In the past, I have decided to sell off a collection of LP/ EP and also raise money for war refugees during the free distribution of my publication “Tato kniha není (z)boží“. So far I have raised 7 467 Kč (=298 Euros) in this way. I will put all this money into the fundrising for deserters and war refugees organized by the Anti-Militarist Initiative (AMI). The following is my brief explanation of why I am doing this.

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The Russian army deserters prove that not everyone who finds himself on the Russian front is a devoted supporter of Putin and Russian imperialism. Similarly, the deserters from the Ukrainian army remind us that it is not in the interests of the working class to kill and be killed defending the regime in Ukraine and its imperialist friends in the West. Desertion or draft evasion can be a conscious act of political resistance or also just an instinctive instinct for self-preservation. But in any case, it is always a widening crack in the contours of the war machine. That’s why I decided to support these people. Because we will not stop the war by choosing the less brutal state within it and sending its weapons and people to the meat grinder. We stop the war by undermining the ability of all the states involved and their armies to continue the war. And desertion or avoidance of mobilization in Russia and Ukraine is one way that this disruption is concretely manifested.

When workers in military uniform desert, it is always an act of class resistance to the war, whether they realise it or not. In the First World War, the wave of desertions played a significant role in transforming inter-imperialist war rivalries into attempts to revolutionarily overcome capitalism. It is an instructive example of how we can stop the war, but also of what mistakes we must avoid in the future.