Russia-Georgia

From the Anarcho-syndicalist KRAS

"NO TO NEW CAUCASIAN WAR!

The eruption of military actions between Georgia and South Ossetia threatens to develop into a large-scale war between Georgia supported by NATO on the one hand, and the Russian state on the other. Thousands of people are already killed and wounded - principally, peaceful inhabitants; whole cities and settlements have been wiped out. The society has beed flooded with muddy streams of a nationalist and chauvinistic hysteria.

As always and everywhere in conflicts between the states, there is not and cannot be the righteous in new Caucasian war - there are only the guilty. The coals which have been fanned for years now have caused a military fire. The Saakashvili regime in Georgia keeps two thirds of population in poverty, and the greater internal discontent in the country this causes, the more it desires to find a way out from the deadlock in the form of a "small victorious war" in the hope, that it can write everything off. The government of Russia is full of determination to keep the hegemony in the Caucasus. Today they pretend to bethe defender of weak, but their hypocrisy is abundantly clear: in fact, Saakashvili only repeats what the Putinist soldiery did in Chechnya 9 years ago. Ruling circles of both Ossetias and Abkhazia aspire to strengthen their role as exclusive allies of Russia in the region, and at the same time to rally the impoverished population around the tested torch of the "national idea" and "rescue the people". Leaders of the USA, the European states and NATO, on the contrary, wish to weaken the influence of their Russian rivals in the Caucasus as much as possible to provide to themselves with control over fuel resources and their transport. Thus, we became witnesses and victims of the next coil of world opposition in struggle for power, oil and gas.

This fight does not bring to working people - Georgians, Ossets, Abkhasians or Russians - anything, except for blood and tears, incalculable disasters and deprivation. We express our deep sympathy to the friends and relatives of the victims, to the people which have beenleft without a roof over their head and means of subsistence as a result of this war.

We shouldn't fall under the influence of nationalist demagogy which demands unity with "our" government, flying the flag of "protecting the homeland". The main enemy of the simple people is not the poor brothers and sisters on the other side of the border or of other nationality. Their enemie are the rulers and bosses of all kinds, presidents and ministers, businessmen and generals, those who generate wars for the sake of multiplying power and riches. We call on the working people in Russia, Ossetias, Abkhazia and Georgia to reject the bait of nationalism and patriotism and to turn the anger on rulers and the rich on both sides of the border.

Russian, Georgian, Ossetic and Abkhazian soldiers! Do not obey the orders of your commanders! Turn your weapon against those who sent you ti war! Do not shoot the soldiers of your "opponent" - fraternize with them: a bayonet in the ground!

Working people in the rear! Sabotage military efforts, leave to go to meetings and demonstrations against the war, organize yourselves and strike against it!

No to the war and to its organizers - rulers and richmen! Yes to solidarity of working people across borders and the front lines!

Federation of Edication, Science and Technical Workers, CRAS-IWA"

Devrim

Forum: 

Kras

Thanks for this commentary with which,as you will see fromthe elading articles on this site, we entirely agree and are happy to see in this forum. The lives of ordinary human beings and especially the working class are just nothing to the imperilaist butchers on both sides.

On a practical note is Kras based in Turkey and is this your translation? If we are to give wider publciity to this statement it would be useful to know these things.

Thanks again

No, KRAS is a Russian organisation. It is the Russian section of the International Workers Association, the anarcho-syndicalist international.

Devrim

Very proper manifesto...

Here in Spain, we have the CNT-AIT (section of the anarco-syndicalist international). I expect they publish this manifesto in spanish.

¡Revolutionary salutes!

IWA

As a youth (teens) I was involved with the British DAM-IWA.

I think that they, as well as other anarchist currents like class war, were unable to break with trade union ideology and did not make the necessary critique of the NUM at the time of the 1984-85 mners strike when I first became involved in "politics".

the name cras or Kras sounds very much like a very popular punk band here in the UK -Crass, again, as a naive youth I was influenced by them.

they were profoundly anti-Marxist and thought class was of little importance. Mostly they propagated a pacifist line. The miners strike was a turning point and many young people involved in radical politics became much more inclined towards class perspectives and the non-viability of pacifism, cnd et al.

KRAS

I think the name stands for Confederation of Russia Anarcho Syndicalists.

Devrim

KRAS

I think the important thing here is that this is an internationalist statement emanating from one of the two imperialist territories and we should salute the courage of the KRAS in trying to get this message across in what is a very dangerous situation.

I saw this statement in corrected form some days ago on Libcom (by the ICC) and wrote a cooment like the above but as it was my first intervention on that site it appears to have not arrived (probably due to my own error). I was however also intervening to point out an error by someone who highlighted our texts but then added that he was not sure about the "primary cause being oil". This is not what we think so we need to correct it.

Anyway Devrim, thanks for this internationalist contribution.