Alexey Tsvetkov. New Russian anarchism.

New Russian anarchism.
Part 2

Alexey Tsvetkov

Publication date: March 11, 2001

Word assignment

Why in Europe do all sorts of punks, junkies, provosts and other informals organize unauthorized demonstrations, live in communities in occupied houses, and are even caught by the police in acts of anti-system sabotage? Because there are many books addressed to them, clarifying the tactics, strategy, philosophy, aesthetics and esotericism of anarchism. London propagandist O'Hara's latest bestseller, Not Just Noise, is worth a lot. In short, the pathos of this work, written in the best traditions of gonzo journalism, is this: we would like to live without power and money, according to the “cave-communist” rules, but waiting for a bright future may not be enough life, so we need to learn ourselves and help others to ensure such life right now on foreign and alienating territory, no matter what the cost. Or “The Defiant Pose”, “The Reader in Psychological Warfare” - porno-political novels by Stuart Home , who dreams of “taking the consciousness of a controlled citizen from the back door, planting there a nameless passion, anxiety and hope at the same time, not planned by the engineers of democracy, creating a crack from which the revolt of the new millennium will surge, overturning the devilish tower of the world hierarchy" .

In addition to samizdat, our anarchs and sympathizers found their “headquarters of the cultural revolution” in the person of the Moscow publishing house “Gileya” , led by Sergei Kudryavtsev. "Gilea" was once the most rabid of the futurist groups of the beginning of the century, led by the then famous anarchists and punks Mayakovsky and Burliuk. The modern “Gilea” of the 90s began, in fact, with reissues of futurist classics, like the theatrical provocateur Zdanevich , but soon Sergei Kudryavtsev began to look around with interest in search of the current “literary bombers” and found plenty of them. Down's mooing, ugly cough and bandit whistle in the face of the extinct bourgeoisie returned to life, along with this bourgeoisie itself, in an improved and expanded version.

Brener's first "Gilean" books are poems, but poems that can easily be torn out of the collection and handed out on the street as proclamations of rebellion. Then Brener met the German anarchist Barbara Schurz and together with her wrote the textbook “54 Technologies of Resistance to Power” - a detailed and fascinating overview of international partisan practice over the last half century, accompanied by a primitivist comic book.

Kudryavtsev opens the X-series with Dima Pimenov’s anti-psychiatric novel “Mutrevolution”, in which “the new literature of the uprising” is published. Pimenov even organizes the “Union of Revolutionary Writers”, but does not have time to get going, as he is forced to leave for Prague due to persecution by the competent authorities. at the site of the explosion of the slot machine hall in Manege A Soyuz leaflet was found . Dima's recent triumphant return to Russia gives many “professional offenders” very high hopes for a second life for this organization.

Kudryavtsev collects and publishes another book: “Anarchits” - for completely social books. With the support of Gilea, left-wing theorists led by Anatoly Osmolovsky are reviving Radek, a magazine for artists who feel they are engaged in radical politics and for political activists who feel that their work is high art. New ones are quickly growing out of this project - “mailradek” , an independent anarchist newsletter of alternative news, interviews and theoretical texts, and “hendradek”, a militant leaflet of young art radicals, scourging on ashen paper all “alienating” institutions and “repressive” relations. The whole country watched the editorial office of Hendradek in December 1999 on the famous balcony of the mausoleum with the white and black slogan “Against everyone!”, in the sense that one must vote. Standing on the mausoleum without asking anyone, not being either a general secretary, or a minister, or even a revolutionary guest from Latin America, is, by the way, another example of “appropriation” - a preventive measure that rids one’s head of the creeping viruses of “taken for granted” power . As part of the same “anti-election” campaign, anarchs with toy weapons smashed brand new televisions on Teatralnaya Square against a rock with Marx’s head. Collections of articles and poems “Against All Parties” are now published regularly under the supervision of two anarcho-theorists Oleg Kireev and Ivan Zasursky. After 6% of voters in Moscow signed the “against all” box, the authors no longer wonder if they have an audience. Kireev is famous for the fact that, when the second Chechen war began, he threw bottles of red paint at the State Duma until he was caught by security, that is, a stubborn person.

On New Year's Eve 2000, Kudryavtsev released a book, "Gorgulov's Option," cut from newspaper reports, which in neo-anarchist circles now plays the role of a "holy life." Gorgulov, a Russian emigrant, a mad poet and, according to various versions, an agent of various intelligence services, who did not obey any of them, shot the French President Doumer at point-blank range in 1932. A ready-made cultural figure for those gathering under the black flag.

A collection of the same Commandant Marcos is being published - myths, legends and the program of the guerrillas of the state of Chiapas. Gileya also took the next, logically inevitable, step. In the spring of 2000, a virtual magazine appeared, the name of which was dragged above the heads of the demonstrators at the beginning of this article. For those who do not have a computer and a permanent place of residence, a paper version is distributed.

The esotericism of anarchism was taken over by another, completely new publishing house, Alex Curvey - T-ough Press . One of our best translators from the beatnik world, a man with a dark London past, Alex, following Burroughs, believes that the opportunity for anarchy was missed by Europeans three centuries ago, when the authorities suppressed attempts by pirates to create colonies on the islands living according to free libertarian principles. But this opportunity is never completely missed; it remains a temptation looming in the depths of consciousness. The conflict from which everything worth anything is born is, according to Kervey, the confrontation between a quiet majority and a semi-criminal community that maintains a partisan lifestyle from century to century.

T -ough Press most incomprehensible and dangerous story, published Burroughs's "A Phantom Chance," and the anonymous black-occultist "Code of Doom," which one by one knocks off all the sacred cows of political correctness. Parsons' "Freedom Is a Double-Edged Sword" and Home's "Art Strike and Symptomatic Terrorism" are planned. Revolutionary teleism, attacking respectable consciousness, is called upon to destroy all hierarchical ties and church-academic ethics closed to money. wrote a hundred years ago As the leader of the English anarchists and black magician Theodor Reuss , who, by the way, initiated the young Aleister Crowley into all occult affairs : “Reality will be given to us in all its possible experiences only after we have bothered to destroy the greedy intermediaries between the arterial pulse of reality and by us. In other words, you become a man, a godlike Adam, only if you exclude the possibility of any power over yourself other than your own free voice." . You can't say better than a classic.

Assignment of theory

People's worldview is their more or less conscious experience. If you have read this far, it means you already know enough about anarchist practice and can easily guess, or even independently complete, modern anarchist theory.

There is an old man in America, Murray Bookchin, he loves all animals and birds very much, just like our Drozdov, and therefore proposes to carry out an international revolution before the market-consumer machine programmed for suicide turns the world into one continuous Chernobyl. By the way, he wrote two dozen books. There is a seditious pedophile Hakim Bey, who wandered around all sorts of east for a long time, and then issued “Mobile Autonomous Zones” and “Millennium”. He preaches political Sufism: “poetry with the fiery soul of metaphysics, dressed in the camouflage robe of social activism . ” According to Hakim Bey, as soon as the authorities cease to perceive the texts of nonconformists as terror, real terror takes on the features of poetry and even philosophy. He is echoed by the strategist of “guerrilla warfare in the big city” Marigella. Until recently , the Deleuze-Guattari couple was in good health , fooling everyone with their “schizoanalysis” and hinting that resistance in a modern society of control is more necessary than personal hygiene, and that is why the majority do not feel the need for it.

There are many other anarcho-ideologists and anarcho-dandies, living and dead, who have already been mentioned in this article. All of them have recently been actively translated into Russian and published more or less legally; I’ll say more, we have our own analogues. That's not the point. The fact is that anarchism is always more of a question than an answer. The question of anarchists is simple: are we capable of living our lives without political, spiritual, economic and other authorities? And if so, why do we live differently? And if not, why do we live at all? You can often hear: “Well, maybe someday in the future.” And this is no longer hopeless; anarchists ask such people the following questions. How soon? Are you going to survive? What does it take to bring this closer? Their website has a special section for readers called “Send Your Revolution Project.”

They themselves prefer to live by these “impossible” rules today, because they do not understand why they should wait. The evolutionary theory of the gradual enlightenment of minds is not very confirmed, so many anarchs consider themselves not “shards of the future,” but bearers of an alternative libertarian tradition, something like a hidden race or aliens disguised to human standards. Theory pushes to action. There have always been people who perceived the anarchist imperative most acutely and literally. The system always tracked them and, just in case, tried to isolate them in any way and under any pretext. Throughout 1999, a group of Krasnodar anarchs was accused of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor. The process fell apart in court. Now the special services are actively leaking information to newspapers about a certain “New Revolutionary Alternative,” a group allegedly consisting of fifty anarchists who are blowing up FSB offices and military registration and enlistment offices. Six girls are already in custody in this case, two of whom, according to the press, were hiding in the taiga community of neo-Khlysty Vissarion. Dozens of searches, interrogations and informal “conversations” were conducted. This whole detective story looks like Pimenov’s crazy prose about “crazy intelligence officers,” but the conflict is eternal: the anarchists are plotting something while the state exists, and, conversely, it is watching them and catching them while they cherish suspicious intentions. “Dolby System” is the name of one of the most respected Russian punk bands by anarchs. It would be more than naive to expect passivity from the system. Every beautiful utopia has an eerie side, reeking of gunpowder and blood. Any ideological dream machine one day turns out to be an infernal machine, that is, an explosive device that can easily tear off your hands.

Appropriation of the future

I’m used to the fact that the heresy I chose ten years ago, which doesn’t fit into anything, is needed, to put it mildly, by a few. But in this “millennium” year, I can’t shake the feeling that the picture is changing in the most unexpected direction. And these premonitions are fueled not only by television footage of European unrest. For example, the “thrash metal king” Spider from the group “Metal Corrosion”, a purely commercial and pop figure, officially registered the “Anarchist Party” and holds Makhnovist parties in clubs like the “Wild West” with striptease, portraits of the old man, moonshine and baked covered in blood with cow heads. Of course, all this has nothing to do with anarchism yet, but the choice of name itself is very symptomatic.

For the first time this new syndrome pricked me from the inside in a conversation with Ilya Falkovsky, curator of the Pushing club. He told me about a completely new type of young people whom Ilya increasingly sees in his club. They don’t drink Coca-Cola because it’s a big corporation and they are actively against corporateism. They do not eat genetically modified foods, considering them food for slaves and dogs. They have a bad attitude towards military service, although they are far from pacifists, they wear camouflage in combination with long hairstyles or dreadlocks and, in general, know how to physically insist on their own. They support Khattab on the Chechen issue, because “even though he is a bandit, he is waging war against both the small and the great Shaitan.” The small Shaitan is the Russian political system, the big one is the American one. The guys are especially pleased with the tons of counterfeit “Ichkerian” dollars that can destabilize the global financial system. They ignore the elections, but, wearing masks, sometimes appear at demonstrations where they wave black flags with an inverted fiery pentagram or a white letter @. However, they do not like Russian rallies because of the low likelihood of what the newspapers call “street riots.” They listen only to ideologically proven music (see previous part).

“But this is anarchism,” I couldn’t resist. Ilya agreed with me, he also imagines some new, only palpable anti-system and recklessness in the heads of young individuals who are not very happy with the new structure of the fur farm. In the country where Misha Bakunin, Petya Kropotkin and Nestor Ivanovich Makhno once lived, nothing is impossible.