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I The Situation in Russia

The strike movement in Russia is inseparably connected with horrible inflation. All prices for food and some other things have increased 50-70% since the beginning of 2007 and this is far from the end. Economists say prices will rise again by 50% during the winter!

Apart from the fact that fucking capitalism is not a comfortable system for 90% of proletarians, inflation, strikes and the brutal reaction of the Russian state derive from one source - the criminal structure of the social, political and economic system of Russia.

The economy of Putin’s Russia is based on monopolies. They are almost everywhere. All of them are connected with some state bureaucrat or another, or with friends of friends of friends of Mister Putin. (Naturally these monopolies pay big money to the bureaucrats). This third world economy has only one aim - to provide prosperity for the gangsters in a pyramid of nouveau riches and state functionaries. The top among them is Mister Putin whose untold wealth equals about 40 billion US dollars.

None of them is interested in any "negotiations" with proletarians.

Many bosses and officials are former criminals or KGB officials and don't understand what "negotiations" mean. All the functionaries know their time is limited; they can lost power during a struggle to the death between different fractions. Today their uncertainty is growing becouse of the unclear situation with the presidential elections.

So they need to get money as fast as they can. and so they use different methods against strikers and protesters - judicial prohibition, police violence and criminal violence. For example, almost all strikes have been declared "illegal" by courts in the past few months and some union leaders were attacked by the police or mafia.

II Strike at FORD

The strike at the FORD factory in S-Petersburg began yesterday, on the 20th of November.

About 1,700 workers are participating in the strike. A total about 2200 people work there.
The strike is organised by FORD’s trade union.

The main demand of the workers is a wage increase of 30-40% (which is not more than compensation for inflation). Today FORD workers earn about 500 dollars per month. (This is not so bad for Russia - in fact the salary of industrial workers, doctors and teachers in the Russian city of Saratov (with one million inhabitants) is about 150 dollars per month and it is also quickly shrinking because of inflation.)
Activists from KRAS were making anarchist propaganda at the FORD as well as agitating against the hierarchical trade union. We call on the workers to stop being obedient to the union leaders, organize a general assembly and make all decisions themselves.

The factory was occupied by special police forces from the so-called "OMON".

Union leaders are very angry because of our propaganda.

As for the workers themselvs, they told us during private talks that they understand that their trade union cannot help them. But they are afraid to make SABO and they are afraid of the state law and police..They also say that they have problems with money and the strike will not be long.

We are going to the factory every day.
As we see, the workers are stuggling.
But until they use an anarchist way of struggle (wich is absolutely illegal) they can change nothing.

The FORD strike is not the first strike in S-Petersburg this month.
At the same time the dockers’ union paralyzed the city port..
This strike started on November 13th. The court says it’s illegal. The law-abiding dockers’ union stopped the strike on the 16 -18 of November. But they say workers will make an Italian strike..
We spread hundreds of leaflets and newspapers at the port of S-Petersburg and tried to contact workers without union leaders.

Fuckin fucking unions! They gave lists of their members to bosses! They stopped the strikes before negotiations with the bosses started. They interrupted the strikes after the court verdicts. They teach workers to obey the law. This is madness..This is madness everywhere in the world because of the neoliberal politcs of capitalism. But especially it is madness here in our third world primitive rude dictatorship of criminals and the KGB!

Also some car-drivers in S-Petersburg started their strike yesterday. We still don't have contact with them. As we know it was a spontaneous (wild-cat) strike.

Still we are the only anarcho-communist organisation in Russia which tries to influence strikes. At the same time we participate in the movement of local inhabitants of Moscow who struggle against gentrification.. But this is another long story.

Michael Magid
Intersecretary of (KRAS) IWA-AIT-Russia