The book includes speeches in court by ten people who opposed Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and were arrested, tried and handed long jail sentences for doing so. Two protesters who appeared in court, and made statements outside court, are also featured. It is being published to bring the spirit of anti-war resistance to an international audience
One of the protesters, Ruslan Siddiqi, derailed a train carrying munitions to the Russian army in Ukraine. Three firebombed military recruitment centres or security services offices (out of hours with no danger to persons). Others did no more than criticise the war, and the Russian government, on social media – or, in the case of the youngest protagonist, 19-year old Darya Kozyreva, lay flowers at a statue to Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko.
Voices Against Putin’s War also includes a summary of 17 other anti-war protesters’ speeches in Russian courts; letters and interviews by the protagonists; and a survey of political repression in Russia, Belarus and the occupied territories of Ukraine, of which these jailings are part.
John McDonnell, a UK Member of Parliament, writes in his Foreword: “This stubborn refusal to be silenced is what brings down dictatorships, secures human rights and gives us all the hope that freedoms can be won. For that we all owe these courageous advocates for justice a depth of gratitude.”
Build the campaign for the withdrawal of Russian troops
The European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine is supporting the book’s publication as a way of strengthening its campaign for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and an end to the illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory.
Any proceeds will be donated to Memorial: Support Political Prisoners, Russia’s largest organisation – now based abroad – that gives legal and practical support to political prisoners.
The book has received endorsement both from prominent Russian opponents of Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, such as Darya Serenko, coordinator of the underground network Feminist Anti-War Resistance, and from Oksana Dutchak, co-editor of the leading Ukrainian progressive journal Commons.
Simon Pirani, honorary professor at the University of Durham, who edited the book, said: “There are now more political prisoners in Russia than at any time since the post-Stalin ‘thaw’ of the 1950s. And the war has turbocharged the repressive machine.
“These protesters who used their ‘final word’ in court to denounce the dictatorship stand in a tradition that goes back to the populists who defied tsarist autocracy in the 1870s.”
Everybody and especially socialists should stand in solidarity with these courageous activists.
Launch event in London on 20th November
A launch event for Voices Against Putin’s War will be held in London on Thursday 20 November, at Pelican House, Cambridge Heath Road, at 7.0pm, featuring “Try Me For Treason”, a semi-staged reading by actors of excerpts from prisoners’ speeches.
Enquiries to Simon Pirani on +44 7947 031268 or simonpirani[at]gmail.com. Review copies can be obtained on request.
Notes
The statements in Voices Against Putin’s War are by Alexei Gorinov, Igor Paskar, Bohdan Ziza, Mikhail Kriger, Andrei Trofimov, Sasha Skochilenko, Aleksandr Skobov, Darya Kozyreva, Alexei Rozhkov, Ruslan Siddiqi, Kirill Butylin and Savelii Morozov.
Copies of the book can be ordered from Resistance Books here https://resistancebooks.org/product/voices-against-putins-war/. It will also be available soon as a free-to-download pdf.
This article is from a press release from Resistance Books / European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine