Russia

Highlights how Russian authorities are conscripting men in occupied Crimea to serve in the Russian armed forces, although humanitarian law explicitly forbids Russia to compel Crimean residents to serve in Russian forces.

Analysis of a selection of predominantly nonviolent struggles from Russia 1905 to Serbia 2000, arguing against ‘the mythology of violence’. Some of the case studies are standard in books on civil resistance, others – for example the 1990 movement in Mongolia – less familiar. Each chapter has a useful bibliography. The book arose out of a 1999 US documentary television series ‘A Force More Powerful’, now available on DVD, and therefore includes, in the more recent cases, information from interviews.

This book provides a study of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements in countries throughout the world. Its focus is on Brazil, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, USA, as well as more generally covering Europe and Latina America. The authors argue that women's movements have engaged in complex negotiations with national and international forces, and challenge widely held assumptions about the Western origins and character of local feminisms. They locate women's movements within their context by exploring their relationships with the state, civil society, and other social movements.

This article focuses particularly on the growing role by 2019-21 of independent regional news media prepared to report corruption, uphold the right to independent comment and to explore taboo topics like Stalinist labour camps. These regional media (often online) give a voice to individual bloggers and have underpinned political, economic and environmental protests at a regional and local level throughout Russia. Burrell also discusses the attempts by the regime to suppress these channels through tightening its 'Fake News' law and classifying independent journalists as 'foreign agents', but notes the solidarity between regional media.

Ted Daley argues that maintaining the nuclear double standard by which some countries permit themselves reliance on nuclear weapons, while denying them to others is military unnecessary, morally unjustifiable, and politically unsustainable. He insists on the necessity of considering nuclear abolition as an attainable political goal rather than a utopia.

Comprises 5 articles: Shevtsova, Lilia, ‘Putin Under Siege; Implosion, Atrophy or Revolution?’; Krastev, Ivan and Stephen Holmes, ‘An Autopsy of Managed Democracy’; Popescu, Nicu, ‘The Strange Alliance of Nationalists and Democrats’; Volvkov, Denis, ‘The Protesters and the Public’; Wolchick, Sharon, ‘Can There be a Color Revolution?’

The article assesses the impact of the main Russian online social network, VK, on the likelihood of protest with a focus on 2011. It argues that increased use of the network did  have some impact on the likelihood of protest, but did so through simplifying coordination rather than increasing the availability of criticism of the regime. The authors also suggest that wider social use of the network actually increased support for the government.

Covers women’s political rights across all major regions of the world, focusing both on women’s right to vote and women’s right to run for political office. The countries explored are Afghanistan, Armenia, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, New Zealand, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, South Korea, Slovenia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States, Uganda, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe.

Gorbachev’s own brief account of the attempted coup against him and his reformist programme in August 1991, with some appended documents.

The authors, academic experts on Russian politics, draw on surveys, social media, interviews and leaked documents to examine why there has been such long term popular support for Putin. They examine his changing tactics, his handling of the 2012 protests against electoral manipulation, and the role of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 that made pride in Russia the main pillar of his support. The authors argue that attempts to secure change are undermined by belief that it is impossible, but suggest there are limits to public acquiescence and Putin's power. The potential fragility of his rule is revealed for example by demonstrations by thousands of pensioners against pension reforms that raised the retirement age.

By examining the wars in Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia, across the Middle East and in the former Soviet Union, Kaldor discusses the elements and dynamics of structural violence that determined the nature of these wars. She argues that these wars were predominantly determined by military and criminal factors, as well as by the presence of an illegal economy and human rights’ violations. She also argues that the underlying causes of these conflicts lie in the relationship between military and civilian victims, and in the changed perception of threat by the Western powers.

After experiencing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, Chinese-ink painter Iri Maruki and oil painter Toshi Maruki began their collaboration on the Hiroshima Panels in 1950. During the Allied occupation of Japan when reporting on the atomic bombing was strictly prohibited, the panels made known the hidden nuclear sufferings through a nationwide tour. In 1953, the panels began a ten-year tour of about 20 countries, mainly in East Asia and Europe, and disseminated the Hiroshima stories in the age of the US-Soviet arms race. The Marukis embarked on a new direction in the 1970s, with their emphasis on complex realities of war in which the victim/perpetrator dichotomy was not clear-cut, and explored other forms of violence such as pollution and discrimination.

Study spanning women’s position in Tsarist Russia, th e Communist period and immediate aftermath of dissolution of USSR.

The opening chapters provide historical context, but the focus of the book is on interviews with leading activists, representing the great variety of ideological standpoints and concerns, to develop an analysis of feminism since the later 1980s.

Analyses the ‘Nuclear Freeze’ movement, the largest mass movement in the U.S. in the 1980s, that addressed the dangers of the ‘Second Cold War’ between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The book highlights the development of the movement; its social and political impact; and its transformation in the 1990s. 

By BBC and Sunday Times journalist.

Sharkey, Professor of AI and robotics at Sheffield University, Chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control  and also spokesperson for the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, sketches in the historical background to the evolution of Autonomous Weapons Systems, and dispels 'five myths about AWS'. He also briefly explains the evolution of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and how it had been keeping the issue 'on the table' at the UN since 2014.

See also: Chan, Melissa, 'Death to the Killer Robots', Guardian Weekly, 19 April 2019, pp. 30-31.

Report on role of Jody Williams and Mary Wareham, two leading activists in the Campaign to Ban Landmines, in promoting the new movement, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which they recognize to be a much harder goal to achieve. Chan notes that Israel is already using advanced autonomous technology, for example to patrol the Gaza border. the US is testing advances in the technology, and Russia wants to create a battalion of killer robots. The campaigners were in Berlin because the German government had indicated concern about the issue, but had not been consistent, so their aim was to put pressure on Germany to act. 

Summary analysis of potential for popular nonviolent resistance to defeat coup attempts, recommendations for organised strategy and advance preparations to prevents coups, and with very brief description of resistance to Kapp Putsch in 1920, the Algerian Generals in 1961 and to attempt to overthrow Gorbachev in 1991.

An assessment, by a US academic, of Navalny's role and impact in the immediate aftermath of his poisoning.  

See also: Nikitin, Vadim, ‘As Alexei Navalny’s Life Hangs in the Balance, So Does the Fate of the Russian Opposition’, The Nation, 2 September, 2020.

Analysis of Navalny’s changing political stance that discerns ‘an unexpected but unmistakable left turn’ in recent years.

See also: Gorokhovskaia, Yana, 'The Navalny Case may Weaken the Idea that Putin is in Total Control', Guardian Weekly, 4 September 2020, p. 47.

Chapter 4, pp. 59-70, gives an eye witness account of the coup and stresses the inefficiency of the plotters and the limited popular response to Yeltsin’s call for popular defiance and a general strike.

A Special Investigation by Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts on the role of fossil fuel companies in promoting the climate crisis. Includes list of the 'top five global polluters': Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; Chevron, US; Gazprom, Russia; ExxonMobil, US; National Iranian Oil Co.

This article, incorporating an interview with Tikhanovskya, the leader of the opposition to the Lukashenko regime in exile, provides a useful summary of the resistance to the rigged election in 2020 and the subsequent repression. Vock notes the ruthlessness of Lukashenko against the opposition internally and those in exile in EU countries, and his unscrupulous use of refugees from  the Middle East  to challenge the Polish/EU borders. He also indicates that the Belarus opposition, which initially did not challenge ties to Russia, has become explicitly hostile to Putin's backing for Lukashenko and more dependent on EU and western support. Vok also reports that a leaked poll from inside Belarus indicates that although Tikhanovskya has significant support, two of the jailed opponents of the regime, Babaryko and Kolesnikova, are more highly regarded. 

Account of preparation by indigenous communities to resist the destruction of the rainforest by farmers, miners and loggers backed by far right President Jair Bolsonaro. The article focuses on the discussions, held in the small riverine community Manolito in Terro do Meio, between indigenous people and international activists, including Extinction Rebellion UK organisers, Belgian activists in the School Strike and from the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot. Watts outlines the wider Brazilian context, and discusses how international participants revised their ideas and campaigning plans as a result of the meeting, which was named 'Amazon: Centro do Mundo'.