The same energy is there today in Russia. There’s a pride in imperialistic, genocidal ambitions, and there is casual, proud use of genocidal language, cheering on the Russian bombs killing civilians and leveling towns.
Today, near my building, I saw that my neighbors had painted the “Z” symbol on their cars, this new swastika that marks the Russian military equipment going to attack Ukraine. They’re all in favor of the hellishness, the blood and death, the war. It’s so scary.
The default anti-military position is that when two imperial powers fight each other, you don’t take a side. This position is convenient but it’s not the situation that’s happening. There aren’t two imperialisms here, there’s just one imperialism against the people.
Japanese cooperatist anarchists were often just doing their everyday informal life practices that worked for them through mutual aid, with an ‘anarchist modern’ subjectivity that emphasized symbiosis with surrounding nature.
In several districts, local councilors practically took on the role of city councilors while current deputies either hid from their voters or openly stood with the Moscow city government, as in the case of the planned property development at the enormous Bitsa park.
Things were not exactly peachy during the first years of the Putin regime, but they became a hell of a lot worse after the Kremlin invaded Ukraine and went flying off to Syria to save Assad’s bacon from the fire of popular revolution.
If twenty years ago the post-Soviet world was “catching up” with the so-called “West,” it is the opposite today: post-Soviet Russia is the future of the West.
Russia’s noodling around, egging rightward mischief here and there, while entangled in shady deals worth millions, is a dark-money connection worth understanding.
The Penza Remand Prison was at such pains to show that none of the suspects were being tortured anymore that every evening all ten were “inspected.”
“In Penza, the FSB does not even bother to hide what they are doing. Officers show up at the remand prison there, and take their man to another room, where they have a generator and electrical wires set up.”
