It Could Happen Here - An Interview With An Anarchist Protester in Russia

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Robert sits down with a Russian anarchist, currently protesting the Putin regime's invasion of Ukraine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit.

The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Robert Evans here, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how things are falling apart and how to maybe put them back together. Obviously, the biggest story probably in the world right now is the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. And a major corollary of that story is how dramatically things in Russia have taken a turn for the totalitarian.

The country has become increasingly isolated from most of the global community. This is due to a mix of sanctions to a lot of businesses pulling out just because of the social consequences of not doing so and of policies that have been put down by Putin's government in order to crack down on dissent and further remove Russia from any kind of contact with the West. As a result, it's kind of difficult to get in touch with people who are resisting Putin's government from within Russia. Anarchist activists in particular are not easy people to reach. However, we did recently sit down with one of these individuals and talk to them. So this episode will both be an interview with that person and a bit of history about the anarchist movements within Russia. Russia has actually a very long history of anarchist organizing. Two of the men generally considered foundational thinkers in anarchist political theory, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, were both born in Russia.

Both lived and agitated under the Tsars. Bakunin was an advocate and a major theorist of political terrorism. under the Tsars. Bakunin was an advocate and a major theorist of political terrorism. He fled the country, was returned, and ultimately spent like 10 years in prison there. Kropotkin was the author of a seminal anarcho-communist text titled The Conquest of Bread, and he was only able to return to Russia after the 1917 revolution. He died there in 1921. It's also worth noting that Peter Kropotkin is canonically the ancestor to Tommy Pickles of the Rugrats, but that's something you can look up on your own. Now, while some of the most influential anarchists in history were Russian,

and anarchist organizing was a potent part of pre-1917 Russian political history, the success of the Bolsheviks after 1917 led to the movement's near annihilation. Emma Goldman was yet another major anarchist activist and thinker who was born and educated in Russia. She immigrated to the United States in 1885, where she promptly helped try to assassinate a steel magnate in revenge for his brutality against striking workers. Goldman grew to prominence as a labor activist and women's rights activist in the last decade of the 1800s. In 1901, her work helped inspire Leon Chogosh to assassinate President William McKinley. While Emma Goldman had no direct connection to Chogosh, she defended his actions by saying, As an anarchist, I am opposed to violence.

But if the people want to do away with assassins, they must do away with the conditions which produce murderers. There's much more to say about Emma Goldman, but for our purposes, what matters is that she was arrested for opposing the draft in World War I and eventually deported back to Russia right after the revolution. Goldman was initially psyched that the czars had been deposed, but quickly became disillusioned by the violence of the forming totalitarian Soviet state. She considered this a betrayal of the forming totalitarian Soviet state. She considered this a betrayal of the revolution and wrote a series of articles for the New York World that have gone down as one of the first exposés of conditions in the Soviet Union. Goldman's work was criticized by many left-wing intellectuals outside of Russia,

but she was correct about political repression in the new Bolshevik workers' paradise. Matters did not improve for anarchists in the first 20 years of the new regime. In 1937, in his History of Anarchism in Russia, E. Yaroslansky wrote, In the union of socialist Soviet republics at the present time, the anarchists no longer enjoy any influence over the masses. They are met with only as isolated individualists. The fall of the Soviet Union, the coming of democracy, and the slow rise to power of Vladimir Putin did not enormously alter the state of affairs. Russian anarchists still exercise relatively little influence over the masses. Most of them struggle towards autonomy as isolated individuals. In March of 2022,

in the third week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I sat down with one of these people. We had been chatting online through Reddit for a couple of weeks, and the process of setting up a proper audio interview was difficult, to say the least. Repression of all political dissent under Putin is extreme. More than 13,000 people were arrested at anti-war protests in the first two weeks of the war. So you will understand why our source was paranoid about his identity. I had to download a secure app I'd never even heard of before, and he only agreed to speak with me while using a voice-changing application to further disguise his identity. Due to the difficulties this created,

I will be paraphrasing him and quoting his words myself at a couple of points here in order to make listening to this a more comfortable experience, but here he is. So just to make it clear, he's saying that he's been involved in anarchist organizing for more than a decade, since around 2011. The initial cell he organized with was affiliated with an umbrella organization called Autonomous Action. We'll talk about them more in a minute, but it's important you understand that his cell, at about 50 people strong, was considered quite large for Russia. Yep, except for in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, there were several cops, I guess.

In protests, in meetings, etc., like tickets, whatever, there were like 400 or something like that, marching along. But, of course, in other cities, there were more cops, more people there. There were more homes, more people there. But for a provincial town, a province town, almost full, 50 people, it was considered quite large. Even in 2011, organizing as an anarchist was rather risky. As a result, our source actually started his career in activism on his own,

as a single protester. He would stand out in public places, sometimes during other protests, sometimes on his own, holding a sign that said in Russian, peace to the world. Now, I'm reading you the English translation of what he put down. The literal Russian words that he had on his sign were a reference to a famous Soviet slogan, officially adopted in 1951. The phrase actually has a much older origin in the country, which begins under the Orthodox Church and grew more popular among revolutionaries after the February Revolution. The first leftist to use peace to the world as a slogan in Russia may have actually been A.F. Kerensky, who headed the brief democratic government that ran things after

the Tsar stepped down. In our source's case, his sign was an act of protest against a number of things, including the recent Russian invasion of Georgia and Russian military operations in Syria. I was kind of a silly kid that was just, you know, preaching for, you know, protesting for the government against all the old stuff, all the bad stuff. I'm practicing for the code against all the old stuff, all the bad stuff. It was a lot of enthusiasm and almost nothing in effectiveness or organization or whatever. But somehow I managed to do it. Not entire winter in the main spa, but for a couple of weeks at least.

Like every day, if I remember correctly. And then they fall. It's hot somehow. That's it. After he'd been seen doing this for a while, members of a local anarchist cell found this person and started asking them questions. Hey, who are you? What are you doing?

What do you think of this and that? He was not specific about the individual political questions. Hey, who are you? What are you doing? What do you think of this and that? He was not specific about the individual political questions they answered, and we probably don't need to get into that. They invited him eventually to a building where a number of them tended to gather and prepare for actions. In short order, they started organizing together. At the time our source started organizing as an anarchist, the most notorious recent action was the Khimki

Forest Conflict. In brief, Khimki is a forest with a long history as a nature preserve. It's kind of outside of Moscow. It's so densely forested that in the 1600s and then in the early 1800s, when the Russians were resisting Napoleon, it was used by partisans and insurgents as a base of operations. When the Bolsheviks took over, it was preserved to act as a sort of open-air therapy center for tuberculosis patients. In the early 2000s, local city planners started to advocate for a toll road to be built through the middle of the forest. Their argument was that a large amount of traffic passed through the Leningrad Highway, and that had caused huge amounts of air pollution in the city of Khimki. Since the forest was protected by national

environmental codes, turning it into a road was a long political process. Activists protested, arguing that it would be an environmental disaster, which, spoilers, it was. Like anarchists in the United States in the period before the Green Scare, Russian anarchists carried out a series of occupation actions to try and protect the wild lands. In 2012, trolls and stuff. But in the end, it was like the government. So anyway. In 2012, shortly after our source began participating in anarchist demonstrations, the government carried out a major crackdown against certain anarchist

activists. They focused primarily on groups and individuals who were doing things like making Molotov cocktails and engaging in property destruction. Now, Arsour's participated in food not bombs and other non-aggressive types of direct action, most of which involved handing out food and supplies to people or helping them to get resources. He did not disavow insurrectionary anarchists, the kind of people who threw bombs, but that wasn't the kind of thing he did, and he didn't have a lot of connections with those people because roughly a year after he started organizing as an anarchist, most of them in his area, at least, got cracked down on and either killed, forced out of the country, or arrested by the government.

This crackdown on insurrectionary Russian anarchists led to an even more paranoid security culture among those who remained. Our source and his comrades mostly distributed food, but they also provided support for a large number of children whose families had abandoned them due to crushing poverty. Even though these things were not illegal, they had to maintain intense security culture to avoid being part of future

crackdowns. Please, we're asked, don't talk to anyone. You don't know, like, about the structure of the organization and stuff. But still, we communicate with people, but don't give them information. Don't give them information more than they need to know. One long-standing tradition among Russian anarchists was a sort of defensive isolation. People gave each other as little information as possible about their real identities. As a result, despite the fact that he has participated in multiple protests since the invasion of Ukraine, and people have been arrested at those protests, our source insists that he doesn't know if any of his comrades have been taken into custody.

Now, some of this probably has to do with the fact that he's not organizing in a major city, but a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that he just doesn't particularly know any people by name. Polls, which are imperfect but cannot be entirely discounted, suggest that most Russian civilians support the war and their military. Even so, the scope and scale of the anti-war protests in Russia have beggared anything from recent memory. Our source says that this has actually helped to mitigate some of the despair you might expect Russian anarchists to feel given the titanic increase in state repression.

From what I know, from what I see and monitor, people still indicate to get help. people to get to get hope at least in our case if maybe one year ago it would have been just like come on we can

do it everything will just go again and FSB will find us whatever, no there is no despair at least we don't see it there are lots of action and FSB will find us, whatever. No, there is no despair. At least, I don't see it. There are lots of action,

there are lots of preparation for what I understand not only anarchists, but other radical groups gathering in Moscow, in St. Petersburg. Obviously, because the most epicenter of everything will be there, not in other regions I guess.

And yeah, some even throwing mortars already in the streets. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me

in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works

while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite

has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field,

and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So it's probably time that we talk about Autonomous Action, or AD, the revolutionary anarchist federation that our friend and his comrades are affiliated with. AD actually has members in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. It was founded in 2002 and briefly had affiliates in Armenia before they disbanded in 2005. That's a story in and of itself. AD advocates direct action in order to, quote, create a tradition and basis for a new humanist culture,

social self-organization, and radical resistance against militarism, capitalism, sexism, and fascism. They consider the existing government of Russia as entirely illegitimate. They refuse to take part in Russian electoral politics, seeing even left-wing opposition parties as essentially controlled by Putin and only existing to provide a sham vision of choice. AD activists call themselves the autonomy and see their calling as twofold, to exist as autonomous free individuals within

an unfree system, and to spread revolutionary sentiment and weaken the state. Much has been said in the West of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition politician who, whatever else you might say about him, is certainly not controlled opposition. He has survived an assassination attempt by the Putin regime and is currently incarcerated after leaving his exile in the West to return to Russia and fight the sham case against him in court. No one can doubt that Navalny possesses significant physical courage, and it seems fair to say the man believes in what he says. 80 activists, from what I have seen, do not fault him in his willingness to suffer for his beliefs, but they believe that he is at the very least deeply

misguided. Navalny, they say, holds to a fundamentally errant belief that Russia could ever be a parliamentary democracy in the Western tradition. Their argument is that corruption investigations and electoralism are useless in Russia and always have been. And from a historical standpoint, it is difficult to argue with these claims. Autonomous action members do not support the Ukrainian state, and I have read articles from them where they describe the conflict in the Donbass, which simmered for eight years before exploding into the current conflagration, as two fascist paramilitary forces backed by two capitalist governments. However, they have been consistent for years that the proper stance of Russian anarchists

is to support the Ukrainian people against aggression from the Russian state. Before Putin commenced his broader invasion in February of this year, Autonomous Action published an article with the title, Why We Should Support Ukraine. Quote, Putin is not just the gendarme of Europe, but the gendarme of the whole world, from Syria to Myanmar. Whenever a dictator tortures and kills thousands of his old people, Putin is there to support him. There are no elections in Russia anymore. Even the most moderate attempts to change something results in criminal cases and persecutions. I do not believe that the result of this, yet another round of threatening declarations and building up pressure, is a full-scale war. But as the conflict is not disappearing, a full-scale war may start after five to 10 years,

even as a result of a cycle of escalation, even if no one really wants it. And in case of a full-scale war, we should be on the Ukrainian side. As Malatesta said, for me, there is no doubt that the worst of democracies is always preferable, if only from the educational point of view,

than the best of dictatorships. Neutrality in a war between Ukraine and Russia would mean neutrality in an invasion of a democracy by a dictatorship. Now, our source concurs with the extant evidence that Russian citizens still broadly support the war, as I stated earlier. He was certain to acknowledge that there's still a great deal of propaganda, largely pro-NATO propaganda, on the anti-war side of things. Given the information situation within his country, he admitted that he'd had difficulty parsing some things out.

While acknowledging that his side also lacked perfect information, he felt that their stance against the war was safe because, in the end, it opposed bloodletting. Both can claim each other being under some kind of propaganda. Or the Western, the Kremlin, whatever. Even if you're under some kind of propaganda, even wisdom, it's basically the case as well. You still have this morality on your side because you don't want people to die. That's it. He did admit that a number of people in his life, family and close friends, knew about his political sympathies. And he claims that the outbreak of war and the massive totalitarian swing Putin has taken over the last month have caused some of these people

to be more open to his beliefs. So I'm kind of open, but just don't open my mouth. When I don't know people that much, but all my friends, do you know what kind of stuff I'm into? After the war has started, they just came to me either personally or in online. Hey, you've been preparing for this for years, you've been telling us all this for years. I thought you were paranoid, and now I understand you're right. What do we do? So now I do have people knowing about me, about my views and now they're seeing the picture. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience

the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while

commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field And I'll be digging into why the products you love

Keep getting worse And naming and shaming those responsible Don't get me wrong though I love technology I just hate the people in charge And want them to get back to building things That actually do things to help real people I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough

So join me every week to understand What's happening in the tech industry And what could be done to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. In 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the moment, the political situation within Russia is tremendously uncertain. All manner of dubious sources have claimed that a palace coup is in the offing or has been attempted. Some have even spoken of the possibility of a revolution or at least a massive protest campaign that forces Putin from office. Our source did not consider that likely. In the unlikely event the government collapsed entirely, he was not particularly optimistic about what might result. He mentioned to me that a number of his loved ones Well, it's aside from nuclear bombs and stuff like that. We're just kidding. It's not also going to happen.

He mentioned to me that a number of his loved ones had come forward recently to ask what they ought to do. I asked how he responded to that question. Right now, we try to organize and help each other because there is a chance our parents will cause nothing. We just need to survive. That's the first thing. Self-organization and interactions are more valuable than any currency right now for a while. I see it that way. Second thing is that we need to use the training start.

I guess there is a term in English as a case of and we at least can drink, even with the firearms. He particularly mentioned the revolutionary importance of finding some way to either smuggle or produce medical supplies and medications. He knows one person who already had to flee the country because his wife could no longer get the medicine she needed. He mentioned the sanctions levied against Russia as a major issue for regular working people. who already had to flee the country because his wife could no longer get the medicine she needed. He mentioned the sanctions levied against Russia as a major issue for regular working people. But when I asked what he felt Western countries could do in this conflict, he was actually quite focused on something else entirely. He believes the United States has access to high-quality satellite images of what happened in the immediate lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Putin's government justified much of their invasion on so-called attacks from the Ukrainian government that they claim had escalated against the separatist regions. Our source believes his government is lying about this. So you do know where is home? or who started it. It's weak. Not who started it, because you're weak in... First world war. Or it was started by many states. They could have stopped it. So here's the same thing.

Uh, yeah. We need to cover the the crisis that has been going for the past so it's I don't believe that Ukrainian powers are being

with let's say less military power compared to Russia not doing some shitty stuff and yeah like that to Russia, not doing some shady stuff. Yeah, something like that. So we do need those things covered and published and released. Maybe not as soon as possible because there's still more going on, but at least it will

help people to get their minds more clear from the Kremlin's propaganda. Since the invasion, it has gotten notably harder, but not impossibly hard, for Russian citizens to get information about the conflict that does not come from the Kremlin. Our source

explained how he does it, a combination of using VPNs and understanding the nature of authoritarian propaganda. In short, even when the government is lying to you, you can get an idea of what the truth is by understanding what they want you to believe. Yes, I do have a VPN, like, uh, Twitter stuff. This, uh, the, uh, sources.

All the sites. US site, uh, you know, South, South Korea side, Russia side, Ukraine side, some independent stuff as well. posts, messages, because they are at the very best they say what's going to, what's they trying to get into. But if you have enough, see. Okay, let's put it this way. When the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is selling us, they are working on a peaceful solution. And at the same time, we hear that Syrian mercenaries are going to Iran. For me, it means one thing. They want to postpone the fighting to bring an order. For me, it means one thing they want to do is pull all the fighting to get some time.

So, official sources, there is still some reason if you don't want to proceed. He felt that one way U.S. activists could be helpful to Russian activists was by continuing to document and study the different munitions and tactics used by police in cracking down on demonstrations. He noticed that Russian police used similar and sometimes even the same weapons

to the ones that the U.S. police used on crowds in the 2020 protests. He believes the documentation done to study these weapons is helpful to people all around the world. He expressed some frustration at friends and colleagues of his who, after years of failing to truly grapple with the degree to which Putin had centralized power, were now fleeing Russia to avoid living under an increasingly totalitarian state. trying to support me like oh it's so weird this stuff is going on these political repressions well yes if you're not into politics that's something for you

I'm not trying to blame him for not being into politics but it's how it's been and that's why we were against that before the war. Like, against the government. He has decided to stay and to resist. While he has admitted to now studying martial arts and military tactics,

he did not have high hopes for any kind of confrontation with the Russian state. And as a generally peaceable person, he has decided that he will continue to resist in the way that makes the most sense to him, by helping people and providing them with things that they will increasingly need as the economic situation in Russia degrades further. For me, helping people was kind of a life sense, I can't say, a sense of life, meaning of life.

Yeah. I've been struggling with that for at least six years. I wouldn't say the depression would. It was heavenly. But then I understood that one simple thing about anarchists and why should I call myself an anarchist? If I call myself an anarchist?

Then I should make one simple thing. I need to believe in people. If I don't believe in people, what am I talking about then? It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba?

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.