Moscow May Day (fwd)

[sjwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Wright)]

Subject: Moscow May Day (fwd)
From: Flora Tristan <tristan@xxxxxxx>
Reply-To: <oneunion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 01:08:48 -0700 (PDT)



Abolish wage-slavery; organize One Big Democratic Classwide Union.
http://iww.org/join/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 01 May 1997 20:26:31 +0300
From: cube@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: "Conference iww.news" <iww-news@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Recipients of conference <iww-news@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Moscow May Day

DEATH TO THE BOSS'S TRADE UNIONS! DOWN WITH SOCIAL
PARTNERSHIP! FUCK THE POLICE!

At about 10:20 today in Moscow, a really disgusting scene
happened during the unions' annual May Day parade. A group
of anarchists and left radicals, marching in the column of
the independent trade union "Volya" were attacked by the
police on the orders of the Federation of Independent Trade
Unions of Russia.

Let us state right off that many left groups have long ago
broken from the trade union's annual festivities and we too
hold our own independent festival or demonstration but
still, we, like many others, tend to go to the larger
demonstrations as well to meet with the workers and to offer
them more radical alternatives than the trade union bosses.
Many of us have participated in this May First demo before
and we partcipated in the March "strike" without any
incident. Today, of all days, we were fewer people than
usual (how many people want to meet at 8:30?) and we had
brought of course radical banners, but were saving the real
raucous stuff for our thing. Much of our literature was for
self-management and did not even mention anarchism. The most
radical things were banners reading "Death to the State and
Capital" and "We'll Take our Pay by Force".

Obviously the "organizers" of this demo (whom, by the way,
we know VERY WELL and include some of our ex-comrades who
became bureaucrats) had a problem with us being there from
the very start and asked the police to clear us out. They
can of course now "innocently" claim that they didn't know
what the police would do, that they didn't know that the
police could beat or arrest us. That's just shit. They
understood this - they don't give a shit. All they give a
shit about is that there were no people there to tell the
workers about what a bunch of traitor-whores they are. The
police came and starting beating and arresting people. Three
of our comrades were taken to the infamous 108th precinct
(where many of us or our friends have been beaten seriously)
and several were violently beaten. Now, two of our comrades,
Larisa and Nirmal, are in Botkin hospital suffering from
injuries inflicted by the police. Both have sustained
concussions from being beaten on the head with riot sticks,
both with beaten in the kidneys and Nirmal suffered some
broken ribs. We will know more about the extent of their
injuries later.

The three comrades taken in were fined and released. The
police obviously did not want another big scandal. (Last
week there were also arrests (Nirmal incidentally was one of
those taken in) which led to a press conference and some
noise.) At the station they met four Kurds who were also
arrested for trying to celebrate May Day. So much for the
holiday of workers' discontent.

So such are our fucking trade unions, the ones that try to
get the government to outlaw the other unions all the time,
the ones who are rich, who are in this all for their
political careers. Obviously we are now at full blown war
with them.

Despite these unpleasantries, we held our own demo outside
of Gorky Park. The weather was georgeous and we had good
leaflets but unfortunately they had set up all sorts of
carusels and stuff next to our demo and we looked, well a
little clownish trying to have a serious demo there. Had we
known... but no matter. About 40-45 people came, which was a
considerable drop from last year, but, in general there is a
more apathetic climate than last year. (The morning's demo
drew only about a quarter of the amount that came to the
March demo.) After the demo we walked around the city
tearing down, detourning and destroying fascist leafelts.
(They're here and they're there and they're everywhere.)
We stopped at the new Kropotkin statue (well, actually it's
Engels, but we were tired of looking at Engels standing at
the beginning of the former Kropotkin street, so we changed
it a little) and on Gogol Boulevard before heading to the
Balaklava Club for the Victor Serge Library party. On the
way we agitated people on the metro. (In the good sense and,
probably, the other as well.) At Balaklava we celebrated by
singing revolutionary anarchist songs from all over the
world. Tonight people will hold an anti-fascist concert in
the abandoned Lenin Hills metro station. All in all, not a
bad day, with the exception of the injuries to our friends.
But we will try to answer that in kind.

Akai


ATB,

Steve

-------------------------------------------
 http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ces/sw.html
-------------------------------------------
"I Love Work: I Could Watch It All Day" - my Dad
-------------------------------------------




     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---