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| Igor Kuznetsov, 2012. |
Members of this group advocated
self-determination of the peoples and regions of Russia, against their colonial
exploitation by the Kremlin. As the leader of this group was mentioned Daria
Polyudova, initiator of the "March for the federalization of Kuban
region", who was sentenced to six years in prison by the Moscow military
court in 2021 (this was her second sentence). https://memohrc.org/.../defe.../polyudova-darya-vladimirovna
And now, after a year and almost nine months in
pre-trial detention, the FSB investigators decided to send Igor Kuznetsov for
forensic psychiatric examination at the Serbsky Institute. Yes, the same
Serbsky Institute that “diagnosed” Soviet dissidents Pyotr Grigorenko, Valeria
Novodvorskaya, and many others.
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| 2014. |
In April 2021, Igor Kuznetsov posted on YouTube an appeal to Russians: "Putin is preparing an attack on Ukraine. But it is not Putin, it is our fascist Russia that is preparing a war, in which we can all burn... Like Hitler in his time, Putler is leading the world to World War 3. All of us Russians are to blame for this, including me. Is this going to work as usual? Yes, it did in the spring of 2014, and maybe it will in the spring of 2021, and then, and then... And it would reinforce the Russian “happy-go-lucky attitude” But this Russian attitude would help the Nuclear Armageddon come in 2036 or 2042, and whoever survives will be the envy of the dead."
For the Left Resistance group, Igor Kuznetsov
drafted a manifesto in which he wrote: "The genocide of the peoples of the
Caucasus, launched in the 19th century by Tsarism, was continued by Stalin.
Stalin's regime is being revived by Putin. Thus, we are fighting not just
Russian imperialism, but the serfdom and obscurantism of
Tsarist-Stalinist-Putin imperialism. Moreover, the Putin regime's aggression
against Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea, against Syria with the bombing
of civilians, with adventures in Africa and Latin America after 2014 leads to
increased national oppression against non-Russian peoples of the Russian
Federation, to a policy of assimilation of non-Russian peoples and destruction
of non-Russian languages in Russia. Russians have been turned by
tsarist-Stalinist-Putin imperialism into the empire's main tool, and the
culture of the Russian people has been perverted by imperialism and chauvinism.
Without destroying tsarist-Stalinist-Putinist imperialism and
Stalinist-Putinist fascism, the Russian national revival and the revival of all
peoples of the Russian Federation is impossible. This international struggle
against Russian imperialism and fascism - has become the common national task
of all peoples of Russia."
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| 2020. |
In a letter to a friend, Igor wrote: "By
defending Ukraine, we are defending rights and freedoms for ourselves in
Russia; the victory of Ukraine is the defeat of Ruscism in Russia and the coming
victory of democracy over Ruscism in the Russian Federation. Ukraine's defeat
is our defeat and the intensification of the repression of Ruscism in Russia.
While in the summer of 2020 Belarus and Khabarovsk Krai were seething with
protest, «Dickhead» put off his war plans; as the protests were suppressed his
strategic plan (“nullification” of president terms, aggression against Ukraine,
Baltics, Kazakhstan, anschluss of Belarus) was revived again. So there is no
separate struggle in Khabarovsk, Minsk, Kazakhstan, etc. - there is one war of
internationalists of all countries and regions against Ruscism."
https://proletar-ukr.blogspot.com/2021/10/blog-post_22.html
Unfortunately, there are very few people like
Igor Kuznetsov left in Russia. They do not enjoy the attention of the Western
media, unlike Navalny or other Moscow liberal politicians. Igor spent most of
his life as a worker, janitor, and longshoreman; his last job was as a plumber
in a medical college, and he also worked as a freelance journalist for the
RusNews agency. As an activist, he started as an anarcho-syndicalist in 1989,
was one of the founders of Memorial in Tomsk and the Siberian Confederation of
Labor, then changed over to anti-authoritarian Marxism, joined the Marxist
Labor Party and coordinated the inter-regional association of labor unions
"Defense of Labor". When in 1999 Oleg Shein, the leader of this
union, became a deputy of the State Duma on the rise of the labor movement, he
took Igor Kuznetsov as his assistant. But Igor served a deputy's assistant only
for a short time. Shein joined the Russian-chauvinist «Rodina» faction and then
the «Just Russia» party, which justified aggression against Chechnya and Georgia.
Igor had already refused to be Shein's running mate in 2001. When Shein was
asked about his attitude after Kuznetsov's arrest in 2021, he pretended not to
know what was all that about.
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| 2021. |
In late 2021, a small group of left-wing
activists and friends of Igor held an international campaign in solidarity with
him. Demands to release Igor Kuznetsov were sent to Russian embassies by the
Labor Independent Party of France, the Workers' Party of Algeria, the
International Socialist League, a number of trade union organizations from
Spain, Germany, Brazil and other countries. On December 15, 2021, in Kiev, we
held a picket in front of the Russian embassy, demanding his release. Not a
single Russian left-wing organization has publicly expressed its position on the
case of Igor Kuznetsov and Daria Polyudova. Only the Memorial Human Rights
Center, shortly before its liquidation by a Russian court decision, included
Igor and Daria in the list of political prisoners of the regime on its website.
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| 2019. |
Igor Kuznetsov's case brings to mind the fate of
Soviet dissidents Leonid Plyusch and Vladimir Bukovsky. When we campaigned in
solidarity with Igor, we were told that, according to "the lawyers'
opinion", such a public campaign abroad might on the contrary worsen Igor's
situation and negatively affect the Russian courts. In response, one of our
picket participants asked: - And which political prisoners have these lawyers
managed to release from Russian prisons?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I still think that it was
the international solidarity campaign that saved the lives of many Soviet
dissidents who had to be released to the West (or exchanged like Bukovsky), it
is the international solidarity campaign that supports prisoners of the Russian
fascist regime now. Of course, their complete release will only be possible
after the complete military defeat of the Russian Reich. https://proletar-ukr.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post_19.html
Andrij Zdorov.
