Collectivity
02-02-2009, 07:41
Stanislav Markelov was shot & killed in Moscow by an assassin, 19th of January 2009.
He defined himself as a "Martovian social-democrat", after Yuliy Martov, leader of pre-revolutionary Menshevik fraction of social-democrat movement. In more contemporary terms, he was a left-wing social democrat.
But Stas had friends in about any fraction of Russian socialists, reformers and revolutionaries. He had an encyclopedic knowledge on history of the revolutionary movement of Russia, which was a huge inspiration for him, and he could lecture for hours on groups such as nihilists or narodniks anytime.
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2211
Stas was interest on history of political red cross (which still today remains as anarchist black cross), and he considered lawyers who defended narodniks and esers in tsarist times his prececents, and eventually he became first lawyer to defend left-wing "terrorists", accused by the new Russian state. In all cases he did during 1990's and early years of this decade, he managed to dismiss terrorist charges and eventually if defendants got sentenced, they got sentenced for lesser charges.
Stas was too young to join underground hippie movement ("Systema") of the Soviet time, but his first ideas (and early hairstyle) came from there. Already when a young student in early 1990's, Stas became activist of social-democratic party (which always was a rather marginal in Russian politics), in its left wing. Probably first time anarchists came to contact with him was time of Yeltsin's coup of 1993 - practically all anarchists and socialists considered Yeltsin's unconstitutional presidential order number 1400 a Pinochetist coup, and were ready to rally against it. Anarchists and social-democrats, Stas among them, drafted a proposition for Supreme Soviet, which included refusal of support from national-patriots, withdrawal from Moscow to regions supporting Supreme Soviet and economical blockade of Moscow. But as we know, history went otherwise - Supreme Soviet rejected the proposal, chose support of national-patriots instead and stayed in Moscow, where it lacked mass support, and eventually defenders of Supreme Soviet got massacred by Yeltsin's gang. Official death toll is 199 (including 12 of police and army), but defenders have also presented up to 10 times bigger estimates on number of victims.
When it became clear for anarchists and socialists that it was no way of picking a conflict in the side, they decided to organise an impartial street medic brigade instead. Brigade was named after Maksimilian Voloshin, famous humanist and poet who during Russian civil war remained impartial and defended organised humanitarian aid for civilians. There are some stories from work of the brigade available in English, for example "Under fire between the Lines" (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/eastern/yeltsin_93.html) and translation from Avtonom-journal, "Unhappy anniversary" (http://www.ainfos.ca/03/oct/ainfos00366.html). Participation of this street medic brigade was a real "baptism in fire" for its members but also very frustrating, as eventually untrained volunteers had to help people with bullet wounds. But people who were there, sticked together ever since.
Stas and many others of them became core of both historical club in Memorial, and through the same connections Stas become involved in anarchist "thursday circle", which was later named after active anarchist Nikolai Muravin, who was central in organising it and died accidentally in 1996. Results of work of Memorial's club you may see in site "Russian socialists and anarchists after October 1917" in http://socialist.memo.ru/, which is probably the biggest website on history of repressions against anarchists (and not only), but unfortunately it is only available in Russian.
Stas also participated to work of "Free labor commune of Pryamukhino", which was was active in second part of 1990's. It was a common project of anarchists and offspring of Bakunin family to repair garden of the mansion in Pryamukhino of Tver region, where famous revolutionary was born and spent his childhood. Pryamukhino mansion even still has an oak tree planted by 1820's decembrist rebels, thus the place is linked to 200 years of Russian revolutionary history. It was in Pryamukhino camps where Stas became friends with Igor Podshivalov, who in 1982 co-founded in Irkutsk the first anarchist group which survived to Perestroika, and became one of the core groups of the KAS, Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists. KAS became a mass organisation during Perestroika but did not survived crisis of the 90's, except in some Siberian cities where it still lives in form of the SKT, Siberian Confederation of Labor. Podshivalov died tragically in accident in August 2006, and Stas was co-organising memorial events for him.
However Stas joined also camps more in the frontline of struggle than peaceful labor in Pryamukhino. He participated to Rainbow Keeper protest camp of 1996 in Volgodonsk, against construction of the Nuclear Power plant of Rostov region. This camp had some heavy confrontation, soldiers from the local army base were ordered to evict camp and shoot tents, making them full of holes. Legal support for victims of the excesses of authorities against Volgodonsk camps of 1996 and 1997 were one of the first times Stas used his profession to support activists.
Stas was also one of the organisers of 1998 anti-nuclear march in Belarus, and he also joined Rainbow Keeper protest camp against harmful local plant in Sasovo of Ryazan region last summer. In photo above Stas is speaking in a mass protest meeting of Sasovo inhabitants, flag behind him is flag of Rainbow Keepers. Stas was also a frequent guest in
annual Chernobyl day marches in Minsk, which are currently biggest anti-nuclear demonstrations in Europe (although few years back when there were not yet nuclear construction plans in Belarus, these marches were more social than ecological, defending rights of Chernobyl victims).
Stas gave active legal and other support to Belarusian democratic movement since violent anti-Lukashenko protests of the mid-90's where Russian anarchist joined as well, and he was fluent in half-repressed Belarusian language, a very unusual skill for a Russian. His wife was a Belarusian, and they had two young children.
Stas was involved in wide spectrum of activities, but he became famous as a lawyer. From early on, he took cases which no-one else was willing to take, and always pick up a hard, political and mediatic tactic of defense. Eventually he become Russia's number one celebrity human rights lawyer, a common guest of TV talk shows on most various topics, to argue against Russia's WTO membership for example.
Two perhaps most important cases were both connected with war in Chechnya, but Stas became interested on the problems of Caucasus much before, already in 1994 he traveled to area ravaged by ethnic conflict between Ossetians and Ingushetians with Memorial activists. One of his companions from thet trip, Alexander Cherkasov, also wrote an excellet necrology of Stas which is available in English at http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-on-the-frontlines/
There are also other good materials in site http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/, also fragment of speech Stas did in demonstration against attacks on political activists 30th of November 2008. Stas was speaking there, because he was defending legal interests of a owner of a local paper in Khimki region of Moscow Region Mikhail Beketov, who was heavily beaten due to his opposition to construction of a local expressway which would destroy a park, defended by a popular movement. Beketov was found in her garden in coma only the next day after a heavy beating in November, he survived but had several of his fingers amputated and still, 2 months after the attack, is in hospital in a bad condition.
Eventually Stas was defending interests of family victims of two most notorious Russian war criminals - colonel Budanov, who in March 2000 kidnapped and raped a 18-year old Chechen girl (and did many other atrocities, for which he was never punished). Eventually Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but released recently having done 8.5 years. Stas was appealing against the early release, and the day he was shot he was returning from a press conference, where he announced his intention to question release of Budanov in European courts. Thus it is well possible, that supporters of Budanov, who is considered as a hero by many in Russia, were behind the murder - but Stas had plenty of other enemies as well.
Another important case was case of Sergey "Kadet" Lapin, who together with other officers of Hanty-Mansiysk OMON organised a torture and murder factory in Chechenyan capital Grozniy. Eventually "Kadet" was convicted to 9 years of jail "for exceeding official authority and causing grave bodily injury with aggravating circumstances". Although only fraction of his deeds made it to court and all other suspected went underground or avoided charges altogether, it was still an unprecendent court result.
But this work by Stas is widely published by liberal mainstream media, so we don't go here more into detail. If you want to have a short summary of many high-profile human rights cases Stas picked up, you may read the list he published himself in his website:
http://ruleoflaw.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26
No matter how famous Stas became, he was always ready to do even smallest cases for anarchists and other radicals, even if cases wer enot political. He did not worked for free, but he always understood if we had problems to pay in time - he never required any guarantees. Work of Stas to defend radical was such an annoyment for authorities, that during NRA investigation police put him out of the game by giving him a witness status, so he could not be advocate. NRA was an armed group in the 90's, offshoot of Rainbow Keepers and anarchist scene mixed with some young stalinists, they made arson attacks and bombings against military call-up centers, a yellow trade union, police
and eventually they bombed FSB (x-KGB) premises in center of Moscow. 2 former Rainbow Keepers got prison sentences for actions of the group.
He was a vegetarian, and also most important lawyer for Russian animal rights movement - he was a lawyer of people, suspected of stealing rats from a breeder during a demonstration in Moscow region in August of 2007. He was also doing some work for animal rights "inside the system", reviewing of the law “On protection of animals”. He was also presenting legal interests of local ecologists in Black Sea rim, who got harrassed by authorities after some arson attacks against Sochi winter olympics development.
Stas was also defending Pasha Delidon, anarchist who was sentenced for 4.5 after an attempt to gather wages his former boss owned him. He was also most important lawyer of the anti-fascist movement in Russia, defending anti-fascists both when they were victims and also when they were suspected to be perpetrators. He defended interests of family of Alexander Ryukhin, murdered in Moscow by Nazis in April 2006, and he was also lawyer of Aleksey "Shkobar" Olesinov, who is now in Butyrka prison - officially due to unpolitical charges, but really because he is suspected by authorities of being "a leader" of radical Antifa in Moscow.
All in all, this is just a scratch of the work of Stas. And I did not even touched the topic of his sense of humor and endless jokes. That was his way to cope with many dangers and threats he faced, he laughed to them at their face.
Everyone has a story of Stas, many of them. I was not in the European social forum in Malmö, but I laughed so much when I was told how Stas travelled.
There was some banquet at city mayor's office for the moderate end of the forum participators. Stas was of course there in his fine suit - VIP guests and free booze was definitely a choice for Russia's number one celebrity human rights advocate. Stas saw that a demonstration passed by the office, and friends of Stas in demonstration could see him waving hand from the mayor's office.
After a while, enough of free booze and Stas decided he would like to see some action. He went to catch the demo, but riot had already started. With some other Russians, Stas tried to exit by a side street closed by riot police. Stas was already quite drunk and did not quite figured out that coppers were not on a talking mood. So Stas went to Sweden to get beaten up by Swedish riot cops, as if there were not any angry riot cops more closer to his home in Moscow!
So many stories of Stas, who could gather all of them?
S2W
More on the topic:
Anastasia "Skat" Baburova, 30.11.1983-19.01.2009
Our friend and comrade Skat was murdered today in Moscow, shot to head by an assassin.
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2188
Stanislav Markelov Has Been Murdered
The collective at “(The) Movement” (dvizh.org) has issued the following statement:
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-has-been-murdered/
Stanislav Markelov: On the Frontlines
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-on-the-frontlines/
Lawyer Stanislav MARKELOV, President of the Rule of Law Institute, biography:
http://ruleoflaw.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26
Moscow Antifa Honor the Memory of Stas and Nastya
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/moscow-antifa-honor-the-memory-of-stas-and-nastya/
In Memoriam: Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova (Petersburg)
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/in-memoriam-stanislav-markelov-anastasia-baburova-petersburg/
(in Russian: ????? ?????? ????? ???????????? ??????? ? ??? (??????????)
Actions to commemorate Stas and Nastya around Russia
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2191
These Shards Are Our Tears
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/these-shards-are-our-tears/
Speech by Stanislav Markelov. Moscow, November 30, 2008
Address by Stanislav Markelov. Rally against Political Terror. Moscow, November 30, 2008. Video and text.
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/speech-by-stanislav-markelov-moscow-november-30-2008/
Stanislav Markelov: Two Worlds, Two Deaths
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/stanislav-markelov-two-worlds-two-deaths/
Russia: The assassination of Stanislav Markelov
By Tom Rollings, marxist.com
http://cabet.livejournal.com/189176.html & http://www.marxist.com/russia-assasination-of-stanislav-markelov.htm
He defined himself as a "Martovian social-democrat", after Yuliy Martov, leader of pre-revolutionary Menshevik fraction of social-democrat movement. In more contemporary terms, he was a left-wing social democrat.
But Stas had friends in about any fraction of Russian socialists, reformers and revolutionaries. He had an encyclopedic knowledge on history of the revolutionary movement of Russia, which was a huge inspiration for him, and he could lecture for hours on groups such as nihilists or narodniks anytime.
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2211
Stas was interest on history of political red cross (which still today remains as anarchist black cross), and he considered lawyers who defended narodniks and esers in tsarist times his prececents, and eventually he became first lawyer to defend left-wing "terrorists", accused by the new Russian state. In all cases he did during 1990's and early years of this decade, he managed to dismiss terrorist charges and eventually if defendants got sentenced, they got sentenced for lesser charges.
Stas was too young to join underground hippie movement ("Systema") of the Soviet time, but his first ideas (and early hairstyle) came from there. Already when a young student in early 1990's, Stas became activist of social-democratic party (which always was a rather marginal in Russian politics), in its left wing. Probably first time anarchists came to contact with him was time of Yeltsin's coup of 1993 - practically all anarchists and socialists considered Yeltsin's unconstitutional presidential order number 1400 a Pinochetist coup, and were ready to rally against it. Anarchists and social-democrats, Stas among them, drafted a proposition for Supreme Soviet, which included refusal of support from national-patriots, withdrawal from Moscow to regions supporting Supreme Soviet and economical blockade of Moscow. But as we know, history went otherwise - Supreme Soviet rejected the proposal, chose support of national-patriots instead and stayed in Moscow, where it lacked mass support, and eventually defenders of Supreme Soviet got massacred by Yeltsin's gang. Official death toll is 199 (including 12 of police and army), but defenders have also presented up to 10 times bigger estimates on number of victims.
When it became clear for anarchists and socialists that it was no way of picking a conflict in the side, they decided to organise an impartial street medic brigade instead. Brigade was named after Maksimilian Voloshin, famous humanist and poet who during Russian civil war remained impartial and defended organised humanitarian aid for civilians. There are some stories from work of the brigade available in English, for example "Under fire between the Lines" (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/eastern/yeltsin_93.html) and translation from Avtonom-journal, "Unhappy anniversary" (http://www.ainfos.ca/03/oct/ainfos00366.html). Participation of this street medic brigade was a real "baptism in fire" for its members but also very frustrating, as eventually untrained volunteers had to help people with bullet wounds. But people who were there, sticked together ever since.
Stas and many others of them became core of both historical club in Memorial, and through the same connections Stas become involved in anarchist "thursday circle", which was later named after active anarchist Nikolai Muravin, who was central in organising it and died accidentally in 1996. Results of work of Memorial's club you may see in site "Russian socialists and anarchists after October 1917" in http://socialist.memo.ru/, which is probably the biggest website on history of repressions against anarchists (and not only), but unfortunately it is only available in Russian.
Stas also participated to work of "Free labor commune of Pryamukhino", which was was active in second part of 1990's. It was a common project of anarchists and offspring of Bakunin family to repair garden of the mansion in Pryamukhino of Tver region, where famous revolutionary was born and spent his childhood. Pryamukhino mansion even still has an oak tree planted by 1820's decembrist rebels, thus the place is linked to 200 years of Russian revolutionary history. It was in Pryamukhino camps where Stas became friends with Igor Podshivalov, who in 1982 co-founded in Irkutsk the first anarchist group which survived to Perestroika, and became one of the core groups of the KAS, Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists. KAS became a mass organisation during Perestroika but did not survived crisis of the 90's, except in some Siberian cities where it still lives in form of the SKT, Siberian Confederation of Labor. Podshivalov died tragically in accident in August 2006, and Stas was co-organising memorial events for him.
However Stas joined also camps more in the frontline of struggle than peaceful labor in Pryamukhino. He participated to Rainbow Keeper protest camp of 1996 in Volgodonsk, against construction of the Nuclear Power plant of Rostov region. This camp had some heavy confrontation, soldiers from the local army base were ordered to evict camp and shoot tents, making them full of holes. Legal support for victims of the excesses of authorities against Volgodonsk camps of 1996 and 1997 were one of the first times Stas used his profession to support activists.
Stas was also one of the organisers of 1998 anti-nuclear march in Belarus, and he also joined Rainbow Keeper protest camp against harmful local plant in Sasovo of Ryazan region last summer. In photo above Stas is speaking in a mass protest meeting of Sasovo inhabitants, flag behind him is flag of Rainbow Keepers. Stas was also a frequent guest in
annual Chernobyl day marches in Minsk, which are currently biggest anti-nuclear demonstrations in Europe (although few years back when there were not yet nuclear construction plans in Belarus, these marches were more social than ecological, defending rights of Chernobyl victims).
Stas gave active legal and other support to Belarusian democratic movement since violent anti-Lukashenko protests of the mid-90's where Russian anarchist joined as well, and he was fluent in half-repressed Belarusian language, a very unusual skill for a Russian. His wife was a Belarusian, and they had two young children.
Stas was involved in wide spectrum of activities, but he became famous as a lawyer. From early on, he took cases which no-one else was willing to take, and always pick up a hard, political and mediatic tactic of defense. Eventually he become Russia's number one celebrity human rights lawyer, a common guest of TV talk shows on most various topics, to argue against Russia's WTO membership for example.
Two perhaps most important cases were both connected with war in Chechnya, but Stas became interested on the problems of Caucasus much before, already in 1994 he traveled to area ravaged by ethnic conflict between Ossetians and Ingushetians with Memorial activists. One of his companions from thet trip, Alexander Cherkasov, also wrote an excellet necrology of Stas which is available in English at http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-on-the-frontlines/
There are also other good materials in site http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/, also fragment of speech Stas did in demonstration against attacks on political activists 30th of November 2008. Stas was speaking there, because he was defending legal interests of a owner of a local paper in Khimki region of Moscow Region Mikhail Beketov, who was heavily beaten due to his opposition to construction of a local expressway which would destroy a park, defended by a popular movement. Beketov was found in her garden in coma only the next day after a heavy beating in November, he survived but had several of his fingers amputated and still, 2 months after the attack, is in hospital in a bad condition.
Eventually Stas was defending interests of family victims of two most notorious Russian war criminals - colonel Budanov, who in March 2000 kidnapped and raped a 18-year old Chechen girl (and did many other atrocities, for which he was never punished). Eventually Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but released recently having done 8.5 years. Stas was appealing against the early release, and the day he was shot he was returning from a press conference, where he announced his intention to question release of Budanov in European courts. Thus it is well possible, that supporters of Budanov, who is considered as a hero by many in Russia, were behind the murder - but Stas had plenty of other enemies as well.
Another important case was case of Sergey "Kadet" Lapin, who together with other officers of Hanty-Mansiysk OMON organised a torture and murder factory in Chechenyan capital Grozniy. Eventually "Kadet" was convicted to 9 years of jail "for exceeding official authority and causing grave bodily injury with aggravating circumstances". Although only fraction of his deeds made it to court and all other suspected went underground or avoided charges altogether, it was still an unprecendent court result.
But this work by Stas is widely published by liberal mainstream media, so we don't go here more into detail. If you want to have a short summary of many high-profile human rights cases Stas picked up, you may read the list he published himself in his website:
http://ruleoflaw.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26
No matter how famous Stas became, he was always ready to do even smallest cases for anarchists and other radicals, even if cases wer enot political. He did not worked for free, but he always understood if we had problems to pay in time - he never required any guarantees. Work of Stas to defend radical was such an annoyment for authorities, that during NRA investigation police put him out of the game by giving him a witness status, so he could not be advocate. NRA was an armed group in the 90's, offshoot of Rainbow Keepers and anarchist scene mixed with some young stalinists, they made arson attacks and bombings against military call-up centers, a yellow trade union, police
and eventually they bombed FSB (x-KGB) premises in center of Moscow. 2 former Rainbow Keepers got prison sentences for actions of the group.
He was a vegetarian, and also most important lawyer for Russian animal rights movement - he was a lawyer of people, suspected of stealing rats from a breeder during a demonstration in Moscow region in August of 2007. He was also doing some work for animal rights "inside the system", reviewing of the law “On protection of animals”. He was also presenting legal interests of local ecologists in Black Sea rim, who got harrassed by authorities after some arson attacks against Sochi winter olympics development.
Stas was also defending Pasha Delidon, anarchist who was sentenced for 4.5 after an attempt to gather wages his former boss owned him. He was also most important lawyer of the anti-fascist movement in Russia, defending anti-fascists both when they were victims and also when they were suspected to be perpetrators. He defended interests of family of Alexander Ryukhin, murdered in Moscow by Nazis in April 2006, and he was also lawyer of Aleksey "Shkobar" Olesinov, who is now in Butyrka prison - officially due to unpolitical charges, but really because he is suspected by authorities of being "a leader" of radical Antifa in Moscow.
All in all, this is just a scratch of the work of Stas. And I did not even touched the topic of his sense of humor and endless jokes. That was his way to cope with many dangers and threats he faced, he laughed to them at their face.
Everyone has a story of Stas, many of them. I was not in the European social forum in Malmö, but I laughed so much when I was told how Stas travelled.
There was some banquet at city mayor's office for the moderate end of the forum participators. Stas was of course there in his fine suit - VIP guests and free booze was definitely a choice for Russia's number one celebrity human rights advocate. Stas saw that a demonstration passed by the office, and friends of Stas in demonstration could see him waving hand from the mayor's office.
After a while, enough of free booze and Stas decided he would like to see some action. He went to catch the demo, but riot had already started. With some other Russians, Stas tried to exit by a side street closed by riot police. Stas was already quite drunk and did not quite figured out that coppers were not on a talking mood. So Stas went to Sweden to get beaten up by Swedish riot cops, as if there were not any angry riot cops more closer to his home in Moscow!
So many stories of Stas, who could gather all of them?
S2W
More on the topic:
Anastasia "Skat" Baburova, 30.11.1983-19.01.2009
Our friend and comrade Skat was murdered today in Moscow, shot to head by an assassin.
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2188
Stanislav Markelov Has Been Murdered
The collective at “(The) Movement” (dvizh.org) has issued the following statement:
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-has-been-murdered/
Stanislav Markelov: On the Frontlines
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/stanislav-markelov-on-the-frontlines/
Lawyer Stanislav MARKELOV, President of the Rule of Law Institute, biography:
http://ruleoflaw.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26
Moscow Antifa Honor the Memory of Stas and Nastya
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/moscow-antifa-honor-the-memory-of-stas-and-nastya/
In Memoriam: Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova (Petersburg)
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/in-memoriam-stanislav-markelov-anastasia-baburova-petersburg/
(in Russian: ????? ?????? ????? ???????????? ??????? ? ??? (??????????)
Actions to commemorate Stas and Nastya around Russia
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2191
These Shards Are Our Tears
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/these-shards-are-our-tears/
Speech by Stanislav Markelov. Moscow, November 30, 2008
Address by Stanislav Markelov. Rally against Political Terror. Moscow, November 30, 2008. Video and text.
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/speech-by-stanislav-markelov-moscow-november-30-2008/
Stanislav Markelov: Two Worlds, Two Deaths
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/stanislav-markelov-two-worlds-two-deaths/
Russia: The assassination of Stanislav Markelov
By Tom Rollings, marxist.com
http://cabet.livejournal.com/189176.html & http://www.marxist.com/russia-assasination-of-stanislav-markelov.htm