For three consecutive days in Moscow, the Russian police, the Russian Guard and the UFSB besiege communist activists at their headquarters. 15 members of the left party “Communists of Russia” are blocked, together with their leader. The crime of the “May Day Prisoners” is that they are the only ones in Russia who allowed themselves to gather at the party headquarters on the Day of International Workers’ Solidarity, and on the morning of May 1 dared to take part in a group outdoor festive trip. But they did it – on their territory – in the courtyard of their own headquarters.

Currently, there is an increasing de-communization in different countries of the world. Formerly tolerant of communist parties, conservative governments are becoming much more influenced by the ultra-right ideology spread by nationalist forces. This occurs in many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas. This is also happening in capitalistly lagging Russia.

In the conditions of the climax of the crisis of the neoliberal capitalist system, a possible way out of the civilized impasse could be … a new imperialist war, world war. However, the presence of nuclear and hydrogen weapons, which many countries possess, makes this “exit” absolutely impossible and dangerous for business elites as well as for all of humanity. What could then cause an unexpected and radical failure of the crisis bourgeois economy program that Capital needs to get out of the neoliberal collapse, with its inflated money bubble, the debts of national governments, and the interests of international trans-corporate and business elites posed above vital problems? The yield, even an approximate one delaying the collapse turned out to be unexpected a pandemic. Most international organizations – the UN, OSCE, WHO – depend on the interests of business elites, who, having their own lobby in each of the organizations, can easily manipulate their decisions. After the WHO announced the danger of the global pandemic COVID-19, a real massive “hysteria pandemic” began in the global information space. This is a precedent similar to which history has not yet known: a high level of virological danger has existed before, for example, a regularly flare-up epidemic of influenza, which constantly mutates and also gives profuse complications in the form of pneumonia, the percentage of death from which is just as high.

Our two-month experience in combating the unprecedented viral pandemic proclaimed by WHO, allows us to note that such close attention to this disease, in fact, except for panic, closed borders and quarantine measures, has nowhere led to anything else – everyone watching the pandemic , expected more government attention to this issue, which has become the most media top.

Constantly developing and changing cyberspace unites, and at the same time, separates people, separating them from the real picture of the world, often distorting it in the eyes of the public. The whole world, with its billions of people, all more often becomes a participant in one or another, large-scale informational “performance” that is advantageous to the ruling supranational structures. However, the main characteristic of the information society has two sides. On the one hand, it has become much easier to manipulate the mass consciousness, especially since the atomization of modern society, as Herbert Marcuse has scientifically predicted, has already reached its limit, is the logical consequence of the long monopoly existence of the capitalist system, which undertook one of the last stages of globalization. On the other hand, a completely unexpected side was revealed to us: in many countries, and in the general cyberspace of social networks where there is no division at the borders, the first symptoms of people’s desire to return to healthy social solidarity manifest themselves – and this is unacceptable for power structures. In social networks, and even more so in the darknet space that is difficult to control from the outside, people can already more freely – not only express their opinion about a particular event, not only remotely share it with their usual circle of friends, but also convey it to a huge number of people worldwide. Thus, the opportunity arises to coordinate our efforts, to unite which is especially important when it comes to our comrades representatives of various left-wing organizations of a Marxist nature.

In the Russian Federation, the situation with medicine is approaching the capitalist “norm”. After the Russian Federation took measures to optimize the healthcare sector, closing hospitals and rural medical posts and cutting funding, medicine is rapidly turning from free (and accessible to everyone 40 years ago) – to an expensive service sector, not accessible to many. In a situation of rampant epidemic, with which the socialist system, no matter how many minuses it has, through the efforts of honey. Thanks to the widespread medical coverage of the local population, they would quickly manage to do so – quarantine measures were introduced, which included the self-isolation of people as a necessary but auxiliary measure for the medical system. The power structures of the state are obliged to protect the measures taken; for their violation, large fines are provided for the population, and so often unemployed.

Russian law is such that it can use leverage over people with different political views than the ruling United Russia party. Was it originally supposed, or it happened due to a combination of circumstances, but it turned out that quarantine measures were aimed not so much at protecting citizens from the virus – this is in the conditions of a half-poor medicine! How much to strengthen the power vertical and suppress dissent. And, perhaps, to improve living conditions and so enough prosperous representatives of law enforcement agencies and law enforcement agencies.

The quarantine associated with the coronavirus pandemic in the Russian Federation, as well as in other capitalist countries, has become a convenient, timely reason for the very reactionary forces of the establishment to affect the entire government. In conditions that are already difficult to survive, economically and psychologically, for citizens of the country, the authorities gave law enforcement and security agencies full rights to repressive measures against the population. Moreover – most often – unreasonably and disproportionately to both the viral threat itself and the measures taken by medicine. The rights to freedom of movement, to work and political views were violated. Those who currently doubt the correctness of the regional quarantine measures taken by the authorities fall within the scope of Article No. 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – “public calls for extremist activities”…

Paradoxically, it is the material and technical conditions of the information society, which would seem to be wholly in the hands of the ruling classes (who owns the media holdings?), That make it possible, despite obstacles from the authorities, to have a free platform for developing a collective opinion, as well as – coordination and free communication. State ideologists realized this in time. And they made efforts to channel the protest potential, which has been steadily brewing among the masses since 2008, and is constantly growing. Moving the focus of the general attention of the population not to worsening working conditions and welfare but to fear of an epidemic, which should, in theory, suppress any hints of social solidarity. Encouraging those who submit blocks of information that only escalate the panic in the mass unconscious, and condoning the denunciation of neighbors (with suspected coronavirus). The system, as always, miscalculated. And with the help of the suppression apparatus, he tries to catch up with what was lost as a result of his “myopia”, forcing repression.

For the third day in a row in Moscow, from May 1, 2020, the editorial staff of the newspaper “Communists of Russia”, which is the official printing organ of the political party “COMMUNISTS OF RUSSIA”, continues to have almost no precedent in its immediate history. For the third day in a row, the police detachment and the security forces specially sent there, blocking the entrances and exits, require people who already know what this threatens them to leave the premises. These are perhaps the only of our comrades in all of Russia who were not afraid to raise the banner of May Day, which authorities around the world canceled due to the “need for self-isolation of citizens.” Among those blocked are our comrades Fatima Khugaeva and Maria Donchenko, with them are the chairman of their party Maxim Suraykin and twelve others. The “violation of quarantine measures”, which was initially incriminated by the security forces to the comrades, consisted only in a group of people leaving their own office in the yard to celebrate the Day of International Solidarity and to release balloons with communist symbols in the sky. Given that, just as in the recently rebellious city of Vladikavkaz, enterprises, holdings and firms owned by many representatives of the ruling elite continue to work in the capital of the Russian Federation. That is, the “self-isolation regime” imposed on the Russians is very selective. Someone continues to go to work, being, by default, in crowded rooms, and – and this is not considered a violation of quarantine, and is not punishable by fines. That is why it is difficult to explain the motivations of the actions of the security forces and representatives of the Russian Guard, which block the multi-storey building, scaring many of its residents, and detaining those who came to help headquarters. It turns out that in the Russian Federation there are no more complex, truly criminally dangerous elements, and the security forces, along with the Rosguard, have “thrown to the front lines” of the struggle against communism?

We know that among the party members blocked in their office there are large families who simply needed to get home after the event. The police and the Russian Guard, apparently hoping to publicly punish politically active violators of self-isolation, decided to starve them. But our comrades did not agree to agree by giving their already small personal funds to fines for violating the access control, self-isolation. Of course, taking into account the growing ideological bias in the country “to the right”, it is clear that our comrades should not be punished for violating quarantine measures, but for organizing a May Day public event, for previously organized pickets. The situation around the blocked Muscovites is heating up, the number of people in uniform is constantly increasing. Every night, morning and day, police officers are on duty near the headquarters, and in the mornings, FSB officers are present in two cars. There are now more than a dozen people in the occupied headquarters of the party, among them are comrades Maria Donchenko, Fatima Khugaeva, Rushan Taktarov, Maxim Chuvashov, member of the “United Communist Party” Eduard Rudyk. We are informed from the scene that those who come to help with groceries or to express their solidarity with those who are blocked are immediately detained by the police. Detained more than five people. The security forces repeatedly tried to enter the headquarters premises, while not presenting any documents motivating their actions. Mindful of the infamous “Ivan Golunov case”, the workers of the party editorial board and their comrades do not want to let the police into their premises. The head of the party’s city cell, Yaroslav Sidorov, the head of the organization “ATEISTS OF RUSSIA” Ilya Ulyanov, a member of the Central Committee of the CPKR Chermen Khugaev, who is currently among the detainees, came to the aid of the blocked comrades. Residents of the house in which these events take place are alarmed and scared by the police cordoning of their house for many days. Journalists of the communist newspaper associate the actions of the police with the opposition left-wing orientation of their publication and suggest that the police intend to seize the circulation of the April issue, which criticized the measures of the Government of the Russian Federation during the coronavirus epidemic.

Journalists and communists inside the building refute the false accusations that they are trying to incriminate: the launch of red balloons with communist symbols on May 1 cannot be called a rally. On May 1, the comrades were determined, having left the courtyard of the building back to the headquarters, to arrange skype communication with the other representatives of the party located in other cities. In their actions, everything that was inherent in the protesters was absent: there were no slogans, no protest demands were put forward, there was no sound-reinforcing equipment. The Communists did not violate the norms of quarantine special measures either, since all the besieged are employees of the editorial board of the newspaper “Communists of Russia” and work in a continuous cycle mode.

The blocked comrades retain their fighting spirit and sing revolutionary songs, although the police have not lifted the siege for the third day, and put stationary posts on buses at night. About 50-60 police officers are on duty at different times under the windows and at the exit of the editorial staff.

The firm stand of the besieged “May Day Prisoners” is that they refuse to be victims of police lawlessness – to be defendants in protocols of violations that they did not commit. Therefore, the Communists continue to “keep the defense”, and the Muscovites are raising questions about the police forces pulled to the party’s office, as this is obvious political pressure on the opposition party from the security forces. Moreover, it will be difficult to explain why sympathizers were detained, who came to the party office singly to deliver blocked food, hygiene products and medicines. But the Moscow authorities are not used to explaining anything to people.

Resistentiam.com