PETROGRAD, 1921
March 4 -- Late at night. The extraordinary session of the Petro-Soviet in the Tauride Palace was packed with Communists, mostly youngsters, fanatical and intolerant. Admission by special ticket; a propusk (permit) also had to be secured to return home after interdicted hours. Representatives of shops and labour committees were in the galleries, the seats in the main body having been occupied by Communists. Some factory delegates were given the floor. but the moment they attempted to state their case, they were shouted down. Zinoviev repeatedly urged the meeting to give the opposition an opportunity to be heard, but his appeal lacked energy and conviction.
Not a voice was raised in favour of the Constituent Assembly. A millworker pleaded with the Government to consider the complaints of the workers who are cold and hungry. Zinoviev replied that the strikers are enemies of the Soviet regime. Kalinin declared Kronstadt the headquarters of General Kozlovsky’s plot. A sailor reminded Zinoviev of the time when he and Lenin were hunted as counter-revolutionists by Kerensky and were saved by the very sailors whom they now denounce as traitors. Kronstadt demands only honest elections, he declared. He was not allowed to proceed. The stentorian voice and impassioned appeal of Yevdakimov, Zinoviev’s lieutenant, wrought the Communists up to a high pitch of excitement. His resolution was passed amid a tumult of protest from the non-partisan delegates and labour men. The resolution declared Kronstadt guilty of a counterrevolutionary attempt against the Soviet regime and demands its immediate surrender. It is a declaration of war.■
On Wednesday 23 October, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Russia to attend the BRICS summit, there was a deadly attack on the Turkish aerospace and a defence company TUSAS facility near Ankara by two militants from The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).[1] This would result in a return to the brutal barrage the Turkish […]
Its very easy to feel as though anarchism is in decline. What we hardly ever discuss is what success looks like. Maybe it’s a bit too neo-liberal to form a focus group and discuss how we measure success. A decade ago, I left London and moved to a small town in the middle of England. […]
... who can blame people for not immediately linking a basic human practice that anarchists call mutual aid with this particular politics, given how universal it is?
This essay is dedicated to all those who say to us “Why bother? It’s hopeless. Just move away to a more progressive state.”
Hello subscribers, readers, everyone, apologies that it's been some time since we gave a general update and have in fact quite quiet in general. Hopefully the following addresses the reasons why and what we intend to do about it.
A few months ago, I came across a funny anecdote in this article summarising police surveillance against Black Anarchist jailhouse lawyer and radical educator, Martin Sostre & his partner and comrade Geraldine Robinson. It described a peculiar scene during a three day riot in Buffalo, New York against police brutality starting on the 27th of […]