The author does not seem to have read Azarov or at least his references to sources leave this impression. If he was doing his research right now, I would recommend him to browse one book for hints about how the RIAU called themselves, and for additional sources of literature. But in general, I think he has the right conclusion. :)

Kontrrazvedka: The story of the Makhnovist intelligence service - Vyacheslav Azarov

The PDF sadly isn’t searchable (it’s image, so it’s a black hole for most search engines).

My understanding: they called themselves the “Insurgent Army”, sometimes the “Insurgent Division” and did not declare a state or claim a territory. When they were popular and widespread, they were more formally known as the “Revolutionary People’s Army of Ukraine” and “Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine” (kontrrazvedka was the counterintelligence branch which did dirty deeds like assassinations, espionage, counter-espionage, sabotage, expropriation / grand theft, etc)

A related story:

The first known anarchist state, and perhaps the only one, was to my understanding a republic declared by rebelling sailors and fortress-builders of the Russian fleet on the tiny North Estonian island of Naissaar (Nargen). (source) The “state” was laughably tiny and the population too - but the name was backed by possession of two battleships (Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk), with the ironic twist that the crew far outnumbered island dwellers. The only body to ever recognize the “state” was the Soviet of Tallinn, which existed during a double rule (togehter with the prototype Republic of Estonia) in the power vacuum between the Czarist retreat and the advance of imperial German troops. Evacuating before the German advance, the battleships sailed first to Finland and then Kronstadt, and the anarchists of the short-lived republic became core organizers among the sailors who later rose up in the Kronstadt Rebellion.

I generally agree with CrimethInc articles so extensively that I I find it hard to pick at something in them.

This time, however, I find the claim…

Palestinian liberation will only come about as the result of a full-scale political crisis in the United States

…but I don’t find the evidence.

Firstly, Israel is not wholly dependent on US weapons, and according to most measures, it has already secured a military victory - at such cost in civilian lives that it’s a diplomatic defeat - everyone who can count the casualties and destruction knows that Israeli politicians gave zero fucks, alienated many supporters (they had great international support when Hamas attacked them) and very likely will receive an invitation to the ICC (hopefully along with Hamas leaders, so they can be tried together - reality may differ as both will try to avoid the court).

Also, if the claim were true, and a full-scale political crisis in the US was required for Palestinian liberation, then sadly, assuming a full political crisis incapacitates the government to some degree - there would be considerable risk that Palestinian liberation and Ukrainian independece sit on opposite plates of the scale. Myself, I don’t like the concept that one group’s liberation and another group’s freedom can be contradictory. However, it seems undeniable that the US war machine is currently supplying weapons for two main causes, one of them reasonably ethical (defending Ukraine) and the other not (bombing Gaza into a previous epoch of history).

Regarding what the US government actually does… I don’t read every article and post about diplomacy (so I could be missing a lot) but it appears to me that the US government is at the moment actively dissuading Israel from going into Rafah (the remaining comparatively less damaged settlement) - both by talk and refusal to send heavy air-dropped bombs.

This could be due to international pressure (the US has Arab allies and has to present some facade to them), could be due to protests (Biden surely worries about approaching elections). It could even work - but might not, because Israel has other sources of weapons and might empty its stockpiles of some categories to make the final push. :( Still, as a long-time and reliable donor, the US government has much leverage on Israel. Especially as it recently helped mitigate the Iranian missile and drone attack, downing Iranian munitions above Jordan and Iraq and perhaps elsewhere before they reached Israel. Biden can - overly simplified - send a message of “we assisted and protected you, we have your best interest in mind, and it’s in your best interest to stop now”. Netanyahu might listen or ignore the message.

In the end, however, a word of caution - whatever happens, whatever the US does - if Hamas returns to power, that will not be Palestinian liberation, because the Hamas guys weren’t liberating anyone. In fact, they were beating, imprisoning and killing some of their Palestinian political competitors for the old-fashioned goal of staying in power.

I literally cannot find the word “Hamas” in the article at all. It speaks of everyone except those who started the current war. That’s a massive oversight - oversight to the point of blinding oneself to a serious setback right around the corner. I’m not happy to see some of my comrades blinding themselves.

If one seeks a path to liberation, it has to include some recipe of not letting Hamas recover and return to power. And somehow getting lunatics out of Israeli government. The US has a role to play, and it may even be a decisive role, but as long as one side has rulers who prefer shooting civilians, and the other side has rulers who prefer to obliterate urban centers with bombardment… local political leadership must change, and no liberation will come unless it changes.

Thank you for the good wishes, and happy May Day as well.

Over here, it’s a public holiday but hardly anyone remembers what happened in Chicago…

…and to see people walk with red and/or black flags today, one would have to take a ship 80 km northwards. Still, one guy from the trade union of transport workers got his article published today, and I would not be surprised if smaller meetings happened where people did remember.

Damn.

Sadly, when you publish information about folks in the upper right corner - never let your guard down, as they are quite eager to try violence even if they won’t prevail. Antifascist activism benefits from staying anonymous.

This type of attacks aren’t an isolated occurrence, sadly. I can name a few cases from nearby countries, including one where I live. I will start with the worst:

1. A catastrophe

• Norway: the 2011 mass shooting and explosions by a terrorist named Breivik left 77 people dead. You can read about it from Wikipedia, since it reached headlines and set a precedent in terrorism in these parts of Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Sadly, where the gunman caused most damage - a leftist organization’s summer camp for children - had no defense at all. Any competent person with a functioning weapon (not even a firearm - a gunman with an arrow in them is harmless to bystanders) could have prevented great loss of life there.

2. A bad day

• Finland, one year later: no prior instances of terror had occurred, so there didn’t seem to be a reason to expect any. However, a new Nazi movement had raised its head. A book by some leftists was being introduced in the library of Jyväskylä. The book was titled “The Far Right in Finland”. A Finnish account of the events can be found at the website of Varis, their local network of antifascist activists.

In short: three Nazis from the now-banned organization “PVL” named Sebastian Lämsä, Paavo Laitinen ja Sampsa Muhonen attempted to enter using force, bringing along knives and bottles. Some folks from the local anarchist scene confronted them with chairs. One nazi managed to stab a punk in the back. The nazis were forced to escape and police found them all. The punk was rushed to treatment and the event proceeded.

3. A smooth ride

• Estonia, two years later: a presentation about far right organizations in Estonia was being held. Since we already knew that things can turn out badly like in Finland or worse like in Norway, we took some time to prepare. One person (yours sincererely) monitored the yard of the building involved from a remote location with binoculars, had radio contact with the people at the door, and was ready to intervene with a car. People at the door had more pepper than a van full of riot cops, and had a contingency plan to block the door with a good enough obstacle. Helmets were available in case fists, clubs or pepper would find use. Equipment was nearby which could be re-purposed to defend a corridor against a gunman.

Nazis did send threats. Some even convened in an opposite corner of the yard - but physical agression did not occur. Some folks came to the door and were denied entry after asking them questions. They obviously saw an unusual state of readiness and told their fellows not to try. Meanwhile, I had the privilege to observe a local city councilor (whose hobby at the time was railing about the autonomous social center in council) come to the yard, shake hands with the nazis and also try entering. Since he was a known person associated with the far right, he was denied entry. Nothing happened, all I got was photos of the city councilor shaking hands with nazis.

Sad.

For those who don’t know, Sudan has seen a number of wars during the past 70 years. The longest period of peace lasted about 10 years. Recently, war was mostly contained to southern parts of the country, with the armed forces and the Janjaweed cooperating against southern rebels (I recall hearing about the Janjaweed and their methods already in 2008).

Now the same factions fight each other. Several foreign countries have tried to mediate some negotiated settlement or at least a ceasefire. But some foreign countries have also supported some of the factions.

1955…1972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sudanese_Civil_War

1983…2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War

2003…2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur

2018… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_revolution

2023… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Sudan_(2023–present)

A recent article about Sudan from a German analyst: https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/mta-spotlight-30-how-not-to-talk-about-the-war-in-sudan

…and my take: when two or more authoritarian factions fight each other, and have comparable eagerness to violate human rights and commit war crimes, and there’s not enough anarchists to make a faction or make a difference… an anarchist can either emigrate, go anonymous or go apolitical. The latter is not a guarantee against being targeted - if random non-combatants are targeted, then apolitical people will also be targeted. It might be best to preserve oneself and wait for warrring factions to burn each other out, maintaining a low profile and helping local people without raising any banners.

Thank you. This is a long reading, but an interesting one. I have been curious about how it’s going in Rojava, but the war closer to home has overwhelmed my senses and attention. I’ve been a bit fearful that the Assad regime might recover and reconquer (ISIS seems a spent force by now), or that the Erdogan regime might think of some new way to menace them.

Some remarks to the article:

In most communities, the speed of structural change had far outpaced changes in public consciousness. /…/ In a statist revolution the question of structure is primary. The will of the people matters only insofar as it affects the power of the state. But if the goal itself is for power and initiative to flow from the bottom upward, then as a rule the revolution can only proceed at the speed of popular consciousness. For a community to truly govern itself, a critical mass of its people need to want to govern themselves in the first place, and they need to share some fundamental assumptions about what that means and why it is important.

A common problem. Doing a revolution at such a pace that it doesn’t scare the heck out of less adventurous people seems like a very difficult trick.

“Armed struggle is the easy part,” a community organizer named Baran once told me. “To pick up a gun and go to the front is simple. What’s difficult is to organize society, to build a new system.”

Baran is probably correct on the matter from one aspect: it is easy to start an armed struggle, and the matter of starting to fight an opponent - even if it’s overwhelming and ends in defeat - is not a complicated affair, but convincing people is endlessly complicated.

However, at the point where I view an illustration in the article - the graves of their martyrs, among them an YPJ commander who died in a Turkish drone strike - I feel that I have to argue against his point. Winning against an enemy who has access to more technology and more money, and collects resources from a bigger area with more people - even if they aren’t willing contributors - is not a trivial problem. Whether it’s Rojava trying to hold ground against Turkey or the Syrian dictator, or Ukraine trying to hold ground against Russia - numbers matter, technology matters, economy matters, diplomacy counts (Rojava, being landlocked among neigbours fearful of a Kurdish state, even if they affirm that they aren’t a state and won’t destabilize other states, is especially disadvantaged)…

…if an enemy can fly a strike drone into the heart of your free territory unhindered, and drop a laser-guided bomb on a delegate returning from a conference, then you have to choose (a nasty choice) between organizing a better society, improving education or medical care or economy… and organizing air defense. Which is why Turkey should be figuratively “dragged over coals” when it again attacks Rojava. I’m not even saying “if”, but only “when”. :(

War is a business that makes people and societies harsh and eventually - authoritarian. It is a great tragedy that another promising revolution is having to grow up amid war. :( I hope they manage to resist its influence.

I will keep in mind to check for a follow-up story because I don’t have any contacts in Rojava and they seem really under-represented on the web.

My inner anarcho-bureaucrat approves of this. ;P

Unity for the sake of unity has little purpose…

…but unity for a common goal, or solidarity with a person / group who’s been wronged - that has a lot of purpose. :)

If someone is being repressed, defending them should not depend on sharing my views. If someone is fighting back against repression, assisting them should should not depend on agreement about everything.

I wasn’t one of the downvoters, but I am one of the not-engagers.

It’s not a text, it’s a YouTube video… I don’t prefer videos as a source of information, they cannot be quoted, they cannot be scanned quickly. A video demands you to go all in.

Regarding voting: it’s what the current political systems in most countries use to determine which party gets to govern. Some notes:

• a population not using their right to vote will soon see a worse future
• a population only using their right to vote will not see a better future
• improving voting (e.g dropping “first past the post” and going proportional) may improve the political process
• an important political right is the ability to create a party and gain representation
• “first past the post” systems essentially deny people this right under all but the most dire circumstances
• but countries with a proportional multiparty system are still capable of failing
• replacing voting (e.g. with sortition) may bring additional improvements
• removing single person offices of great power (e.g. presidents) may further improve things
• decentralizing more aspects of power may further improve things
• regardless, sometimes a group of people will want to vote on a matter

Interesting article, thanks for sharing.

Upon reading, I came across some statements that I’d like to improve or alter, if it was me writing the text.

Each successive world system has a leading state

Here, I would say: there can be many. Multiple centers of power can exist and persist for long periods of time.

After World War II, the US took over from the UK and became the architect of the next world system, centered around a putatively universal order of states governed by the UN

The author has mis-stated the nature of the UN - it has no capability to govern. It’s a sofa corner where states chat through their delegates - and proceed to do what they really want. Only a small state takes a resolution of the UN seriously.

The US and its closest allies are no longer the main motors of economic growth, and the share of new investments they capture is diminishing.

Almost correct. China is on equal footing in terms of economic output, and still growing faster -> thus, likely to surpass the US. However, the “US and its closest allies” is a term that makes further comparison impossible - it could be right or wrong depending on how one charts alliances.

Politically, the NATO bloc had been expanding its web of alliances into territory that had long belonged in the Russian sphere of influence. Russia is pushing back in Ukraine

This sentence irritates me - a lot. Countries aren’t forced to join NATO, they choose to join NATO - Finland joined last year, Sweden will join this year, most of Eastern Europe joined when they could. Ukraine never joined and never seriously had a chance before the Russian invasion.

Russia’s “push-back” in Ukraine however, is not something Ukraine chose - it’s a full-scale war. NATO didn’t get Poland or Hungary or Estonia to join by waging a full-scale war against them. They just left the door open - the countries applied, nobody vetoed, they became members. A direct comparison between NATO expansion and Russia’s actions in Ukraine on such simple terms is highly inadequate, unless one’s trying to fool the reader.

divisions within NATO and the EU have recently immobilized those alliances

That would be false. The EU recently passed its 50 billion euros of aid to Ukraine. Member states continue to send armaments. Finland shipped its 22-nd armaments package to Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark have probably already handed over F-16 fighters (there have been photos of an F-16 in Ukrainian colors). France continues to supply artillery to Ukraine, Germany continues to supply air defense. Greece is negotiating the handing over of Soviet-made weapons. Bulgaria is supplying considerable amounts of ammunition and also giving away its Soviet-made war machines.

The sore thumb at the moment is the US - for several months in a row, the parliament of the US has been deadlocked, and 90% of the blame seems to be on Trumpist Republicans. About 60 billion of aid stands behind the deadlock - about as much as the EU gave, but this package of aid has higher percentage of critcally important weapons. Thus the fuss.

Elsewhere, Russia has suffered humiliating defeats, as in its inability to support Armenia against the expansionism of Azerbaijan

I would agree with this assessment, but I’d note that both Armenian and Azerbaijan are allies of Russia. It was supposed to mediate between them - in more direct terms, to play them against each other so they can be ruled over - but it failed due to being drawn out in Ukraine.

Turkey is acting on a strategic level like a non-aligned country, even as it continues to wield the ability to block consensus within NATO

Yes, it behaves like on. However, the blocking of Sweden’s NATO accession was overcome by US foreign policy - Turkey needed weapons systems which the Congress would not permit giving, unless Turkey would permit Sweden to join NATO. So recently, Turkey ratified the deal (Hungary still blocks at the moment).

In the US, the political elite already consider China an adversary worthy of a new Cold War, whereas in Europe, China is considered a partially reliable strategic partner. If something does not change quickly, the US will be relegated to the same status.

This assessment seems accurate, but I’d like to quote the EU on this. Their position is more complex:

“The EU sees China as a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival” – EU-China Relations factsheet

the US would need to make grand gestures in order to expiate their rotten brand: /…/ normalizing relations with China and Iran

Iran is actively supplying armaments to Russia for its war in Ukraine. China meanwhile has not excluded conducting a violent invasion of Taiwan, and drills their military for this course of action on regular basis. How does one normalize relations with an ally of an agressor, or a party preparing for agression?

…I actually liked the rest of the article.

P.S. As for legitimacy: yes, there are horrors in the behaviour of past US administrations. States get away with violating international law if they are powerful enough. :( The US has done to South America what the USSR did to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and various places it occupied. The USSR has crumbled (apparently, one of its successor states has the same habits). The US - has it reformed itself? I can only say “maybe”, “hopefully” but there’s no certainty. The system doesn’t look particularly different, people might have higher awareness and standards but the sprockets and wheels are the same.

My advise: if voting is a distraction, then don’t get distracted. It costs nothing. Cast it and care no more, focus on other things immediately after doing it. :)

You can’t build a better future by just voting, but you can use it to stop someone from running your society totally into ground.

In my imagined future, a country can climb down from voting to sortition, and decentralize the power of sortitioned representatives further downward until the state is just a label, but abandoning the present because of a future that’s out of reach - that’s not wise.

The present system needs attending to, until the next step is within reach.

For me, this question untangles like:

• do I have objections to indirect ownership?
• do I have objections to speculative investment?
• do I have objections to passive income?

To answer:

• I have objections to indirect ownership, so I don’t like the concept of owning shares in companies where I’m not involved - especially if those companies don’t have any kind of internal democracy. I might make an exception if a company did something I would consider very useful to society, or if a fund only dealt with companies that do something very useful. I would worry about oversight - how would I know which companies respect their workers?

• I don’t oppose speculative investment, but I do that rarely - only when I’m confident that a market is irrational and I know better. I consider most markets defective, allowing a person who finds a market malfunction to extract profit. In total, I have made a speculative investment about 5 times in my life. It can result in loss or profit - for me it has resulted in profit. I have maintained a hard rule for myself: I’m only allowed to invest money which I would not cry about losing, and I’m not allowed to hurry.

• I have limited objections to passive income. I don’t mind my neigbour earning money with a solar park he built with my assistance - if it provides kilowatt-hours to the grid, it’s not passive in my book… but I consider the proliferation of rent-seeking behaviour as a gateway to dystopian class society where people lose their autonomy. :( Additionally, I object because the country where I live (Estonia) taxes passive income lower than active income - another gateway to a dystopian future. However, if passive income was taxed appropriately (equally or higher than doing work), I would not have that objection since it would not destabilize society. I do not currently earn any passive income, and I have even stopped simulating it (over here, that is done to optimize taxes).

My answers reflect my own behaviour and may not particularly sync with any political or economic theory.

When I’ve had excess money, I have sometimes spent it to cheaply obtain something that is broken (in my case, a malfunctioning electric vehicle, the leftovers of a welding shop, such things) that I definitely know I can fix and sell for profit, or disassemble and sell without loss. I avoid such ventures when I’m not confident enough.