For centuries, the Kurds have been an oppressed people who still do not have their own state. But despite everything, after the weakening of the governments of Syria and Iraq, an opportunity has emerged to radically change the situation.

Today, the people of Kurdistan are trying to build a system of popular assemblies, achieve social justice and gender equality, establish accountability and election of military commanders. This is reminiscent of the best impulses of anarchists during the Spanish Civil War or cooperators after the Russian Revolution, when people built their lives in a new way.

As part of their field research, the authors studied how new ideas are being synthesized with traditions in Kurdistan using specific examples - schools, volunteer battalions, district councils.

On the one hand, the Kurdish experiment is threatened by terrorists and the Turkish government, on the other - it is criticized for collaborating with the United States and Russia against ISIS, and for not being revolutionary enough. Will direct democracy be able to survive in a hostile environment?