In politics there are so many truths as there are lies. Statements and analyses built on the foundations of the subjectivity of the interests they defend. Since the very first moment of the powers of russian expansionism invading the territories that previously belonged to the Ukrainian sovereignty, countless analyses of the causes and conditions of the military intervention have been recorded. Geostrategic analyses, articles in political and financial columns, and even philosophical texts record the narrative of what is happening in the present time at the behest of each narrator. Our truth escapes from the mouth of the victims of this conflict: this is not war, this is politics (statement of a Russian refuser of conscription in a conscription office).
Russia invading Ukrainian territory is a conflict with national and imperialist characteristics without any class orientation. A war that, no matter the winner, will once again find the international proletariat defeated in history, regardless of the nationalistic heads that its tyranny serves. Russia is building up a rival awe towards the Euro-Atlantic Alliance, the world community condemns the war by applying trade sanctions, white at the same time it supports with material equipments and regarding manpower the ukrainian troops.
At the same time that the hands of those in power flirt more and more with a nuclear catastrophe, simultaneously, the rising of far-right of the countries of the democratic arc causes tremors inside NATO and the European Union. A typical example is the election of the fascist Meloni-Salvini-Berlusconi coalition for the first time in Italy after Mussolini’s government, a formation with openly pro-war rhetorics of hate.
For the international community, the consequences of this war, which is becoming more general day by day, are the energy imbalance in the positions of those in power and authority and the geostrategic changes with the annexations of new territories to Russia’s sphere of influence, while Ukraine is officially integrating into the NATO. For us, the face of this war lies in the thousands of mass graves of civilians, in the people who are forced to leave their land, in the hundreds of broken families, in the scorched earth left behind by the bombings – what the narratives will record as new peaceful missions, in the areas that are now a war zone and turn into camps as the borders are sealed on both sides for those who refuse death as a condition of life.
To war we respond with war
And if our thoughts are on the side of the victims of this war, our hearts fight without a doubt on the side of the struggling anti-war movement that captures in action the social delegitimization of warmonger dogmas. Far away from and against those who are close to the needs of the imperialist centers, a hope is born through those who devalue participation in ethno-referential hostilities in practice and sabotage the militarist net through demonstrations, refusals of conscription and attacks on military and administrative targets.
Russia and Ukraine are sealing their borders under the threat of military refusal while at the same time NATO’s sanctions are applied to Russian citizens indiscriminately, regardless of their position concerning the war. And yet, in the midst of the militaristic dystopia, since the beginning of the war, an anti-war movement with militant characteristics is breaking out, showing that what divides the armies, unites the people of Russia and Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, over 54 recruitment offices have been attacked – in one of which activist Aleksey Rozhkov was arrested for an arson attack on a recruitment center in a suburb of Yekaterinburg. Hundreds of demonstrations led to conflicts and riots which lead to thousands of arrests and imprisonment of protesters such as: Anastasiya Levashova, Vladimir Sergeev, Anton Zhuchkov, Zakhar Tatuyko, Valeriy Valerevich Dubenyuk, Igor Aleksandrovich Maltsev and Vitali Koltsov who are accused of clashes and attacks on SWAT units (the greek term of SWAT is MAT) with molotov cocktails. Dozens of direct actions took place targeting the infrastructure of Russia’s military and repressive apparatus, such as the sabotage on a railway line of the arsenal of the Central Directorate of Missiles and Artillery of the Ministry of Defense of Russia in Kirzhach, by the BOAK – Vladimir cell and the attack using a burning vehicle on a barrier of the police – an action for which activist Aleksey Nechushkin is imprisoned.
The counterattack of ukrainian forces joined by allied forces with the reclaim of territories such as Liman and the retreat of Russian troops led Putin to call for arms and conscriptions, a condition that led to a new round of violent conflicts in the metropolitan centers of Russia. Dozens of militant protests in regions such as Dagestan and Yakutia (as the government sends disproportionately more conscription calls to poor, deprived areas and areas of ethnic minorities) clash with repressive forces that have made over 2,300 arrests, while 11 self-immolation actions of young people against the conscription regime have been noted.Violent resistance is a new reality with the authorities losing control. On September 26, the 25-year-old Ruslan Zhinin broke into the Irkutsk conscription office and shot commander Alexander Elisheev, shouting that no one shall go to war. The commander is hospitalized in critical condition, but the firebacks are now striking at the heart of the warmongering imperialist centers.
The forces of the fighting revolutionary arc can neither join Putin’s side, in the name of a blind war against fascism, nor Zelensky’s side in alliance for “people’s liberation” with forces like the Order of Azov. Revolutionaries must take a stand against this (and any such) war. They have to construct the war propaganda through action, aiming the weapons of people against the enemy that speaks the same language as they do. Following the steps of our political forefathers who took the Vietman war to the European metropolitan areas we have to build an international revolutionary front that will turn the ethnocentric and imperialist tensions into civil-war proletarian hostile actions.
The Greek state is not an exception in the modern discourse woven by the constant interstate tensions. Since the announcement of the Truman Dogma in 1947 and the subsequent integration into the Euro-Atlantic Alliance, it has been an advanced NATO outpost, subordinating the services and needs of the American secret services. Whenever “necessity called for it” it granted land and water to set up everything from “peacekeeping missions” to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and even organized Gladio-style conspiracies. Today the greek state redeems its credentials not only by fueling the war on the side of Ukraine but also by militarizing the land, water and air space with armament programs and “Defense” cooperation agreements, adding more fuel to the fire of tension with the neighboring country. In a very dangerous game of making impressions, Mitsotakis and Erdogan balance the lives of millions of people on a thread ready to break. Greece is turning into the largest NATO base in the Mediterranean, serving the Alliance’s plans for Europe and the Middle East.
Si vis pacem para bellum
And if the political-military developments between Russia and Ukraine are a foreshadow of the tensions in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, the necessity to build an international anti-war movement with a revolutionary orientation and militancy makes it a matter of life and death. From the massification of conscription refusals that put the issue at the forefront of the confrontation until the formation of direct action nuclei, we are organizing social retaliation on the structures and existence of military rule.
The incendiary interventions of the Anarchist Action in administrative structures and the people of local and international militarism have exactly this orientation: to directly attack the faces and structures of the state and capitalism, the NATO alliance that camps in the lands where we live and fight, the nation and the church in order to turn the aggressive formation of the proletarian sphere towards the civil-centered confrontation. It is to immediately strike imperialist and diplomatic targets in order to make the greek space an inhospitable and hostile territory for security, stability and investments, while sending a message of resistance and international solidarity to our brothers and sisters outside the borders. To unite the forces of the cells of revolutionary violence of the metropolitan guerilla from Greece, Turkey to Russia, Chile and the ends of the world. Shatter the invulnerable showcase of tyranny before the majesty of patriotism fills flag-draped coffins.
The question of revolutionary war is firstly and always political. As General Giap noted “…what is needed is to discover the necessity of armed struggle. Weapons are always to be found”. The necessity of violent and unrepentant confrontation with tyranny. The necessity of declaring a relentless cycle of new hostile actions, where new direct action nuclei will come to the forefront of guerrilla warfare to wear down enemy infrastructure and personnel. Revolutionary violence is the refuge of the proletarian base for the sharpening of social and class conflicts and the self-defense of the people. And we are here without a trace of remorse to defend it from “friends” and enemies who envision the resistance as disarmed and surrendered to the history of class struggle.
Strength to the struggling anti-war movement
Unrepentant solidarity with its captives
From the total refusal of conscription to the sincere conscription of every refusal. For the Revolution, first and always
Thanos Chatziangelou, captive member of the organisation Anarchist Action
D’ wing, Korydallos prison
7/10/22
From: Athens Indymedia