Personally , I consider the fantastic self-organization and solidarity among the protesters as the manifestation of practical “ folk anarchism ”. Although it was badly comprehended .
Due to the consequences of Maidan and considering the demands of the protesters , the political impact of the upheaval is not nationalistic , but liberal . The dominant part of protesters talk about a “ better state ( welfare state ) with bureaucracy which is not corrupt , police which take care of our security and an army which will protect us from invaders , etc .”. The new president of Ukraine in his last speech promised that he will decentralize all authorities and give more rights and resources to local communities . And I ’ m afraid that smart ‘ soft policies ’ might repress the protest atmosphere for another decade . At the same time , it doesn ’ t seem that political elites understand this . They keep being corrupt and vote for brutal neo-liberal reforms .
The majority of people have decided to give credit to the new authorities . The degree of radicalism has fallen down . People think that they can achieve compromises with them and usually use tactics of picketing and other legal forms of protest . The efficiency of those tactics is not so big , so I hope it provokes people to become more radical .
And I think that national rhetoric about Maidan was superficial . The Ukrainian flag and the slogan “ Slava Ukraini ” ( Honor of Ukraine ) lost in some sense their state symbolism . During that time they were symbols of riots . Although after the beginning of the war , a strong reaction among the society has started . There was a shock , people didn ’ t know what to do about the Russian army in Crimea , so they gave credit to the army and the new authorities ( right-centrist and neo-liberal parties in parliament ). Today , common patriotism and nationalism displays itself as Russophobia and support of the Ukrainian army in the war , but not in support of the authorities and a strong state . There was a moment before the election of the new president when people believed that somehow Poroshenko would bring the stability back . That ’ s how most of them justified why they voted for him . But it seems to me that officials keep loosing their support day after day .
Second , in fact , there were no “ hundred-person fighting units with a strict hierarchy of command ”. Self-defence forces consisted of approximately 40 hundredunits in Maidan . And only a dozen of them were nationalist or fascist .
Others have been united by regional ( for instance , Lviv hundred ) or community ( Afghanistan veterans hundred ) principle . Also there were not only “ militant ” hundred-units that took the brand “ hundred ”. For instance “ Art hundred ” which used to make decisions by consensus ( they were strongly influenced by anarchists ). I consider even more prominent that during the clashes on Grushevskogo street and Instytutska street , the real force who fought the police consisted of thousands of autonomous groups . From 2 to 10 friends used to fighting with police without any organizational membership . I personally participated in clashes just in a group of my friends who were not anarchists ! ( I didn ’ t participate in an affinity group during that time and all of my anarchist comrades were away at that time ). Moreover , hundredsunits didn ’ t have 100 persons in them . Before clashes on Instytutska street , most of the “ hundreds ” have 20-40 people in . People just used to leave their hundreds after they got bored . There was a funny moment in the occupied Ministry of Education ( the defense of that place were held mostly by anarchists ). Two guys that joined us said “ we left our hundred , they do nothing , and it seems to us that guarding of this place is more exciting ). The constitution of militant protesters was very dynamic and not unified .
Third , after the clashes on Instytutska street , finally Maidan spread to all neighborhoods in Kiev and then to most of the cities and even villages in Ukraine .
People self-organized into local self-defense forces to fight the police and “ titushkas ” ( pro-government militants ). We ( anarchists ) understood the necessity of decentralization and spreading the protest to all parts of the city and the country , but due to the lack of experience of direct action , we haven ’ t brought an impulse to this tactic . People intuitively came to this after the government had blocked the subway which paralyzed the transport system in Kiev . Unprecedented violence on Instytutska street was so terrifying that it pushed forward schoolboys with wooden and metal sticks from villages in central Ukraine to stop buses with “ titushkas ”.
These local self-defense forces are more or less active uptil today . For example , they fight against property developers . I think that tactic of bringing disasters to quiet neighborhoods and blocking transport and other infrastructures in the cities might be fruitful in further uprisings .
To sum up , I think far-right organization are likely to capitalize on the uprising which is fertile for anarchism , but they have to evolve and adapt to that new ground . They have to make a serious effort to stay there . They just can ’ t fully absorb protest from below .
So I think this situation is not so bad for anarchists . I encourage anarchist groups to take a part in a heart of uprisings , proposing not only more radical forms of direct action but drawing a truly radical political perspective . The best places for agitation of people are barricades . Also we have to provoke radical changes . We have to open new sides of what is permitted . First Molotov cocktails in the history of independent Ukraine was very different . For example , today cops and politicians are not untouchable anymore in Ukraine . What is next ? We have to take out a prohibition from private property . We don ’ t have to wait until the creation of a “ big workers movement ” as my syndicalist comrades do , or seek for mainstream media attention , or ap-
| 12 |