Russian Party of Pensioners Manifesto

[mattd]

Thanks for that,Im going to publish it on Indymedia soon,real soon.

If you are into cryptoanarchy with the emphasis on the anarchy,you may 
enjoy this...

Elliott Abrams, who had pleaded guilty in 1981 to lying to Congress over 
the conduct of the war, was installed by the president to head his "office 
for democracy and human rights". See Tom Lehrer again. His criminal offence 
was described by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as "a matter of the 
past".
We used to say, NO to Western Imperialism and NO to Soviet Imperialism 
both. Self determination for ALL PEOPLES!
One Empire has fallen. One still has to fall. But we should not mourn the 
passing of the Soviet prison of nations.
The Minister of Education and the Minister of the Interior were 
assassinated. Students and young workers, determined to destroy the 
existing order, turned to the writings of Bakunin and Kropotkin for 
inspiration and with dynamite and pistol hurled themselves against the State.
Working people, many of them recently arrived from the countryside to find 
employment in the vast new factories, elected representatives from their 
own class whom they could trust and whom they could remove at once if 
unsatisfactory. Strikes paralysed production, oppressed national groups on 
the borderlands rebelled, peasants burned and looted, and insurrection 
broke out
The revolt, although short-lived, inspired the young anarchist movement. In 
spite of increased repression, its 'Battle Detachments' raided gunshops and 
armouries in search of the Browning pistols they cherished. Officials, 
police and bosses were murdered and countless 'expropriations' of banks and 
houses of the wealthy took place. Gun battles with police ended in death, 
jail or torture.
This revolution, as a participant observed, was 'a purely spontaneous 
phenomenon, not at all the fruit of party agitation.' People were 'fired by 
a sense of unlimited freedom, a liberation from the restraints of their 
society.'
'Down with Authority and Capitalism' on black banners.
Anarchists seized the mansions of the rich. One became 'The House of Rest', 
with rooms for reading, discussion and recreation and a children's 
playground in the garden.
world-wide revolution based on free federations of urban and rural communes.
In 1908 Nestor Makhno had been given a life sentence for the assassination 
of a police chief. Freed in 1917, he was elected head of the Soviet of 
Peasants and Workers in Gulyai-Polye. With an armed band marching behind a 
huge black banner on which was proclaimed 'Liberty or Death- The Land to 
the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers', Makhno began re-distributing 
the estates to the peasants. In 1918, when Austrian and White armies 
invaded the Ukraine, Makhno's partisans fought back: 'We will conquer not 
so that we may follow the example of past years and hand over our fate to 
some new master, but to take it in our own hands and conduct our lives 
according to our own will and our own conception of truth'.
By the following spring the invaders were driven out and Gulyai-Polye was 
free from external control. Organising regional conferences of peasants, 
workers and insurgents, Makhno began to establish anarchist communes based 
on equality and mutual aid.
At first the Bolsheviks hailed him as a 'courageous partisan' and 'great 
revolutionary', but subsequently attacked him as an 'anarcho-bandit'. Two 
Cheka agents were sent to assassinate Makhno, but the agents were caught 
and themselves shot. When Makhno invited Red soldiers to the Congress, a 
furious Trotsky declared him an outlaw, banned the Congress and sent troops 
to break up the anarchist communes.
At this moment the Whites invaded again, driving on Moscow. Bolsheviks and 
anarchists were sent reeling, yet Makhno's army counter-attacked 
successfully. Trotsky used the time he had been given to re-organise the 
Red Army. By Christmas the Whites were expelled. Makhno's anarchists 
promptly entered Ekaterinoslav, threw open the jails and told the people 
that they were now free to organise their own lives. Freedom of speech, 
press and assembly was declared for all except authoritarian parties, which 
were dissolved. Bolsheviks were advised to 'take up some honest trade'.
Again Trotsky outlawed Makhno and serious fighting raged for eight months 
until Whites invaded yet again. Trotsky appealed for Makhno's help, 
promising in return the release of all imprisoned anarchists and complete 
freedom of expression, short of urging the overthrow of the Bolshevik 
government. The Whites were finally defeated.
With victory secure, Trotsky shot all the Makhnovist military commanders, 
attacked Makhno's HQ and wiped out the staff. The Cheka arrested members of 
the Nabat in Kharkov; throughout Russia, anarchist clubs, groups and 
newspaper offices were raided and closed down. Although badly wounded, 
Makhno, together with the remnants of his insurgent army, evaded the 
Bolsheviks for a year. Escaping eventually to Paris, he died in 1934 of 
alcohol and TB.
Surviving anarchists launched a campaign of terror against the Bolsheviks. 
In September 1921, they blew up the Communist Party Moscow, leaving 67 dead 
or wounded.
The anarchists were an immense influence on the popular revolution because 
their aims coincided with the people's desire to sweep away state and 
capital. For a brief moment it did seem possible that a social revolution 
would destroy all authority and create a decentralised society of 
voluntarily cooperating free individuals. But the anarchists' warning that 
power corrupts all who wield it - that authority stifles the revolutionary 
spirit and robs people of freedom - was ignored.