IGNACIO DE LLORENS HAS JUST PUBLISHED THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE RUSSIAN ANARCHIST VOLIN, A KEY FIGURE IN THE CREATION OF THE FIRST SOVIET AND LATER PERSECUTED BY THE BOLSHEVIKS ~ David Sánchez Piñeiro, Nortes ~ Ignacio de Llorens is a historian and philosopher. We met with him to discuss his newly published book, a compilation of research conducted intermittently over several decades: Life Will Shine on the Cliff: Volin (V. M. Eichenbaum) published in Spanish by KRK editions. It is the first biography of this Russian anarchist, whose life is as fascinating as it is unknown. The biography is based in part on testimonies from people close to him, such as his son Leo, and on previously unpublished documents. Volin, a pseudonym derived from the Russian word volia, meaning “will,” was the driving force behind the first soviet in Saint Petersburg in 1905. He managed to escape from Siberia, where he had been condemned by the Tsarist regime. He was forced into exile in the United States due to his anti-militarist activism in France during World War I. He played a leading role in Nestor Makhno’s peasant and libertarian revolution in Ukraine. He suffered repression at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky even ordered his execution. He was released from prison thanks to the intervention of a CNT delegate, but was expelled from Russia for life; he directed an anti-fascist newspaper in support of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and wrote The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921, his great work published posthumously, in which he developed an implacable critique of the Bolshevik Revolution from an anarchist perspective. As is always the case with the best books, this one by Ignacio de Llorens is also the fruit of a sustained obsession. Where can we begin to delve into the figure of Volin and his biography? Volin was what is usually called a privileged young man, from an educated family, with parents who were doctors and of Jewish origin. As a young man, he belonged to the last wave of the Narodniks [Russian populists], who went to the villages to educate people who had been serfs until recently. In his case, his educational work wasn’t directed at the peasants, but at the workers of Saint Petersburg, where he was studying law. He abandoned his studies to dedicate himself to educating these workers he was beginning to meet in the city. Following the 1905 revolution, his teaching group would eventually become the first soviet. Volin then joined a broad revolutionary political movement that sought to change society and address injustices, and this would become the main focus of his life. Volin began to have contact with the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and later, in a legal process that remains unclear, a pistol was discovered in his possession, and the Tsarist authorities sentenced him to life imprisonment in Siberia. He escaped and went into exile in Paris, where he began to gravitate towards anarchist thought, heavily influenced by his reading of Kropotkin. He played a leading role in the creation of the first soviet in 1905. Yes, indeed. The soviets are an original creation of the Russian revolutionary process. We can say that Volin is the creator of the soviet, along with a group of workers who studied with him. They were adult working-class students who felt the need to take action. The Tsarist regime could be changed, and it was time to get involved. This was done by the people themselves; it didn’t happen through parties or “normal” political institutions, but directly through the actions of those involved, who in this case were the initiators, workers from Saint Petersburg. The soviet would remain a structure of self-participation for the people and would even spread, not only to urban working-class communities but also to rural areas and soldiers’ quarters. It was the logical way for social protest movements to organise themselves. The soviet is a council and has a minimal structure so that it maintains its original characteristic of being the people who resolve their own political concerns. It is the soviets that are truly carrying out the process of overthrowing Tsarism. Trotsky would say that the February Revolution of 1917 took everyone in exile by surprise, and that no one believed it would happen at the time. It was a spontaneous revolution, led and created by the people themselves. How is it that, in such a short time, a revolutionary from the very beginning ends up being persecuted and repressed by the Bolsheviks themselves? The February Revolution was a spontaneous revolution, a revolution of the soviets, which spread like wildfire following a series of strikes. At that point, the main political figures (Lenin, Trotsky, Volin, Kropotkin) began to return from exile to participate in a process that consisted not only of creating a democratic state, but also involved the utopian visions that each of them held for society. Revolutionary struggles began to emerge that went beyond the democratic state that had been born in February. The October Revolution of 1917 was, in fact, a coup d’état and established a power, called Soviet for added confusion, which would end up being the first form of a totalitarian state known in the 20th century. The Bolshevik party, which staged the coup in October, seized power by ignoring the other parties and without the support of the majority of the population, as was evident in the subsequent elections. It established itself guided by an ideology that dictated that liberation had to be imposed on the liberated, even if they didn’t want it, and they didn’t want it because the people, who did not overwhelmingly support them, had an alienated consciousness and were ignorant of the scientific basis of human development. With this ideological “justification,” groups opposed to the new Soviet state were repressed and imprisoned. In Volin’s case, his anarchist activism led to him being particularly persecuted. Volin then moved to Ukraine. How and why did he end up there? Volin became discouraged because the anarchist groups he was involved with were rife with infighting and arguments. He ultimately went to Ukraine. There, a revolutionary peasant movement was emerging, linked to the figure of Nestor Makhno, which would eventually form an insurrectionary army of over 30,000 soldiers. Ukraine had been ceded to the occupying powers of World War I by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed by Lenin and Trotsky against the wishes of most of the Bolsheviks’ own Central Committee. Ukrainian anarchist comrades went to Russia to find Volin and help him create an organisation that would become Nabat. He moved to Ukraine with them, and within this organisation, he tried to defend his conception of anarchism, which he termed the “anarchist synthesis”: avoiding internal disputes and seeking common ground to create a united front capable of driving a successful revolutionary process. In Ukraine, he soon met Makhno. Giuliai Pole, Makhno’s hometown, was the epicentre of a movement rejecting the Austro-Hungarian occupation troops. The peasants began to consolidate their lands, create communes, and a revolutionary process began. At the same time, they armed themselves as an insurrectionary army. Volin joined forces with Makhno, and they worked together. He spent six months within the Makhnovist structure in charge of cultural affairs: creating schools, magazines, books, lectures, and libraries, attempting to organise everything in a libertarian manner. He was only there for six months because he was arrested shortly afterwards. Although initially there was collaboration between the two armies to fight common enemies, the Bolsheviks ultimately decided they had to dismantle Makhno’s libertarian movement. The Makhnovist army fostered the creation of peasant communes that organised themselves. It was a libertarian, horizontal model, independent of any leadership. The Bolsheviks believed they had to destroy this model of anarchist peasants and subject them to the new power structures, hence their becoming enemies. Relations would always be highly conflictive, and the Red Army would never completely crush them, because the Makhnovist army served as their vanguard against the White Army troops, who, aided by international powers, sought the restoration of Tsarism. Makhno’s guerrilla tactics were perfectly suited to attacking these armies, and they proved very useful militarily to the Bolsheviks. At that point, they provided them with weapons. After a couple of years, when the danger subsided, the Bolsheviks were not going to respect the existence of a large area of anarchist communes that did not adhere to their model. They wanted to destroy them, and they did so in 1921. Makhno was almost always viewed very critically and negatively. He is portrayed as a degenerate. There were even Soviet films that depicted him as a kind of mad bandit who terrorised people. He has a great negative legend, which has begun to dismantle in recent times, with the fall of the USSR. Although his figure is always subject to debate due to the publication of the diary of [his former comrade] Gala Kuzmenko, where she recounts excesses committed by Makhno’s soldiers, driven by alcohol and brutality, who also abused the power they acquired, contrary to their own principles. You dedicate an entire chapter to the relationship between Volin and Trotsky, two figures who crossed paths over time in different countries. In April 1917, a premonitory conversation took place between them in a New York printing shop. This sort of intertwined life with Trotsky is one of the most interesting aspects of Volin’s biography. Both were Jewish, intellectually educated, and participated in the creation of the first soviet. Both were condemned to Siberia by the Tsarist regime in 1906 and both escaped, each on their own: Trotsky by sled and Volin on foot. Both went into exile and would meet again in a New York printing shop, each working on his own magazine. During a discussion, Volin told him: “When you come to power, the first people you’ll eliminate are us anarchists. We’ve outflanked you on the left, and you won’t accept that.” Trotsky complained and told him that the Bolsheviks weren’t devils. Later, when Volin was arrested in Ukraine, his captors didn’t know what to do and asked Trotsky for instructions. The telegram that arrived from Trotsky was scathing: “Shoot him immediately.” They didn’t, and he managed to escape, but Trotsky’s intention was indeed to eliminate him. Lenin even went so far as to say that he was too intelligent to be free. Volin was a serious opponent, from the left, and moreover, he had a platform in the social uprisings of Ukraine and Kronstadt, the third great revolution that was aborted by Trotsky and the Soviet army because it would have challenged the foundations of the state the Bolsheviks were creating. The situations were different, both for Lenin and a delegation from the Spanish CNT. Volin was repeatedly arrested and released, depending on the political situation, due to the agreements Makhno made with Lenin, as Lenin still needed Makhno to attack the White armies. On one occasion, Volin was released and immediately rearrested without trial and indefinitely. It was then that Lenin decided he was too dangerous to let go. The possibility of Volin and other comrades being released from prison was thanks to the Third International congresses held in Russia. Delegates from abroad, socialists and some more or less sympathetic to the anarchists, arrived and were aware of the problem: there were many anarchists imprisoned. The one who acted most brilliantly to secure the release of Volin and his comrades was one of the CNT delegates. Four delegates from the CNT had gone: Nin, Maurín, Arlandís, and Ibáñez, who was from Asturias. They were all Marxists and went with the intention of handing the CNT over to the Comintern. At that time, the CNT was underground, and its main members had been killed by employer-backed gunmen or were in prison. There was a kind of organisational vacuum. Andreu Nin was the Secretary and a CNT delegate; this group went to Russia and the CNT did indeed join the Third International. At the last minute, the anarchist groups in Barcelona managed to get a French comrade, Gastón Leval, into the delegation, paying for his trip. This was a stroke of luck for Volin, because Leval was the one who would get him out of prison. Leval visited Volin in prison and was the one who took his release most seriously. He met with Lenin and Trotsky. Trotsky became very agitated, even grabbing Leval by the lapel and hurling insults at him, but ultimately, faced with the potential international scandal these delegations could cause, they decided to release them. Opponents were either eliminated or expelled, and this group was chosen for expulsion. Volin and other anarchists went into perpetual exile. The book includes a chapter dedicated to the Spanish Civil War, in which Volin was also deeply involved, albeit from afar. Exile was very hard for everyone, but especially for those who knew no languages other than Russian or Ukrainian. It’s a very sad subject to study. There are well-known cases like that of Yarchuk, the first historian of the Kronstadt rebellion. He couldn’t adapt to either Berlin or Paris, returned to Russia, and was eventually killed. Or the case of Arshinov, which is particularly painful because he was the leading historian of the Makhnovist movement. Arshinov had mentored Makhno and eventually evolved towards Bolshevism. This evolution is subject to debate because some historians believe it was a maneuver to infiltrate the Communist Party, but this is completely absurd. Arshinov has texts where he renounces anarchist thought, apologizes, and slanders or mistreats the Makhnovist movement that he himself had praised in his book. Volin resisted this malady of exile. One of the most curious and regrettable things that happened during that exile was the confrontation between Makhno and Volin. Volin was always critical of the Makhnovist movement itself. He considered it an excellent libertarian revolution, but it had a number of aspects that needed to be criticised, such as the excessive leadership surrounding Makhno and certain violent, aggressive, and authoritarian attitudes exhibited by members of the Makhnovist army. Makhno died young in 1934, and Volin remained one of the few remaining resistance fighters from those groups that had been expelled. He continued to participate in all the anarchist initiatives of the time. He became a Freemason to persuade other Freemasons, contributed to the Encyclopédie anarchiste (Anarchist Encyclopedia) edited by Sébastien Faure, and wrote for numerous magazines. In 1936, the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) appointed him editor of a newspaper, L’Espagne Antifasciste (Antifascist Spain), so that he could report from France on the events of the Spanish revolution. But the CNT soon cut off its support for the newspaper because Volin did not support the CNT’s policies of participation in the Republican government. Volin’s son fought in Spain with the Republican side and revealed important information about Durruti’s death. Leo Volin, with whom I had a long interview over three days in 1987, volunteered in the anarchist columns and was with Cipriano Mera during the capture of Teruel. Leo told me that when he returned to France after the war, he spent a few days in jail in Cerbère, just across the border, and there he met a friend of his, a certain André Paris, who was a communist. Paris was traumatised by Durruti’s death and told him, “Leo, I assure you I didn’t fire,” implying that the group he was with was the one that had killed Durruti. Perhaps one day a historian will be able to verify this. Volin’s criticisms of the Spanish anarchists, which led the CNT to stop funding his newspaper, are quite telling regarding the rigidity of his political positions. Volin was certain that the revolutionary process had to lead to the disappearance of the state, not the creation of a new one. In Russia, a new state structure had been created that had ultimately become totalitarian. He had written a pamphlet that became somewhat famous, titled “Red Fascism.” Fascism is two-headed, with the communist head having been created by Lenin and the Bolshevik party. The fascist head was already on the rise in those years with Mussolini and Hitler. According to his analysis, in the Spanish revolution, the strength of the CNT-FAI made it possible to dissolve the state structure and organise a new form of society. Do you see parallels between the Ukrainian libertarian movement led by Makhno and the anarchist movement during the Spanish Civil War? It’s a very interesting topic to study in detail. The fundamental difference is that the Makhnovist movement had to develop these collectivisation and cooperative projects in a tremendous war context. They barely had a few months of peace, because then an army would enter and destroy everything. The libertarian collectives in Spain were more stable, especially those in Aragon. The Aragon front didn’t move for more than two years, and they had enough time to draw some conclusions from their experience. This experiment was ultimately crushed, first and foremost, by the communist army of the Karl Marx Column, led by Enrique Líster of the Communist Party. They stormed the Aragon collectives to destroy them because they didn’t approve of a revolution not subject to communist dictates. In a way, what had happened with Makhno was also being repeated. The main enemies will be the communists, who cannot tolerate any type of social experimentation different from their own and that could surpass them from the left. Lister’s column abandoned the front to destroy the libertarian collectives of Aragon. In the collective imagination of some on the left, there is the idea that the Russian Revolution went more or less well in its first stage, but Stalin’s rise to power initiated a totalitarian drift. You propose, following Volin, an alternative interpretation that emphasises continuity: Stalin merely followed in the footsteps of Lenin and Trotsky. Stalinism is an ideological invention created by left-wing Marxist authors to save Lenin and Trotsky, because Stalin is beyond redemption. That is the thesis that Volin refutes. Lenin and Trotsky had created a brutal authoritarian state. The Gulag began with Lenin in 1918, and the Red Army and the tactics of mass annihilation of dissidents began with Lenin and Trotsky. From 1991 onward, when the archives were opened, terrible things were discovered. I’m reproducing one of those handwritten messages from Lenin recommending that peasants be executed and their corpses hung up, for everyone to see, and that it be a cruel act. The creation of extermination and internment camps for dissidents began in 1918, and Lenin and Trotsky supported it. Stalin simply continued, taking it to its extreme, the model of repression. When Trotsky complained that Stalin was persecuting him, Volin laughed and told him that they were doing to him what he had done to others. When Trotsky was being persecuted and expelled from every European country, and a campaign was launched to allow him to settle in France, Volin joined that campaign. He believed that Trotsky should be given the freedom he denied others. Throughout the book, you emphasise the importance of not losing sight of the moral principle that, in politics, not all means are justified to achieve a desirable end. I wanted to trace this issue back to its tactical and ethical origins, which would be the case of Nechaev. Nechaev was a scoundrel who created a group in Moscow to assassinate and carry out terrorist acts. One of the members wanted to leave the group, and Nechaev then had all the other members killed to make them complicit in the murder. It was a shocking story, which served as inspiration for Dostoevsky to begin writing the novel Demons. Nechaev left Russia and ensnared Bakunin to use him for his own revolutionary purposes. Bakunin allowed himself to be seduced by this young man who arrived from Russia with an aura of a revolutionary and even participated in an abject text called “Revolutionary Catechism,” which justified any action as long as it served the revolution. Finally, Bakunin saw the light. In the 1960s, a historian found a letter in the French National Library in which Bakunin rejects and criticizes Nechaev, calling him an arbek, a bandit. Bakunin redeemed himself from that model of revolution in which everything is subordinated to the end goal, and the end goal saves everything. The one Nechaev did seduce was Lenin. Lenin vindicates Nechaev, a fact that is often forgotten. Andrei Siniavsky, a Russian writer of the 1960s who is credited with coining the term “dissident,” recounts in his book how Nechaev was behind Lenin. If the libertarians were different from the others, they had to prove it. Prove it in victory, when they won. They needed to display their magnanimity, their great soul, by avoiding executions, atrocities, and everything they opposed. Volin himself recounts his disappointment that harsher measures weren’t taken to prevent the atrocities committed by the Makhnovist soldiers themselves. Ideology doesn’t justify morality. The old anarchists of the International in Spain used to say that before being an anarchist, you have to be just, only to find out that being just makes you an anarchist. It’s in each action itself that you have to demonstrate your principle. The difference isn’t in what you say, but in how you do it. This is what was rightly criticised about Luther: justification by works, not by faith. Morally speaking, Volin comes quite close to that ideal. I’ve tried not to write a hagiography of Volin in the book, because the character is very appealing. At most, you can say he’s an outdated, incorrigible idealist, but morally there’s little that can be said against him. He’s a very upright and hardly questionable man. To conclude: Volin had a relationship with two of the leading figures of international anarchism in the first half of the 20th century: Kropotkin and Emma Goldman. What can you tell us about that? Kropotkin’s writings were crucial in his drift toward anarchism. In his decision to abandon his law studies in his final year and dedicate himself to educating workers, the young Volin was fulfilling Kropotkin’s proposal in his text “To the Young.” Volin rigorously applied the renunciation of privilege to work for justice. During one of his periods of freedom during the revolutionary process, he visited Kropotkin; they talked, and he left feeling strengthened. Kropotkin was always a guiding light for him on his journey. Emma Goldman arrived in the Russian Revolution from the United States. She had less contact with Volin because there were many periods when Volin was imprisoned. But she always referred to him as one of her most valuable comrades and also did everything possible to secure his release. Emma Goldman tried to prevent the authoritarian drift of the Soviet regime. At first, she seems to justify the measures taken by the Bolshevik state, but little by little she realizes they are creating a Jacobin terror, opposes it, and leaves Russia with her partner Alexander Berkman. They can no longer prevent the authoritarian and repressive drift of the communist regime. They go to England and try to campaign against it, but she herself recounts in her book, My Disillusionment in Russia, the little resonance her opposition to the authoritarianism of the Soviet regime finds among intellectuals of the 1920s. The prestige of the Bolshevik regime will extend into the 1930s, when the Stalin trials begin and it becomes more difficult to defend it. Then begins the ideological maneuver of rescuing Lenin and Trotsky and not identifying them with Stalin. Solzhenitsyn said that Stalinism is an invention of communist intellectuals to unleash all sorts of filth against Stalin. Stalin does not betray Lenin; the revolution betrays the soviets themselves. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Photos: David Aguilar Sánchez The post “Stalinism is a Marxist invention to save Lenin and Trotsky” appeared first on Freedom News.

LIVING IN MINNEAPOLIS-SAINT PAUL, I LISTEN TO THE STORIES OF OTHER ABOLITIONISTS TO LEARN HOW THEY CAME TO THIS RADICAL APPROACH ~ Camille Tinnin ~ We are living in a time of increased authoritarianism around the globe, propped up by police and other forms of law enforcement. In the United States we see the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the National Guard, with police cooperation on various levels. Masked agents, refusing to provide names or identification, appear in workplaces, homes, roads, and businesses, snatching up neighbours. Fear abounds, as does resistance. As we fight this new onslaught and rollback of personal civil liberties, it is important to not only focus on what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for. Police abolitionist organisers provide wisdom for this moment. Abolitionists are not only fighting against the police state, we are building alternative practices and institutions that push against assumptions about conflict, power, and interpersonal and community relationships. We are questioning our collective conception of power, considering accountability for harm over discipline and punishment, developing skills to better resolve conflicts in our neighbourhoods, families, organising spaces, and society. We are engaging in mutual aid and the creation of community spaces. We are building skills that generations of capitalist individualism have attempted to train out of us. Living in Minneapolis-Saint Paul (Twin Cities), Minnesota, I listen to the stories of other abolitionists to learn how they came to this radical approach, and about what people are doing to model and build the world we want to see. The Twin Cities have an array of organisations working toward abolition (and related movements) creatively. I see three main ways that abolitionists are engaging which go beyond obstructing injustice to creating prefigurative alternatives. The modelling of imagined future in the now, while fighting against present oppression. These works of what Sarah Lamble calls “everyday abolition” include: 1. the development of conflict skills and education around conflict transformation, 2. mutual aid, and 3. claimed and created spaces. CONFLICT SKILLS During my interviews, many abolitionists mentioned how we, as a society, need to build conflict skills. Collectively, we often outsource responsibility for managing conflict to the State, rather than addressing it ourselves. One way this occurs is through calling the police (or State institutions that do similar work). Abolitionists avoid doing so. One said, “if I have a problem with my neighbour and can talk to my neighbour about it, or if I can talk to another person who knows my neighbour, and get that solved, why would I ever have to go over here [to the police]?” Abolitionists talked about how, to not rely on the police, people need to be willing to step in and help neighbours-in-crisis, or diffuse disagreements. To respond, people need to have the skills to do so. By conflict skills, I mean approaches or tools to use in conflict that equip parties to respond to acute or ongoing situations with de-escalation, communication of disagreement, and collective problem solving. This can include listening skills, conflict mapping, understanding underlying needs and feelings, nonviolent communication, and collective problem-solving skills. These skills are relevant beyond avoiding the police. Abolitionists focus on the need to holistically respond to conflict, including in movement spaces. Conflict is neither good nor bad. Rather, it is something that can be positively or negatively engaged with, arising from disagreements, communication challenges, opposing interests, and so on. It can be interpersonal, or exist within a broader group. We must use conflict, and its transformation, as a way to identify harm, take accountability, repair relationships, grapple with complexity and differences of opinion or strategy, and ultimately determine how we can work together toward transformation. Often, people can be quick to sever ties during conflict. adrienne maree brown, in their book We Will Not Cancel Us, discusses how the disposability projected onto others uses similar carceral logic to the systems we are working to dismantle. Of course, when harm has occurred, people must be willing to acknowledge it and take accountability, and the safety needs for individuals and groups must be considered when navigating repair and transformative justice work. Abolitionists also discussed examples of groups helping people develop these skills, and the importance of education and training. REP, in South Minneapolis, is a local organisation with a crisis hotline that operates several nights a week, and offers ‘studios’ to build conflict skills and knowledge around abolitionist principles. REP’s studios have included ‘consent and abolition’, ‘self-de-escalation and regulation’, ‘community trauma and care’, and ‘solving problems ourselves’. One abolitionist involved in the project said: “We’re striving towards a deep cultural shift in how people assess a crisis and address the crisis, instead of having that knee-jerk response to call someone else.” This is key to the work of unlearning our existing social structures and learning how to face accountability without isolating ourselves, or choosing self-pity or self-flagellation rather than action and repair. There are other community education projects, reading circles, and so on, around the Twin Cities offering different ways for people to learn together. People are creating participatory education programs, sometimes in a certain career or sector, sometimes in certain identity groups, and often for people looking to develop certain skills. MUTUAL AID Several abolitionists interviewed mentioned how they engage in mutual aid work, particularly supporting unhoused neighbours, because many of the biggest challenges our communities face are connected to lack of resources. Mutual aid is when people work together to meet basic human needs because they recognise the capitalist system is not designed to do so. Multiple people discussed working with programs that support our unhoused neighbours. One said of unhoused encampment sweeps, which often result in people losing everything they have, that a lot of our ‘public safety’ interventions are more about preventing people from seeing the realities of capitalism than safety. Community members organise free distributions of clothing and food through Little Free Pantries in people’s front yards, the People’s Closet in George Floyd Square, neighbourhood-based “Buy Nothing” groups on Facebook, and cooked-meal distributions. Abolitionists discussed how people come together to meet collective and individual needs, often stepping in to fill gaps that could be filled by reallocation of government funds. George Floyd Square, the memorial and community space located in the intersection where he was murdered by the police, was a mutual aid hub during the 2020 uprisings, and continues to be where free clothing, books, and other supplies are distributed. An abolitionist explained: “In press conferences, [Governor] Tim Walz, Mayor Frey, [city council member] Andrea Jenkins and the crew, were all saying, ‘oh, that’s the best part of Minneapolis.’ You see it. You see it. You see the people coming together. You see the people forming groups to protect each other and their neighbourhoods. That’s the best Minneapolis, to which I respond, if that’s the best of Minneapolis, why aren’t you doing it?” While city officials continue to destroy encampments, state officials cut public health insurance for undocumented immigrants, and federal officials cut food, housing, and health programs, the needs of our communities will continue to grow. Mutual aid will become even more important. SPACE/ TAKING UP SPACE/ INTENTIONAL SPACES Abolitionists discussed the importance of taking up space and having intentional spaces. John Gaventa, in his piece Finding Spaces For Change: A Power Analysis, calls these spaces “claimed by less powerful actors from or against the power holders, or created more autonomously by them.” One such space is George Floyd Square, which one abolitionist described as “community-built systems of networking and safety doing a lot more to provide feelings of safety than policing does.” Others discussed student anti-war encampments pushing for their demands to be heard through getting in the way of business-as-usual, and providing space to try out alternatives. Abolitionists discussed the need for community spaces that foster imagination, like ‘third spaces’, where people can gather, without needing to spend money, to exchange ideas, host events, and build community. Several interview participants are working on creating such spaces. In this period of amplifying and expanding inhumanity by the State, people are working locally to meet our collective needs. We have the opportunity, amidst the intentional chaos created by those with formal power, to build ways-of-being in community that model a future worth fighting for. The abolition movement in the Twin Cities provides just one example of the prefigurative work happening around the globe. We may not live to see the future we prefigure, but as links in a chain, we continue this work, as Mariane Kaba says “until we free us.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was first published in the Winter 2025-6 issue of Freedom anarchist journal The post Everyday abolition in the Twin Cities appeared first on Freedom News.

GRZEGORZ PIOTROWSKI DISCUSSES FAR RIGHT POWER AND ITS INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING AND FUNDING ~ Uri Gordon ~ The far right agenda has never been so powerful since the end of the second World War. After decades of the political centre shifting steadily to the right, ultra-nationalist and neo-fascist forces are now in open alliance with populist and conservative parties around the world, or setting the tone within them. In Israel they have taken over the country and launched a regional war following the genocide in Gaza. In the USA they remain poised to stage a coup whatever the election results, but in either case far right ascendance is far from over. Repelled for now in France, in Austria they recently became the largest parliamentary party. To talk about far right power and its international networking and funding, we spoke to Grzegorz Piotrowski, a sociologist at the university of Gdansk and the European Solidarity Centre. The answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. While the political and business elites, and especially the right wing press in Britain, are busy spreading xenophobia and calling for tighter borders, those same elites and their attack dogs have no problem working across borders. We talk about our internationalism, but what about theirs? I mean that’s nothing new, right? Even before World War II they were quite international. But if 15 years ago extreme right groups were deeply rooted in their local context, now they have gained very powerful allies, especially allies that have a lot of money. At the CPAC conference in Budapest you can actually see this ‘far right International’ — Tucker Carlson, Viktor Orban, Russians cannot travel that much anymore but you have people from all over the world, even European Parliament members. But then you can observe the flow of cash and there are a lot of far-right groups that are financed by Western millionaires or the Kremlin. In Poland there are a lot of Twitter accounts that everybody knows are financed by Russia, they were sponsoring the far right in in Austria and Italy, and with groups fighting against reproductive rights you can trace cash flows from Brazil. So are ‘gender ideology’ and ‘cultural Marxism’ coming instead of open racial hatred, or just ideological covers? I think the base layer is a kind of simulacrum of white male Christian identity, so Islamophobia or antisemitism is a big part of that but it doesn’t work out the same way in all countries. The same with homophobia, I mean in Poland and Hungary it’s quite effective but in the UK not really, but this then allows them to play the ‘crusades and conquerors’ card. In addition to the welfare chauvinism card. But this is all about how you create the ‘other’ that doesn’t match, ethnically, culturally, to your homeland, the ‘sacred homeland’ that is supposed to contain the formative values of the nation. Recently it was exposed that American neo-nazis had helped start a chain of ‘brown gyms’ far right training clubs in England called Active Club. Are there other cross-border connections, say with the European continent? I know there was the English Defence League — Polish Division and then there was the Polish Defence League — English Division, that created a lot of confusion. The Football Lads Alliance try to use their networks to see who is now in the UK, etc., but these are really really marginalised groups. But in general what is helping the far right internationalise is they all moved to social media, especially now that platforms like X are weaponising ‘freedom of speech’. This was very evident with the Capitol Hill uprising, this scare that was created online translated into real action. So I don’t know how conscious people from the Trump camp actually were of how it might end up, I think they underestimated the power of social media in this case, but you could see that vast array of groups like the QAnon, the identitarians, the Proud Boys \and so on, they all met at the Capitol Hill because of this scare that was created by Trump’s acolytes online. Let’s go back to the contrast between their ‘internationalism’ and their racism. Are leaders like Orban in Hungary or Meloni in Italy really motivated by hatred of this ‘other’ that they stoke up? This is actually a very convenient tool to seize power, because it plays on the really low instincts of this society, and in a globalising world there are more and more people coming in. But the interesting thing is that you don’t really need to have refugees or migrants coming in to stoke xenophobia, you just create the image. People read that there are big movements of people from areas of civil war or poverty etc., and you can easily make a scarecrow out of that in order to seize power. I think this is a very cynical play. I think many leaders or at least their close supporters are not actually ideological about it, they’re just using these tropes because they think they work. And what happens after a couple of years is that you see they’re trying to use this power not for some ideological purposes but that it’s basically a kleptocracy. You see that in Hungary, most of the businesses are now owned or run by friends of Viktor Orban, in Poland every day there is a new scandal around stealing money from the state budget, if Bolsonaro were in power longer that would be obviously the case, also in Argentina. I’m pretty sure that lot of people from the immediate surroundings of the leaders are there only for the money and power. As for the leaders themselves, I don’t know to be honest, some of them might really feel they have a mission, but it’s quite often just to to seize power and whatever comes with it, usually money. But that still causes the mainstreaming of ideas and attitudes that used to be associated only with the far right, and we’re seeing how dangerous that can be. That’s actually something that I’ve noticed recently when I was talking to parents at my children’s school, and it’s sometimes in form of a joke or something like that, but you can see the spread of this xenophobic agenda in very ‘moderate’ terms throughout the middle class. You know, they were making jokes about lots of engineers and doctors coming on boats from North Africa to Europe, and this always comes with a small wink and so on. This is actually a ‘light’ version of what the far right is saying, and this scare about migrants and refugees is being extrapolated throughout the societies. So far I haven’t seen any tool to combat this, to highlight things like the fact that the only rise in crime that happens after refugees come is in the crimes committed by the far right against the refugees, or against people who help the refugees. This is a challenge I actually think will need to be addressed in the next couple of years both by the movement but also I think by the policymakers to start pushing the anti-fascist agenda to middle class people. Do you think anti-fascist groups are maybe less internationally networked than the far right? Are people absorbed in local struggles? It’s a question, how actively interested people are in what’s happening in other countries, because in some cases there are so many things going on in your home country that you don’t even have time to look around at what is happening in the region or the continent, right? I mean we had that in Poland for eight years where the Polish government was quite annoying, especially to activists, and there were a lot of protest campaigns and a lot of people in the street. But there’s so many things happening locally that people didn’t have time to look at what’s happening in Germany or beyond our eastern border because people were so busy dealing with these things on their own. So what can you say about resisting the far-right internationally? When you look at attempts to combat those initiatives they’re very much locally based, it is about people protecting their own communities. For example in the US, for many years anti-fascist politics was really scarce after Anti-Racist Action kind of slowed down, there was no militant anti-fascism. Trump comes to power and you have people like Richard Spencer and others, and suddenly you have a revival of militant antifa. Nowadays, a lot of the American anti-fascist movement is community based, and it actually appeals to the communities saying that these people are a threat to our community which is diverse, migrant based, LGBT friendly or whatever other issue the far right is targeting. And I think that is actually a big power. The second thing is that the far right is picking up on economic and social agendas that the left abandoned, protecting working families, a safer job environment, or restoring dignity by raising the minimum wage. These are leftist claims but the social democratic and liberal parties have embraced neoliberalism. I think today the mainstream parties’ language is incomprehensible to the younger generation of activists, they want to push their own agenda which is a leftist agenda and they see threats to their agenda coming from the far right, so that’s why they are becoming anti-right or even anti-fascist. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article first appeared in the Winter 2024/25 issue of Freedom Anarchist Journal The post “You can actually see this ‘far right international’ taking shape” appeared first on Freedom News.

IN THIS INTERVIEW, THE FOUNDER OF EDMONTON’S ANARCHIST PUBLISHING HOUSE LOOKS BACK ON ITS LEGACY ~ Sean Patterson ~ For the past five decades, Black Cat Press (BCP) in Edmonton, Canada, has served as a local hub for the city’s radical community and as an important publisher of anarchist material. Over the years, BCP has produced many notable titles, including the first English translations of the collected works of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno in five volumes. Other stand-out works from BCP include The Dossier of Subject No. 1218, the translated memoirs of Bulgarian anarchist Alexander Nakov; Lazar Lipotkin’s The Russian Anarchist Movement in North America, a previously unpublished manuscript held at Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History; and Kronstadt Diary, a selection of Alexander Berkman’s original diary entries from 1921. Amongst reprints of classic works by the likes of Kropotkin, Bakunin, and William Morris, BCP has also highlighted the work of anarchist researchers from around the globe, including Alexey Ivanov’s Kropotkin and Canada, Vadim Damier’s Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th Century, Ronald Tabor’s The Tyranny of Theory, and Archibald’s own work Atamansha: The Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc.   Sadly, Black Cat Press closed its doors in 2022, an economic victim of the Covid pandemic. Any future hopes to revive the press were subsequently shattered in the wake of a second tragedy. On June 26, 2024, an early morning house fire started by arsonists destroyed BCP’s remaining equipment and inventory. The loss of BCP is painful not only locally for Edmonton but nationally as one of Canada’s few anarchist publishers. Sharing BCP’s five-decade-long story will hopefully inspire others to follow in the steps of BCP’s legacy and the broader tradition of small anarchist publishing houses.    This month, BCP founder Malcolm Archibald sat down with Freedom News to reflect on a lifetime of publishing and his personal journey through anarchism over the years. — You have been involved with the anarchist community for many years. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you first became interested in anarchism? Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the Cold War, I certainly had no exposure to anarchism. Nor did my family have any predilection for left-wing politics. The only book on socialism in the public library was G. D. H. Cole’s History of Socialist Thought, which I devoured. In 1958, at age 15, I attended a provincial convention of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) as a youth delegate. The CCF in Nova Scotia was a proletarian party with a strong base in the coal mining districts. After that, I was hooked on left-wing politics. I became interested in anarchism by reading books about the Spanish Civil War. The first real anarchist I met was Murray Bookchin at a conference in Ann Arbor in 1969. Bookchin understood that many student radicals were anarchists in practice, even if they called themselves Marxists, so he emphasised the libertarian elements of Marx in his propaganda. What anarchist organisations/groups have you been involved with over the years? As a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, I was on the staff of underground newspapers, including an anarchist tabloid, The Walrus. Later, I helped start an anarchist magazine in Edmonton called News from Nowhere (printed by Black Cat Press). In Edmonton in the 1970s we had a branch of the Social-Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (SRAF), but most anarchist activity was centred around the IWW, Black Cat Press, and Erewhon Books. Anarchists were also involved in the newspapers Poundmaker (circulation 19,000!) and Prairie Star. In 1979, the North American Anarchist Communist Federation (NAACF, later simplified to ACF) started up, and I was active in two of their branches for a number of years but was unable to get much traction for the organisation in Edmonton. When did you start Black Cat Press, and how did it evolve over time? What are some key moments in its history you’d like to share with our readers? Black Cat Press started when I purchased an offset press and copy camera in 1972. The previous owner had tried to earn a living with this equipment and ended up in a mental institution, which was not auspicious. BCP became a “printer to the movement” in Edmonton, used by almost all the left groups and causes. In 1979 BCP became the unofficial printer of the ACF and printed a number of pamphlets for that organisation. From 1989 to 2001, BCP shared space with the Boyle McCauley News, the monthly newspaper of Edmonton’s inner city, with an all-volunteer staff. The newspaper generally tried to print positive news about the community, but an exception was the issue of juvenile prostitution, a terrible blight until we started printing stories about it and the authorities finally took action. In 1994, the government printing plant where I worked was shut down, and BCP began to operate full-time with three partners who had been laid off at the same time. Our customer base included social agencies close to our shop in Edmonton’s inner city plus various unions. In 2003, I purchased a perfect binding machine and was able to start printing books. Our first book was Kropotkin’s Anarchist Morality, a perennial favourite. Eventually, about 30 titles were printed, which were distributed by AK Press, independent bookstores, and literature tables at anarchist book fairs. How did you come to translate Russian-language radical and anarchist texts? I studied Russian at university and later took night courses in German, French, Ukrainian, and Polish. I first became aware of Nestor Makhno in the 1960s from a book by the British historian David Footman. Ending up in Edmonton, it turned out that the University of Alberta Library held four books by Nestor Makhno, bibliographical rarities. I’m constantly amazed at the richness of the anarchist tradition in the Russian Empire and the USSR. For many years, The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich was the only survey work on the subject, but recently, two histories have appeared in Russia and one in Ukraine. It is a measure of the depth of the movement that these histories are practically independent of one another and pay hardly any attention to Avrich. My first works of translation from Russian were physics articles, which don’t give much scope for originality. In translating historical texts, most of the effort goes not into the actual translation, but research on the names of places, persons, etc. and preparing annotations. I try to provide the reader with maps, graphics, and indexes, which make it easier to understand the text. Although I generally do not work with literary texts, I did translate some poems by Nestor Makhno. He wrote a poem called “The Summons” while in prison in 1912. A search of his cell in 1914 discovered this poem, for which he was given one week in a punishment cell. While in this cell, he composed another poem, which he wrote down as soon as he was allowed back to his regular cell. But another search discovered the second poem (more bloodthirsty than the first one), and he ended up in the punishment cell again. So, it wasn’t easy being an anarchist poet! Some of your major contributions to anarchist studies are the translations of Russian and Ukrainian primary sources. In particular, you translated and published the first English edition of Nestor Makhno’s three-volume memoirs. Can you describe this translation project? The University of Alberta library holds copies of Makhno’s memoirs, including both the French and Russian versions of the first volume. I started translating these memoirs as early as 1979 when BCP published a pamphlet entitled My Visit to the Kremlin, a translation of two chapters in the second volume. This pamphlet was eventually published in many other languages. Most of the work involved in preparing translations of Makhno’s works went into research about the people and places he mentions. An effort was made to provide enough material in the form of notes and maps to make the narrative intelligible to the reader. Black Cat Press recently closed its doors after fifty years in business. The economic environment for publishing is increasingly difficult in general, and especially so for small anarchist presses. What are your thoughts on the current prospects for anarchist publishing, and what changes might have to be made to maintain its long-term viability? Most anarchist publishers have to order a substantial press run up front and then hope to sell the books over a (hopefully) not-too-long period. BCP was ahead of its time in using a print-on-demand model where inventories were kept low so that capital wouldn’t be tied up in stock that wasn’t moving. The publishing arm of BCP was not much affected by the pandemic; rather, it was the job printing that suffered, forcing the business to close. How have you seen anarchism (particularly in Canada) change over the decades? Canada has rarely seen an organized anarchist movement in the same way as some groups in Europe or the United States. Why do you think this is so, and do you see any hope for an organized Canadian movement in the future? When I became active in the anarchist movement in Canada in the 1970s, the anarchists were all poverty-stricken, trying to survive in minimum-wage jobs. The next generation was much better off and had a lot of money to throw around. Now, the current generation is back to being dirt poor again, lacking the resources to make an impact. But I think the prospects for the future are good because (a) the old left (communists, Trotskyists, i.e., the alphabet soup brigade) are intellectually and morally bankrupt, and (b) the New Democratic Party (in Alberta, at least) is environmentally irresponsible. This leaves a lot of room on the left for anarchists to stake out their territory and attract young people into the movement. Malcolm Archibald at the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair, 2013. Thanks to Kandis Friesen for sharing previously collected interview material. The post Malcolm Archibald: 50 years of Black Cat Press appeared first on Freedom News.

INTERVIEW WITH LEBANESE ACTIVIST MAROUN, AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN THE 2019 POPULAR UPRISING IN LEBANON ~ From Aftoleksi ~ Let’s pick up the thread from 2019, when many young people in Western countries heard about the Lebanese world for the first time. You are from the young generation that made the grand uprising in Lebanon in October that year which lasted until May 2020. What were your demands then and what was the reason for the popular uprising? The reason for the popular uprising then was the economic crisis. The Central Bank of Lebanon was taking the people’s deposits from their bank accounts and investing them in unknown assets to enrich an elite who ruled the Central Bank. The local banks, in return, took huge sums in Lebanese pounds at exorbitant interest rates to act as middlemen. In 2019, from September onwards, the banks started not allowing people to withdraw from their accounts and the Lebanese pound started to lose value against the dollar. So the people rose up by taking to the streets to demonstrate for better conditions. There were not so much specific demands as a general spirit of social revolt. There were occupations of public spaces that had been privatised. Many people from different religions and political backgrounds came together to form assemblies and joint actions. People had the opportunity to unite around some issues in the outbreak of the October 17, 2019 revolution. This was a breakthrough, as the Lebanese people are still divided between religion and partisan identity due to the trauma of the 1975-1991 civil war. The movements born in October 2019 managed to bring pressure on the then government and elites, but failed to ultimately bring radical change and unite the people in a meaningful way as the whole movement lost momentum after a few months. At the beginning, the people demonstrating could reach a million, but after the first month the number of people started to decrease to a few thousands. Where do you think the people who were demonstrating like you are today, what could we say is the common feeling today? Too many people have emigrated abroad. Too many young people have since left the country. We don’t know exactly but some sources say that half a million young people have left—with no serious intention of returning. This is a blow to the country and to the movement because these people had the will to put their dreams into practice and as they saw that the mass participation slowly declined from the demonstrations, they became frustrated and left. 2019 Beirut protests. Photo: Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA-4.0 The common feeling of class solidarity has diminished somewhat. Significantly, in late October 2019, in the midst of social upheaval, Hezbollah itself ordered its supporters and its fellow believers (who make up at least 30% of the country’s population) to withdraw from the streets and no longer participate in the protests. So fear and insecurity among the partisan-religious groups increased. At the same time, many conflicts and attacks were taking place between people on the street who were supporters of political parties while peaceful demonstrations were taking place. This scared a lot of people from participating and pushed some people back to the way of thinking of fear and hatred of others. Coming to today, what was the situation all these months in Lebanon and what is it now with the Israeli invasion? The situation in the country now is one of widespread fear. One million people have been displaced, mainly from southern Lebanon, populated mainly by Shia Muslims, to the Beirut areas and elsewhere. As there has been tension between the different communities since the civil war period (1975-1991), the displaced people have in fact now gone to areas dominated by other religious and partisan groupings. There is thus growing tension between different sections of the people and with some political factions that are opponents of Hezbollah and have an interest in the latter being defeated in the war now. Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Photo: FMT, CC BY 4.0 It is considered that Lebanon is an open field which is and is not part of the struggle for Palestine, depending on which groups one belongs to. What is the position of the central government in the country in relation to Israel and Palestine? On the other hand, are there forces beyond conservatism and fundamentalism? And if so, what view do they hold about the war now? The central government is made up of political groups—which include Hezbollah and its opponents. So, the government’s position is that Israel is carrying out hostile acts, it is an enemy and must stop the invasion of Lebanon and Palestine. But because the central government is made up of different political groups that have conflicting ideologies and alliances in their foreign policy, it cannot take a meaningful and strong position on any foreign policy issue. The armed wing of the Hezbollah organisation—only their political part is a member of the government—has a harder and more aggressive stance towards Israel, but surprisingly the Lebanese government (which must include all voices in parliament) is in favour of a ceasefire with Israel and a truce. The popular elements, apart from conservatism and fundamentalism, also stand against the war, and for the liberation of Palestine, but they are not well-connected and have not enough contact with the population in general. They have not had much influence on domestic or foreign policy, nor can they organise mass demonstrations at the moment. Unfortunately, in Lebanon all the corrupted parties that came to power after the civil war have kept their authority and suffocating influence by not allowing new currents to come to the fore. Not many of our ideas from the 2019 revolution are still in the forefront today. The central slogans that prevailed then such as the typical “kellon yaane kellon!” (“All of them means all of them!”), meaning that ALL politicians and parties, and not just those of other religious groups, should go away—have been put aside. I would say that there has been a resurgence in participation in the old parties and the people in general have become disillusioned with the change that ultimately did not happen in the 2019 revolution. They believe that nothing has been achieved and that in general Lebanon’s fate is always to be ruled by corruption and war… Graffiti in Beirut, 2019. Photo: Aftoleksi There are no serious collectives or major initiatives taking place because there is not much participation from the people, especially young people. Regarding the media and independent sources, there are not enough. I don’t know enough to speak with certainty, but for example Megaphone News and other indy-type of media seem to get funding from western countries so they also seem to serve someone’s interests to some extent. I am not aware of some serious source of information from the people for the people. There is a great lack of trust in Lebanon regarding media sources and this has held the country back in the area of organising. Tell us a few words about the particular structure of a society divided into different religious groups, how is it represented politically? What happens with the political system there, the parliament, the elections, etc. How does it work? Each religious part of the country is represented by one or more partisan factions. As signed in the Taef Treaty in 1990 to end the civil war, any party representing a religious group should have access to the government. That is, the parliament is split 50-50 between Christians and Muslims but each of the 12 religious groups has a seat in parliament. So, there is supposed to be mutual respect and inclusion in the politics of the country but in fact this is not the case. In fact, it’s dysfunctional because each major party represents a religious sect, and can veto—not formally but in the sense of withdrawing from political meetings—and then there can be no consensus. The politicians and the people would rather have a whole period (or year) go by without any progress (for example, not electing a president for years) than have decisions made that might upset the balance between the various partisan-religious groups. There is always the fear that such an upheaval could lead to a new civil war… In 2022, general elections were held in Lebanon. The abstention rate reached 50%. People said in 2019-’20 that they would get revenge from the parties, but in the end the 50% of those who voted elected the very same parties. Hezbollah only got 19.89% of that 50%. That’s about 350,000 people while the country have a population of over 5 million. I believe, however, that more people support them informally than what is shown in the election results as Hezbollah provides some services, food security, etc. to the Shia population. On the other hand, there are many reasons why one might be opposed to Hezbollah, such as because they do import a very specific foreign policy to Lebanon (alliance with Iran’s “Axis of resistance”). Or someone else for religious reasons if they are Sunni or Christian and see Hezbollah’s influence as a threat to their life, or someone else may be against Hezbollah simply for reasons of power, so that they can be in their place and have their privileges. There are also the serious people—who are fewer in number—who have serious anti-fundamentalist reasons for being against it, and who are therefore against all political factions because they are against this system in general. What is the situation with public infrastructure in the country? How is daily life organised in each region based on local religious authority? The situation with public infrastructure is horrible. It hasn’t been well maintained for decades. It hasn’t been given the necessary upgrades to serve the people and their needs. At the same time, the population is increasing (at some point to dangerous level with the displacement of so many people from the South by the Israeli attacks), while the conditions of climate change are exercising further pressure in regards to the consumption of water and electricity. To make things worse, the country’s electricity and water have been privatised by private providers who sell these services profitably. Basic necessities cost several times more than the normal cost and constitute a huge share of the people’s livelihood. Many homes have electricity for a few hours a day and the water supply is not constant. Anyone who can afford it gets electricity from private generators installed in each neighbourhood by businessmen (each one of whom is linked to the respective political-religious party of the area)! Everyday life and problems, whether you live in a Christian or a Muslim community, are common to everyone. There are no serious differences. The essential difference is with the rich. In the places where the rich and powerful live, there are much better amenities and security. In contrast, the common man struggles to secure a wage (which often is not even enough to cover basic needs) and be able to live. Each political party has religious power behind it, so the haves have divided the country between themselves, and each one exercises control over their respective region of influence. Similarly, service providers do not operate in other areas that do not correspond to their own religious or party identity. As we were saying in 2019, ALL of them are corrupt and oppressive and must go The post “People are disillusioned, they believe Lebanon’s fate is corruption and war” appeared first on Freedom News.