The civil war precipitated this year by a revanchist, imperialist Russia in the eastern
Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk - ironically once part of the Makhnovist
revolutionary heartland - and the mobilisation there of openly neo-fascist armed forces
has raised the critical question of how the Ukrainian anarchist synthesist and platformist
formations have responded to the crisis. ---- Sergei Shevchenko, left, Secretary General
of the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists ? ?N.I. Makhno? (RKAS), with
the author of this monograph, Michael Schmidt, of South Africa, at a demonstration by
6,000 anarchists in Paris in 2000. ---- The 1994 formation of the Revolutionary
Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists ? ?Nestor Makhno? (RKAS) ---- Despite intense KGB
repression, the anarchist movement in the USSR and its colonies and satellite states began
reviving underground in the 1970s, gathered momentum as protests escalated in the late
1980s, and when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and lost its former colonies including
the Ukraine, that collapse precipitated a flowering of anarchist organising.
However, the promise of glasnost for a freer society has been tarnished by what seems to
be an inexorable rightward drift of the Russian state and society driven by the old KGB
elite in cahoots with robber-baron oligarchs and reactionary politicians. This has been
reflected socially in the rise of neo-fascist, neo-Stalinist and national-bolshevik
movements, intense racism against ethnic non-Russians, homophobia and other plagues. Not
least, the Russian state has moved to bloodily suppress secessionist movements (as its
predecessor state had in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968), especially with the
Chechen Wars of 1994-1996 and of 1999-2000. In a private conversation in 2005, a Russian
intelligence agent told me in no uncertain terms that Russia under former KGB
lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Putin fully intended to recover all of its lost colonies, a
political position termed revanchism.
Against this backdrop, the anarchist movement in the former USSR has had a hell of a time
fighting for its existence. Today, probably the largest ? though synthesist ? new
anarchist organisation in the former Soviet Empire is the Autonomous Action (AD) network,
which by 2010 had sections or at least members in the cities of Belorechensk, Chelyabinsk,
Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Kaliningrad, Kazimov, Kolomna, Krasnodar, Moscow, Murmansk, Novgorod,
Novorossisk, Rostov-on-Don, St Petersburg, Sochi, Tyumen, Volgograd, Voronezh, Yaroslavl,
and Yoshkar. There is also an AD section in Armenia (the Autonomous Action -
"Breakthrough" Group, AD-GP) and supporter groups in Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and
Ukraine. The Revolutionary Union of Anarcho-Communists (AKRU) and other groups in the
Moscow area joined the AD in 1991. In south Russia in 2003, the more hardline Federation
of Anarcho-Communists (FAK) was founded, apparently from an AD split, in the cities of
Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Krasnodar and Stavropol, with the journal Protest at its
mouthpiece. There are also unaffiliated anarcho-syndicalist unions springing up in places
like Kazakstan such as the Alma Ata Anarchist Alliance (AAAA) and Libertarian Almaty, in
Siberia such as the Siberian Confederation of Labour (SKT), which split from the KRAS in
1995 with the aid of the Swedish Central Workers? Organisation (SAC), growing to 6,000
members by the year 2000, and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Confederation of Irkutsk (ASKI)
founded in 2007, and in Ukraine, the Anarchist Federation of Eastern Ukraine (AFEU), and
the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists ? ?N.I. Makhno? (RKAS), which was
founded in 1994 and had attained 2,000 members by the year 2000; the SKT and the RKAS
supported the independent revolutionary International Libertarian Solidarity (ILS) founded
in Madrid in 2001, which was the seedbed of the anarkismo.net project established by ILS
member organisations in 2003.
The neo-Makhnovist RKAS continued to grow, though its organisational discipline horrified
synthesist anarchists such as those from the declining anarcho-syndicalist International
Workers? Association (IWA), one of whose correspondents characterises it as a ?platformist
party and psychosect?(1). But the critique is revealing in that it makes it obvious that
the organisational practice of the RKAS derives directly from the historical Makhnovist
movement, the 1918-1921 Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (RPAU in its Cyrillic
acronym). For example, the RKAS established ?a small General Confederation of Labour of
Anarcho-syndicalists? (CGT-AU), formed defensive ideological-paramilitary Black Guard
squads, trained in martial arts, and co-ordinated its activities via an Organisational
Bureau (Orgbureau): ?The structure of the Orgbureau includes the Secretary General and his
deputy, the international secretary, the editor of the central press organ (the newspaper
Anarchy), the commander of the ?party? militia - the Black Guard, the finance director,
the Head of [the] Media Centre of RKAS and the representative of [the] ?workers?? union
created by RKAS.? Thus the Orgbureau performs roughly the same function as did the RPAU?s
Military-Revolutionary Soviet, and is linked to the anarcho-syndicalist CGT-AU and RKAS
co-operatives in Donetsk and Kiev (he potential seedbeds of future soviets), while the
Black Guard in turn has its own territorial unit and command structure: the writer quotes
RKAS Secretary General Sergei ?Samurai? Shevchenko as stating ?the creation of
self-defence force organization (something like a ?party? militia) is a very important
area of our organic development. Thus the Black Guard was conceived as a force ([a]
federation of territorial units in sections with a common leading staff) on the basis of
ideology, the constant training of personal combat skills of fighters and teamwork... as
well as a consistent practice in street conditions.? This appears to replicate the
military unit structure and General Staff (Shtarm) of the RPAU.
And in echo of the RPAU?s Culture and Propaganda Soviet, the KultProSoviet, the RKAS has
its own Anarchist School and its own paper for political education and propaganda ?
Shevchenko explicitly states the organisation?s objective of creating ?a communal-family
subculture?: the RKAS Congress of 2010 stated: ?One of our main objectives is to create
RKAS's own subculture of anarcho-syndicalism, based on the principles of brotherhood,
unity and clanism?; the IWA critic seems to hint that such ?clanism? means ethnocentrism,
but the original Makhnovists also drew on libertarian elements of the clan traditions of
both Zaporizhzhian peasants and of the Don Cossacks to legitimise their movement. The
claim that RKAS? ranks include a confused melange of ?counterculturalists,?
?insurrectionalists,? adherents of ?anarcho-capitalism? and even nationalists? would seem
improbable, given its stress on internal ideological coherence; and the only proof of the
presence of ?nationalists? in its ranks offered is a single member seen wearing a T-shirt
saying ?I am Russian,? which is surely tolerable for an ethnic minority within a
Ukrainian-majority movement. Somewhat like the disciplinary functions of the RPAU?s
Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities (KAD), the RKAS also has its ?Arbitral Tribunal?
which arbitrates on members accused of breaking the organisation?s codes. Some of this may
be considered organisational overbuild, but with RKAS sections and supporters in Ukraine,
Russia, Bulgaria and Georgia, and with anarchist-communism having prefigurative praxis at
its heart, it would seem unduly harsh to criticise the RKAS for borrowing their
organisational structure directly from the most successful libertarian communist mass
movement of their country?s history.
The 2011 splinter off RKAS of the International Union of Anarchists (MSA)
In 2011, the Donetsk city sections of the RKAS split away to form what they called the
International Union of Anarchists (MSA), which today claims organised ?Local Council?
sections in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Spain, and Israel/Palestine, and links to
organisations and individuals in Germany, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, France, Sweden, Tunisia
and Syria (2). The MSA is mistakenly viewed by the IWA writer as an RKAS initiative,
rather than a splinter and is criticised as an attempt to establish a ?rival
international? but there is nothing in anarchist ethics that prevents the development of
parallel structures based on free association and federalism. According to its website,
the MSA?s stated goal is the elimination of the state, hired labor, inequality, and
private property, along with the widespread replacement of commodity-money relations with
relations based upon principles of mutual equality and fraternity. This is to be achieved
through the collaborative planning of self-managing teams of workers, tenants and
consumers, along with the implementation of business activities in accordance with the
principle of ?from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs in the
economic empowerment of society...?.
The MSA?s founding Memorandum of Association (2011) states that, ?Denying the possibility
of anarcho-communist revolution in single separated countries, and for the further
coordination of actions of anarchistic organisations, we create the MSA.? The founding
organisations such as RKAS ?act due to their own memorandums, taking into account
historically based sociologically-cultural traits? but are co-ordinated by a ?Council?
which reviews applications for membership (all active members have to be in consensus
about a new member joining). ?In case of need, the Council initiates preparations,
discussions and approves decisions, actions, documents (programmes, memorandums,
methodical recommendations), publishing and other kinds of activity, which are universal
inside of MSA and made by all participating organisations. All controversial cases must be
solved by negotiations; arbitration is possible by demand.? The MSA Programme, posted
online in April 2014, aims at ?an activity directed at creating a self-governing social
system based on freedom, equality and cooperation. The purpose of [the UIA] assumes the
destruction of the state, statism, social hierarchy, coercive (administrative) powers, the
existing capitalist system, and all types of discrimination, coercion and exploitation. We
recognise the preparation and implementation of a social revolution based on anarchist
doctrine as means of achieving this goal.? [Texts slightly edited for clarity ? Michael
Schmidt].
Shevchenko's take on the MSA splinter is naturally severe, claiming that using the excuse
of ?anti-authoritarianism,? the splinter group ?freed themselves from the 'dictatorship of
the RKAS Organisational Bureau,' which had made them go to mines and factories and
distribute [the RKAS] Anarchy newspaper, deal with trade unions and cooperatives, and
build a well-disciplined Black Guard, [and] freed themselves from RKAS conference
decisions, which put forth really constructive socio political tasks...? (3). He claimed
by June 2014 the anti-organisationists had effectively disappeared: "... where are all
these new, unimaginable anti-authoritarian units, the creators of which weakened RKAS
systematically and broke the anarchist movement into pieces by their arrival, thus not
giving it any opportunity to organise itself into a strong, mass political organisation?
Are they still sticking stickers, drawing graffiti no one wants, playing football and
going to concerts?... This is the way naughty children behave, arranging holidays of
disobedience and riots for the sake of their petty insults and games.... the old illnesses
of being anti-organisational, destructive and irresponsible, which are brought to the
level of a virtue and which undermine any constructive work. Anarchists, due to such
absolutely absurd mistakes, have thus failed to establish the organisation. And all the
attempts to establish the organisation within the framework of the RKAS project have given
rise to a real Crusade against 'authoritarianism and extremism'. Both the situation in
February 2013 and the current one have clearly shown all the helplessness of that
amorphous form of infantile, subcultural anarchism, no matter what name it gave itself in
the face of real historical events."
The post-split position of the RKAS majority
The IWA writer notes that the RKAS Congress of 2011 ?decided to solve the questions about
the division of responsibilities along the way, through horizontal and vertical
connections within the organisation?: this is upheld as being evidence of ?vertical
structures? in the organisation, but at most it points to a very Makhnovist-like blend of
vertical linkages where needed (military command-and-control), and horizontal linkages
where needed (the submission of the militia to broader formations). In line with this,
Shevchenko?s vision of a post-revolutionary society recognises the need for administrative
and educational functions: ?Do you think, there will be no teachers, directors or leading
managers in an anarchist society? Just the vector of relations will change. Power over
other people will be substituted by regulation of processes, and privileges will be
replaced by a voluntary responsibility.? The RKAS practice of ?entryism? into and
recruiting among the ?reformist-bureaucratic Independent Trade Union of Miners,? or the
?anarcho-capitalist? Union of Anarchists of Ukraine (SAU), a weird registered political
party that contests elections, is obviously controversial, but is hardly an unknown
syndicalist tactic, that of capturing members of mainstream organisations for the
revolution ? and by the early 2000s, RKAS militants lead strike committees and workers?
councils on the mines of the Donetz Basin as their forebears had done during the Ukrainian
Revolution. The organisation went through a slump in 2004 but was reformed with vigour in
2007, publishing a Programme of the RKAS (4) which echoed the famous IWW Preamble in its
recognition of only two, mutually hostile, classes ? the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
though the boundaries between them "are not resistant (hereditary) and clearly drawn" ?
the results of which class structure was the "inequality of men in the actual
possibilities to satisfy their needs (material and spiritual); [that] the vast majority of
people can have no influence on decisions that touch on the main areas of private and
social life; [and] the inevitability of wars, economic crises, unemployment, etc., etc,"
"So, the real and only alternative to the state-capitalist order is the stateless
socialist society," which the RKAS defined as "a Soviet order (= Soviet system) according
to our expectations [that] is no power of any party, not a 'party parliament', but the
most perfect constructive form of stateless socialist self-management, which practical
implementation took place in the experience of the Makhnovist movement (1918-1920) and the
Spanish Revolution (1936-1939). Meetings of residents and factory workers freely choose
their environment, their institutions of territorial and economic self-management ?
Councils ? as exclusively technical and coordinating bodies, whose members in its
activities, in the decisions of the running of meetings of their constituents, are
accountable towards them, all privileges are stripped away and representatives may be
recalled at any time and replaced. The inner life of each such territorial and economic
unit is determined solely by its participants. Representatives of local Councils unite in
a City Council or ? in rural districts ? in an economic County Council. In the scope of an
area these Councils form a Federation; the union of Federations formed on the territory of
the whole country, the national Confederation. The duties of the county, city, regional
and national associations of Councils consist in the coordination of economic and social
life in the necessary questions ? primarily the planning and realisation of the national
distribution of raw materials, energy, finished products, etc. The decisions of these
associations are developed due to free agreements of representatives, representing the
union of the local units; they affect only common problems. The economy of socialism,
which is managed in the interests of all members of society, and not the owner and not
even the collective farm level, must say goodbye to the chaotic, disorganised economy of
capitalism, of its aspirations to profit at any cost, with its undue waste of forces and
resources, including competition." This is classic anarchist horizontal federalism, run on
directly democratic principles, and RKAS proposed to achieve this vision through a
conventional Platformist focus on specific anarchist organisations engaging in daily
activities acting as a revolutionary gymnasium, through which immediate gains build class
confidence and capacity for self-management and the ultimate, transformative "Social
Revolution," which it defined as a mass proletarian expropriation of the state and
capital, rejecting any transitional state or "dictatorship of the proletariat" in favour
of self-managing society in their own right.
The nameless IWA correspondent went further in their accusations, however, reporting that
public debates took place between RKAS militants and ?neo-fascists? in the city of
Voronezh, adding the news of the ?participation of its [RKAS] representatives [in the]
Kiev Congress of National-?Communists? and National-?Anarchists? in the summer of 2012?.
But this may merely demonstrate that RKAS was unafraid to debate its positions with all
political factions in order to win the battle of ideas and create militants ? in its
Programme, the RKAS position was explicit, that its militants undertook to "fight against
nationalism in all its manifestations, against fascism, militarism, clericalism and other
anti-human movements and phenomena." Hardly the position of an organisation friendly to
national-Bolshevism or national-anarchism. Again, let?s not forget that the original
Makhnovists, while driven by specific anarchist-communist cores, were a hetereogenous
organisation of the revolutionary left: and here is perhaps the only confusion in their
structure, between mimicking Makno?s specifically anarchist-communist GAK organisation of
tendency, and the mixed organisation of class of the Makhnovists themselves.
Direct Action, the Autonomous Workers' Union (ACT) and the Maidan
The most severe test of the modern Ukrainian anarchist movement's tactics, strategies and
politics came in 2014 with the invasion of the Crimea by Russian forces, cloaked as
"separatists" who wanted reunification with Russia, and the south-east of the country's
descent into a low-level civil war as a result. The descent of parts of Ukraine into
fratricidal war was precipitated by massed public demonstrations in Maidan Nezalezhnosti
(Independence Square) in the capital Kiev, starting in November 2013, against President
Viktor Yanukovych's geopolitical reorientation away from the European Union towards
Russia's Customs Union. The demonstrations quickly escalated - provoked by swiftly-passed
anti-protests laws - into demands for his resignation, and by February 2014, pitched
battles were being fought between government forces and pro-European integration
protestors occupying the Maidan and several key government buildings. According to an
analysis by Kirill Buketov of the Global Labour Institute (5), ?the Maidan, ? as the
movement itself became known - in echo of ?the Square,? referring to Tahrir Square in
Cairo, the heart of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt in 2011-2012 - was overwhelmingly
participated in by apolitical people, with a tiny fraction of 7% comprising ?politicals?
ranging from anarchists to nostalgic Stalinists and ?right-wing ultras.? These last were a
thorn in the side of the anarchists, forcibly preventing them from establishing a
defensive Anarchist Squadron, Buketov stated, though this defeat seems to have turned them
towards involvement in the Student's Assembly, which became ?fully controlled by the
anarchist students? union Direct Action, and all of the Assembly?s slogans were social
ones. Socialist agitation was under way at the Assembly, there were lectures, socially
relevant films were shown.?
Direct Action is on comradely terms with the Autonomous Workers' Union (ACT) (6), formed
in 2011 by anarchist and libertarian Marxist members of Direct Action; it currently does
not have the critical mass necessary to establish a true union structure, but is a
revolutionary syndicalist initiative that by April 2014 had locals in Kiev (about 25
members) and Kharkiv (about 15 members). Despite the ACT's links to the Maidan's Student's
Assembly, Buketov's report points to a deeper problem with the Maidan movement, that it
was overwhelmingly middle-class: ?The weakness of the Maidan was insufficient involvement
of trade unions and the working class. Only 5-7% of all Maidan participants could be
categorised as workers, which, come to think of it, is natural: participation in a public
protest is extremely complicated for workers? because as breadwinners, their priority is
retaining their jobs. So, it is quite logical that the bulk of the protest movement was
formed by students, pensioners, office clerks, civil servants, small entrepreneurs, etc.
Furthermore, none of the Kiev left bothered to start agitation in workplaces, to try to
bridge the protests and the workers? community. The free trade unions? call for a general
political strike just hung in midair." An ACT member said in an interview that "social
issues regarding the workers? rights are not on the agenda at all. The working class, as a
class, does not take part in these events at all. The workers naturally do take sides, but
they are not organised in class-like organisations, in unions, as such they just don?t
participate in these events. And they have good reasons for this, because both sides just
talk about the cultural, political issues, which don?t have any direct connection to [the]
needs of an average worker."
But far more severe problems loomed for the Euro-integrationist project of the Maidan,
sometimes called Euromaidan because of its stance: firstly the swift rise to dominance of
right-wing extremists within and outside its ranks; and secondly, the unfolding
West-versus-Russia imperialist battle over spheres of influence that used Ukraine as a
battlefield and its people as their cannon-fodder. In a January 2014 interview, RKAS'
Shevchenko noted that ?The Maidan militants consist mainly of activists of the so-called
Right Sector [a 10,000-strong Ukrainian ultranationalist-fascist paramilitary
coalition]... On the street, extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis rule. They have an unique
opportunity to get a baptism of fire and be tempered in battles with the police. They set
the tone of 'the revolutionary Maidan.' They are followed by the common people. The
rightists organise, unite, throw slogans and conduct a strategy. And they get support from
most citizens who came to the Maidan and who, at the beginning, wanted 'just' to express
their dissatisfaction with the current government. In the evening of January 19, the
Maidan split into 'the legals' [around the parliamentary opposition] and 'the illegals...
the radicals leading the street fighting...? (7). Buketov noted that "despite a large
number of the left involved in the Maidan there was practically no coordination among
them. Having joined the protests later than the right-wingers, the left instantly rushed
into the thick of it and did not have time to create their own organisational structures ?
unlike the Right[...] Sector which managed to do that."
In Kharkiv, however, the ACT announced that as of February, it had been working within the
Co-ordinating Council (Koordrada) of the city's Maidan (8). The ACT Kharkiv described the
Koordrada (KR) as ?a free association of all public organisations actively involved in
Euromaidan. [The] Koordrada... is a horizontal structure in which all issues are resolved
by consensus... 95% of it consists of liberals and the moderate right and left viewpoints.
No Right Sector... nor ultra nor parliamentary parties are in Koordrada (in this respect,
Kharkiv is an exception). Currently, KR is engaged in trying to create an independent
media, while it attempts to rebuild Maidan [via] veche (popular assemblies)... Another
direction of the KR in which anarchists take part are discussions with 'Antimaidan': they
are for the Russian language, [but] against conflict with Russia, and against [the
right-populist parliamentary party] Svoboda, etc. And the people who come to Antimaidan
are from two sides - the Communists, and pro-Russian activists [an ACT member said the
Communist Party of the Ukraine "for many years has had nothing to do with communism, its
political programme and agenda [can be] rather described as conservative"]. Pro-Russian
sentiment exists among the masses here, but it does not prevail. Further developments will
depend on the behavior of Russian and Ukrainian troops. In the case of more or less
peaceful developments, KR will perform independent grassroots building, pressuring
authorities and trying to reduce their powers." However, peace was not forthcoming and the
ACT soon inevitably found itself fighting the Antimaidan when the latter attacked the
Kharkiv Maidan.
The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian state funding of fascist armed units,
and the RKAS core goes underground
As veteran IWA activist Antti Rautianen said in May 2014 (9), although the Kharkiv Maidan
insertion was in his view the "most successful anarchist intervention," the conflict with
the Antimaidan saw "anarchists... fighting side by side with liberals and fascists. I do
not want to criticize the Kharkiv anarchists; after all they made, perhaps, the most
serious attempt among Ukrainian anarchists to influence the course of events, but this was
hardly the fight, and these were hardly the allies, they wanted. And so, comes the point
when desertion becomes imperative, and that is when civil war begins. As of now, it's
still too early to make any final assessment of the anarchist attempts to influence
Maidan, but after the beginning of a civil war, Maidan will no longer play a role. From
now on, assembly will gradually turn to the army, and assault rifles will replace Molotov
cocktails. Military discipline will replace spontaneous organisation." And this brings us
to the rapid militarisation of the crisis in Ukraine. The toppling of the pro-Russian
Yanukovych government precipitated Russia's military invasion, then annexation, of the
Crimean peninsula. Rautianen claims that ?none of the fears of 'fascist takeover' have
materialised. Fascists gained very little real power, and in Ukraine their historical role
will now be that of storm-troopers for liberal reforms demanded by the IMF and the
European Union ? that is, pension cuts, an up to five times increase in consumer gas
prices, and others. Fascism in Ukraine has a powerful tradition, but it has been incapable
of proceeding with its own agenda in the revolutionary wave. It is highly likely that the
Svoboda party will completely discredit itself in front of its voters. But anyone
attempting to intervene, anarchists included, could have encountered the same fate ? that
is, to be sidelined after all their effort. During the protests, anarchists and the 'left'
were looking towards the Right Sector with envy, but in the end all the visibility and
notoriety, for which they paid dearly, was not enough to help the Right Sector gain any
real influence."
And yet, with the openly ultranationalist and white supremacist Azov Battalion of about
500 volunteers, formed under the aegis of the Ukrainian Ministry Internal Affairs and
armed with tanks (10) and heavy weapons sponsored by Ukraine?s third-richest oligarch,
Igor Kolomoysky, Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, engaging in open combat with
Russian-backed separatists, concerns have been expressed about the role such fascists will
perform in Ukrainian public life after the crisis is over. Ukraine has a strong fascist
minority, that usually draws inspiration from the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists
(OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which collaborated with the Nazis and
participated in anti-Semitic genocide during World War II (the latter used a red-and-black
flag, divided horizontally, which is confusingly similar to the anarcho-syndicalist
red-and-black, divided diagonally). Clearly, the crisis has escalated into a partial civil
war in at least the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, with over 2,000 deaths. Much of the
heaviest fighting has been taking place in the city of Donetsk and Shevchenko reported in
his June 2014 interview that RKAS, already weakened by the anti-organisationist faction
and the 2011 MSA split, decided to tactically dissolve and go underground: "As far as
RKAS... is concerned, it does not exist anymore in the quality you have known it until
now. Officially, but tacitly, RKAS was disbanded and its nucleus made the switch to
illegal operations. Why did this happen? It happened because in the form RKAS had existed
up to date, it did not meet the requirements of the time being. Though, in the same way,
the whole anarchist movement ? both in Russia and Ukraine ? does not meet the requirements
of today; and RKAS being a part of this movement hasn?t managed to overcome all those
vices, which make the contemporary 'anarcho-movement' be not of the moment. All these
years we?ve tried to create an effective project in the medium [term] where the project of
such a kind was doomed to failure. RKAS was such a project. And time showed us the
complete futility of our attempts.... Coming back to the fate of RKAS, I can say that its
disappearance is just a tactical step. Perhaps, RKAS will re-emerge in a new capacity,
taking into account all the mistakes and being modernized according to the situation;
perhaps we will create something brand new or a couple of variants. But the spirit of RKAS
and the idea of that kind of anarchism which we have been trying to achieve for more than
20 years now, will live on. We are not surrendering and we are not disappearing. For now,
we have dissolved in time and space. For a little while."
The ideological confusion that crippled the RKAS, lead it to fail its sternest test ? the
Maidan uprising and the civil war over eastern Ukraine. Shevchenko is unsparing in his
analysis: "I firmly believe that any social revolution is possible only in the presence of
two factors. These are: massive public demand for radical change and the political
organization of anarchist of the revolutionary wing, which will be able to organize and
direct the process of change and consolidate its results. If the first factor is more or
less present, and activity by the population has increased, the subjective factor is still
absent. Political revolution is taking place. And political forces and those who are
called the big bourgeoisie ? or with a modern twist, the oligarchs ? will take advantage
of its results. But if we are talking about social revolution, then there is no serious
demand for it, people, even if they see the changes, they see these changes only within
the framework of purely political changes. And even those timid shoots of
anti-authoritarian social revolutionism, which are not supported by a strong
anti-authoritarian revolutionary organisation, will be crushed by the political agenda of
the bourgeois and nationalist parties. I have already talked about the absence of
anarchist organisation. This is the main problem of the modern anarchist movement and the
cause of its collapse against the background of current developments. The things that are
happening now in Ukraine and the fact that anarchists here have been unable to use the
situation because they denied common sense for years and were enthralled by subcultural,
anti-organisational illusions, provides much food for self-analysis. And it confirms all
the conclusions and efforts which supporters of the project called 'RKAS - N.I. Makhno'
attempted to carry out. The fact that it failed says a lot and answers the following
question: 'Is it possible for anarchists to hope now to switch the activity of the masses
to the plane of the social revolution?'. The organisation is a very important medium for
the existence of ideas. It is an incubator, a school, a mutual aid society and a
productive platform for ideas and projects; but most importantly, it is a tool of
realising those ideas, it is an instrument of influence and an instrument of struggle. It
cannot be replaced with affinity groups. Read Makhno, Arshinov, Volin, Bookchin, finally,
and everything becomes clear. Anarchists now, like in 1917, have missed a unique
opportunity to head the process."
[ENDS]
FOOTNOTES:
1) The article, Caution: platformist party and and psychosect in one bottle!, is online at
http://eretik-samizdat.blogspot.com/2013/01/caution-pla....html
2) The MSA?s website in Russian and English is at www.an-com.org
3) An interview with Sergei "Samurai" Shevchenko by Autonomous Action (AD), June 2014, is
online at: www.anarkismo.net/article/27241
4) The Programme of the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists - Nestor
Makhno is online in German at: www.syndikalismusforschung.info/rkas.htm. The translation
is my own.
5) The report is online here: https://libcom.org/news/libertarian-spirit-left-maidan-...62014
6) A report describing the ACT is online at:
http://openfsm.net/projects/ukraine-crisis-and-solution...union and its website is
http://avtonomia.net/
7) The interview is online at: https://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/104379
8) The statement is online at: https://libcom.org/forums/news/kharkiv-anarchists-worki...32014
9) The article, Anarchism in the Context of Civil War, is online at:
https://avtonom.org/en/author_columns/anarchism-context...l-war
10) The Wikipedia entry on the Azov Battalion is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion. I have assumed their armament with tanks from
the Battalion's propaganda images, but this may be incorrect.
Links for the following at http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27678
The RKAS (P?AC in Cyrillic) on a more recent demonstration in Ukraine.
The English-language logo of the RKAS splinter, the International Union of Anarchists (MSA).
A statue of Nestor Makhno: he remains such a powerful anti-imperialist figure in Ukraine
today that he has been misappropriated by nationalists.
The Autonomous Workers' Union logo, from their website.
A mid-2014 map of the anti-imperialist crisis in Ukraine's south-east: Donetsk and Luhansk
Oblasts have become war-zones; Crimea is annexed by Russia; and Kharkiv's Regional State
Administration (RSA) buildings are controlled by the Maidan.
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» (en) Anarkismo.net: The neo-Makhnovist revolutionary project in Ukraine by Michael Schmidt