Trying to look like Kropotkin

With my head blatted by the attempt to work out visas and how to only be in Russia for the 30 day maximum, I decide I am starting to look like Kropotkin.

Did HE have to get a HIV test before he could escape the country?
I mean Bakunin, yes, he'd have to. But Kropotkin?

Voline's history and places en route

Today I've skim-read Voline's sad history of the Bolshevik destruction/takeover of the Russian revolution, which included the brutal wiping out of the anarchist movements of the time.

A few episodes at certain locations leap out as possibilities for me to focus on:

Moscow - anarchists, syndicalists and others put in Tanganka prison - Summer 1921 Congress of Red Trade Unions protest to Bolsheviks when these prisoners go on hunger strike - triggers first deportation of political prisoners from the new Russia. (better than being shot)

Berlin - arrival of said prisoners by boat into a Germany teetering on revolution (with wrong passports deliberately set up by Bolsheviks) - very unususual/brave solidarity/acceptance of these anarchists by Germans, story to be told.

Paris - Voline buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery

Voline's online text of Russia

Kronstadt story clearly told - the sailors role before the conflict/ the Bolshevik repression of any independent voices and the sailors' response/ the bombardment and massacre by Trotsky and his Cheka.
(Especially: The role of kitchen gardens; the very evocative statements/bulletins; the independence of soviets versus central control)
(to check: which sailors died in Siberian exile)

"Appointed Commissar of Kronstadt, Dybenko was given full power to "clean up the rebel city". This meant an orgy of massacre. The victims of the Cheka were innumerable, and they were executed en masse during the days that followed the fall of the fortress"

During the ensuing weeks the gaols of Kronstadt were filled with hundreds of prisoners from Kronstadt. Each night, little groups of prisoners were taken out and shot by order of the Cheka.

"In the prisons, in the concentration camps, in the polar regions of Archangel, in the distant deserts of Turkestan, the men of Kronstadt who rebelled against the Bolshevik absolutism for really free Soviets endured, for long years, a miserable existence, and slowly died. There are probably no more of them still alive today."

Nishni-Novgorod - place where anarchist Moscow regiment leader Gratchov lured to and (probably) assassinated when Bolsheviks eliminated original military forces who had defended the revolution in Moscow.

April 12, day that Trotsky had all Moscow organisations rounded up, closed down, shot etc.. under the exact same rhetoric as Stalin used to close his own lot down later.

Summer 1919 command to wipe out the Makhnovists. Intercepted secret telegram from lenin:
- Arrest all the Anarchists and incriminate them. Lenin.

Tolstoyan pacifists rounded up and killed for refusal to serve in army.

Murmansk - location at which 3 delegates who were critical of Bolsheviks were sent deceitfully to die.

Info on Siberian anarchism to collect. Book on the mental Buddhist white general on its way.

"The Bolsheviks moved against the anarchists in spring 1918, using the Cheka to attack them and imprison them. But the disarming of anarchist units in Siberia by the Bolsheviks was hindered by the attack by the Whites led by Kolchak in March 1918. These units, as well as units organised by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, fought too efficiently for the Bolsheviks to allow themselves to destroy them. They were in the first rank of the underground resistance when the Whites occupied Siberia. In autumn 1918 anarchist peasant guerrilla groups appeared in the regions already mentioned. Novoselov was commander of a group of tens of combatants singing The March of the Anarchists and flying red and black flags inscribed with the slogan “Anarchy is the Mother of Order” (a sentence from Reclus also used on Makhnovist flags). Other anarchist detachments elected their commanders.

Shtirbul considers that a significant number of the 140,000 revolutionary combatants in Siberia were under anarchist influence. Like the Makhnovist detachments who contributed in a decisive fashion to the defeat of the White general Denikin in the Ukraine, the Siberian anarchist partisans (Novoselov and Rogov) contributed to the pushing back of Kolchak, From a strictly military point of view, the support of the anarchists in the struggle against the Whites was indispensable. This explains why, despite orders from Moscow, there were severe problems with the crushing of Siberian anarchism, as local Bolsheviks regarded the anarchists as honest revolutionaries."

Mp3 player to buy

I don't like or own any mobile phone. For a few brief weeks I used one when I lived in London, and was staying in different beds each night, but I was happy the day I realised I'd lost it.

However, I thought for arranging things in Russia/Siberia it might come in handy. Plus texts from friends might make me feel less lonely, and also I figure I should have something to give away if I'm mugged/robbed. There's no point having nothing nickable if they then decide 'it'd better be your passport then'.

I will take my digital camera, I think. And also I've decided today that getting a v.small mp3 player would be good for the neverending journeys & snoring carriage-mates. It's also another thing to accept being stolen/exchanged/used as a bribe-in-need. As I've not had one before, I shouldn't mind it once it's gone.

And the bonus thing about it is it lets me spend hours choosing favourite tracks to evoke old times/ to go well with train journeys/ to represent and remind me of different sides of my life. And it doesn't depend upon radio reception or mobile phone reception like a phone would. And it will leave me with my awareness/interaction with my surroundings intact, unlike a mobile which creates a self-centred blockage.

One problem is that I have no money at the moment. I'm £1000 into my £1200 overdraft with £200 to pay for my next zine printing. So I need to arrange a meeting with the bank to get a credit card and/or loan. And in the meantime I'm trying to save money on some things in order to pay for the things I want to (like the £40 worth of books about russia/siberia/anarchism I've sent off for today).



Making my scrapbook & reading the NME today - listening to the highlighted bands - was enjoyable, and kind've informs my decision.

First tickets bought

I've spent a lot of time thinking of dropping the idea, because it will be a very lonely 6 weeks on my own, running up debt to no particular purpose.

But no, I'm gonna do it. When I get paid on thursday I'll buy one of the big tickets - today I've bought just the initial ones

newcastle to london on 25th July
london to paris on 27th July

friend of a friend to stay with in Lyons (trendy art scene)
possible family friend of a friend to stay with in Zurich (squat scene)
half-booked myself on an environmental camp 18-31st August in Siberia

paris to london 16th September

Reading up on places, read the 1848 revolutions book, got books on the decembrists in siberia and others to read next.

A couple of maps

This defunct map is nice for showing Harbin's location, which is a tempter. It isn't quite the same route in the west these days, though...

Here's one with the UK, but missing the northern loop thru finland/sweden via st.petrosgradburg.


And 3 because 3 is the magic number.
(alchemico-philosophically, 1 is everything, all, unity, which you have to divide/ demarcate/ separate in order to define/ determine/ talk about anything, but by creating 2 (subjectobject, lightdark, herethere etc..) you have inevitably created a 3, the most interesting bit, the relationship between the two.

Films I've watched on TV this weekend are exactly how I imagine this trip will turn out.

Getting on the train at St.Petersburg.

Hanging out with the Russians.

Changing trains at Lake Baikal.

Approaching Chita

And beyond.

No.3 Possible page one text

I am part of a loose collective who make a diary each year, called Wor Diary, which is dedicated to remembering rebellious men and women, protests and riots and fights done by the ordinary folk (folk like us), who don't usually feature on the official record. The people, in fact, whose names are forgotten, whose voices are silenced and whose ideas of a different, better future, are denied.

Each year about fifty people take part in drawing the pages and making Wor Diary, we print a few hundred copies and then sell it around Tyneside for cost price. It's a fundamentally amateur project, with no big marketing or famous names being splashed about. There's a reason for this, connected to the idea that real history is not handed down by a few famous characters - the story of the 'official' history books. Rather, history is created day-by-day in every nook & cranny of the world, in the most diverse way possible, and it is THIS world of struggle & sociability that we want to celebrate in Wor Diary. The neighbours helping each other out, the people saying 'no' to abuse, to control and to selling-out.

There are some other reasons why this project needs a few disclaimers.

Unlike Marxism, anarchism does not have an originator or a primary theorist, and unlike a movement such as Chartism, anarchism is still alive and still relevant to people's struggles today. The place to find it is amongst the people trying to live free, to increase theirs & others' freedom, to reduce oppression, remove injustice in their own way. So there's no point going searching for the person who 'invented' anarchism, and it is against anarchist principles to say that one person is more important than any other. We're all in it together.