Solidarity Collectives: 3 years into the Full-scale Russian Invasion in Ukraine

From The Final Straw Radio

Download This Episode

This week, we’re featuring an interview with Anton, a longtime member of Solidarity Collectives, a group that supports anti-authoritarian and anarchist activists involved in the resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as funding mutual aid projects for civilians and domesticated animals suffering or displaced by the invasion, bolstering left libertarian social movements during wartime, making propaganda and manufacturing FPV drones as well as a few other projects.

In this ranging conversation we spoke for 2 hours covering issues of anarchists participating in military structures, the state of the armed resistance, impacts of changes in the US administration and more.

 

Media About the 3 Internationalist Anarchists Who Fell April 19, 2023:

… . ..

Featured Track:

Comments

anon (not verified) Sun, 04/06/2025 - 08:26

Oh cool, an interview with a guy and organization who republishes statements by Oleksandr Kolchenko, who openly praises the fascist UPA on his facebook account, repeatedly. No platform is doing well I see. Anarchism is when you openly work for and praise working for the State and when you hold open the door for fascist entryism.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Sun, 04/06/2025 - 16:10

In reply to by anon (not verified)

You denounce "a guy and organization" for something you say they have written elsewhere (or rather something which someone else--one Oleksandr Kolchenko--wrote which they are republishing elsewhere) about a different topic--the UPA--on another place--his facebook. This is "Gotcha!" political writing.

Why not comment on what Anton says here and now about the Solidarity Collective and its support for Ukrainian anarchists? Surely there is much to argue about.

EmmaAintDead Sun, 04/06/2025 - 20:04

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Not convinced they are doing much to support Ukrainian anarchists given their most visible drives are fundraising military hardware to donate directly to the state's forces. This historically is a pretty shit way to support anarchists.

anon (not verified) Tue, 04/08/2025 - 11:44

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

In the interview itself Anton lies by omission about anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and Makhno, comparing them to the Ukrainian situation today where anarchists are simply enlisting in the state army instead of having any independent formation with which to make "alliances" in the first place.

Interestingly though, he admits that the anarchists Petrov, Cafferkey and Andrews who died in service to the Ukrainian state were in the far-right Bratstvo (Brotherhood) Battalion at the time of their death. Most anarchists try to avoid mentioning this fact (though you'd think that if they were really proud of their military service they wouldn't be trying to hide which units they were in). Anton doesn't mention that Petrov also gave critical support to conscription in a German media interview. Maybe that's also something they don't want anarchists in the West to know about. Anton says too that it's easy to find a non-fascist unit in the Ukrainian army to serve in. Which would then make it hard to explain why several soldiers lauded by Solidarity Collectives were either in Azov or Right Sector units.

Don't be too surprised Price when anarchists oppose state repression and other anarchists' collaboration with it. Just return to Marxism, where the long march through the state institutions is accepted practice.

Tim Declercq Tue, 04/08/2025 - 12:08

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Another little thing you won't find in Western-oriented writings on this subject. This nationalistic creep is nothing new, all the way back in 2008 - so before there were even any possible excuses about "difficult decisions in wartime" or what have you not - Petrov was expelled from the Russian section of IWA on the grounds that his ethno-nationalist views were considered incompatible with anarchism. https://kras-ait.over-blog.com/article-23033790.html ("Ekologist" in that text is Petrov)

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Mon, 04/07/2025 - 14:08

In reply to by Tim Declercq

I read the lib com article you cited. After all, I must acknowledge that even Ukrainian defensist anarchists, with whom I otherwise agree, can make political mistakes, particularly being influenced by nationalism and/or pro-Western imperialism. Or even I suppose, by fascism. (Similarly, anti-defensists, you will agree, might, theoretically, be influenced by support for Russian imperialism.)

But I don't see any of that in the article you cite from lib com, nor in the original interview either. (See https://tempestmag.org/2025/04/ukrainian-anarchists-fighting-imperialis….) So I still regard these people as anarchists and anti-fascists.

Tim Declercq Mon, 04/07/2025 - 15:33

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

As the commenter I was responding to said, he openly and repeatedly praises the fascist UPA on his facebook account. There is indeed nothing in that specific LibCom article, I was just pointing out that even LibCom apparently has decided to start republishing him. As an example, here he is on his facebook account openly praising Right Sector leader Dmytro Kotsiubailo: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02Pt1Kuq1p6B29eQ…

But you do make a good point that nothing is ever directly said in interviews to Western audiences about any of this, you have to go look up their original social media pages and their interviews in Ukrainian media to find these things. The same is true about Petrovichev to whose facebook profile I linked above, in the interviews from Solidarity Collectives to Western audiences you'll also find nothing about any of that.

Tim Declercq Mon, 04/07/2025 - 16:01

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

This incidentally touches on something about Solidarity Collectives that goes beyond basic political disagreement, and that is their basic credibility. If they had simply been open and honest about these things, about Samoylenko being a Right Sector commander, Petrovichev being an OUN fighter well-immersed in the local neo-nazi movement, Avtonomny Opir being national-anarchist, and so on then I would of course still disagree with them but at least I'd be able to believe them. If they then said "here's a Ukrainian anarchist" who I don't know anything about I'd at least be able to believe them, whereas now I just suspect it's probably just going to be yet another national-anarchist, fascist, or even hardcore neo-nazi they're misrepresenting. And these things have happened so many times now that they can no longer be chalked up to a mistake, it forms a persistent pattern.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Tue, 04/08/2025 - 13:44

In reply to by Tim Declercq

I, on the other hand, only know English. My attempts to learn German and Spanish gave only limited results. So references in other languages by Tim and others are useless to me, alas. I do not doubt anyone's honesty but I cannot be sure of anyone's interpretation and judgment.

BTW, to change the topic, I have wondered about what Trump would do, with his English-Only and anti-diversity policies, if he achieved his goal of annexing Canada--what would he do about the French-speaking population of Quebec?

anon (not verified) Tue, 04/08/2025 - 20:39

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

This was also something I worried about way back when the British took over South Africa from the poor innocent Boers. Hopefully the American crackdown on the sweet wholesome Quebecois won't be too harsh, since they have lots of oppressing of Native peoples to do themselves. I wouldn't want Yankee imperialism to interfere with Quebecois imperialism, just like I don't want Russian imperialism to interfere with that of my cherished NATO alliance. Anarchy is when army men.

anon (not verified) Tue, 04/08/2025 - 16:37

In reply to by Tim Declercq

happy to help tim, especially when graciously rec'd. 

also, this is an error that native speakers do too, so... now you can correct them! ;)

anon (not verified) Sun, 04/20/2025 - 02:52

I gotten confused didn't Muhrica by Yukron off of the Ruskies fo 50 bucks, but now like they wont it back, but likethere are all these Muhrican Ruskies there now and like, Trump dont help them, but they voted for him. Its the freakin gold and capitolists there, thats wot!!!

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
!
#
6
z
R
@
T
b
Enter the code without spaces.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.