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On the Radical Edge of Left by Elena Agarkova

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On the Radical Edge of Left by Elena Agarkova EA-11 • RUSSIA • May 2009 ICWA Letters INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS On the Radical Edge of Left By Elena Agarkova AKE BAIKAL, IRKUTSK–Dressed in black, Baikal Wave. When the administrative judge in they march against construction of new nu- charge of the cases took four out of eighteen, in- Elena Agarkova is clearL plants, waste incineration, and high-rise cluding Igor’s, to test the strength of police evi- studying management developments, against police brutality, neo-Na- dence, I decided to attend the court hearings and of natural resources and the relationship between zism, political, religious and ethnic oppression. talk to the people involved. Siberia’s natural riches and Their fathers and grandfathers espoused com- its people. Previously, Elena munist beliefs. Their ideological grand-grand- The anarchists’ activism in environmental is- was a Legal Fellow at the fathers include Russian aristocrats like Count sues may seem puzzling at first glance, but upon University of Washington’s Leo Tolstoy, Mikhael Bakunin and Prince Peter closer examination it makes perfect sense. One of School of Law, at the Kropotkin, who advocated individual liberty the most obvious connections between modern Berman Environmental and dismantlement of the state. anarchism and environmentalism lies in tight Law Clinic. She has clerked state control over much of Russia’s economy. for Honorable Cynthia M. The anarchists have branches in several cit- Who makes decisions regarding development Rufe of the federal district court in Philadelphia, and ies across the country. In January of 2002 they of oil fields, construction of uranium-enrich- has practiced commercial formed a loose coalition named “Autonomous ment centers, hydroelectric dams, and pipelines? litigation at the New York Action.” Their website states that their overarch- The federal government, through its agencies, office of Milbank, Tweed, ing goal involves destruction of the State and all bureaucracy, state-owned monopolies, and oli- Hadley & McCloy LLP. Elena its institutes, and creation of self-government by garchs who answer the Kremlin’s bidding, with was born in Moscow, Rus- the people.1 Their overall numbers remain small, little or no public input. So general opposition to sia, and has volunteered for but these young men and women play an active governmental authority, espoused by anarchists, environmental non-profits role in modern political opposition in Russia. logically translates into opposition to state’s poli- in the Lake Baikal region They are certainly active enough for the Russian cies toward the country’s natural resources. The of Siberia. She graduated from Georgetown Universi- police to begin to take a keen interest in them. anarchists agree with the view that the country’s ty Law Center in 2001, and On May 1 of this year the Irkutsk police arrested political elite profits by exploiting Russia’s natu- has received a bachelor’s eighteen anarchists who took part in the annual ral wealth while average citizens bear the brunt degree in political science May Day demonstration, on charges of hooli- of the resulting environmental degradation.2 from Barnard College. ganism and violently resisting arrest. I knew one of them, a 23-year-old young man named Igor, Anarchism has had a long history in Rus- through his work at a local environmental NGO, sia, and many different schools of thought have Institute of Current World Affairs 1 From the Autonomous Action Manifesto: The Crane-Rogers Foundation “Who are we? Autonomous Action is a community of people for whom ‘freedom without socialism is a 4545 42nd St. NW, Ste 311 privilege of injustice, and socialism without freedom is slavery.’ For us the most important things in life are Washington, D.C. 20016 not consumerism, career, power or money, but creativity, sincere human relationships and personal freedom. Tel: 202-364-4068 All of us: workers and unemployed, students, government officials and activists, are united by our opposi- Fax: 202-364-0498 tion to any dominance over one person by another, to the state, capitalism, and the official bourgeois culture E-mail: [email protected] being forced upon us, by our desire to not be an agreeable cog in the mechanism of the System, but oppose it Web: www.icwa.org collectively, and by our need for free self-realization. Our ideals and goals. Autonomous Action is against any forms of dominancy and discrimination, in the society as well as in our organization. The System of Dominancy is a tight network of the repressive state apparatus, The Information industrial capitalist economy and authoritarian, hierarchical relationships between people. We consider every contained in this state to be an instrument of oppression and exploitation of the working majority by the privileged minority. publication may not The power of the state and capital means oppression of everyone’s identity and creative energies. That is why be reprinted or re- we consider libertarian (free, stateless, self-governing) communism, a dominance-free society, to be a neces- published without the sary social order. But our immediate goal is to establish a tradition and a base of the new humanistic culture, express written con- social self-organization, radical opposition to militarism, capitalism, sexism and fascism.” sent of the Institute of Current World Affairs. 2 Of course even if the state’s involvement were minimal, environmentally-conscious anarchists would op- pose what they see as corporate (or capitalist) exploitation of the environment. ©2009 Institute of Current World Affairs, The Crane-Rogers Foundation the governor of Eastern Siberia), he became part of a political circle that resented St. Petersburg’s treatment of Siberia as a colony (even then the capital siphoned off the region’s wealth), and advocated creation of a United States of Siberia, indepen- dent of Russia and possibly part of the U.S. By the end of 19th century non- pacifist anarchist cells staged terror- ist actions in Moscow, participated in the revolutionary uprisings, and led peasant revolts in the Ukraine. But even though anarchists took part in the revolutions of 1917, they disagreed with Bolsheviks, reject- ing the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Bolsheviks came to power, they suppressed and eliminated anarchists along with other political opponents. More “Organized Siberian Antifasists,” at the May Day demonstration in Irkutsk. than 60 years would pass until an- archists re-appeared in Russian po- litical life, including in Irkutsk. In March of 1980 a student of philol- ogy at the Irkutsk State University published the first (hand-written) issue of a magazine dedicated to anarchist ideas. Eight years later the former student gave an inter- view to the official magazine called Soviet Youth, in which he tried to distinguish anarchism from anar- chy: “Anarchy is what’s happening in our country right now. Anar- chism, to us, is purposeful work to- ward creating a grass-roots democ- racy, or government by the people. We oppose violence and therefore support federalism, as an effort to avoid situations which can lead to civil war, through accommoda- tion of interests. We advocate self- governance, as an absolute right to made their mark on the country’s politics and culture. Leo inner autonomy, and partylessness, as a renunciation of Tolstoy toward the second half of his life became a Chris- group struggle for power. Anarchism is a non-party move- tian anarchist, setting out his criticisms of the government ment for stateless socialism. This doesn’t mean that politi- and the organized church in The Kingdom of God is Within cal parties should be prohibited, only that no one of them You and other works. A pacifist and a vegetarian, Tolstoy should be in power.” called for a society based on compassion, nonviolence and freedom. He borrowed the title of a book written by the What is anarchism? The word probably connotes cha- French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, La Guerre et la os, disorder, and violence for most people. Its etymology Paix, for his masterpiece War and Piece. comes from the Greek anarchos, which simply means “hav- ing no ruler.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an- In 1857 the tsarist government sent Mikhael Bakunin, archy as 1) absence of government; 2) a state of lawlessness a nobleman who would in a few years become one of the or political disorder due to the absence of governmental most influential Russian anarchists, into Siberian exile. authority; 3) a utopian society of individuals who enjoy Upon moving to Irkutsk (Bakunin’s second cousin was complete freedom without government. The definition of EA-11 anarchism, on the other hand, states that it is a political depleted uranium hexafluoride is a dangerous, reactive theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be substance that forms highly toxic uranyl fluoride and hy- unnecessary and undesirable, and advocating a society drofluoric acid upon contact with water vapor. The gov- based on voluntary cooperation and free association of in- ernment has not released information regarding the exact dividuals and groups. amount of radioactive waste that has accumulated at the AECC site, citing “commercial secrets.” Environmentalists Perhaps weary of the negative associations that most estimate that there may be as many as 250 thousand tons people have with the word anarchy, today’s anarchists of- of depleted uranium hexafluoride on AECC’s territory. ten call themselves anti-fascists. (However, even though almost all anarchists ascribe to anti-fascist views, not all In 2006 then-President Vladimir Putin raised the idea anti-fascists are anarchists.) This label has its downsides of creating international nuclear enrichment centers. He too, despite the mythological status of World War II for stated that such centers would give countries transparent most Russians. Russian neo-Nazis have stepped up their access to civilian nuclear technology without provoking level of violence lately, attacking migrant workers, people international fears that enriched uranium could be used with non-Slavic looks, liberal journalists and lawyers.
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