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Dear comrades,
the text below is an open letter that I, as international
secretary of the Confederation of Anarcho-syndicalists (KAS)
in Russia, wrote in response to the false information spread
by the Moscow-based IREAN group. Currently some people from
that group are in charge of producing an information
bulletin of the International Workers Association (IWA) on
Eastern and Central Europe. A comrade just told me that the
Secretariat of IWA is sending out messages to its sections
and different syndicalist organizations informing about
"KAS's sectarian role in the conflict". Unfortunately we
never get any materials of the IWA neither directly, nor
through "the friends of the IWA" (IREAN) in Moscow. Vadim
Damier, the editor of the Eastern European IWA bulletin,
also doesn't feel obliged to send us a copy of the stuff
that he sends out to IWA sections (though I personally gave
him a copy of the letter, because I think it's honest to let
other organization know what information you send out about
it). In the same time, the editors of the Eastern European
IWA bulletin are very active in spreading their materials
through KAS groups nationwide trying to split our
organization.

I hope that our comrades that will get this letter will try
to analize positions of both KAS and IREAN and instead of
taking sides will promote direct cooperation between
revolutionary syndicalists East and West.

Yours against sectarianism, Mikhail Tsovma (international
secretary of Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists, KAS)

November 3,1993. Moscow, Russia.

ARE THERE ENEMIES OF THE IWA IN RUSSIA?

An appeal to the national sections of the IWA and to all
revolutionary syndicalist organizations

Lately amongst the international anarcho-syndicalist
movement, especially amongst IWA organizations, there has
been information circulating which presents the
Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (KAS) in a negative
light. This information is getting around partly thanks to
the decision at an IWA conference that the group that is
spreading this false information, the Initiative of
Revolutionary Anarchists (Irean), be responsible for putting
out an international anarcho-syndicalist bulletin on Eastern
Europe. Distorted information about the activities and ideas
of KAS has appeared on the pages of foreign anarchist and
anarcho-syndicalist publications before, mostly thanks to
the SMOT bulletin, but this is mainly due to the fact that
the editor of the SMOT bulletin, Alexander Tchoukaev, is not
well informed as to the events going on in the former Soviet
Union. As far as Irean is concerned, they are in a totally
different position as they are well informed of our
activities and always have the opportunity to approach us to
clarify any aspect of our activity. Instead they prefer to
present extremely distorted information and unfoundly accuse
KAS of working together with all sorts, from Trotskyists to
communists to the AFL-CIO. In addition they have been saying
lately that KAS has a negative opinion of the activities of
the IWA and is bad mouthing this orgnization. I therefore
wanted to inform everybody that:
1. KAS has always stood for the formation of self-managed
syndicalist unions independent of party and state. The
particularities of the situation in Russia are such that,
irregardless of the appearance of an independent workers'
movement after the 1989 miners' strike, there aren't really
any mass workers' organizations which could become a serious
alternative to the former official communist trade unions.
In the majority of cases, the old trade unions are the only
ones in the workplace and serious changes in this situation
don't come about due to the low level of activity of the
workers. Also, the majority of the new unions, more
specifically their leadership, support the government and
its reforms. At the same time, these new trade unions are no
better than the old ones - there are the same problems of
corruption and bureaucratic centralism. Therefore in
response to the concrete situation at the workplace where
the KAS activists work, one can either fight to build
independent unions or try to reform the existing ones, be
they of the old sort or the new. This must only be done from
below, not by using bureaucratic tricks on the workers. As
far as we know, we are not the only ones who think this way;
some of our anarcho-syndicalist comrades, including members
of the IWA, also advocate a like strategy. All of the
accusations about us working with trade union bureaucrats
are false.
2. Another thing KAS is accused of is working with
communists and Trotskyists and of taking part in the
formation of the Party of Labour. It's true that at the
beginning a few members of KAS took part in discussions
leading to the formation of this party and eventually signed
its declaration. But for them to participate in this party
they would have to renounce their anarcho-syndicalist
ideals, which some of them did. At present nobody from KAS
participates in the Party of Labour or any other socialist
or communist party. In comparison, it is the members of
Irean who hold joint actions with different Trotskyist
groups and regularly take part in their discussions. A good
example of this was at the Nov.7, 1992 demonstration in
Moscow where the flag of the Spanish CNT flew next to the
flag of the 4th International. For us, it was not only
strange that anarchists would want to celebrate the
Bolshevik coup d'etat, but even more so with the successors
of one of the forces that strangled the revolution. It is
true that Russian anarchists had taken part in this
uprising, but the events that followed proved it was one of
their biggest mistakes. Irean denies having organizational
ties with any communist groups but what about the fact that
some members of Irean help put out the "Left Information
Bulletin" which in fact serves as an information bulletin
for stalinist and nationalist groups?
3. Irean claims that it is a group which carries on anarcho-
syndicalist propaganda in contrast to KAS which, according
to them "refuses to join the IWA and doesn't form anarcho-
syndicalist unions". It's strange to hear this from people
who had not so long ago spoke negatively about anarcho-
syndicalism. Few members of Irean carry on syndicalist work
but those that do should know how hard it is to form
independent syndicalist unions and that these can't be
formed from thin air. It's not true that KAS doesn't want to
form syndicalist unions, we just don't want to create
mythological organizations because we take our work
seriously. It's not true that KAS doesn't want to join the
IWA because it shows contempt for that organization; rather
the reason we don't want official affiliation has to do with
something different, as is clear from the resolution which
was adopted at the 4th KAS conference in May 1991. This
resolution clearly outlines the reasons why we wouldn't want
to join the IWA, and members of Irean are well aware of this
position. The resolution reads:

We feel that at present KAS cannot join any of the existing
international political and syndicalist workers'
organizations, including the IWA, because such a step could
serve to deepen splits and rivalries between syndicalist
organizations. We feel that it is necessary to strengthen
contacts with all anarcho-syndicalists, revolutionary
syndicalists and libertarian socialist organizations,
including those in the IWA and those who don't work with
this organization. As well we would like to build ties
between the growing free trade unions in the USSR and with
the militant unions in the West which have a democratic
structure and which aren't integrated in the bourgeois
state-party system.

4. It's a lie that KAS is putting out information that is
disparaging to the IWA. On the contrary, we often wrote
about the actions and the principles of the IWA in our
publications. We are always ready to exchange information
with IWA organizations but unfortunately we don't always
have the possibility of participating in their conferences.
The actions of Irean which are aimed at discrediting our
organization and excluding it from the international
anarcho-syndicalist movement sadden us. A good example of
their attempts to exclude us is the fact that after it was
decided that they would put out an Eastern European
bulletin, they preferred to ask SMOT to collaborate on it
with them, a group whose leaders support monarchism. Despite
the fact that KAS is the largest anarcho-syndicalist group
in the country, the editors of the bulletin never asked us
to help with its publication. Furthermore, it seems to us
that Irean's actions are an attempt to break up KAS. It is
unfortunate that the statutes of the International does not
allow for two groups from one country to work with it in
case these groups may not work together. Therefore I am
asking the sections of the IWA to carefully weigh all the
pros and cons in case one or another group from Russia asks
to be admitted into the International. I would also ask to
seriously consider whether the activities of Irean conform
to anarcho-syndicalist practice and whether this group would
be able to work together productively with different
syndicalist organizations.
In closing I would like to reiterate that KAS is prepared to
work together with the national organizations of the IWA and
with all syndicalists and militant trade unions.

In solidarity,

Mikhail Tsovma
(International Secretary of KAS)