A Response to a Response About Militarism, Nationalism and War

Response to response

From It's Going Down

The following submission is a critique to the response: A Response on Ukraine and “No War But Class War” .

By Mike Gouldhawke (Métis & Cree, Treaty 6 territory)

The anonymous author of a recent response to the text “No War But Class War: Against State Nationalism And Inter-Imperialist War In Ukraine” starts off by claiming that they were “slightly disappointed to see the authors warning against uncritical allyship with any European nationalism.”

Personally, I’m disappointed to see that someone else is disappointed by critical thinking around state nationalism, particularly European and subsidiary settler colonial nationalisms. I’m also not sure what the purpose of expressing disappointment in critical thinking would be other than to discourage others from engaging in it and thereby protect the particularly flimsy narrative of someone else.

While conceding that the “anarchist position against all forms of nationalism is a bold and important one,” the author wonders “what the purpose of adding qualifiers to it is, unless to suggest that the nationalism of a Bolsonaro or a Modi is somehow more virtuous and desirable?”

Firstly, I wonder why we should care how bold such a claim is, rather than how correct it is, since that would seem to be what’s most important.

Secondly, I wasn’t among the writers of the “No War But Class War” text, but I’d speculate the purpose of singling out European nationalism is because that’s what we’re actually dealing with at the moment and where we’re at, both in terms of Russia’s war on Ukraine as well as the support that Euro-American settler states, the United States and Canada are giving and have been giving to the Ukrainian military, including it’s explicitly fascist and therefore nationalist regiment.

A position against all states and their nationalisms moreover does not require one to ignore the fact that some states are more powerful than others, as is the case with the U.S. being more powerful than Canada, and Russia being more powerful than Ukraine. Canada is still an imperialist and colonialist state regardless of it being much smaller in terms of population and much less powerful than the U.S.

Thirdly, it seems to me that the response author only brings up the Brazilian and Indian presidents as a moralistic sleight of hand, suggesting without any evidence or reasoning that the writers of the “No War But Class War” piece are implicitly suggesting that the nationalism of those presidents is “somehow more virtuous and desirable.”

This despite the writers explicitly critiquing all nation-states and their nationalism, not just the nationalism of particular presidents.

Rather than deal with the actual analysis of the piece in question, the author of the response to it continues to attribute secret ulterior motives to the writers, claiming that they are “clearly up to something,” simply because they critiqued the political position that listening to arbitrarily-selected individuals from an attacked group (anarchist or otherwise) can or should be the basis of anarchist analysis and practice.

The response author even falsely implies that the only purpose of the original article was to dismiss anarchists in Ukraine. If this were actually the case, an article containing analysis and positions (these also not limited to being about anarchists in Ukraine) would not have been necessary in the first place. The writers could have simply dismissed anarchists in Ukraine privately and without any wasted effort in terms of writing an article.

The response author claims that listening to anarchists in Ukraine is different from listening to all Ukrainians because it “starts out by looking for people who share our basic values and principles, and then seeks to learn from people who have more understanding of their own context than we do.”

However, this would be the opposite of the abandonment of critical thinking suggested at the start of their response. Anyone can call themselves “anarchists,” but not all anarchists mean the same thing by it. To find people who share our values and principles would precisely require going beyond superficial labels to discover what the content behind the label is, and this requires critical thinking and actual information, not vague uncritical cheerleading for certain aesthetics.

No doubt, those who live in a place likely know more about their context than those outside it. But this applies equally to North America as to Ukraine, since anarchists here likely know more about North American states’ military support for the Ukrainian state, how this plays into expanded militarism here, and the history of military force being deployed here in North America against Black and Indigenous peoples. Anarchists here have a clear and present stake in opposing the militarism of North American states.

Even if a North American anarchist was to defer all responsibility for critical thinking on Ukraine to their most trusted and familiar Ukrainian comrade, this would still do absolutely nothing to divest that North American anarchist from their responsibility of understanding and opposing North American states and their militarism. Even putting aside thinking and instead relying on natural sympathy alone, it’s not clear why this sympathy for people in Ukraine would override sympathy anarchists here feel for all those targeted by North American states and their militarism, both here and abroad, especially if their own people are among those targeted. The Americas are not a sacrifice zone for the supposed greater good somewhere else, anymore than anywhere else in the world should be for here.

The response author claims, with reference to the Resistance Committee, that the “No War But Class War” writers are obscuring the character of the struggle in Ukraine. The Resistance Committee is worth supporting, the responder proclaims. But they don’t deal with the point made in the “No War But Class War” article referencing a report by an anarchist in Ukraine, where it is stated that “Initiatives such as the Resistance Committee are formed within the military structure of the Ukrainian state.”

The response author falsely claims that the “No War But Class War” writers are putting forward a “position, which seems to operate on a simple equation that ‘Resistance Committee = the state = Azov’” and which obscures the character of struggles in Ukraine.

This is not in fact the case, as the writers of the “No War But Class War” article never draw up such an equation.

Furthermore, how the Resistance Committee actually operates and whether does so under the Ukrainian state is not a “position” at all, nor an “equation.”

It is either a practical fact that the Resistance Committee operates under the official military structure of the Ukrainian state, or it isn’t. The anarchist position, at least one anarchist position, is to oppose all states and their armies, and to be clear about whether self-proclaimed anarchists are actually acting on their own or as part of a state’s official army.

How an autonomous militia could operate in practice in a high-tech war zone involving two official armies (Ukrainian and Russian) is not something the response author, or any other anarchist has even mentioned let alone tried to explain, as far as I’ve seen. The author of the response seems to be the one doing the obscuring, not the writers of “No War But Class War.”

The response author even decries any attempt to separate actually autonomous anarchist initiatives to support migrants from participation in an official military structure, claiming that the writers of “No War But Class War” are attempting to “set the two things against each other,” as if this would be a bad thing for anarchists to do, as if this isn’t something anarchists have always done.

The response author then questions whether the Ukrainian far-right is more institutionalized than the Russian far-right, links to a story about Russian paramilitary massacres in Mali, and claims that the official Ukrainian fascist military battalion Azov is somehow being denied its autonomy and radicalism by the Ukrainian state, that it is still supposedly a question as to “how far it’s been successfully defanged and declawed” by the state.

We might instead question whether it’s been “defanged and declawed” at all, and why a fascist military battalion that’s more tightly-managed by the state would be acceptable. The fascists’ interests don’t need to be identical to the neo-liberal Ukrainian president for them to be amenable to each other, and both opposable by anarchists.

The incorporation of anarchists and fascists into the military also shouldn’t be equated with each other, since anarchists are ostensibly opposed to the state, while fascists are very much in favor of it. The state can use fascists to their benefit and fascists can benefit from integration into the state. The same should not be true for anarchists. If the state is trying to integrate anarchists, it’s to weaken or destroy us.

The response author seems to be trying to minimize the significance of fascist groups in Ukraine and the harm they are doing to Roma and other people. Precisely the kind of minimization the “No War But Class War” writers critiqued others for engaging in.

The responder also dismisses the “bad decisions that a subcultural street formation made eight years ago” (in making a truce with “national anarchists” and fascists) because of the potentially better things the same people might be doing now in the Resistance Committee. Critical thinking and positions against fascist movements are to be set aside for a supposed greater good, something that some anarchists, at least elsewhere, can’t necessarily afford to do even if they wanted to.

The response author goes on to make the seemingly grandiose claim that “In 2022, the [Ukrainian] anarchist movement is making a real attempt to constitute a serious material force, one that’s serving as a pole of attraction for other leftists and antifascists,” without any evidence of this actually being the case, and while expressing dismay that the “No War But Class War” writers might detract from support for this effort simply by making a critique.

But if a material force crumbles in the face of mere critique and analysis, we might feel the need to consider how forceful and real this material force actually is, whether we really want to support it, and whether it even needs our support, since the Canadian and American states are already supplying more weapons, military equipment and intelligence to the Ukrainian military than ragtag groups of anarchists in North America ever could, even if they wanted to.

The response author implies that building this nominally-anarchist force in Ukraine will help build opposition to the far-right that stands to benefit from the current situation. But building a force within an official army is not the same as building an autonomous force. And this is mere speculation at any rate.

The response author then somehow gets baffled by a critique of “lesser evilism” that also acknowledges the relative strength of the American empire. However there is no contradiction between two things being bad, one thing being worse, and taking the position that therefore we shouldn’t support either thing. This is precisely what the critique of “lesser evilism” consists of.

Then the response author hurls an unfounded accusation of being “very self-obsessed Americans” at the writers of “No War But Class War,” simply because they analyze how the U.S. state (which they find themselves in) and American capitalists seek to use this war to their benefit. One would think that anarchists in the U.S. opposing the U.S. state and American capitalists would be admirable to anarchists abroad instead of repugnant.

At any rate, in order to be in solidarity with others, one needs to start with one’s own struggle, where one is at, and this begins with an analysis of what the state and capitalists are doing in whatever country we happen to live in. Simply labeling anarchists in other countries as self-obsessed or narcissistic is not a form of analysis.

As the response author proceeds in their article, they continue to cast aspersions at the “No War But Class War” writers, accusing them of being “blasé about Russian imperialism” and of having attacked “the Resistance Committee for not being pure enough,” stances the writers do not actually take in their article. Again, the response author’s point seems to be to deflect from actual critique by making a straw-man argument against the article’s writers and disparaging their character.

Then the response author engages in a bizarre sarcastic comparison of the critique of American anarchists’ defensive allegiance to whiteness to “the Blackness of Vladimir Putin, perhaps?”

The point of this oddly abrupt and racist quip seems to be to suggest that American anarchists couldn’t possibly have a defensive allegiance to whiteness if they also oppose the white president of another country, but I’m not sure how this logic is supposed to follow. All white people don’t have to agree with each other at all times in order for them to still feel a defensive allegiance to whiteness. More basic class divisions within a country don’t even undermine this allegiance.

The response author follows up by equating anti-fascist militancy in the U.S. to “further militarization of a conflict.” However, militancy and militarism are not the same thing. The difference is exactly the one which the author deflects from throughout their whole response, the difference between autonomous groups and the state.

A difference that played out in this case precisely in the use of paramilitary force by the American state in the extrajudicial execution of an anti-fascist, Michael Reinoehl, by police.

For the overly-polite response author, “one of the stupidest lines of the entire piece” that they are critiquing is when the “No War But Class War” writers state, “We can oppose a Russian victory while finding antifascist value in a Ukrainian defeat.”

The response author incredulously asks, “Can you imagine anyone at the time of the US invasion suggesting that they could find antifascist, or anti-fundamentalist, value in an Afghan defeat, and expecting anarchists to take them seriously?”

This however completely misses or reverses the point of defeatism, which for anarchists in North America at the time meant the defeat of North American states in Afghanistan, just as currently, anarchists in North America cannot cheer for North American states to benefit from their military support of the Ukrainian state.

Today Afghanistan remains one of countless reminders that imperialist states like Canada and the U.S. have only a negative role to play in any part of the world, including here in North America.

Moreover, we should always remember that states aren’t equivalent to peoples.

Finally, the response author falsely accuses the “No War But Class War” writers of somehow lapsing “into apologies for Russian imperialism” because they state they can find “antifascist value in a Ukrainian defeat.” However, the responder here leaves out the first part of the same sentence, where the writers stated, “We can oppose a Russian victory…” and fails to mention that the “No War But Class War” writers pointed to past collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian fascists.

The responder ends their piece with an appeal to their own sympathy “with those who are trying to organise anarchist and anti-fascist projects within Ukraine that could point in the direction of a less bleak future…”

The responder asks how comrades in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia could possibly be “just getting it wrong.”

But sympathy is not the question. Nor is how many things an ambiguous conglomeration of comrades in those countries might be getting righter or wronger with regards to a situation they are more familiar with than we are here in North America.

The question is the State itself, its militarism and nationalism, the relation between fascist or nationalist movements and the State, and finally, how anarchists in North America analyze their own situation, so as to even be capable of solidarity in the first place.

We can’t and don’t need to sacrifice our own opposition to North American states and their associated fascist and nationalist movements in order to oppose invasions and wars overseas. Just the opposite. We oppose all nation-states, militarism, fascism and state nationalism here, there and everywhere, for ourselves and in solidarity with others.



Photo: Non-Natives in Toronto in 1990 protesting NATO in support of Innu people who were opposing NATO jet training flights over their territory.

There are 9 Comments

a clear=headed and principled rejoinder, full of compassion and generosity where almost none is deserved. hey Wayne = and all you other pro-war nationalists = choke on this

Is who the invader is, that's it. If you supported resistance to the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, you should also support resistance to Russian occupation of Ukraine. The fact that produces better rockets (e.g. the ship-sinking Neptune) than anyone in Palestine has yet to produce locally changes absolutely nothing.

All of these wars also attracted involvement of other states for the simple reason that intervening states were potentially on the attackers' menu themselves and/or had members of the social groups they claim to represent under fire. This too changes very little.

If you would have fought Israel in Gaza, or fought the US in Vietnam, El Salvador, or Iraq you should support those doing the exact same thing in Ukraine: resisting armed invasion by an empire.

"Both sides-ism" cuts both ways: Russia and Putin can be every bit as imperialist as the US and NATO ever have been. Nobody has a monopoly on imperialism, aggressive war, and cold blooded murder.

Luke, you're completely missing the anarchist point. Anarchists will often resist armies, but will almost never join one. If I'd been a teenage or adult anarchist in Vietnam during the US war, I would not have joined the VC or the NVA, just as if I'd been a teenage or adult anarchist in Algeria during the fight against the French I would not have joined the FLN. Just like that other pro-war fake anarchist Wayne, you're conflating resistance with being part of the national military of some country that's been invaded.
Nobody here is championing Putin or Russia. I, for one, have been consistently supporting sabotage, self-organized militias, desertion, and fraternization. Taking sides in wars is facile Anti-Imperialism and belongs in the dustbin.

You're sounding like a Putin-defending Red fash! *nervously looking & clicking everywhere for the ban button*

...no wait, this isn't Raddle or Reddit!

It is perfectly correct, as Mike G., writes, to focus on the U.S. or Canada. These are the countries where we live and whose states claim to act in our name. And the U.S. remains the most powerful imperialist state, economically, politically, and militarily (even if Russia still has more nuclear missiles). In particular, there is an international conflict going on between the U.S. (and its allies) and Russia, in which internationalist anarchists must oppose both sides.

But there is also an immediate, concrete, war being waged between the imperialist Russian state and the colonized Ukraine. By "Ukraine" I mean essentially the people of Ukraine, mostly the working class and farmers, lower middle class, and the poor. In this case revolutionary anarchists must be on the the side of the Ukrainian people and against the Russian invaders. We do not support the existing Ukrainian state nor its oligarchical ruling class but its people.

The people have shown a great deal of initiative from below and independent organizing against the invasion. But they are not anarchists. No doubt the Ukrainian anarchists are working to change this as best they can. But right now the people accept the state. Shall we punish them for that by refusing to support them against the invader until they become anarchists?

And since the Ukrainians need armaments they should take it from wherever they can. The Western imperialists are willing to supply arms (for their reasons, which are not the same as the Ukrainians). The Ukrainians (whether organized through the state, as they are now, or even if organized in an anarchist federation) have the right to get arms from wherever they can--but they should not trust NATO, which would sell them out in a heartbeat,

For Ukrainian anarchists the general orientation is obvious, support the people against the invasion. But then there are tactical issues. Shall they form self-help local non-military groups? Form their own military local units? Form a volunteer Territorial Defense unit which is integrated into the official army? Join the official army? Frankly I do not feel that North American anarchists should be giving tactical advice. Surely we want anarchists to be as effective as possible and to demonstrate libertarian methods as much as possible. But is a mistake to go around focusing on technical issues instead of political issues.

One Anon writes, "Nobody here is championing Putin or Russia. ....Taking sides in wars is facile Anti-Imperialism and belongs in the dustbin." They are not on Putin's side but neither are they "taking sides" with the Ukrainians, which means they are in practice championing Putin. Of course this person is all for Ukrainians fighting the Russian invaders provided the Ukrainians do it in the ways that the writer wants and not in the way they are actually fighting the invaders. So actually the writer does not support the concrete fight which is going on. To do that would be "pro-war" apparently. But it is the fundamental value of anarchist-socialism to be on the side of the oppressed and exploited, despite their political errors, and against all oppressors and aggressors.

that's not how "championing Putin" works but sneaking in that huge, loaded assertion at the end of your rant is definitely how shitty, weaselly, manipulative rhetoric works. picture our disappointed faces wayne...

"In this case revolutionary anarchists must ..."

So glad to see you defining your platform, and dictating who must abide.

Your rigid, dogmatic adherence to centuries old ideological rich white men is boring as fuck.

And thumbs up to lumpy's comment about your pathetic attempt at manipulatively shoving people into a "championing Putin" box. Dude, just go join the Ukrainian army already.

I get two contradictory responses to my arguments. (1) You are not a real ("orthodox") anarchist, because real anarchists don't support wars of national liberation (or whatever).

(2) When I point out that many anarchists, from Bakunin to now, have supported wars of national liberation, I am called a dogmatic old fogy. For example, denouncing my supposed " rigid, dogmatic adherence to centuries old ideological rich white men." This means I continue in the tradition of revolutionary anarchism (although the reference to "rich" seems especially odd). Can't win.

1. True. Real anarchists do not support wars by making excuses to align themselves with States.

2. You are not Bakunin. You are not a revolutionary. There is no winning ("this is not a fucking game").

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