Speaker 1: Robert Evans here and Welcome to It Could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: a podcast about how things are falling apart and how
Speaker 1: to maybe put them back together. Obviously, the biggest story
Speaker 1: probably in the world right now is the ongoing invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. In a major corollarrea of that story is
Speaker 1: how dramatically things in Russia have taken a turn for
Speaker 1: the totalitarian um. The country has become increasingly isolated from
Speaker 1: most of the global community. This is due to a
Speaker 1: mix of sanctions, to a lot of businesses pulling out
Speaker 1: just because of the social consequences of not doing so UH,
Speaker 1: and of policies that have been put down by Putin's
Speaker 1: government in order to crack down on dissent and further
Speaker 1: remove Russia from any kind of contact with the West. UM.
Speaker 1: As a result, it's kind of difficult to get in
Speaker 1: touch with people who are resisting Putin's government from within Russia. UM.
Speaker 1: Anarchist activists in particular UM are not see people to reach. However,
Speaker 1: we did recently sit down with one of these individuals
Speaker 1: and talk to them, so this episode will both be
Speaker 1: an interview with that person and a bit of history
Speaker 1: about the anarchist movements within Russia. Russia has actually a
Speaker 1: very long history of anarchist organizing. Two of them in
Speaker 1: generally considered foundational thinkers and anarchists political theory. Mikhail Bakunin
Speaker 1: and Peter Kropotkin were both born in Russia. Both lived
Speaker 1: and agitated under the Tsars. Bakunan was an advocate and
Speaker 1: a major theorist of political terrorism. He fled the country,
Speaker 1: was returned, and ultimately spent like ten years in prison there.
Speaker 1: Kropotkin was the author of a seminal anarcho communist text
Speaker 1: titled The Conquest of Bread, and he was only able
Speaker 1: to return to Russia after the nineteen seventeen Revolution. He
Speaker 1: died there in nineteen twenty one. It's also worth noting
Speaker 1: that Peter Kropotkin is canonically the ancestor to Tommy Pickles
Speaker 1: of the rug Rats, but that's something you can look
Speaker 1: up on your own now. While some of the most
Speaker 1: influential anarchist in history were Russian, and anarchist organizing was
Speaker 1: a potent part of pre nineteen seventeen Russian political history,
Speaker 1: the success of the Bolsheviks after nineteen seventeen led to
Speaker 1: the movements near annihilation um Emma Goldman was yet another
Speaker 1: major anarchist, activist, and thinker who was born and educated
Speaker 1: in Russia. She immigrated to the United States in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, where she promptly helped try to assassinate a
Speaker 1: steel magnate in revenge for his brutality against striking workers.
Speaker 1: Goldman grew to prominence as a labor activist and women's
Speaker 1: rights activist in the last decade of the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o one, her work helped inspire Leon Cho
Speaker 1: Goosh to assassinate President William McKinley. While Emma Goldman had
Speaker 1: no direct connection to Cho Gosh, she defended his actions
Speaker 1: by saying, as an anarchist, I am opposed to violence,
Speaker 1: but if the people want to do away with assassins,
Speaker 1: they must do away with the conditions which produced murderers.
Speaker 1: There's much more to say about Emma Goldman, but for
Speaker 1: our purposes, what matters is that she was arrested for
Speaker 1: opposing the draft in World War One and eventually deported
Speaker 1: back to Russia. Right after the revolution. Goldman was initially
Speaker 1: psyched that the czars had been deposed, but quickly became
Speaker 1: disillusioned by the violence of the forming totalitarian Soviet state.
Speaker 1: She considered this a betrayal of the revolution and wrote
Speaker 1: a series of articles for The New York World that
Speaker 1: have gone down as one of the first expose as
Speaker 1: of conditions in the Soviet Union. Goldman's work was criticized
Speaker 1: by many left wing intellectuals outside of Russia, but she
Speaker 1: was correct about political repression in the new Bolshevik workers paradise.
Speaker 1: Matters did not improve for anarchists in the first twenty
Speaker 1: years of the new regime. In nineteen thirty seven, in
Speaker 1: his history of Anarchism in Russia, E. Yorroslansky wrote, in
Speaker 1: the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, at the present time,
Speaker 1: the anarchists no longer enjoy any influence over the masses.
Speaker 1: They are met with only as isolated individualists. The fall
Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union, the coming of democracy, and the
Speaker 1: slow rise to power of Vladimir Putin did not enormously
Speaker 1: alter this state of affairs. Russian anarchists still exercise relatively
Speaker 1: little influence over the masses. Most of them struggle towards
Speaker 1: autonomy as isolated individuals. In March of twenty two, in
Speaker 1: the third week of the Russian invasion, of Ukraine. I
Speaker 1: sat down with one of these people. We've been chatting
Speaker 1: online through Reddit for a couple of weeks, and the
Speaker 1: process of setting up a proper audio interview was difficult.
Speaker 1: To say the least repression of all political descent under
Speaker 1: Putin is extreme. More than thirteen thousand people were arrested
Speaker 1: at anti war protests in the first two weeks of
Speaker 1: the war, so you will understand why our source was
Speaker 1: paranoid about his identity. I had to download a secure
Speaker 1: app I'd never even heard of before, and he only
Speaker 1: agreed to speak with me while using a voice changing
Speaker 1: application to further disguise his identity. Due to the difficulties
Speaker 1: this created, I will be paraphrasing him and quoting his
Speaker 1: words myself at a couple of points here in order
Speaker 1: to make listening to this a more comfortable experience. But
Speaker 1: here he is at ten years or so. It's bicycle
Speaker 1: and co Of course, my initial cell was into weak
Speaker 1: ten years ago plush. So just to make it clear,
Speaker 1: he's saying that he's been involved in anarchist organizing for
Speaker 1: more than a decade since around two thousand eleven. The
Speaker 1: initial cell he organized with was affiliated with an umbrella
Speaker 1: organization called Autonomous Action. We'll talk about them more in
Speaker 1: a minute, but it's important you understand that his cell,
Speaker 1: at about fifty people strong, was considered quite large for
Speaker 1: Russia once in Moscow. In perspects, I guess in the
Speaker 1: artists in linings because whatever they were worked for rental
Speaker 1: of course, or concerned. Even in two thousand eleven, organizing
Speaker 1: as an anarchist was rather risky. As a result, our
Speaker 1: source actually started his career in activism on his own.
Speaker 1: As a single protester. He would stand out in public places,
Speaker 1: sometimes during other protests, sometimes on his own, holding a
Speaker 1: sign that said in Russian peace to the world. Now
Speaker 1: I'm reading you the English translation of what he put down.
Speaker 1: The the literal Russian words that he had on his
Speaker 1: sign were a reference to a famous Soviet slogan officially
Speaker 1: adopted in nineteen fifty one. The phrase actually has a
Speaker 1: much older origin in the country, which begins under the
Speaker 1: Orthodox Church and grew more popular among revolutionaries after the
Speaker 1: February Revolution. The first leftist he use peace to the
Speaker 1: world as a slogan in Russia may have actually been
Speaker 1: a f Kerensky, who headed the brief democratic government that
Speaker 1: ran things after the are stepped down. In our sources case,
Speaker 1: his sign was an act of protest against a number
Speaker 1: of things, including the recent Russian invasion of Georgia and
Speaker 1: Russian military operations in Syria. Was kind of past, so
Speaker 1: I can't question for I'm promising for against the stuff.
Speaker 1: Stuff uh as almost nothing effectiveness organization or one hour home.
Speaker 1: We managed to entire winter on a couple of at
Speaker 1: least currently home. After he'd been seen doing this for
Speaker 1: a while, members of a local anarchists self found this
Speaker 1: person and started asking them questions, Hey, who are you,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? What do you think of this?
Speaker 1: And that he was not specific about the individual political
Speaker 1: questions they answered, and we probably don't need to get
Speaker 1: into that. They invited him eventually to a building where
Speaker 1: a number of them tended to gather and prepare for actions.
Speaker 1: In short order, they started organizing together. At the time
Speaker 1: our source started organizing as an anarchist. The most notorious
Speaker 1: recent action was the Kimki Forest conflict. In brief, Kimki
Speaker 1: is a forest with a long histories and nature preserve.
Speaker 1: It's kind of outside of Moscow. It's so densely forested
Speaker 1: that in the sixteen hundreds, and then in the early
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, when the Russians were resisting Napoleon, it was
Speaker 1: used by partisans and insurgents as a base of operations.
Speaker 1: When the Bolsheviks took over, it was preserved to act
Speaker 1: as a sort of open air therapy center for tuberculosis patients.
Speaker 1: In the early two thousands, local city planners started to
Speaker 1: advocate for a toll road to be built through the
Speaker 1: middle of the forest. Their argument was that a large
Speaker 1: amount of traffic passed through the Leningrad Highway and that
Speaker 1: had caused huge amounts of air pollution in the city
Speaker 1: of Kimki. Since the forest was protected by national environmental codes,
Speaker 1: turning it into a road was a long political process.
Speaker 1: Activists protested, arguing that it would be an environmental disaster
Speaker 1: which spoilers. It was like anarchists in the United States
Speaker 1: in the period before the Green Scare, Russian anarchists carried
Speaker 1: out a series of occupation actions to try and protect
Speaker 1: the wild lands. So the stand it was poor or
Speaker 1: or the governance the cost orgastlands past or section oh
Speaker 1: fascists one constraint trains. In the end, it was in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve Shortly after our source began participating an
Speaker 1: anarchist demonstrations, the government carried out a major crackdown against
Speaker 1: certain anarchist activists. They focused primarily on groups and individuals
Speaker 1: who were doing things like making Molotov cocktails and engaging
Speaker 1: in property destruction. Now our source participated in food not bombs,
Speaker 1: and other non aggressive types of direct action, most of
Speaker 1: which involved handing out food and supplies to people who
Speaker 1: are helping them to get resources. He did not disavow
Speaker 1: insurrectionary anarchists the kind of people who threw bombs, but
Speaker 1: that wasn't the kind of thing he did, and he
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of connections with those people because
Speaker 1: roughly a year after he started organizing as an anarchist,
Speaker 1: most of them in his area at least got cracked
Speaker 1: out on and either killed, forced out of the country,
Speaker 1: or arrested by the government. This crackdown on insurrectionary Russian
Speaker 1: anarchists led to an even more paranoid security culture among
Speaker 1: those who remained. Our source and his comrades mostly distributed food,
Speaker 1: but they also provided support for a large number of
Speaker 1: children whose families had abandoned them due to crushing poverty.
Speaker 1: Even though these things were not illegal, they had to
Speaker 1: maintain intense security culture to avoid being part of future crackdowns.
Speaker 1: One of the first don't talk to anyone or a
Speaker 1: structional companization commun don't care for the information, don't give
Speaker 1: them infrestion means no one. Long standing tradition among Russian
Speaker 1: anarchists was a sort of defensive isolation. People gave each
Speaker 1: other as little information as possible about their real identities.
Speaker 1: As a result, despite the fact that he has participated
Speaker 1: in multiple protests since the invasion of Ukraine and people
Speaker 1: have been arrested at those protests, our source insists that
Speaker 1: he doesn't know if any of his comrades have been
Speaker 1: taken into custody. Now. Some of this probably has to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that he's not organizing in a
Speaker 1: major city, um, but a lot of it probably has
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that he just doesn't particularly
Speaker 1: know any people by name. Poles, which are imperfect but
Speaker 1: cannot be entirely discounted, suggest that most Russian civilians support
Speaker 1: the war and their military. Even so, the scope and
Speaker 1: scale of the anti war protests in Russia have beggared
Speaker 1: anything from recent memory. Our source says that this has
Speaker 1: actually helped to mitigate some of the despair you might
Speaker 1: expect Russian anarchists to feel, given the Titanic increase in
Speaker 1: state repression from from there, just like, oh, come on,
Speaker 1: we can do it all everything and we'll just again
Speaker 1: if it's will find us whatever. No, or there is
Speaker 1: no despair at least we don't see it. The wants
Speaker 1: of action, their words of preparation. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: or not only artists, but other rdical firms were gathering
Speaker 1: in Russia or in Moscow, in Saint Pasbura obviously because
Speaker 1: the most et center of everything be there, not not Carenians.
Speaker 1: I guess, oh you some some even throwing like water
Speaker 1: us really industries. So it's probably time that we talk
Speaker 1: about autonomous action or a D. The Revolutionary Anarchist Federation
Speaker 1: that our friend and his comrades are affiliated with a
Speaker 1: D actually has members in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. It
Speaker 1: was founded in two thousand two and briefly had affiliates
Speaker 1: in Armenia before they disbanded in two thousand five. That's
Speaker 1: a story in and of itself. A D advocates direct
Speaker 1: action in order to quote create a tradition and basis
Speaker 1: for a new humanist culture, social self organization, and radical
Speaker 1: resistance against militarism, capitalism, sexism, and fascism. They consider the
Speaker 1: existing government of Russia as entirely illegitimate. They refused to
Speaker 1: take part in Russian electoral politics, seeing even left wing
Speaker 1: opposition parties as essentially controlled by Putin and only existing
Speaker 1: to provide a sham vision of choice. A D activists
Speaker 1: call themselves the Autonomy and see their calling as twofold
Speaker 1: to exist as autonomous, free individuals within an unfree system
Speaker 1: and to spread revolutionary sentiment and weaken the state. Much
Speaker 1: has been said in the West of Alexei Navalny, a
Speaker 1: Russian opposition politician who, whatever else you might say about him,
Speaker 1: is certainly not controlled opposition. He has survived an assassination
Speaker 1: attempt by the Putin regime and is currently incarcerated after
Speaker 1: leaving his exile in the West to return to Russia
Speaker 1: and fight the sham case against him in court. No
Speaker 1: one can doubt that Navalny possesses significant physical courage, and
Speaker 1: it seems fair to say the man believes in what
Speaker 1: he says. A D Activists, from what I have seen,
Speaker 1: do not fault him in his willingness to suffer for
Speaker 1: his beliefs, but they believe that he is at the
Speaker 1: very least deeply misguided. Navalny, they say, holds to a
Speaker 1: fundamentally errant belief that Russia could ever be a parliamentary
Speaker 1: democracy in the Western tradition. Their argument is that corruption,
Speaker 1: investigations and electoralism are useless in Russia and always have been,
Speaker 1: and from a historical standpoint it is difficult to argue
Speaker 1: with these claims. Autonomous Action members do not support the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian state, and I have read articles from them where
Speaker 1: they describe the conflict in the Dawn Bass, which simmered
Speaker 1: for eight years before sploating into the current conflagration, as
Speaker 1: two fascist paramilitary forces backed by two capitalist governments. However,
Speaker 1: they have been consistent for years that the proper stance
Speaker 1: of Russian anarchists is to support the Ukrainian people against
Speaker 1: aggression from the Russian state, before Putin commenced his broader invasion.
Speaker 1: In February of this year, Autonomous Action published an article
Speaker 1: with the title why we should support Ukraine quote Putin
Speaker 1: is not just the gendarme of Europe, but the gendarme
Speaker 1: of the whole world. From Syria to Myanmar. Whenever a
Speaker 1: dictator tortures and kills thousands of his old people, Putin
Speaker 1: is there to support him. There are no elections in
Speaker 1: Russia anymore. Even the most moderate attempts to change something
Speaker 1: results in criminal cases and persecutions. I do not believe
Speaker 1: that the result of this yet another round of threatening
Speaker 1: declarations and building up pressure is a full scale war.
Speaker 1: But as the conflict is not disappearing, a full scale
Speaker 1: war may start after five to ten years, even as
Speaker 1: a result of a cycle of escalation, even if no
Speaker 1: one really wants it. And in case of a full
Speaker 1: scale war, we should be on the Ukrainian side. As
Speaker 1: Mala Testa said, for me, there is no doubt that
Speaker 1: the worst of democracies is always preferable, if only from
Speaker 1: the educational point of view, then the best of dictatorships
Speaker 1: neutrality and a war between Ukraine and Russia would mean
Speaker 1: neutrality in an invasion of a democracy by a dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Now our source concurs with the extant evidence that Russian
Speaker 1: citizens still broadly support the war. As I stated earlier,
Speaker 1: nanton attacking Russia with no people don't know, he was
Speaker 1: certain to acknowledge that there's still a great deal of propaganda,
Speaker 1: largely pro NATO propaganda on the anti war side of things.
Speaker 1: Given the information situation within his country, he admitted that
Speaker 1: he'd had difficulty parsing some things out, while acknowledging that
Speaker 1: his side also lacked perfect information, he felt that their
Speaker 1: stance against the war was safe because in the end
Speaker 1: it opposed blood letting. You can claim on some kind
Speaker 1: of or the Western growing. Oh if even if you're
Speaker 1: under some kind of work, even West Western is basically
Speaker 1: a case as well, you still of this world on
Speaker 1: your side because you don't want to. He did admit
Speaker 1: that a number of people in his life, family and
Speaker 1: close friends knew about his political sympathies, and he claims
Speaker 1: that the outbreak of war and the massive futalitarian swing
Speaker 1: Putin has taken over the last month have caused some
Speaker 1: of these people to be more open to his beliefs.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of opening for them. One people, one
Speaker 1: of them people watch points or oh, my friends, do
Speaker 1: you know what I want to kind of stuff what
Speaker 1: I'm into, or as the war stone, or they just
Speaker 1: came to me. However, personally, hey, you've been concurring for this,
Speaker 1: so wint for years you've been telling us on us
Speaker 1: or for years I thought you'd be annoyed and not understand.
Speaker 1: You're right, What do we do? Oh, we don't have
Speaker 1: people knowing about me? What what gives no? Seeing the
Speaker 1: picture At the moment, the political situation within Russia is
Speaker 1: truviously answered. All the inner of dubious sources have claimed
Speaker 1: today palace coup is in the offing or has been attempted.
Speaker 1: Some have even spoken of the possibility of a revolution,
Speaker 1: or at least a massive protest campaign that forces Putin
Speaker 1: from office. Our source did not consider that likely in
Speaker 1: the unlikely event the government collapsed entirely, he was not
Speaker 1: particularly optimistic about what might result. You mentioned the centralised
Speaker 1: governments for you and there is no They're just that,
Speaker 1: just the originals like Oh, it's He mentioned me that
Speaker 1: a number of his loved ones had come forward recently
Speaker 1: to ask what they ought to do. I asked how
Speaker 1: he responded to that question. Right now, we try to
Speaker 1: organize and help each other because there is a there
Speaker 1: is a chance or currency local stuffing, and we'll just
Speaker 1: need to survive. That's the first thing weak. So soft
Speaker 1: organization and interactions are available than any currency or no.
Speaker 1: For what I see it the way, Uh. Second thing
Speaker 1: is that we need to use the training or start.
Speaker 1: I guess there's there's a term in English cause every
Speaker 1: week don't or when you have all infrastructure. Basically for
Speaker 1: now we need to have from enough folding of water
Speaker 1: points we all can train even with the forums. He
Speaker 1: particularly mentioned to the revolutionary importance of finding some way
Speaker 1: to either smuggle or produce medical supplies and medications. He
Speaker 1: knows one person who already had to flee the country
Speaker 1: because his wife could no longer get the medicine she needed.
Speaker 1: He mentioned the sanctions levied against Russia as a major
Speaker 1: issue for regular working people, but when I asked what
Speaker 1: he felt Western countries could do in this conflict, he
Speaker 1: was actually quite focused on something else Entirely. He believes
Speaker 1: the United States has access to high quality satellite images
Speaker 1: of what happened in the immediate lead up to the
Speaker 1: Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin's government justified much of their
Speaker 1: invasion on so called attacks from the Ukrainian government that
Speaker 1: they claim it escalated against the separatist regions. Our source
Speaker 1: believes his government is lying about this, or many states
Speaker 1: so here's the same thing, or yeah, we need to cope.
Speaker 1: Of course it's been queen so it's I don't believe
Speaker 1: that Ukraine or so being with let's say, less of
Speaker 1: military or compared to Russia or not so she stuff,
Speaker 1: So we didn't need those things coped published at least
Speaker 1: maybe not as long as possible. Constan still point all
Speaker 1: would at least it's helpful people see you get there
Speaker 1: are points queer from its good. Since the invasion, it
Speaker 1: has gotten notably harder, but not impossibly hard for Russian
Speaker 1: said to get information about the conflict that does not
Speaker 1: come from the Kremlin. Are starts explained. How he does
Speaker 1: it a combination of using VPNs and understanding the nature
Speaker 1: of authoritarian propaganda. In short, even when the government is
Speaker 1: lying to you, you can get an idea of what
Speaker 1: the truth is by understanding what they want you to believe.
Speaker 1: When work stuff all sources, what science, I saw it
Speaker 1: South Korean side, Russia side, great side, Oh so stopped
Speaker 1: as well. I don't really believe in me. Sal let's
Speaker 1: see firsts because they are past they say, what's going to?
Speaker 1: What's they're trying to contain to? O? Or if you
Speaker 1: have say Okay, let's this one. Uh. When Russian Ministry
Speaker 1: of Foreign first selling or down the solution, and at
Speaker 1: the same time we hear all the Syrians, Syrian or
Speaker 1: mercenaries are going to rail for me, it means one
Speaker 1: thing they want to us pull or the pointing to
Speaker 1: get some time so professional sources councils. He felt that
Speaker 1: one way US activists could be helpful to Russian activists
Speaker 1: was by continuing to document and study the different munitions
Speaker 1: and tactics used by police in cracking down on demonstrations.
Speaker 1: He noticed that Russian police used similar and sometimes even
Speaker 1: the same weapons to the ones that the US police
Speaker 1: used on crowds in the protests. He believes the documentation
Speaker 1: done to study these weapons is helpful to people all
Speaker 1: around the world. He expressed some frustration at friends and
Speaker 1: colleagues of his, who, after years of failing to truly
Speaker 1: grapple with the degree to which Putin had centralized power,
Speaker 1: We're now fleeing Russia to avoid living under an increasingly
Speaker 1: totalitarian state. A swampy colleagues. I guess our radio whatever
Speaker 1: he was trying to support me like stuff scoring all
Speaker 1: the sports cop Russians. Yes, if you into bonus, that's
Speaker 1: for him trying to blame him hence it and that's
Speaker 1: why against against the commers, he has decided to stay
Speaker 1: and to resist. While he has admitted to now studying
Speaker 1: martial arts and military tactics, he did not have high
Speaker 1: hopes for any kind of confrontation with the Russian state,
Speaker 1: and as a generally peaceable person, he has decided that
Speaker 1: he will continue to resist in the way that makes
Speaker 1: the most sense to him, by helping people and providing
Speaker 1: them with things that they will increasingly need. Is the
Speaker 1: economic situation in Russia degrades further for me? How many
Speaker 1: people most kind of since constant sense for yeah, that's
Speaker 1: for at least six years or one. Uh, but then
Speaker 1: that once a thing about arcists and wishould I call
Speaker 1: myself and you okay, before I call myself an alarchists,
Speaker 1: then I should make once a more thing. Oh I
Speaker 1: need to before I don't know if him people, uh
Speaker 1: gotta Checkay it could happen here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.