop assholes from your live, but what are you to decide, with whom other people should be hanging with? Elitist cliques, cults and conspiracies are something what plenty of people desire. As long their little mental jerking circle is not about to take over the planet, why should you care? Let them have that little game, if it makes them more happy.

Even more popular problem with group dynamics than someone being an asshole, is someone being not reliable. Actually, most of the people are not reliable. I do not know why is this – maybe it is upbringing, maybe it is state and capital, or something else. Anyways, being not reliable makes sense – there is little incentive in activist community, or society in general, to be a reliable person.

One alternative is to keep around you only reliable persons. However, it is well likely that you do not find any, and at the end you have to do your shit alone.

Another alternative is to try to encourage people to be better persons. This is obviously something activist training would propose. But does it make a lot of sense?

Upbringing a person is a task, to which parents spend tens and thousands of hours. And still, nobody grows up to be a perfect person. Which are the chances, that you manage to do better that someones parents? Grim at least, if you have not tens of thousans of hours of sparetime. To find a reliable person, you for sure need countless of tries, much patience and many disappointments. Of course, it is not a catastrophe, if someone is not reliable – he may well have some good sides, which may be of use. But if you really need a reliable person, it will almost certainly demand more effort to fix someones defects as a person, than to find someone else.

I could also write on how the proposed “decisionmaking process” itself usually means streamlining of normal human interaction, eliminating any such “inconveniences” as off topic, immediate comments, jokes and jumping from topic to another, which all are undistinguishable from a “natural”, relaxed and friendly conversation atmosphere. People from many cultures consider such “decisionmaking process” highly artificial, alienating and unpleasant, and resist attempts to impose it to them, even when it could be somewhat more “effective”. But that is a whole another topic.

So is there point in process trainings?

For sure, there is always a point in sitting down with your friends and comrades, and spending time without any immediate urge to decide or to realize something. Process training may be just a convenient excuse to spend time together in general, and any perceived use it it may bring, could be rather a result of such placebo effect. It is well possible, that it is rather spending time together what makes dynamics better, not the acquired new “skills”.