In the plenum sessions we discussed the social, economic and political situation in our respective countries, and also the state of the anarchist movement and the threat of the far right. Everywhere we found the same attacks of emerging neoliberalism, and capitulation of the reformist left. The situation in the eastern countries are however far graver than in the west. In the former Soviet Union, people are now many places on the brink of starvation. The wages are ridiculously low, and are often not paid at all. At the same time there is almost no left opposition; the so-called "communists" have all turned into nationalists, and are working together with the fascists. In Belarus a totalitarian system has been reinstated by the dictatorial president Lukashenko, and the former KGB has still a lot of power. We hear a lot about the Russian Mafia in the west, but as our Russian comrades explained: the Mafia, the state and the new business class are really one and the same.
The Czech Republic was long considered a "miracle economy," and the transition from planned economy to private capitalism seemed to go smoothly. What really happened was that the government more or less gave away its biggest assets to friends and contributors of the ruling parties, and the income from the privatization turned out to be only a fraction of what was expected. After a corruption scandal earlier this year, the Social Democrats took over the government, but they have no money to fulfill their campaign promises, and are forced to continue cutting down on welfare and state spending. I Slovakia the situation is even worse, and similar to Belarus, the prime minister have clear dictatorial tendencies. The government there is also extremely nationalist, and the national television glorifies World War II nazi collaborators. In both Czechia and Slovakia there are strong discrimination against gypsies.
The anarchist movement in the east is very weak and is in desperate need of funds. The FSA wish to collect money for a printing press both for themselves and for CRAS (IWA section with groups in Russia and Belarus). They think this would be of exceptional importance for their propaganda work. They have already asked for a solidarity fund to be established within the IWA. (If you too would like to support the FSA and CRAS propaganda work; please send your donation to WSA-IWA, 339 Lafayette St. - Room 202, New York, NY 10012, USA)
As always with these conferences, some of the most interesting discussion happened in the breaks between the plenum sessions. Some of the themes we discussed were the situation within the IWA and different ways of organizing. Regarding organization, the FSA and the CRAS argue for what they call the FORA model (after the old Argentinean IWA-section FORA). With this they mean an organization comprised only of class struggle militants; not just (classical) anarcho-syndicalists, but also anarcho-communists and even council communists. They oppose this to the classical idea of syndicalist unions open to all workers, regardless of their particular political ideology (like the original CGT in France or the IWW).
At the last day of the meeting, the delegations from FSA, CRAS and CNT-France sat down to write a resolution. The main points here are:
1. That in the future, the East-West meeting will be organized by the IWA, and only groups and individuals that are invited by an IWA section may attend.
2. To establish a solidarity fund within the IWA, where every member from western sections pay $5 a year. This money will then go to supporting sections from less affluent countries.
3. That the IWA should discuss steps to become a more coherent international.
-Felix Frost,
Neither East Nor West, New York
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