Report from Alan Woods, Brit Trot from, "Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, " <URL: http://www.marxist.com/Russia/mayday2002moscow.html > "May Day in Moscow, ">...On April 11 a mass protest demonstration organised by the official trade unions (FNPR) and the CPRF in the city of Voronezh ended in something like an uprising, when the angry people, instead of listening to the speeches of the organisers at the end, broke away to attack government buildings, leading to violent clashes with the police. This was a serious warning of what is being prepared!...Kuvaev's speech was well received, but this was not the case when Zyuganov spoke. Some sections displayed open discontent, and there was no enthusiasm in general for what he had to say. Unfortunately, some of the young people present began to chant and interrupt him - which only caused irritation amongst the CPRF members. Later on there was a disagreeable incident when the platform refused to allow the leader of Trudavaya Rossiya, Viktor Anpilov, to speak from the platform.
This kind of incident is not useful for the cause of the Communist movement in Russia, which must be united on a common platform of struggle against the common class enemy. But in the course of the day it was a secondary episode. The mood of the working class is for the maximum unity in the struggle, and the workers of Russia will impose their point of view. What is needed now is a clear programme of struggle and a revolutionary perspective. This is being fought for by the Russian Marxist tendency represented by the Revolutionary Workers' Party and Rabochaya Demokratiya who are working together with the rest of the Communist movement and the trade unions to achieve this end. Moscow, May 1, 2002
Which leads Lisa Taylor to reply, <URL: http://www.marxist.com/Russia/mayday2002moscow_reply.html >, entitled, "Communism, fascism and the Russian working class: A very short answer to an extraterrestrial critic, by Alan Woods. (Lisa Taylor, "This is a disgraceful article, trying to paint in rosy red colours the miserable reality that all the Russian labour movement at present is led either by reformists or red-brown nationalists. Shame on so-called Trotskyists for this lie!. No unity with red-browns Zyuganov, Anpilov or Tyulkin!"... Lisa Taylor
Anpilov, in '98, from Johnson's Russia List, by Mark Ames of the eXile, <URL: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2227.html >, in alliance w/Limonov's far right, National Bolshevik Party... #5 Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 From: "Mark Ames" <exile.editor at matrix.ru> Subject: limonov Dear David, The following is a letter I sent to William Wolf of OSU in response to his request to ban Edward Limonov from the Johnson's List. Dear Mr. Wolf, I read your attack on Limonov and thought you might like to know why Limonov was posted. He is, after Solzhenitsyn, perhaps the best-known living writer in Russia. He is far more loathed than Solzhenitsyn, but in many ways more relevant. His political party, the National-Bolshevik Party, which is based on ideologies combining far-left and far-right revolutionary theories from the 20s and 30s, claims a few thousand members scattered throughout a number of regions in Russia, mostly with young people. His influence is considered valid by the radical opposition; evidence of this comes from last autumn's alliance formed between the National-Bolsheviks, Viktor Anpilov'sradical-left Trudovaya Rossiyaparty, and Stanislav Terekhov's Officer's Union party, who will participate together under one political bloc in the upcoming Duma elections in 1999. In the last elections, Anpilov'sparty came within a hair of making the 5 percent barrier, outpolling even Gaidar's Democratic Choice, while Limonov served as a Duma deputy from 1993 to 1995. It is thought that the Limonov-Anpilov-Terekhov bloc has a very good chance of making the list this time around, as people defect from Liberal Democratic Party and the Communists. As a writer, Limonov is one of the most widely-read living Russian writers. His works have been translated into over 20 languages, including Hebrew, Estonian, and Japanese. His works are taught in graduate seminars in Western European universities, and his first novel, Eto Ya, Editchka, which was banned for 15 years in Russia, sold over 500,000 copies when it was first published here in late 1991. This year, he has published a large non-fiction work in Russian, and will begin issuing his collected works of prose and poetry in a multi-volume set. You ask why David Johnson published Limonov's piece? Because he is relevant, that is why. His style and views may be offensive and repulsive; indeed, Limonov insisted to me, when he first started writing for our paper, that he write in his distinctly Russified-English (he hasn't lived in America since 1980) in order to capture his authentic voice. I think that to knowingly publish articles with grammatical errors is a bold, even avant-garde move that no other pretentious writer in the world would have the nerve to do, and I don't think that this very authenticity, or lack of "civility," should be a cause to censor him from the Johnson List, even if a few middlebrow-types get quesy. The Johnson List, as I understand it, is a forum for scholars, journalists, and various Russophiles/Russophobes to learn as much about what is currently going on in Russia as possible. For tips on how to carry on "civil" discussions, go to a Miss Manners board; if you only want to read those opinions that don't upset you, then skip over any Johnson List article datelined "the eXile". Otherwise, I think it would be absurd to deprive readers the right to read what the "radical opposition" thinks about today's state of things. Mark Ames Editor the eXile
Limonov, btw, is a hilarious novelist. Yrs. before I ever heard of the NBP, I read his Grove Press, "It's Me, Eddie!, " his autobiographical acct. of being a taxi-driver in NYC. "Eddie, " briefly joins a Maoist group in NYC and has various sexual escapades. One wonders what the real Limonov thinks about the bi-sexual, "Eddie." there.
-- Michael Pugliese