On May 2, 2022 in the heart of Moscow, in Revolution Square near the monument to Karl Marx, an unknown person threw a molotov against the OMON (Russian Ministry of Interior Special Forces) riot vehicles that are always parked there. The flames managed to eat away at one of them for several minutes before being extinguished.
The unknown person was unfortunately arrested immediately. This is 45-year-old Vitaly Koltsov, a father of three and a philosophy graduate, who had previously participated in anti-government rallies – in 2017, he was arrested for disobeying the cops, and in 2019 for violating “the established order” to hold rallies.
What drove Vitaly to embark on a radical anti-war attack in the heart of Moscow, with an almost 100% probability of being arrested? An epigram written by himself may provide the beginning of an answer:
If the day fades away forever
Our glory will not fade
Death comes but once,
Let us choose it to our taste
To see in the end,
How the desert has been illuminated
By our ardent hearts
In the rising light.
Vitaly’s poetic message refers, at least in part, to the philosophy of the Stoics. The emergence and flourishing of this philosophical school took place at the time of Hellenic despotism and the rise of the Roman Empire, when civil liberty, even for a formally “free” man (neither slave nor woman), was abolished. This is a bit reminiscent of today’s Russia, isn’t it? According to the Stoics, a man, even when he is removed from any direct influence on politics, must retain his civic virtues and act morally, ignoring the threats and temptations of the powerful. That is to say, even “if the day fades away forever”, this is no reason to abandon one’s convictions; on the contrary, one must follow them every second, whatever the outcome. Many Stoics believe that, in certain situations, conscious suicide (as a conscious moral choice rather than a manifestation of desperation) is the most correct civil act.
One may or may not agree with the way Vitaly Koltsov chose to attack the state. A person who knows, at least in theory, the arsenal of anarchist methods could argue that he should have chosen a dark time of day, prepared escape routes, a change of clothes, etc. Or to point out that the damage inflicted on the enemy was rather limited. At the same time, no one can deny the evidence – in conditions of war, strengthening totalitarianism, doublethink embedded in society that Vitaly did the right thing from an ethical point of view.
His action was an affirmation of his inner moral freedom. He defended it in an unequal struggle against the Leviathan, the one who demands absolute loyalty from all.
[From a translation from Russian in the anarchist websites a2day and Anarchist Militant, May 4, 2022]
Translated by Act for freedom now!