Chto Delat Weekly Reader No. 2

Another selection of articles from our virtual magazine rack. This week’s topics include: cooperation between fascists and the police in their “common struggle” against antifa in a Russian town; the persecution of a Russian academic for his stance on the war in Georgia; the struggles of ordinary folks in Sochi and Kiev against state-supported runaway development; the self-immolation of a pensioner in Novosibirsk; an anti-draft protest in Petersburg; the “precarity” and lack of academic freedom amongst adjunct university teachers in the US; Andre Gunder Frank’s “autobio/bibliography”; and more leftist analysis of the bail-out in the US and the financial crisis.

• Хайль, гражданин начальник. В Ижевске ультраправые помогают милиции бороться с антифой. [“Sieg Heil, Comrade Captain! In Izhevsk, ultra-rightists help the police take on antifa activists.” ]

• Запрет на профессию? Как ушел из РГСУ доктор филологии Борис Соколов. В середине августа известный историк и литературовед, доктор филологических наук Борис Соколов опубликовал в издании «Газета» статью «Проиграл ли Саакашвили? Итоги войны в Грузии не так однозначны, как их рисует официальная пропаганда», в которой изложил свою версию причин и последствий конфликта на Кавказе. Вскоре текст Соколова исчез с сайта «Газеты», а его самого вынудили уйти из Российского государственного социального университета (РГСУ). [“A ban on practicing one’s profession? How doctor of philology Boris Sokolov left RGSU.” In mid-August, the well-known historian and literary scholar Boris Sokolov published an article entitled “Did Saakashvili Lose? The Results of the War in George Aren’t as Clear-Cut as Official Propaganda Makes Them Out to Be,” in Gazeta. In the article, Sokolov presented his own version of the reasons for and consequences of the conflict in the Caucasus. Sokolov’s article soon disappeared from the Gazeta website, and he himself was forced to leave his post at the Russian State Social University (RGSU).]

• ВЛАСТИ ГОРОДА СОЧИ НАЧАЛИ РЕПРЕССИИ ПРОТИВ ИМЕРЕТИНЦЕВ, ВЫСТУПАЮЩИХ ПРОТИВ НЕЗАКОННОГО СТРОИТЕЛЬСТВА ОЛИМПИЙСКИХ ОБЪЕКТОВ. Милиция Адлера с помощью обманного приема задержала жителей Имеретинской низменности Наталью Калиновскую и Светлана Берестеневу. Столкнувшись с активной гражданской позицией жителей поселков Совхоз “Россия” и Нижне-Имеретинская Бухта, которые уже в течение двух месяцев не дают вести незаконные работы по строительству “Второго грузового района порта Сочи”, планируемый властями к размещению по соседству с их домами, с целью запугать местное население власти города Сочи решили пойти на репрессии в отношении наиболее активных жителей. [“The Sochi municipal authorities have begun repressing Imeretinians who opposed the illegal construction of Olympic sites. The Adler police used a trick to arrest Natalia Kalinovskaya and Svetlana Beresteneva.” When they met with active civic resistance from residents of the villages in the Russia Sovkhoz, who for two months have not let illegal work go ahead on the Second Terminal Area of the Port of Sochi, which the authorities have planned right next to the their houses, the Sochi municipal authorities decided to scare the local population by repressing the most active residents.]

• Уличные бои в Киеве. В Печерском районе на бульваре Леси Украинки, 9 произошел конфликт между застройщиками и местными жителями. В результате конфликта была госпитализирована одна из активисток. В среду, 1 октября, на Печерских холмах по адресу бульвар Леси Украинки, 9В группа неизвестных лиц, не предъявляя никаких законных документов, отгородилась от жильцов соседних домов бетонным забором. Часть придомовой территории, которую рейдерски захватили неизвестные, относится ко всем прилегающим зданиям. Вот и люди оборонились. [“Street fighting in Kiev. At 9B, Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard, in the Pechora District, local residents clashed with developers.” One activist was hospitalized after the clash. On Wednesday, October 1, a group of persons unknown who presented no legal documents whatsoever erected a concrete barrier in the courtyard at 9B, Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard, in the Pechora Hills. Part of the land that these unknown raiders seized belongs to all the houses that surround it. And so residents decided to defend themselves.]

• Игорь Васильевич Царьков — охуенный 68-летний новосибирский перформансист. У нас нет его фото и мы практически ничего о нём не знаем, кроме того что сегодня около 12 часов дня он забрался на крышу Краеведческого музея (того, который напротив мэрии), облил себя бензином и вспыхнул. Перед этим он сбросил с крыши листы бумаг: судебные документы, оспаривающие его право собственности на участок в деревне Ярки, где он жил, и откуда его выгоняли из-за юридических тонкостей с приватизацией, и письмо, описывающее знакомую всем ситуацию невозможности выживания на мизерную пенсию. Сейчас он находится в областной больнице в тяжёлом состоянии. В Яндекс-новостях можно попытаться найти какие-то подробности, хотя большинство информагенств очень скупо сообщают лишь о «выкрикиваемых ругательствах», мало кто вспоминает, что сейчас идёт традиционная «декада пожилых людей», сопровождаемая показным вниманием к пенсионерам. Сегодня 3 октября, новая дата в истории Новосибирска. [Igor Vasilievich Tsarkov is a fucking amazing 68-year-old Novosibirsk performance artist. We don’t have a photo of him and we know almost nothing about him except for that today around twelve noon he climbed onto the roof of the Local History Museum (opposite the mayor’s office), doused himself with gasoline, and set himself ablaze. Before this, he threw pieces of paper from the roof: court documents that challenged his ownership of a plot of land in the village of Yarki, where he lived before he was evicted because of legal technicalities connected to privatization of the property; and a letter, in which he describes the impossibility of living on his meager pension. He is now in the regional hospital in critical condition. You can try to search for details of this incident in Yandex News, but most news agencies drily report his “shouting obscenities.” Hardly any of them recalls that the traditional “ten-day festival of the elderly” is underway, which is accompanied by feigned concern for pensioners. Today, October 3, is a new date in the history of Novosibirsk.] A news report from Vesti-Novosibirsk.

• Sergei Chernov. Official Clamps Down on Anti-Draft Event. The youth wing of the democratic party Yabloko said it will pursue legal action against a district administration official for stopping its members from displaying the party’s flags at a protest on Wednesday against military conscription.

To coincide with the autumn draft that began in Russia on Wednesday, Youth Yabloko staged a protest by erecting a temporary “anti-recruiting station” near Vasileostrovskaya metro station.

• Andre Gunder Frank. The Underdevelopment of Development. An “autobio/bibliographical” essay by the major Marxist development theorist.

• Robin Wilson. Adjuncts Fight Back Over Academic Freedom. Steven Bitterman was on his way to teach a course in Western civilization at Southwestern Community College last fall when his car slipped off the road. By the time he got back on the road, Mr. Bitterman’s clothes were muddy, so he returned home to clean up. That’s where he got a telephone call from one of the college’s vice presidents, saying he had been fired.

• Dmytri Kleiner. There Can Be No Bailout.

• Louis Proyect. Are Bailouts Marxist? Just after the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, rightwing ideologues began to rail against this and other supposedly socialist measures.

• Scott Reynolds Nelson. The Real Great Depression: The depression of 1929 is the wrong model for the current economic crisis. As a historian who works on the 19th century, I have been reading my newspaper with a considerable sense of dread. While many commentators on the recent mortgage and banking crisis have drawn parallels to the Great Depression of 1929, that comparison is not particularly apt. Two years ago, I began research on the Panic of 1873, an event of some interest to my colleagues in American business and labor history but probably unknown to everyone else. But as I turn the crank on the microfilm reader, I have been hearing weird echoes of recent events.

• Owen Hatherley. Two State Solutions. The state is obviously not something we can uncritically use as a blunt instrument – but if you want to build social housing, cure diseases, or generally stop people from starving, it beats a thousand squats and affinity groups. The problem now is to argue for this element of the state, as there’s no sign that any of the nationalisations will stop the onslaught against any welfare other than the corporate kind, or that a social Keynesianism will go alongside its military form. Anyone expecting a change of heart in our leaders is being decidedly over-optimistic.

• Richard Seymour. Spec-tac-u-lar. It is impossible to watch the news media for any length of time in this climate. The conventions that work so well when things are merely tough all over jar horribly when things are turning to shit. The pseudo-belligerent tone of inquiry, the determined trivialisation, the handy diversion of any serious thought into prepared memes, all of this is just enraging. Take this, for example. The economist Nouriel Roubini and the former investment banker turned tabloid columnist Oliver Kamm are invited to discuss the financial crisis with presenter Stephen Sackur. Roubini describes the proposed bail-out as “socialism for the rich”, and Sackur immediately diverts it into the right-wing meme, “he’s saying it’s socialism!” as if that’s the same thing.

• Michael Moore. Here’s How to Fix the Mess on Wall Street. The richest 400 Americans—that’s right, just four hundred people—own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion—the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the “bailout.” Why don’t they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They’d still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!