Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I want to focus on the general conditions for the Russian left during the war. Since the beginning of the war, we experienced a huge transformation of the political regime in Russia and all the political guidelines that existed before the war started changed quite dramatically. Since the beginning of the war, there have been two camps within the Russian left that are totally antagonistic to each other: a pro-war camp and an anti-war camp. They have totally different perspectives on what it means to be on the left. And I think that is a very important lesson to be learned and discussed, and not only among Russian leftists. On the pro-war left, there are now people who are not just justifying the war, who are not just actively supporting and promoting it, but who are actually going beyond the government's imperial rhetoric. This cleavage in the Russian left wasn't something unexpected. And I think that the foundations of this division were laid years before the full-scale invasion was launched. But only now has it become so clear and pronounced. And I think that this division also corresponds in some respects to the divisions within the global left. So that's why this lesson is also important internationally.

On the pro-war left, the leadership of the Russian Communist Party holds the central place, along with some smaller Stalinist groupings. Why do they hold this position? It isn’t simply because they share the imperial chauvinist worldview; it is also a survival strategy in the so-called legal framework of the current Russian dictatorship. But I think that you can find some deeper ideological roots there. The main thrust of Russian Communist Party ideology is the defence of the state. It is a conception of socialism as a top-down politics of redistribution designed to serve the interests of the state, including promoting its power in the global arena. This party perceives any sort of democracy from below as an obstacle to such aims. Before the war, in the already quite authoritarian Russian political system, the Communist party occupied the position of the so-called parastatal opposition, which was integrated in Putin's system of managed democracy. It was dependent on the state and did not seriously compete with the Kremlin and the Kremlin's main party, United Russia.

Zyuganov literally called for the escalation of repression against any sort of anti-war resistance and anti-war critique of the government. Over the next two years, representatives of the Communist Party were among the most active warmongers, notable for their extremely aggressive nationalist and imperialist rhetoric. This shift of the Communist Party can be explained both by its traditional (especially for the leadership) ideological stance on imperial nationalism, and by a desire to protect the party's legal existence under the conditions of the tightening of the political rules of the game in the country after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side of the struggle against the regime are the various strands of the anti-war left. Some of these people were forced to leave the country after the beginning of the invasion. Some were forced to censor themselves and nearly abandoned open political activity or tried to continue their political propaganda work in all legal forms that are possible, such as, for example, those mentioned in the first presentation by the representative of Feminist Anti-war Resistance. This consisted of work inside small collectives and some propaganda work using social media.

It's important to note that this propaganda work is very restricted by the current exceedingly harsh censorship. Basically, you can't discuss what is happening on the front lines at all without breaking existing Russian laws. So, the final strategy of the Russian far left is to go underground. And that is true especially for anarchists. Since the war began there have been people primarily targeting military enlistment offices and recruiting stations. There are a lot of anarchist political prisoners. And most of you know about Azat Miftakhov, who was sentenced to a second prison term while he was in prison. So, I think it's one of the very important tasks of this conference to talk not just about Boris Kagarlitsky, but about left political prisoners in general. They are not just anarchists; there are also socialist political prisoners like Igor Kuznetsov, Darya Poludova, and many others. Any public legal activity of the Russian left has already ceased. For example, early this year, the Russian socialist movement, the organization to which I belonged, dissolved itself because it was labeled a so-called foreign agent. And according to the law on foreign agents, if you are branded a foreign agent, that basically makes any public activity inside the country impossible. Some months ago, another radical left-wing organization, the Revolutionary Workers Party, also dissolved itself due to the many arrests and police searches. Then there are the people on the Russian anti-war left who were forced to leave the country and who are trying not just to influence Russian audiences on social media, but also trying to work with and have discussions with the left internationally, especially in the countries where they're currently settled.

So, generally speaking, the Russian anti-war left has a core audience inside the country, which follows their commentary. But it's very hard to know how big this audience is due to the current situation. It's also important to note that the Russian anti-war left, and especially those members of the anti-war left who settled outside Russia, was able to take part in the debates among the liberal, or democratic (broadly speaking), Russian opposition abroad because this diasporic Russian liberal opposition is now undergoing a deep ideological and political crisis. And I think what Greg Yudin just said about the possible proposals of the Russian left could play an important role in the debates, not just within the left milieu, but also more broadly in the diasporic Russian opposition and its audience, which is still quite large inside the country.

And it will come precisely from the conflicting positions that emerged clearly during the war.

I believe that this division will not just pertain to historical questions and historical experiences but will revolve primarily around different understandings of what socialism is about and what it means to be on the left. I think this division can be clarified with reference to the very well-known old essay by Hal Draper on the two souls of socialism. Although there are some problematic aspects from my point of view, the main idea is quite relevant for our time. To quote Draper “What unites the many different forms of Socialism-from-Above is the conception that socialism (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control in fact. The heart of Socialism-from-Below is its view that socialism can be realized only through the self-emancipation of activated masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized “from below” in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors (not merely subjects) on the stage of history.”

I think that this distinction between socialism from above and socialism from below is still quite relevant and important, and not just with respect to divisions among Russian leftists today, in the context of the ongoing war, but also to the situation on left globally. I think that Boris Kagarlitsky, whom I have known for more than 20 years, has always sided, with socialism from below. And he has not just supported this position but remains one of its main public advocates in his books and his public interventions. I would say that n many ways he raised a generation of Russian leftists in the current period. Given the role Boris played in the history of the Russian left, I think the struggle for his liberation is an integral part of the struggle for socialism from below, for the right of the masses to be actors in history and not remain in the role of victims. I think I’ll stop here, thank you.

QUESTION
Alfons Bech: I have a question about unions. What is the situation of unions and the labour movement in general in Russia and what are the different types of unionism that exist?

ANSWER
Ilya Budraitskis: On the question about trade unions, the first thing to note is that basic labour and union rights do not really exist in the country. It is impossible to organize a legal strike, for example. It is impossible to negotiate a real collective agreement with the participation of the trade unions, and so on. And despite the fact that there is as, as you rightly pointed out, another union federation called the all-Russian confederation of trade unions, this federation is also quite limited by the existing legal framework. Bear in mind also that all forms of international union solidarity and labour solidarity are already prohibited in Russia. For example, a number of key trade union global federations have already been labeled as so-called undesirable organizations, which means that having any connection with those organizations would be deemed criminal activity. So that's why it's very hard to talk about conventional forms of trade unions and the labour movement in Russia. Of course, there are some strikes and there are some labour protests, but these protests are mostly self-organized or take place in forms that are not legal. That's why I think it's much more accurate to talk about labour protests in Russia, but not union protest or union activity, which has been reduced for the most part to various forms of defence of individual labour rights in the courts, and some propaganda work that is partly carried out by the independent Confederation of Free Trade unions.

QUESTIONS
Francis King: Fascinating presentations. It's clear that all the time the war is going on, there is not going to be any space for organized, grassroots politics in Russia. But the war has got to come to an end somehow, sometime. Some of the possible outcomes are completely disastrous for everybody. But I'm wondering what kind of outcomes you think would be most advantageous for the development of a Russian grassroots, anti-war, internationalist left. And which do you think would be least advantageous?

Leo Gabriel: I have one question for either of the two speakers and one announcement. The question is a little bit like what Pope Francis said, how do you evaluate the openness of the government, or the interest of the Russian government in the Kremlin to negotiations and to have a political solution to the war. And what effect would that have on the domestic political situation, especially with respect to the left in that case? Because in the West, you say the government says that Putin does not want to negotiate, but we don't believe that. As for the announcement some people on the left and also many people in Germany in the peace movement are thinking about staging a worldwide conference next year, , under the title Communal Security against Global War. It should take place in Vienna sometime around October. Thank you.

ANSWER
Ilya Budraitskis: I will speak mainly to the last question regarding what we have now in Russia with respect to the government and its view of the situation. For Putin and for Russian elites, the stakes of this war are quite high. And they involve more than some pieces of Ukrainian territory. At minimum, this is about their political control over Ukraine as a country that is the goal of the war. And this goal remains. Putin is very open about it and very clear. Also, by establishing this kind of political control over Ukraine, Putin is going to create a model for other post-Soviet countries, so that they are subject to Russian influence. So we can see some kind t of political project and vision of international relations behind Putin's war from his perspective. This vision is deeply imperialist, not only in its intentions, but in its very ideological conception. I don’t think it’s possible to create any sustainable framework for peace on this basis or with any form of compromise with this particular vision. That's why I'm quite pessimistic about the prospect of any negotiations with Putin, despite the fact that Russia, and the Russian government especially, is experiencing difficulties in pursuing this war.