Owen Ziliak

Lilith Kievskaya, founder of the Wisconsin John Brown Gun Club, prepares to head to a gun range in June. “Madison needs a group like ours because it has no resistance to fascism,” said Kievskaya. “A ballot box isn't gonna push fascism away. Fascism grows like a fungus within a liberal democracy.”

Posters of Communist leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara hang on the wall of Kievskaya’s apartment in March. While the Wisconsin John Brown Gun Club is not a communist organization, Kievskaya is “Communist and proud."

Kievskaya meets with a potential recruit in an East Side coffee shop in March. The 17-year-old high school student, who wants to create propaganda for the group, was skipping class to meet with Kievskaya. She had heard about Kievskaya from a podcast.

Kievskaya displays a photo of her as a child dressed as a police officer in April. Kievskaya, who now holds strong anti-police views, used to want to be an officer when she grew up. It is the only picture she has of herself as a child. 

Kievskaya prepares a hormone replacement therapy injection at home in April. One of the biggest changes she encountered after transitioning from male to female, she said, is that she no longer gets to pick her own fights. “A white dude isn't typically going to get hate-crimed or slurred at just for being white,” she said.

Kievskaya shoots her AK-47 at a gun range in June. “Having a gun on your chest is a hell of a way to say, ‘f*** you. We're here. We have a message, and we're not going to be silenced,’” she said.

Members of the Wisconsin John Brown Gun Club file into a cabin in a county park for the group’s first meeting in March. The group chose the secluded location to discuss strategy.

Kievskaya leads the first meeting of the club, whose members previously knew one another mostly by their Signal group chat handles. None of the participants agreed to speak on the record with the Wisconsin State Journal.

Group members walk back to their cars after the meeting. “Proud” is how Kievskaya described her feelings after the gathering. 

Members of the Wisconsin John Brown Gun Club distribute flyers to give to protesters at a demonstration at the state Capitol in April. Following the first meeting, club members started to come to protests in groups, coordinating among one another and attempting to recruit people in the crowd.

Kievskaya returns her AK-47 to her car after shooting at the range in June. Kievskaya said she wants the club to offer training sessions at the gun range. “The main thing that we can provide for our communities is the resources to feel safe and competent in their firearms usage,” she said

Kievskaya cuddles with her fiancée, Mikayla, and her cat, Flub, at their home in Madison in May. When she isn’t working on the club, Kievskaya spends lots of time with her cats, playing video games and reading Communist theory. She also holds jobs in security. 

Kievskaya gets a kill in Tactical Assault VR, a virtual reality video game where the player carries out military-style operations, in April. While she plays the game for leisure, it can simulate real-world environments. In this round, her primary weapon was an AK-47, the same gun she brings to protests. 

Kievskaya irons the collar of her uniform she will wear to a protest in March. “I’ve got sort of a Fidel Castro look today,” said Kievskaya. She takes preparation and appearance seriously, spending over an hour and a half preparing her outfit, checking her firearms and assembling her bulletproof vest.

Kievskaya combs her hair before joining a protest in March. “I still have image issues, but it's not based upon gender, or at least when it is, it’s that I'm not feminine enough,” said Kievskaya, who transitioned from male to female. “So I'm on the right track.”

Kievskaya checks the red-dot scope on her AK-47 in a parking garage before carrying it out to a protest in Madison in February. She says she still gets nervous before protests, but does her best not to show it.

Kievskaya keeps watch as protesters make their way up the steps of the state Capitol during a protest in February. Not everyone is glad to see her, but “regardless of what they think about us, we have a material effect,” she said.