| WORD OF THE DAY la algarabía (ahl-gah-rah-BEE-ah) noun racket |
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| Cerré la ventana para no escuchar la algarabía de los manifestantes que estaban afuera. I closed the windows so as not to hear the racket of the protesters outside. Source: “Word of the Day,” 29 December 2021, spanishdict.com |
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Yigal Levin • Facebook • December 24, 2021
Do Russians want war?
A picket in Russia against war with Ukraine was so tiny that I didn’t even notice it in the stream of incoming news. And it happened something like a week ago. Six (6) activists were involved in the protest. They unfurled posters calling on the Kremlin to stop the war against Ukraine and waved the Ukrainian and Russian flags.
This was how it was reported on the Voice of America website:
“The participants of the anti-war rally said that most passersby did not support the picket. Some spat at the picketers, while others made the cuckoo sign and called the picketers insulting or abusive names. Kirov residents, mostly people of the older generation, urged that ‘Ukraine be wiped off the face of the earth,’ and told the protesters ‘not to disgrace themselves.'”
Basically, it’s all quite clear and expected. Just remember a few things. First, when they tell you that Russians don’t want war with Ukraine, they are lying to you. Let me remind you that silence = consent. Secondly, when you are accused of Russophobia, spit in the face of the person who accuses you.
But the six people who attended this protest rally are heroes. I say that without the slightest trace of irony.
Translated by the Russian Reader
On 4 December, the Associated Press, citing information from the US intelligence services, reported that Russia was preparing to put 175,000 troops near the Ukrainian border. “[Deploying] Russian armed forces on Russian territory – that’s the legal right of a sovereign state”, responded Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, without denying the build-up of forces on the border.
Along with the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, these actions are an episode in the cynical and dangerous geopolitical game of Russian and the west, in which millions of working people in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other countries are being held hostage. This sabre-rattling is not only an attempt to push other states into retreat. Behind it also stands the aspirations of the elite to “rally the nation” once again around the Putin regime, as it did in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea.
The so-called “hybrid war with the west” is needed to distract the population’s attention from the poverty, inequality, political repression, falsification of elections and the collapse of the fight with the coronavirus. This “hybrid war” serves as a justification for round after round of attacks on the rights and freedoms of Russians, for the continuation of a social and economic policy directed against the majority of people – and for power becoming un-removable.
Militarism and nationalism are lethally dangerous drugs that are being injected into Russian society and, at the same time, are poisoning the consciousness of the ruling clique, which is becoming more and more removed from reality.
The loss of social support, the absence of any vision of the future and the determination to stay in charge by any means have pushed Russia’s rulers towards this terrible step: an attempt to cut the Gordian knot of their problems by dragging Russia into a major war.
In this situation it is essential that the progressive forces in Russian society, including the left, are united in opposition to war. Whatever our attitude to the political situation in Ukraine, or to the policy of the USA or the EU in the region, another military adventure will lead to nothing but a humanitarian catastrophe and the reinforcement of authoritarianism on both sides of the border.
We must not allow a repeat of 2014, when a section of the Russian opposition, gripped by illusions in the supposedly progressive character of the so-called “Russian spring”, in practice supported the Kremlin and its imperial expansion.
It must be axiomatic that a regime of record-breaking social inequality, of lies, repression and obscurantism, can not bring “freedom” to anyone, including the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.
Source: Russian Socialist Movement (RSD) • Facebook • December 7, 2021 • Translated by Simon Pirani and published on People and Nature on December 29, 2021
Yigal Levin • Facebook • December 29, 2021
The Russian Reader 
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