#83: Anti-War Resistance in Russia

Even as Russian forces continue their brutal assault on Ukraine, a growing domestic uprising is challenging the empire from within. This episode of the Ex-Worker focuses on the anti-war movement in Russia, analyzing it from an anarchist perspective and assessing the regime's power and vulnerability. The episode opens with a call to action from the March 6th day of protest across Russia and a summary of militant direct actions against the war machine. An anarchist in the provinces shares a first-person reflection on the evolution of the anti-authoritarian movement and its prospects in today's crisis, while an analysis from Autonomous Action considers Putin's miscalculations, the information war, international dynamics, and possibilities for resistance. An independent journalist discusses the nature of the protests, police responses, migration and diaspora, censorship, the role of NATO, and lessons to learn from the invasion and the protest movement. We close out with a Syrian refugee collective's reflections on how their experiences in the Syrian revolution and civil war can inform how international observers relate to the conflict. And just for fun, we throw in some hair-raising Russian songs related to protest and war. We'll continue our coverage of the crises in Ukraine and Russia—and much more—in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. {March 11, 2022}  

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• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:01}
  • [Protester’s Song From a Russian Police Van] {5:29}
  • Spring is Coming: March 6th Call to Action {6:38}
  • Anarchist Fighter on Radical Anti-War Actions {12:57}
  • My Days in Russia {20:31}
  • The Kremlin’s Fatal Miscalculation {32:36}
  • Interview with Dmitrii {47:05}
  • War in Ukraine: Ten Lessons From Syria {1:18:09}
  • Conclusion {1:42:23}

• This episode includes Spring is Coming: March 6th Call to Action, and the piece “My Days in Russia,” originally published as part of the article “The View From Ukraine, The View From Russia”.

• The piece “The Kremlin’s Fatal Miscalculation” is a translation of the transcript of the March 6 episode of Trends in Order and Chaos, the podcast from the anarchist media platform Autonomous Action.

• The roundup of radical actions by Anarchist Fighter included references to an auto attack on a police cordon in Pushkinskaya Square, a molotov cocktail attack on a military registration/enlistment office in Voronezh, an anti-war attack on the Kremlin wall, and the teenage anarchist Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who died in a 2018 attack on the FSB headquarters in Arkhangelsk.

• During our interview, Dmitrii recommended a few English-language news sources on Russian politics, including Open Democracy, Meduza, and The Russian Reader.

• By the way: if you have any trouble with the accent or wording in the live interview, you can always read along with the transcription in our full transcript, which is lightly edited for easier understanding.

• The episode concludes with the piece War in Ukraine: Ten Lessons From Syria, written by participants in La Cantine Syrienne, a transnational collective of Syrian refugees based in the suburbs outside of Paris, France. For further background on the Syrian Revolution, civil war, the refugee crisis it spawned, and “anti-imperialism,” see our coverage on The Syrian Underground Railroad and Understanding the Kurdish Resistance, and other pieces such as “Safe,” by the Edge of Syria, “The Anti-Imperialism of Idiots” by Leila Al Shami, etc.

• The music we included in this episode includes the spine-tingling singing of a group of young Russian protestors detained in a police van on their way to jail and an old Soviet song sung during the USSR’s doomed Afghan war, “Just don’t tell mom I’m in Afghanistan” – also see a follow-up to the same song from the next Russian regime’s bloody imperial folly, “Just don’t tell mom I’m in Chechnya”.

• The Ex-Worker is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network, an English-language anarchist radio and podcast network run by radical media makers. Several other CZN participants, including The Final Straw Radio, Elephant in the Room, and This is America by It’s Going Down, have done their own coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so definitely check out those projects through the links above if you want to hear more.