Tag: politics

[Mauvais Sang] Gen Z storms Marineford!

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Reproduced via Tridni Valka – Source in French: https://mauvaissang.noblogs.org/post/2025/10/28/la-gen-z-a-lassaut-de-marineford/

Nepal, Morocco, Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru… In recent months and weeks, massive demonstrations, riots, and even regime changes have taken place in various countries around the world, breathing new life into our most fervent hopes!

In Indonesia, growing outrage over the privileges enjoyed by the elite against a backdrop of austerity reached a tipping point when, on August 28, police killed a young man during a protest in Jakarta and then, on August 31, when videos showing parliamentarians dancing after receiving an indecent housing allowance were made public. In the weeks that followed, riots swept across the country, led by the slogan “Indonesia Gelap, Revolusi Dimulai” (“Indonesia is dark, we are starting the revolution”). Regional parliaments were set on fire and ministers’ residences were looted. The terrible repression, which mobilized the police and army, and led to dozens of deaths and disappearances, has achieved its goal of intimidation since… The movement was also unique in that its symbol was the flag of One Piece, a manga about pirates and their thirst for freedom, a symbol that was later taken up in Nepal, Madagascar, and Peru.

In Nepal, the movement, which initially denounced nepotism and the privileges of the ruling caste, was destructive. On September 9, after weeks of clashes in Kathmandu that left more than 70 people dead, protesters stormed the Parliament and the residences of several members of the government, including the Prime Minister’s one, and burned them to the ground! Because you never stop when you’re on a roll, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist, the ruling party), the CPN (the Maoist opposition, which called on protesters to remain peaceful), and the Nepali Congress were vandalized by rioters, and the Kailali district prison was attacked and set on fire, allowing all prisoners to regain their freedom!

In Morocco, it was the death of eight women after giving birth by Caesarean section in Agadir due to the lack of resources in the Moroccan health sector that sparked the unrest. From the very first days of the protests, the authorities cracked down by arresting or beating up massively the protesters, but the rebels continued to pour into the streets.

Recently, the GenZ 212 collective, one of the movement’s faces, announced that the protests did not challenge the foundations of the royal authority, that they must remain peaceful, and that calls for action would be temporarily suspended following King Mohammed VI’s promises of reform (even though, at the same time, the justice system was handing down sentences of several years in prison to many protesters).

We won’t fall into that trap! The young Moroccans who took to the streets, set them ablaze, destroyed police stations, were shot while trying to storm police stations to seize weapons and ammunition, and injured more than 300 police officers were anything but peaceful and certainly did not have improving public services in mind!

In Madagascar, the demonstrations and calls for strikes began as a result of exasperation caused by water and electricity cuts imposed on the population and they spread to a widespread challenge to the ruling power, while the island is experiencing massive poverty. The authorities reacted as they know so well how to do: tear gas, beatings up, live ammunition… In the days that followed, despite the deaths and the curfew, the movement intensified and massive looting broke out: supermarkets, shops, banks, hotels… everything was targeted, despite calls for calm from democrats!

In Peru, it is also a widespread system of corruption among those in power and new pension reforms that are being denounced, mainly by students. In Lima, demonstrations punctuated by violent clashes with the police, Molotov cocktails, and attempts to storm the Congress have been repeated in recent weeks. On October 10, President Dina Boluarte was removed from office, which is “only one step” according to many of the rebels.

While the explicit demands of these movements refer to social justice, the fight against corruption, or against the mismanagement of public services, we can only see in all these protests a widespread challenging of the living conditions imposed on the exploited of this world. Everywhere, what is being attacked is the State and its bureaucracy, as well as the political class (even those who historically claim to be “revolutionary”, such as the Stalinist substitutes of the various Communist Parties, as in Nepal). What is being attacked is the bourgeoisie that is getting rich on the backs of the exploited. What is being attacked is the misery caused by pitiful wages or forced unemployment, the restrictions and lack of resources, the cops who protect the exploiters with batons and guns, the lack of future prospects in this shitty world.

We can also detect an anti-political force that partly underlies these demonstrations. In several of these movements, as in Nepal, it was the world of politicians in general, of all political persuasions, that was attacked for a time. It was the widespread enrichment of all the bourgeois and leaders that was called into question, as evidenced by the attacks on Parliament and the homes of parliamentarians. However, we can see that the siren calls of democracy and their endless promises of reform, appeasement, and judicial repression of former decision-makers are, unfortunately, still working just as well as ever. In Nepal, a new Prime Minister was chosen on Discord (which had been a decisive tool in the movement) after the fall of the government; in Morocco, the reforms promised by the king put the movement on hold; in Indonesia, the movement has ended while waiting for the promised changes; in Madagascar, a technocrat has been appointed Prime Minister; and in Peru, the opposition has taken advantage of the situation to remove the president from office, surely waiting to take her place and rule in turn…

Capitalism and the State, like snakes that shed their skin but never die, know how to constantly reinvent themselves in order to recuperate the most fervent hopes and integrate them. We must at all costs ask ourselves why and how democracy so easily co-opt revolts that are so offensive in material terms and can restore another authority that will change nothing.

Incidentally, it is surprising that in France, there is more interest in careerist deputies on show in the media than in people who attack their own deputies.

From Indonesia and Nepal to everywhere else, long live the revolt against the old world!

English translation: The Friends of the Class War

Report from a discussion on the situation of deserters, refugees and practical solidarity

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From an article by AMI – https://antimilitarismus.noblogs.org/post/2025/11/23/report-from-a-discussion-on-the-situation-of-deserters-and-practical-solidarity/

What is the situation of proletarians who are listed in official documents as men and Ukrainian citizens? Generally speaking, they are under attack from several different sides. On the one hand, there is the deadly invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. On the other, they are forcibly mobilized by the Ukrainian army and sent to the front, from where they return traumatized, maimed, or dead. Those who evade mobilization or desert are tortured, persecuted, and stigmatized. Many have also died trying to illegally cross the Ukrainian border, which the Ukrainian regime keeps tightly closed. Ladyslav was lucky to survive. He fled Ukraine through the Romanian mountains. His situation has improved, but new threats and attacks continue to emerge. Zelensky’s government is pushing through repressive laws that will target deserters and opponents of mobilization living in European Union countries. “The regime aims to bring back as many cannon fodder as possible from the EU and will do absolutely everything to achieve this goal,” says Vladyslav. In October 2025, we met with him in an Austrian city to hear about the problems deserters face, and we discussed how to defend against them.

Before we even started the interview, it turned out that sometimes the train journey itself can be a problem, even if you buy a ticket. Vladyslav’s journey became increasingly complicated, and the day before the event, he even had to spend the night in a completely different city than planned. However, Vladyslav reacted to the long series of complications with complete calm: “I almost died when I ran for eight days through the Romanian mountains in winter to escape the army and the war. Since then, nothing has fazed me.” In other situations, too, our guest proved to be truly hardened by life experience. He didn’t stress about things that would stress others and calmly accepted organizational complications that left our crew feeling less than calm.

Upon arrival, Vladyslav first spoke to our circle of friends about why he fled and what reactions he encountered from the police, army, doctors, and border guards. The horror was illustrated by photos showing the injuries he had suffered.

Then the conversation turned to four main topics:

  • First, what repressive methods the Ukrainian state uses to combat desertion and force people to go to the front.
  • Second, how it is possible to avoid forced mobilization or flee to one of the countries of the European Union.
  • Third, what is the status of refugee men in European Union countries?
  • Fourth, what needs to be changed so that refugees who are already in the EU can obtain the best possible status that will “guarantee” that they will not be persecuted or sent back to Ukraine, either during or after the war?

In the ensuing discussion, most attention was paid to the fourth topic. Vladyslav repeatedly mentioned that EU authorities refuse to grant asylum to deserters and other male refugees from Ukraine. They are only automatically granted temporary residence permits. This is disadvantageous for them not only in terms of what they are (not) entitled to in the host country. The problem is also that without asylum status, refugees are at greater risk of being sent back to Ukraine, official harassment, persecution, or criminal prosecution. There was agreement in the discussion that it is first necessary to map the situation and gather relevant information, which will then be published in various languages. Subsequently, it will be possible to organize activities that will put pressure on the relevant institutions to improve the situation of refugees. Specifically, this should mean, for example, ensuring that individuals do not have to prove individually when applying for asylum that they are in mortal danger from the Ukrainian state and its army. Every deserter or man fleeing mobilization is, by definition, in such a dangerous position. This conclusion can be made at a general level, without exception. Our partial goal is to get officials to accept this and automatically grant asylum status to every such person, with appropriate protection from threats from the Ukrainian state, army, courts, etc. However, we are under no illusions: We know that self-defense must primarily come from autonomous structures and activities organized by the working class outside the state and in opposition to states.

We are now continuing the discussion on how to achieve the above and are already taking practical steps. In addition, we also want to develop other related topics from the following list in the future:

  • 1. Documentary and legal support for deserters and refugees

– How to collect and verify documents confirming a person’s identity and status in order to protect them from forced mobilization.

– Practical advice on using EU laws on the protection of refugees and internally displaced persons.

– Support in submitting requests to archives, obtaining birth certificates, death certificates, and citizenship documents.

  • 2. OSINT and information security for deserters and refugees

– How to safely collect and store information about repressive measures taken by the state without the risk of exposure.

– Methods of digital anonymity, minimizing surveillance by special services.

– Tools for verifying the reliability of sources of information about military operations and mobilization.

  • 3. Practical protection and escape logistics

– Advice on safe border crossing, orientation, hiding places, and risk minimization.

– The role of small communities and solidarity networks in supporting people hiding from mobilization.

– Safe transport of pets and psychological support during escape.

  • 4. Studying documentation on war and repression.

– How to analyze and document cases of human rights violations and war crimes.

– Creating archives and files that can be used for defense and advocacy.

– The interconnection between human rights protection activities and anarchist practices of solidarity.

  • 5. Education and communication strategies

– How to convey information about repressive laws and the risks of mobilization to interested parties.

– Methods for teaching safe behavior without involving the state or bureaucracy.

– Organizing seminars, lectures, and publications to expand anarchist solidarity networks.

  • 6. The practice of revolutionary defeatism

– How to oppose imperialist war aggression without defending bourgeois democracy, nationalism, and the state.

– What did revolutionary defeatism mean in past wars, and what can it mean today.

Inaugural meeting of the Network of Anarchist Internationalists – NAI.   November 9th, 2025

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Over the last few months, various revolutionary internationalist anarchist organisations put their names to the following statement. Though itself ready for an update it was the precursor to establishing a new network of anarchist internationalists to achieve the following:

Collective solidarity, practical on the ground and in revolutionary principle;  To be a hub for the exchange and presentation of information and propaganda; To distinguish ourselves from those oppositionist groups that use the name anarchism but no longer defend Revolutionary internationalism and, to provide a coherent reference point in the libertarian tradition as other international initiatives take place around the imperative of ‘no war but the class war.’

The supporting signatories are appended below and more invites will go out to others who hold to revolutionary internationalist opposition to all wars as subsequent meetings to develop the network progress.

“The Network of Anarchist Internationalists is:  For revolutionary defeatism in every waring state!

Will: Support war resisters, draft dodgers, deserters, and conscientious objectors!

Calls for: A major libertarian internationalist initiative to counter militaristic propaganda!

Nuclear catastrophe approaches!  The ruling classes ‘East’ and ‘West’ are charlatans whose lust for power and profit is increasingly based on the war industry. 

The self-styled West is articulating scenarios of a new world war. For them, the ‘free world’ is fighting an existential battle against ‘autocracies’ increasingly identified with orientalist stereotypes threatening to destroy our alleged ‘civilisation’.

Nations in this ‘democratic’ camp such as Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, are lauded as fighting the same global battle of the ‘good guys’ against the ‘evil’. This logic even enlists Syria’s islamists on the side of the ‘good guys’.

On the other side, Russia, China and Iran, totalitarian states ruled by secret police, party enforcers and clerics. Each violently suppresses our class’s struggle against austerity and the march to war.

For a libertarian internationalist initiative against the militaristic propaganda disseminated daily, which presents our supposedly “good” armed states as if they were a humanitarian enterprise!

We need to offer practical and moral support to war resisters, draft dodgers, deserters and groups taking internationalist positions, especially in the war zones.

Supporting refusal, conscience, desertion and draft evasion on all sides of the war fronts, for revolutionary defeatism, is fundamental. Russia and Ukraine themselves recognise desertion as a major obstacle to their death programmes.

This support within the framework of our internationalism, promotes initiatives to challenge nationalism and borders, territorial sovereignty, the nation-state or it’s proto-state rivals, building new mechanisms of international solidarity and siblinghood.

The front lines are closer than you think, no further than the nearest arms or components factory, than the nearest logistics depot, transport hub or communications centre. 

The war is where the ports and airports are, the military bases and their reserve barracks. It’s the rail networks and motorways, the towns, estates, cities and factories where we as workers’ pay the price of war in poverty from worsening austerity.  And now the threat of conscription.

We cannot move without being at war and when we notice it, the rhetorical guns blaze “disrupter, extremist, traitor!”  We must be all these things.  It’s time to distinguish our movement clearly from those who support “some wars before the class war”. 

We are clear that revolutionaries not only oppose their wars but call for the transformation of war resistance into a social revolution!  We do not call for a return to the situation before the war, their “capitalist peace”, which is just their repression of us in preparation for their next bloody enterprise.

What can we do practically, individually and collectively, home and abroad? On the most basic level, thinking globally, acting locally.  Refuse their consensus and call out the hypocrisy, advocating for ourselves and our class across frontiers.  Collectively, reject their ‘national interest’.

Link our struggles to austerity and their war profiteering.  Everything we do for ourselves, and our class hinders their ‘warfare-state’.  Join in solidarity across locality and trade – victory on the home front is a victory and example abroad.

From the Arctic rivers to the Red Sea, from Taiwan to the Congo basin, continental frontiers are aflame or bristling in preparation. The changing faces of the superpower masquerades change nothing. They want us to fight – one capitalism, one war! The danger is real, the danger is now!

UK:

Anarchist Communist Group

Anarcom Network

The Stirrer (Keynsham)

Alex Alder (in personal capacity)

Ireland:

Organise! Ireland

Czechia:

Antimilitarist Initiative

The Czechoslovak Anarchist Association (CAS)

Antimilitaristický zpravodaj Dezertér

France:

Initiative Olga Taratuta

Indonesia, for the Maximal Program!

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From our comrades at Tridni Valka – Original text https://seenothing.noblogs.org/2025/09/15/indonesia-for-the-maximal-program

Statement of Solidarity

Marxist Forum — Metro Manila
7 September 2025

Although part of a long wave of mass urban mobilizations spanning years, the wild series of uprisings in Indonesia today began on the 25th of August, when students and workers led demonstrations against proposed additional housing allowances for parliament members, raising their salaries 10 times higher than the national minimum wage of the Indonesian working class. Parliamentary allowances are only the latest in Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s ferocious attacks on the working class, aided by creeping militarization and guided by the diktat of neoliberal austerity: cutting spending worth trillions of rupiah on education, welfare, and public health. Since Thursday of August 28th, with the murder of Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old rideshare motorbike driver—run over by an armored military vehicle commandeered by Jakarta police to crush the uprising—we have only seen the acceleration of spreading protests throughout the islands, and the escalation of violence and anger amid the protesters, with a number of politicians’ assets looted and burned to the ground—including, according to Perhimpunan Merdeka (Freedom Association), about half-a-dozen regional offices of the House of Representatives.

On the ground, several of the groups and individuals involved have been among the anarchists and communists, insurrectionaries notwithstanding, organized and otherwise. Demands have been made by various groups, featuring in particular two: Perhimpunan Merderka’s (PM; Freedom Association) demand to abolish the unitary government in favor of direct democracy through “People’s Councils”, and Perhimpunan Sosialis Revolusioner’s (PSR; Revolutionary Socialist Association) call for the workers to take the fight to the factories and workplaces to form and coordinate strike committees and worker’s councils.

In light of recent reports of discouragement, deescalation, and a generalizing urge to retreat, Marxist Forum calls on our anarchist and communist Indonesian comrades to push for a maximalist program within the assemblies and coordinating councils. This entails the organization of self-defense militias—for every worker, a rifle; rearrangement of production away from the capitalists and towards social appropriation, sustaining the rebellions and keeping the workers from going back to work; coordinating with workers of key industries to halt production and operations such as in ports and airfreight, shutting down the national economy; seizing the telecommunication and data centers to facilitate continuous in-flow of information within and with-out of the country, and;

Above all, to RESIST ANY AND ALL ATTEMPTS AT NEGOTIATION. Hijack the union leaderships, expel the middlemen and negotiators of labor, stand against the peace-makers who wish to restore the reproduction of the status quo, resist by any means necessary the cooptation of the rebellions for vested political interests by groups who wish to delimit the Indonesian proletariat’s class anger and make a turn towards liberal pacifism and passivity. The responsibility of the most conscious and organized elements of the rebellions, without taking ownership of the movement and fighting the tendency to lag behind the proletariat in rebellion, is to push the class to advance wherever it lags. The anarchists and communists should not be afraid to go past the proletariat, wherever it is reluctant to advance, and make the class conscious of where it is going and what needs to be done to get there!

The class, while still acting as a class, is now in the political arena. To generalize the rebellions into a full insurrection, it is ever-necessary to imbue the sites of struggle with a clear communising direction and go past the economic and political, to directly and immediately appropriate the social. Comrades, the Indonesian proletariat is on the brink of something potentially bigger than all of us. To take the next step, the class must be compelled to intervene into history directly and begin the conscious communisation of Indonesian society.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY; THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE.

Panjang umur Revolusi!

Forcibly mobilised and then killed by drone: the murderous logic of war in practice

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Original Article by Anti Militarist Iniative (AMI) – https://antimilitarismus.noblogs.org/post/2025/08/27/how-many-forcibly-mobilized-people-will-your-drones-help-kill

The mainstream media publishes articles about how terribly the Russian army treats deserters. “Chained to trees, locked in metal tanks, or dragged behind off-road vehicles—this is the reality for Russian soldiers who refused to fight in Ukraine,” they note. (1)

As usual, there is not much written about the equally horrific massacres of Ukrainian deserters. One thing is certain, however. The combat capability of both armies is partly based on violent mobilization and torture techniques designed to discourage desertion and force even those who do not want to go to the front to do so. While thousands of soldiers are trying to desert, others are being sent to the front against their will, hoping to live to see another day. That is, unless a “suicide” drone armed with explosives happens to fly into their heads. On the internet, we can see videos of such drones belonging to the Ukrainian army massacring Russian soldiers on motorcycles, in trenches, on roads, in forests, plains, and elsewhere. (2)

In most cases, footage of these events is accompanied by articles that celebrate them and cynically dehumanize the victims. They never ask who these people are or how they ended up in a place where they were mercilessly killed. It is impossible not to notice that even the anti-fascist and “anarchist” movement is organizing collections for drones for the Ukrainian army. And because — like the pro-Western mainstream — this “radical left” environment also presents the war as a defensive action against occupiers, it probably doesn’t worry too much about the fact that its drones may well be massacring Russian soldiers who were forced to the front under threat of punishment. In the logic of a “defensive war,” every Russian soldier on the front line is a Putinist and an occupier. (3) Thousands of deserters and forcibly mobilized soldiers are nothing to the supporters of this logic and can be mercilessly eliminated. (4) But what such an approach has to do with the declared struggle for freedom and justice is something that the proponents of this line will not explain to us. After all, most of them do not have to face fire on either side of the war line. They simply send a financial contribution from time to time from the safe haven of the pampered petty bourgeoisie (or their descendants) and then write an ideological shitstorm full of vague phrases about the struggle for freedom and self-determination of the Ukrainian people.

Footage of terror in the eyes shortly before the drone exploded

In contrast, soldiers on both the Ukrainian and Russian fronts are largely proletarians who do not have access to these privileges. Yes, they are proletarians, because the proletariat has not ceased to exist just because some individuals have decided to remove this word from their vocabulary. The truth is that many proletarians are on the front lines involuntarily and under duress (5). Very few have the means or documents to flee abroad. Many live in illegality: they avoid banks, leave big cities, hide in forests. If anything makes sense from an anarchist perspective, it is to provide them with support, not to build drones that will massacre them or track them down so that someone else can massacre them.(6)

Solidarity with deserters and those forcibly mobilized!
Resistance to those who build machines for their killing!
Class solidarity against the murderous logic of war!

NOTES AND SOURCES:

(1)
Ruští dezertéři jsou brutálně mučeni. Svědectví přináší CNN | Newstream

(2) For example, here
https://cnn.iprima.cz/ukrajinska-droni-elita-v-akci-madarovi-ptaci-vyzobali-rusy-na-motocyklech-ti-zkaze-neujeli-479487
https://cnn.iprima.cz/zabery-ukrajinske-likvidace-okupantu-ruskeho-vojaka-zachranila-lopatka-467046
https://cnn.iprima.cz/zabery-hruzy-v-ocich-kratce-pred-vybuchem-ukrajinske-drony-likviduji-ruske-okupanty-475517

Also here:
https://www.msn.com/cs-cz/zpravy/other/ukrajinsk%C3%A9-drony-ude%C5%99ily-na-rusk%C3%A9-voj%C3%A1ky-v-lese/vi-AA1JzxmT

What do we see in this video? A man in uniform with a backpack is walking through the forest when suddenly he is shot by a drone. To the viewer, it is presented as a sensational video of how Ukraine’s defenders stopped the occupier. However, it is not at all clear from the video who he was, why he was there, and whether he wanted to be there at all or was forced there by officers under threat of punishment. He is dead, and no one will ask him.

(3) Reality speaks for itself. Forced mobilization and high desertion rates in the Russian army prove that not every soldier on the front line is a Putin supporter. On the contrary, many are victims of Putinism, just like those who are being shelled in Ukrainian cities. https://antimilitarismus.noblogs.org/post/2025/02/04/over-russian-18000-soldiers-desert/

(4) The Solidrones initiative, which reportedly manufactures “drones for anti-authoritarian fighters in Ukraine,” states: “Defenders consume tens of thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles every month, because a precise drone strike can take out a significantly more expensive tank and cripple the occupiers’ advance.” https://www.afed.cz/text/8191/solidrones

There is no doubt that they operate drones, which are weapons designed for destruction and killing. But even if someone wanted to argue that they can also use supply or reconnaissance drones, it is important to clarify one thing. Even in such cases, drones serve as a means of support for senseless killing. There is no significant difference between a forcibly mobilized soldier being shot down directly by a drone and being tracked down with the help of a drone and then killed by infantry (often also supplied by drones), artillery, or the air force.

A number of other questions are also relevant.

Can the so-called “anti-authoritarians” who manufacture or operate drones decide how and against whom they will be deployed? That might be conceivable in the case of guerrilla warfare organized autonomously outside the state and against the state. However, this is not the case with these people, who, as they themselves acknowledge, are integrated into the official state army of Ukraine. It is therefore the army authorities who determine how the drones will be used by the “anti-authoritarians,” and there can be no question of autonomy of action. What will these “anti-authoritarians” do when their officers next order them to use drones to track down deserters attempting to escape? After all, this is one of the agenda items of the Ukrainian army, which they voluntarily serve.

(5) According to statements by surviving Russian soldiers, they were not allowed to evacuate because a blocking unit guarding them from behind would not let them leave their positions on the front line and would shoot if they attempted to retreat. Forcing soldiers to advance may therefore be less risky in some cases than retreating and deserting. This cruel tactic was used by the army during the Stalin era, and today the Russian army is returning to this practice.

(6) The forcibly mobilisation and subsequent killing by drones is also well known to the population in Ukraine. However, we do not know of a single case where the production of drones by the Russian army has been financed with money by so-called anti-authoritarians or anarchists. In any case, we must condemn the forcibly mobilisation and murderous use of drones against the working class, whether these practices are used by the Ukrainian, Russian or any other state army.

CAMPAIGN OF SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINIAN CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND DESERTERS

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We are not criminals. We are people. Men and women who refused to become casualties of the war of two regimes. We refuse to be held hostage by political contracts and military plans. The Ukrainian government is currently preparing Law No. 13673, which criminalises everyone who has escaped the mobilisation. Anyone who refuses to return to the trenches faces a risk of imprisonment, deportation, and a forceful conscription into the army.

This law entails: 

• mass criminalisation of deserters and conscientious objectors,

• automatic placement into registers,

• collaboration of secret services and courts,

• threat of extradition back to Ukraine.

• This is not a defence of freedom – it is its end.

Ukrainian deserters and conscientious objectors of military service need our solidarity. Their struggle is also our fight for:

• a right to live,  

• a right to not be sent to a battlefront,

• a right to refuse the state and its war.

Therefore, we urge you:

📢 Let’s flood Ukrainian embassies and consulates with protest letters, petitions, emails, phone calls, and faxes. (See the sample of protest letter at the bottom of the article)

📢 Sign an online petition (the link will be posted here: https://www.petice.com/…ku)

📢 Let’s organise public solidarity events in front of Ukrainian embassies and during the visits of Ukrainian politicians in your country.

📢 Download the posters and flyers and hand them out to your Ukrainian colleagues and neighbours – let them know that they should not return to Ukraine and that we approve of their decision not to fight. (The PDF poster is available to download at the bottom of the article, or you can get it by contacting us)

📢 Express your support to Ukrainian men and their families who have left their country so that they would avoid mobilisation and recruitment into war (In Czechia, the estimate is about 150 000 men, in Slovakia it is about 50 000. In the entire EU it concerns approximately 750-800 000 people!)

📢 Translate the appeal into other languages and organise a similar campaign in your country. Keep us informed!

📢 Let’s stand on the side of those who say NO to militarism and war.

Each day of silence is a step further to deserters being deprived of their future. But together we can be the voice that cannot be silenced.

Glory to the deserters! Glory to conscientious objectors!

No to war – never, nowhere.

Anti-militarist journal DEZERTÉR

contact: dezerter@riseup.net

LETTER OF PROTEST SAMPLE

Send a letter and/or email to Ukrainian embassies and consulates in your country. Use both options to increase the pressure.

Subject: A protest against criminalisation of Ukrainian conscientious objectors and deserters

Dear Ambassador,

We are addressing you on behalf of the citizens of [your country] who disapprove of the war and who stand on the side of human dignity. It is with great concern that we observe the Ukrainian government preparing and promoting repressive measures in the form of Law No. 13673, directed against those who refused to be drawn into war. The draft of such laws criminalising conscientious objectors of military service and deserters is an attack on basic human rights.

We reject the idea of sacrificing human lives in an endless war conflict. The people who decided to leave Ukraine in order not to kill or die are not criminals. They are the people who had the courage to say NO to the war.

We ask you to convey our concerns and dissent to the Government of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Parliament, with a demand for:

1. An immediate halt to the preparation of the laws that threaten conscientious objectors and deserters, specifically Law No. 13673.

2. Respecting the right to refuse military service as guaranteed by the International human rights treaties.

3. Ensuring the protection of those who refused the war – whether in Ukraine or abroad. 

We perceive the solidarity with Ukraine as solidarity with its ordinary working people who want to live in peace – not as a support of militarism and repression.

Sincerely,

[Your signature]

Original article/post: https://dezerter.noblogs.org/post/2025/10/02/campaign-of-solidarity-with-ukrainian-conscientious-objectors-and-deserters

Farce followed by Vicious Oppression and Further Exploitation?  Or Class Wide Liberation?

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Report from Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, 27th Oct

A mass of flag waving was threatened to descend upon the people of Newcastle last Saturday, as thousands upon thousands were promised to be led / manipulated by xenophobic nativists.

This claim, through the convergence of UKIP, Advance UK and the so-called ‘Great British National Protest’, didn’t seem as quite as ridiculous as past such threats.  For the far right has been buoyed up nationally by a number of recent governments, hell bent determined to be an enabling force at every turn.  While the likes of the very wealthy, journalists and social media, endlessly platform their claimed grievances and “othering” of members of our class.

The recent result, a very large and concerning turnout in London, beamed into our homes for all to see and to be nauseatingly endured by that city’s residents. 

Concurrently, there still is the flying of seemingly endless daft bits of material on a variety of streets up and down the country but mostly around roundabouts going nowhere.  Then there’s the spraying of graffiti, mostly on bins for dog waste, if local experience is anything to go by.  All this together provides a further intimidating feel for working class communities, both locally and wider afield.  Dog shit politics, anyone?

However, in Newcastle, as midday arrived, rumours / excuses(?) spread of “coaches breaking down”, one wannabe leader living it up, lounging about on the continent – yet again, another failed one / “actor” turning up desperately trying to appear relevant, and a march planned ironically in the middle of a boat race; maybe all was not as could have been or as feared?

In the end, on the day, the far right mustered a paltry 300 in the Toon, compared to the counter demonstration’s number of around 12 to 15X that.  Only stopped from being run out of the city by numerous lines of uniformed agents of the state, the far right was reduced to trying to claim “victory” by carrying out a mini march in undercover of near darkness as their main planned one was stopped, countered, re-routed and countered again, several times over.

Meanwhile, a number of those on the counter in Newcastle, shouted about the rightists, “Not being even able to stop a boat race!”   This too embarrassed smiles and nervous laughter from some of the less hardcore, probably more confused younger ones with national flags?  Whilst others on the counter demonstration asked the nationalists where they thought their flags were made and didn’t that show the whole thing to be at best, ridiculous?

Then, on the day, there were a handful of Kippers with religious crosses seemingly knocked off from some crap car boot sale around the MAGA movement in the US.  More nationalists, with endless flags, engaged in strangely dull monotone speeches, lacking both wit and intonation, polluting the aural experience for those just out an about in town.  One of these Tannoy based characters is known for being detained recently, for, “nutting their own side”.  To top it all, spectators of the boat race had joined in the opposition, telling the wannabe marchers to “piss off”, for disrupting their viewing pleasure of the Tyne. 

Much to the relief of many on Tyneside, the whole thing appeared at times to be pure farce!

Yet not only were several people arrested on the counter demonstration in Newcastle, some for apparently not telepathically understanding orders to disperse but the underlying pressures, locally and beyond, remain intensely difficult.

This is shown by those endless vitriolic attacks upon refugees by both government and national commentators throughout the country.  It was also shown locally by the fact that those owning the venue that eventually hosted the Advance UK launch near the Quayside by the Tyne, also own the refugee hotel near the city centre that has been subject to demonstrations by the far right and naive, week after week after week.  Where there’s muck and dirty dealings, there’s brass alright for those with capital, in this system.

Locally through to internationally, years of attacks upon our class, crises in capitalism, atomisation, quietism on the class struggle front, immiseration / flatlining or even falling living standards, have enabled a vacuum and space to appear for the hard and far right to exploit.

Having no scruples about empowering a divide and rule agenda to deflect from not offering an optimistic future, state and capital have opened up a chasm to be occupied by those who even appeared to want a 21st century style nation-wide pogrom against refugees last year, as decaying occupied hotels were set alight.

This all then further fuelled by social media, their billionaire owners and ever tweaked algorithms, so the forces of intense reaction have hit new heights – both electorally and also now as a (re)emerged street force, based on nativism, nationalism and bitter xenophobia.  Throughout the UK, continental Europe and beyond, this appears the case. On the day however, the situation in Newcastle offered some very welcome optimism and the opportunity to catch up with and stand with comrades and our wider community.  It provided at least, that collective sigh of relief.

This situation though will likely be only temporary.  As comrades on the same day in Hull reported, the reality, countrywide, is variable at best.

For in Hull, the counter gathering was unfortunately outnumbered as a far-right rally hit the city.   Around 100 far right gathered although accurate figures were difficult to assess, as the area also had a large number of the public around, wondering what all the fuss was about?

The static counter demo by Stand Up To Racism had around 30 people.  Despite this, 6 comrades who refused to join the static counter demo stood firm whilst also mingling with the far right and public, chatting to some people nominally on “the other side”, to try to get them to peel away.  This then, those who were on the edges of the right rally and who were perhaps still able to question what is happening and see through how they are being used and manipulated?!  The far-right stewards (feeling important in the high-vis waistcoats) were not happy with this and kept rushing over to try and bully both our comrades and those they were talking too.

It is one thing to stand there with confidence as you vastly outnumber the opposition, it is quite another to try and positively confront the situation in your local area, when you are clearly outnumbered yourselves.

As both last weekend and recent events throughout the country and beyond have clearly shown, as a class we cannot rely on those in power, nor on our current socio-economic system, to offer us any solution.  In fact, they and this current system fuel the attacks we face.

Let’s face it, the far right internationally are fake rebels and represent literally a defence mechanism for capital and state in times of crises.  Fantasies about liberal democracy being any kind of answer to this, are clearly that, fantasies!

To effectively confront and resist, we must unify as a class, locally and internationally.  We must stand with our communities, especially those on the sharp end of being attacked and “othered”.  We need to meet, discuss and stand with comrades and potential comrades, and help enable where we can, others in our class to resist a disastrous agenda.

It is a massive task but still not an impossible one.  Whilst we may appear small and relatively weak at the present time, the struggle can take twists and turns, and our class can still show impressive determination in the face of those who dream of further oppressing us. 

Wherever we find ourselves, we must collectively turn the tables now by organising, discussing, meeting, and standing firm on a definite anti-capitalist, internationalist basis.  It is only with the ending of capitalism and state internationally, that the threat of the far right will be ended and our prosperity and even existence ensured.

Locally, nationally and internationally, we must engage with offering a far more optimistic future, where we are able class wide, to challenge exploitation, resist manipulation and confidently stand together in solidarity; stand for a world of liberty and equality. 

A failure to do so hardly bears thinking about!

Article by Bloque-Ade

The Downfall of a Right Charlie

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Hyperbole around the assassination of the right wing Christian fundamentalist agitator Charlie James Kirk has made the removal of a footnote to the current populist chaos seem bigger than the sum of its parts.  Perhaps in an embryonic form, this demonstrates the endemic unease about the ripples across our current social fabric.

As if waiting for the brink of some fascist apocalypse, this has been widely described as a “Reichstag” moment – a reference to the murky ignition of the German parliament building in 1933 that acted as the pretext for the Nazis rolling out the seizure of power via democratic Parliamentary instruments.

The rest, as they say being history.  In this case, there is no replay.  This is now and the lessons are not the product of cosplay voyeurism but a pulsing Zeitgeist cautionary tale.  Whatever the motivation turns out to be, it inevitably feeds into the right’s strategy of tension to divide and rule.

The myth about Kirk at the moment is that he was speaking his beliefs and martyred on the crucible of free speech for doing so.  This fascist fantasy / liberal apologia is not the case, though it uncomfortably demonstrates the uneasy alliance between these two capitalist expressions.

He’s been speaking his beliefs for 13 years.  A juvenile debating school tirade of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and toxic masculinity masquerading as speaking truth to power.  His targets, as those of the ideological populist Right he represents, are the most marginalised, excluded and vulnerable in US society.  The diasporas of an atomised working class. 

His hate speech has moved beyond the expression of his belief.  Recently he’s been articulating, validating and fuelling the policy of social violence against minorities currently being enacted in the United States.

This makes Kirk not a dystopian visionary to disagree with, but a fascist street fighter.  Trump’s Horst Wessel, an extinguished nazi thug lionised to inspire others. 

His death’s utility to the reactionary project has been used with immediate effect – despite the lack of clarity re. motivation.  His image used as a central rallying theme to Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s “Unite  the Kingdom” mobilisation of the right, the ignorant and the inarticulately frustrated on the streets of London.

Alarmingly attracting in excess of 100,000 people, most feeling understandably a great sense of disenfranchisement in the current era, they were addressed and incited by the world’s richest man, multi billionaire Elon Musk.

Channeling a chilling message through the convicted violent thug convening the rally, Musk said:  “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you…you either fight back or you die.”  A warning perhaps to the meagre 5,000 to 10,000 counter demonstrators from ‘Stand Up to Racism’.

And where is the Labour government’s real anxiety about this demonstration? Where do they stand on the assault on minorities and the dispossessed? Why is it that they felt it necessary to deploy new dystopian facial recognition technology for the Notting Hill Carnival yet not for the largest far right demonstration in British history?

The liberals and their Trotskyoid-Leninite allies in Stand up to Racism want you to think this is a choice between totalitarianism and democracy.  Your rights versus ‘their’ dictatorship.  This is a lie.  Liberal democracy took us to war and both want to crush us for power and profit.  Two cheeks of the same arse!

Liberalism like Fascism wants and needs capitalism, having throughout history betrayed the working class if capitalism was under threat, (from Spain 1936 to the other 9/11 – the anniversary of Pinochet’s US sponsored militarised junta/fascist coup in Chile 1973, for example).

It is not the fascists (yet) locking us up for protesting genocide and their warfare state but a Labour government.  This, the party of partition, strike breaking, numerous regressive immigration acts and the atom bomb.  Our enemy and our focus is capital and state in all their forms and their relentless drive to war, be the general’s democrats or fascists.

The rise of the right at the moment measures the scale of the challenge to a weakened and as yet, fragmented working class.  A weakness used for exploiting and manipulating fear and insecurity to preserve the agenda of the warfare state and its lust for profit. 

Ultimately, only class unity through class struggle can put an end to the abuse of the far right and our inevitable annihilation at the hands of the warfare state – whatever its political hue.

While we may at times have nostalgia for the days gone by when generals, presidents, Kings and Parliaments would genuinely fear the retribution of ardent members of our class, the actions of one cannot replace the action of us all.

As revolutionists we know that demonstrative acts of propaganda by deed are no substitute for the mass action of a revolutionary working class.   Changing the faces of the tyranny in power changes nothing and can easily reduce us to mere onlookers and passivity.  Yet that does not mean that we hypocritically condemn. 

We don’t slate our class; those exploited, repressed and now sometimes seriously living in fear of being targeted by violent nativist xenophobes, if they raise a smile when they see it as one of the bastards getting it.  For whatever reason transpires.

Article by Dreyfus

Putin trumps Zelensky

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From Roosevelt and Stalin’s “Big Two” to Putin and Trump’s ‘Odd Couple’, history might not be repeating itself, but it does feel like it’s having a laugh at our expense.

What happened in Alaska felt less like the deliberations from an encounter between two warring figureheads, and more the choreographed delivery of a joint position statement long held and worked out.

A big reveal of the commonality between capitalism’s war mongers usually lost in the facade of rival narratives.  As such, an actual sneak peek behind the veil. 

Is it conceivable that Trump is imagining an axis with Putin ultimately against China?  Disregarding Europe, already treated as a backwater on the one hand and aligning their own strategic objectives on the other, may well be the best last-ditch superpower throw of the dice for Russia and the necessary counterweight the US needs to fully pivot East.

Together, they meet on a strategic level over their relationships to Europe, and Putin cannot regain the central Asian ‘Stans against Chinese opposition without US support. 

Similarly, detaching Russia from its Chinese chaperone leaves the latter surrounded and alone to face the US in the Pacific.  In this region and potential future conflict theatre, the US has just concluded its biggest war game since the cold war, it involving hundreds of aircraft and 50 locations thousands of miles apart.

The former ‘partnership’ of Europe has seen the writing on the wall.  It has not been idle, though possibly futile, in its efforts to respond.

It has been buying time telling Trump what he needs to hear.  While talk of increased defence spending and rearmament might look like dancing to the US tune, they are more likely a gallop towards an attempt at defence autonomy in the anticipation of the abandonment that is their likely fate.  The realities of the global power competition they’re about to confront alone.

Back to the future?  “Thank God for the French army!”, Churchill said in 1933.  History tells us we are really in trouble when the Anglo-French entente is the answer to a crisis!

Yet here we are again.  Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron held in early July what was effectively billed as a nuclear summit.   They declared a mutual combining of their nuclear capacities against unspecified yet forthcoming, “extreme threats”. 

French President Macron declared this both, “.. a message to our partners, and our adversaries”.  This begging the question: is an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent a salvation or does it bring us closer to war?

If a pragmatic alliance against populism and multi-polarism could find its own slogan of provocative militancy, it might be:

What do we want?  Pragmatism! When do we want it?  Within an appropriate timescale when circumstances are optimally aligned!

Now maybe, the circumstances are urgently aligning for Starmer and Macron.  A patriotic toast in the last chance saloon of Europe making its last mark as a global defining entity.

Each successive conflict seems to dwarf the other in horror.  From Ukraine to Gaza, from Gaza to Sudan; to name only a few.  Whilst they all risk becoming sidelined footnotes on the march to a superpower reckoning.  The horizon of which could be accelerating towards us. 

There will be no history nor analysis after that.  Tragically, given all the potential we have as a species, here will exist, just the ashes of tyrannical hubris.

Whatever our analysis or speculation, we are revolutionaries not journalists.  It is not our role to idly conjecture or to excite the debate.  Our purpose here is to emphasise that whatever the twists and turns may appear to be, no matter how unlikely, the trajectory remains the same.

Capitalism and war are two wheels of the same bike driving inexorably towards global destruction in a compulsive competition for power and resources.  Its detail becomes secondary to the primacy of our solution: Class war!

The focus for their rivaling attentions may chop and change.  Ours, however, remains the same – them and this existing nightmare of a socio-economic system!  Them, the exploiting capitalist class who run the economies and nations in their interests and at our expense.  The system that has no interests except profit, and which exploits and oppresses us to this end.  

We are the world’s producers, the global working class. Without frontiers and beyond borders, we are used as the cannon fodder of their wars of exploitation and domination.  Without us, all wealth and our world, would not exist.  Without them as a ruling class – war, famine, environmental degradation, exploitation and oppression will cease to exist.

Our choice and our task is a fore gone conclusion.  It is also in reality no choice at all. Fight for survival but also for the creation of a truly human community beyond exploitation and destruction.

Article by Dreyfus

We oppose Palestine inaction with class war against imperialist war!

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Gaslighting Gaza: Hunger, hypocrisy and history all over again…

If media promoted photographs are to be believed, crowds of desperate Palestinians surrounding aid convoys in the Gaza Strip have now joined the Great Wall of China as one of the few earthly human spectacles visible from space.

It is an instrument of torture to revive the victim, sustain their capacity to live sufficiently to draw out the terrible suffering inflicted on them, as a warning, revenge, or punishment.

This is the context in which the current rush to drop crumbs from the air into a starving caged mass and the temporary short-term pauses in their exposure to horrific violence in Gaza could be seen.  For survival, dignity or resolution, it is neither use nor ornament.

A 1000 people at least have been killed in the sadistic “hunger games” conducted by the Israeli state and US mercenaries over the last few months, to the increasing ‘tut-tut’ of an apparently disapproving world. 

The fact that a pause has occurred at all is not a measure of the commitment and efforts of Israel’s allies to reign it in, but of their complicity, having clearly always possessed such power but refused to apply it for the sake of their global imperialist goals. 

The ruling socialites of the Labour Party have proved themselves again as one cheek of the capitalist arse as Shammy Lammy and Starmer Chameleon perform the full pragmatic masquerade to serve their master Trump.  They will never serve the interests of the working class they rob. 

It might be better, observed President Lincoln, to avoid such treachery by choosing somewhere “…where despotism can be taken pure… without the base alloy of hypocrisy”.  He was referring to Russia verses the US, we might well ask today, what’s the difference?

The far-right administration of the Israel state continues to squander the last of its historic good will or guilt credits, still peddling the line that the hunger it has created doesn’t exist. 

This while juggling between military pauses and renewed bombing costing around 30 lives a day – double that currently caused by the induced famine.  That any in the West can seriously claim this as a success is again masking a cynical complicity. 

Hamas, meanwhile, the ‘state-aspiring’ anvil on which the Palestinian working class is being hammered, unapologetically continues to feed the meat grinder at the other end.

The western governments continue to supply Israel, block refugees fleeing war zones and suppresses even the flimsiest internal descent against their Israeli ally as antisemitism. 

The banning of Palestine Action as terrorists for their nonviolent direct action has fooled no one, not even the usually supine United Nations which has called for the ban to be lifted. 

We don’t support the ultimate goals of Palestine Action as we believe none of the artificially divided sections of the worlds working class should be subjected to the brutalising local policeman of capital that is the state, Palestinian or Israeli. We do however acknowledge this as a sign of greater repression to come and raise the alarm against it on that basis.

We have seen the seeding of periodic challenges to the power of Hamas brutally repressed by the Palestinian state-in -exile, while in Israel resistance is beginning to emerge to both genocide and forced military service.

While this initially appears small and far from the reality we are seeing elsewhere on the ground, we must counterpose it by asking what have those marching in their millions have achieved over the last three years other than sore feet and burnout. 

Objectively they have bought time for the slaughter to continue by refusing to confront it with vigour and class interest with which this slaughter has been perpetrated.  So far, our focus on the horror abroad has served to divert our attention to how it is paid for – by our increasing exploitation at home through austerity.

We must continue to argue that capitalism’s Social Peace at home is its violent immiserating pause enroute to the next generalised global bloodletting for profit, whose pathway is being paved almost everywhere we look at the moment. 

The frontiers of capitalism are ablaze in preparation for our destruction; it’s destruction through the global struggle of our Class War is our necessary response.

Article by Dreyfus