Автономное действие | |
 | |
| Abbreviation | AD |
|---|---|
| Established | 25 January 2002; 23 years ago (2002-01-25) |
| Type | Publishing group |
| Headquarters | Krasnodar(until 2005) Moscow(from 2005) |
| Location | |
Main organ | Avtonom |
| Website | avtonom |
Autonomous Action (Russian:Автономное действие,romanized: Avtonomnoye deystviye; AD) is aRussianlibertarian communistpublishing group. Established in January 2002 as a federation of anarchist groups, it published theAvtonom magazine, coordinatedanti-fascist patrols and organisedveches as forms ofpopular assembly. The organisation faced repression from thePutin administration, which surveilled its members and deported one of its leading organisers. In 2013, the organisation split, with a number of members formingPeople's Self-Defense (NS). By the end of the 2010s, the organisation had been weakened substantially and reorganised into a small media group, focused on theAvtonom magazine and website.
During the 1980s,Russian anarchists formed a number of social networks, which by the 1990s had coalesced into the Russianautonomous movement.[1] In 1995, anarchists in theKuban region began publishing the magazineAvtonom, which over time expanded to become a periodical that represented the entire Russian autonomous movement.[2] It has since become Russia's oldest continuously-published anarchist periodical,[3] having published 38 issues as of 2019.[2]
From 1999 to 2002, anarchist and envrionmentalist groups from throughout Russia held a series of meetings, which the aim of forming a national organisation. In January 2002, delegates met at a congress inNizhny Novgorod, where Autonomous Action (Russian:Автономное действие,romanized: Avtonomnoye Deystviye; AD) was established. In its founding manifesto, the AD proclaimed itsopposition to the state andcapitalism and its advocacy oflibertarian communism. It also emphasised itsopposition to fascism,racism andnationalism, which it considered to be a method used by the rich and powerful todivide and rule people of different nationalities and ethnicities.[1]Avtonom was made the official organ of the new organisation and it set up the websiteavtonom.org, where internet users could self-publish their own articles;[4] Russian courts later deemed the publication to be "extremist" and banned it from distribution.[3]
In the first years of its existence, the AD established "anti-fascist patrol groups" to provide a physical resistance toRussian nationalists, forming the foundation of the Russian anti-fascist movement.[5]Antifa in Russia has thus taken on a largely anarchist character.[6] During the 2000s, activists from the AD organised regularveches (popular assemblies), which they used to organise actions and resolve internal conflicts.[7] In 2005, sustainedpolitical repression against the organisation forced the editorial team ofAvtonom to move its headquarters fromKrasnodar toMoscow.[2] By the 2010s, several activists were reporting that they suspected they were under state surveillance.[8] In 2012, the Russian state annulled theresidence permit ofAvtonom editorAntti Rautiainen [fi] and deported him toFinland, causing the AD to lose one of its leading organisers.[9] In March 2013, thenational anarchist organisationVolnitsa disbanded itself and some of its left-wing members, led byKirill Banshantsev, joined AD.[10]
In 2013, the AD experienced a split;[11] a number of revolutionary activists broke away from AD and formedPeople's Self-Defense (NS).[12] While NS focused exclusively onclass conflict, AD insisted that left-wing activists also ought to combat homophobia, racism and sexism.[13] The split substantially weakened the AD, while theleft-libertarian movement as a whole experienced significant repression from thePutin administration following the outbreak of theRusso-Ukrainian War.[14] By 2019, AD had redefined itself as a "libertarian media group" which had grown out of the autonomous movement.[2]Avtonom largely became focused on the international anarchist movement, having grown pessimistic about the state ofleft-wing politics in Russia.[14] When the AD held lectures in the late 2010s, they did so under the protection ofhuman rights organisations in order to keep their participants safe.[7]
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