WHY TWO ANTI-WAR RALLIES ARE HELD IN MOSCOW THESE DAYS OPEN LETTER TO SERGEY ADAMOVICH KOVALYOV Moscow, February 22, 2001 Dear Sergey Adamovich! I beg your pardon that I address to you in genre of an open letter - it may seem that it's a rather strange way for the people who are turned on to the same cause. However, since today, when speaking at the anti-war rally at the Pushkin square, you publicly reproached with "ambitions that impede to come to agreement" the organizers of tomorrow's anti-war manifestation - i.e. us, the radicals - I think that my answer can also have a public character. Besides that, the problem in question is, as it seems to me, of great public importance. To tell the truth, your today's reproaches seemed to me bitter and undeserved. However, I suppose the reason for that is that you - alas - were poorly and incompletely informed by the organizers of today's event. So let me fill a want and present you another point of view concerning what is going on. Today's anti-war rally at the Pushkin square was organized, as you know very well, by the Initiative group "Common Action" (I should note in brackets that despite its name the work of this group is quite closed for other participants of the democratic movement: it's enough to say that the address of the radicals to the "CA" expressing our readiness to take part in the work of the group that we sent by fax last year, simply remained unanswered). The "Common Action" decided to conduct the rally on February 22 during its session on February 9, in response to the appeal of the French "Committee for Chechnya" to organize actions against the Chechen war timed to February 23, the anniversary of the stalinist deportation of the Chechens. None of the radicals was invited to the session of the "Common Action" (as far as I know, representatives of a number of other organizations that play a significant role in the organization of anti-war protests in Russia weren't invited too: neither the anarchists, nor the Democratic Union or the Russian Movement for the Independence of Chechnya (RMIC)). We knew about the session itself and about the decision adopted there only from niggardly information message we received in the morning, February 13, by e-mail from the coordinator of the "Common Action" Liudmila Vakhnina. By that time we were already very busy preparing the anti-war and antimilitarist rally we scheduled for February 23: the day of the deportation of the Chechens, the day of the Soviet army (which is rightly the day of apotheosis of militarist manifestations), the international day of actions against the Chechen war initiated by French antagonists of the war. As it became clear later, the "Common Action" quite conscientiously decided to conduct the anti-war rally not on February 23, but the day before: "in order not to trouble trouble" (as said one of the participants of the session of February 9). I'll take a risk to suppose with certain confidence that the representatives of the Radical Party weren't drawn in the process of taking decisions, weren't even invited to the session of the "Common Action" as guests not because the organizers didn't know the position of the radicals or didn't suppose that they intended to conduct antimilitarist and anti-war actions on February 23. Quite the opposite: we weren't invited just because they knew perfectly our position, our arguments and our intentions. Hot debates concerning this topic - "to trouble or not to trouble trouble" on the sacred for the militarist regime holyday - nearly led to the cleavage in the Committee for Anti-war Actions a year ago, during the preparation for the first mass rally against the second Chechen war. By the way, about the Committee for Anti-war Actions itself. In the advertisement about today's rally placed in the last issue of the "Novaya Gazeta", the Committee for Anti-war Actions is mentioned in the first turn among the organizers of the rally. The matter is, to put it mildly, quite different. As a member of the Committee (and an active member - at the time when it was turned on to the anti-war political actions, and not only to the collection of a small amount of humanitarian aid for the refugees in Ingushetia with efforts of three or four enthusiasts) I can testify: the Committee didn't take any decision about the rally on February 22. Moreover, it didn't take any decision about any rallies, these questions weren't discussed at all. And other questions weren't discussed at the Committee as well, because this Committee had met for the last time last October, and before that - in June. Today at the rally it was announced about the intention to establish next days the "National Committee for Anti-war Actions". It sounds exciting and we, the radicals, are certainly ready to take part in the work of this Committee too, even though we have a strong "deja vu" feeling at the moment... But let's return to the problem of two anti-war rallies. I think I managed to give you my main idea: the question isn't that some or other organizers are actuated by ambitions and because of these ambitions they aren't able to do even such a simple thing as to agree about common day. The reason is much more deep and "conceptual": there are minimum two groups of people in the Russian anti-war movement. One group is most of all afraid to be involved in "politics", to be suspected of "anti-army" state of mind, they prefer to fight against "separate excesses" on the part of separate "generals and banditoids". The other one considers the struggle against the Chechen war to be only the front line of a more general struggle against Russian militarism which is deadly danderous both for the Russians and for all the world, they are convinced that the way to achieve political democracy and social and economic progress in our country runs across the demilitarization of Russia. One group believes that they mustn't "trouble trouble" and make an attempt on the 23th of February, the sacred cow of the militarist regime, that the "anti-war protest" must be realized "without radicalism", without challenge, quitely, in order not to offend anybody. The other one is convinced that the choice of the 23th of February for the anti-war and antimilitarist protest is the most natural decision for all those who don't want this day to rejoice "together with all the Soviet people" or to keep silence in the kitchen following the old habit of Soviet intelligentia, who don't fear to insult delicate feelings of the veterans of the NKVD, old women from Anpilov's movement, Putin's law-enforcement officers and the Boss himself. The people in one group declare: "we or Novodvorskaya" and raise slightly from their chairs showing thus that they are ready to quit immediately the hall of session where the seditious name is pronounced, they believe that the Chechen national flag at the manifestation against the Chechen war is a provocation and hurl out from their pickets the activists with the slogans calling to recognize the independence of Chechnya. The other group tries to give floor at its manifestations to as wide as possible spectrum of antagonists of the war: both to anarchists with red and black flags, "extremists" from the RMIC, the Democratic Union and to "moderate" politicians that speak of negotiations and removal of the troops to the left bank of the Terek. One group... But it's enough. I think it's clear already that the question isn't that somebody has personal or collective ambitions. All said above doesn't mean, of course, that these two groups can't work together. They can and must. And they will work despite the differences. But one mustn't forget about them, about their own political identity. They will work. Like you worked and work now - in Chechnya, in Okhotny Ryad, in Strasburg. Like the radicals worked and work: in United Nations; in the European Parliament that on February 15 by our initiative adopted unanimously the resolution on Chechnya which we sent you by fax several days ago; in Rome where several conferences with the participation of politicians, journalists, parliamentaries were conducted; in Paris where the officials of Russian embassy know very well already what the demonstrations against the Chechen war look like; in Moscow where thousands of signatures of citizens under the petition against the Chechen war were collected, where in the metro cars there isn't a place without our anti-war stickers, where just the radicals conducted the first public action against the Chechen war last autumn at the Red Square near the Lobnoye Mesto. Sergey Adamovich, I hope that this letter will contribute to discredit your sincere delusions that gave rise to your - I reiterate, undeserved - reproaches addressed to the radicals. I hope that we will continue - and much more intensively than before - to work together: against the Chechen war, against militarism and nationalism, as well as on other fronts of our transnational fight for the right to life and a life of rights. Sincerely yours, Nikolay KHRAMOV (Russian coordinator of the Radical Party)