The friendly channel Anarchy+ is publishing a multi-part longread about how the presence of a radical wing, ready for violent action, affects the course of protests. Five parts have been released so far, and more are coming. The series explores various subtleties, such as how the effects differ when the radical wing is friendly with the moderate one, and when there is no coordination between them—and so on. Two or three more episodes are expected, which will then be collected into a single post, but I preferred not to wait for the end because an interesting practical example has come along.

The most notable protest of last year was, of course, Belarus. In its aftermath, political scientists either gently lamented that a regime relying on a compact, loyal security core remains stable regardless of the dissatisfaction of the rest of the population—as confirmed by two examples, Venezuela and Belarus—or they expressed indignation toward the protesters, arguing that by taking off their slippers before standing on benches, they demonstrate their complete toothlessness to the regime’s dogs and give a carte blanche for repressions, the severity of which is directly proportional to the size of the demonstrations.

And then I am handed a link to an extremely curious channel, which is used to promote specifically violent actions in Belarus, and in an extremely harsh form. Read it carefully; it is quite young, so you can manage its entire content. In short: the channel intends to launch a full-scale guerrilla war against the regime. The tactics proposed make it clear: the authors of the channel, whoever they may be, know very well how courts work under ancap, and they also perfectly understand that very influence of a radical wing on the protest as a whole.

I have attempted to roughly formulate what these anonymous organizers of decentralized violent protest are guided by:

1. Today, the overwhelming majority of those dissatisfied with the regime are indeed not ready for an open armed rebellion, but many are extremely irritated by the complete lack of concessions from the regime in response to peaceful actions.
2. The lack of readiness for open rebellion in some is caused by a principled unwillingness to escalate violence, while in others, it is an unwillingness to bear serious costs.
3. A person is capable of developing habits and skills. Starting small, they get drawn in, and then can gradually train for serious violence.
4. Violence must not be heroized. Heroes take off their slippers before standing on benches. Terror is carried out by scum. And society has a demand for the appearance of these loathsome characters who will fight the regime out of the lowest motivations.
5. For a socialist country, the textbook lowest motivation is money. It is best if servants of the regime are killed by other servants of the regime for the sake of money. But any other lumpen will do.
6. How much to pay for which actions? Who will pay? Let the “market” decide that; the channel’s job is to describe the business model, which anyone wishing to do so can then adopt.

What can we extract from these materials?

Firstly, keeping in mind that Belarus is something of a testing ground for the Russian regime, one can assume that something similar may await us in the RF, so why not keep a closer eye on the underside of the protest as well, trying it on for size in advance.

Secondly, the channel provides a number of practical tips on anonymization that will also be useful for peaceful agorists.

Thirdly, we see vivid confirmation that market relations work perfectly even when fighting the state, which means the market will survive without the state. Not that this is exactly some discovery, but we’ll add this to the pile of evidence.