Report from the international anarchist meeting in St. Imier, Switzerland

From Transnational Institute of Social Ecology
Photoreportage by Efthymis Hadjitheodorou for our Greek comrades at Aftoleksi.
July 25, 2023

Photoreportage by Efthymis Hadjitheodorou for our Greek comrades at Aftoleksi. 

The egalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Mountains, the independence of thought and expression which I saw developing in the workers, and their unlimited devotion to the cause appealed far more strongly to my feelings; and when I came away from the mountains, after a week’s stay with the watchmakers, my views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist.

~Kropotkin

On Sunday the international anarchist meeting in St Imier, Switzerland concluded. One hundred and fifty years after Bakunin’s anarchist international, the same small town in the valley separating the Jura Mountains from Bern once again hosted thousands of anarchists and anti-authoritarians from all over the world for four days of events and discussions.

Anarchy 2023 (the official name of the meeting) covered the whole city geographically, as many municipal buildings (and more) were allocated to the event for different purposes. There was a camping area, different spaces for discussions, workshops, information, concerts.

There were also open gyms for people who did not want to suffer the cold of camping (at night the temperature reached ten degrees), cis men free accommodation and a nursery.

Furthermore, it should be noted that accommodation and workshops were free of charge and food was freely contributed.

Arriving at St Imier, we didn’t know what to expect. The organisers had chosen to remain in the role of the coordinator, leaving the success of the festival to be judged by the individual contribution of each visitor, both practical and political.

This meant that on a practical level, it was up to each individual to declare an interest and dedicate one, two or three hours each day to some shift out of the hundreds needed to keep everything running smoothly. The tasks could range from helping in the parking lots, cleaning, cooking for three thousand rations every day, patrolling, etc.

As for the political level, it is important to mention that events and discussions had gained a place in the programme through an internet platform where any individual or group could propose something specific. This meant that the themes displayed an incredible diversity. From lifestyle exchanges of experiences (“hitchhiking as a political act”, “how to live without money”), updates on different struggles (“the rise of the far right in Italy”, “four years since the Chilean uprising”, “the legacy of George Floyd’s uprising on the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta”), to activist workshops (“how to protect our movements from leftist logics”, “how to behave in the black bloc”).

Such diversity means that there were also events that were politically opposed to each other, with the issue of the Russian invasion perhaps being the most hotly contested example. Although most events held on the war accepted the right of self-defence for Ukrainians as the minimum anarchist political basis, there were individuals in the anti-militarist movement who saw the end of the war as the number one goal that anti-authoritarians should have today.

I personally think that the event by anarchists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, who are actively resisting the invasion, was one of the most interesting of the meeting, both because we learned about the different structures and groups active and the gap in analysis of the movement there compared to the West. Three different reasons were highlighted from the discussion: the lack of information and networking, the romantic idealism used by westerners “from a position of safety” and finally, the infiltration of authoritarian leftist analysis into anarchist groups.

Along with the meeting, many anti-authoritarians also supported a march on Saturday 22 July in Lausanne called by Kurdish organisations against the centenary of the signing of the treaty.

The meeting did not lack Greek presence. At the book fair that was on all days at the ice hockey rink in St Imier, the Anarchist Political Organisation had a permanent place at the tables. Also, on Friday evening, people from the refugee squat Notaras 26 held an intervention on the crime of Pylos just before the Krav Boca concert started. Finally, the French-Greek anarchist filmmaker Yannis Youloundas presented scenes from his new film “We are not afraid of ruins” which studies the anarchist movement in Greece after the election of Mitsotakis in July 2019, followed by a discussion.

The festival ended at noon on Sunday with the recitation of revolutionary anarchist songs in the central square of the small town. With raised fists, anti-authoritarians from all over the world renewed their appointment ten years from now, pledging no retreat in the struggle for a free society.

 

There are 40 Comments

Those who still deny that anarchists can support the Ukrainian people in their war of self-determination against Russian imperialism, may note the following from the above report:

Although most events held on the war accepted the right of self-defence for Ukrainians as the minimum anarchist political basis,….
The event by anarchists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, who are actively resisting the invasion, was one of the most interesting of the meeting.

Yeeeees! Thanks, Wayne! Finally the PROOF that MOST of us anarchists NEED! For the Self-Realization of the Working Ukrainian People and the Poor Ukrainian Farmers that are also people and the out-of-work Ukrainian People that are not Working Farmers and the AZOV Battalion workers and their NATO-provided depleted uranium packed cluster munitions. For the Uranium People's Nation and ALL People including the Bacteria People and Badger People even those Bacteria People that live within the Badger Peoples' tummies! Depleted Uranium Cluster Munitions for ALL People! War for Anarchist Revolution People! May the invaders die a thousand cancerous deaths from depleted uranium's long term health affects! Amen! And a woman.

Comrade, Wayne. I am Ivan, anarchist solider with AZOV battalion. Thanks you, comrade for support our war of self determination for pure blood Ukraine People against Asian dog Russians. Grateful thanks to your United States Military and NATO friends for send depleted uranium cluster bombs that allow us to not only kill them indiscriminately but to also destroy filthy DNA of all who dare face our mighty nation and pure race. Please do more publicity for our joint country's war of self-determination and the pure race and nation of Ukraine! Anarchist comrades like me are granted special place for during war of self detarmination! Appreciate.
SGT. IVAN AZOV

Yes Sgt Ivan, I am corporal Vlad, we have had to adapt our recruitment for the new woke/Incel youth who are clammoring to go to the front. We use woke fashion hints like hairstyle and facial beard style to disguise our skinhead origins and assist in the cleansing of our magnificent nation of mongol-esque Russian dogs on our eastern border provinces.

THANK YOU SGT. IVAN. It is about time one speak truth! These nonsense charades about "Neonazis" are just Putinist propaganda. We anarchists have learned to make brothers with our komrades in Azov Regiment so they can learn our ways of anarchy and we can benefit from their hard ubermensch battle experience. It is time to go beyond the Left and the Right and embrace NATO Third Position, that is really the wisdom of corporate feudalism from West.

Thank God for you Sgt Azov, you are upholding our glorious authodox Ukrainian church and its Christian puritan essence. Our modern celibate woke generation are again flooding our churches at funerals which have been almost empty for decades due to the promiscuous Russian sexual perversities infecting our pure Ukrainian values and DNA. Keep up your valiant holy duty to the church and nation.
His Holiness Hienstaff.

Yes, as an anarchist I fully support the Ukrainian's RIGHT of self-defense against the fascist Kievan rule that indoctrinates the proles to racist divisive narratives and forces all males of adult age to stay in the country and go to the front alongside volunteer Neonazi boneheads.

Guys, Wayne is just trying to point out that anarchists CAN support these things. Anarchists CAN fight for Ukrainian nationalism, support nato imperialism, deny war crimes, and spread state dept talking points. It’s ALLOWED to do these things.

People CAN do these things and call themselves whatever they want. They ARE completely WRONG, however.

This is yet another opportunity for hyphenation!

I hereby dub Wayne and his non-anarchy anarchism: state-anarchism AND/OR anarcho-stateism.

Usage: "Aw, don't mind Wayne's propaganda. He's just a state-anarchist shilling for the man."

A succinct description that says it all in one word, why didn't I think of that, it totally explains Wayne's position and politics. It all falls into place and makes sense now. Anarcho-Statist Wayne Price,,,,,,,BRILLIANT!

Oh, Wayne has already exposed himself as an anarcho-nationalist, and a better one at it than a Keith Preston.

Wayne reminds me sooOoo much of the anarcho- syndicalist recruiters during the Spanish civil war promising freedom to the humble illiterate devout catholic rural peasants ( proletariat to them) but not mentioning the church burning purges in the cities. No wonder the anarchists failed to win because they didn't WIN THE HEARTS AND MINDS, the passion and consciousness of the majority,,,they were just cannon fodder! Thanks Anarcho-Statist Wayne for perpetuating a failed process.
Einstein " Someone who keeps trying to solve a problem by repeating the same process to solve it over and over is an idiot."

Wayne,

How do you feel about Kiev launching indiscriminate drone attacks in downtown Moscow? I'm also wondering what your thoughts are on Kiev using depleted uranium cluster munitions (a war crime/banned by all by nations except for USA and Ukraine).

Do these two acts go against your vision of self-defense?

Why is Wayne Price ignoring these questions? For such a verbose fellow, his silence on this speaks volumes.

I loathe UkWayne's warmongering nationalism as much as you, but I also recognize that he, as much as anyone else, is under no obligation to respond to anyone if it's not interesting to him. Perhaps he is considering a response and it's just taking him longer than usual (we have no idea what he does in his daily life), or perhaps he isn't willing to respond to questions he believes are not being asked in good faith, or perhaps he's stumped and has no possible response to those questions. He hasn't responded to my post from three days ago, but I don't actually care one way or the other since he almost never addresses the salient points, preferring to deflect and avoid rather dealing directly with difficult issues. But by all means, keep needling him, because I enjoy seeing others give him as much shit as he deserves.

following the ukrainian example, the proud antifa soldiers of gate 13 panathinaikos in athens teamed up last night with their brothers from zagreb croatia to pursue shared struggle towards a common goal, transcending the false divides of nationality and ideology. if only they'd had cluster bombs

In quoting this passage from the report, I did not imply that ALL anarchists, internationally or in the frontline countries, support the Ukrainian people. They don't. Nor did I imply that the broad support of many anarchists for the Ukrainian side of the war PROVES that they are correct. It doesn't. Nor that the Ukrainian state is incapable of war crimes. It isn't. (And the class war has not stopped inside the Ukrainian capitalist economy!)

But many Commenters on this website have repeatedly claimed that NO anarchist has or would support the Ukrainian people in their war of self-determination. In fact a great many anarchists in Ukraine, Europe, and internationally have supported them. That's what the quotations demonstrate. (As do my repeated demonstrations that the classical anarchists supported national self-determination.) Claims that these are not REAL anarchists are absurd. Aside from this one important issue, they generally are no different from those anarchists who oppose the self-defense of the Ukrainian workers and others.

In addition, I am struck by the one-sided focus on the Ukrainians. Whatever they have done is pretty small potatoes compared to the massive massacres of civilians and other war crimes of the Russians, who are, after all, invading their neighbor.

"Which Side Are You On?"

We are anarchists. We are NOT on the side of nation states. We are NOT on the side of authority. We ARE on the side that desires and fights for ANARCHY.

I am an anarchist. I do not support the states of nations but do support oppressed nations (peoples, countries, whatever). I am not on the side of authority. I AM on the side of the oppressed and exploited: workers, small farmers, women, LGBT people, youth, People of Color, and, yes, colonized and attacked nations (e.g. Ukraine). Being on the side of the oppressed is essential to being an anarchist.

Being on the side which consciously desires and fights for anarchy--can be pretty lonely. Very few are in this category, alas. If we want to persuade more people to be for anarchy (I don't know if the writer cares about this!) we have to join in broader movements of people who are fighting for greater freedom but have many wrong opinions otherwise. And raise our anarchist views as the best way to win our joint objectives.

What is a nation?

Not a trick question, but one you’ve refused to address before, despite using the word in nearly every post.

Why is fighting for one nation freer than fighting for another? These are claims you refer to constantly, but can’t or won’t explain.

I have been repeatedly asked on this website "What makes Ukraine a nation?" I have repeatedly answered it, although not to my critics satisfaction. I have been assaulted with arguments about history, culture, language, and so on. All of which are irrelevant.

What makes Ukraine a nation (country, people, national community, whatever) is that the Ukrainian people think they are a nation.

Of course Ukraine has a long history, of centuries of being recognized by everyone as a nation, mostly under Czarist or Stalinist rule. For the seventy years of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was a recognized republic in the USSR. But suddenly Putin decides it isn't a real nation and tries to incorporate into Greater Russia--and pacifists and anarchist follow along.

In 1991, the Ukrainians were given a choice. The big majority of them voted for political independence from Russia. This included a big majority in the eastern Russian-speaking regions, and even a majority in Crimea. THEY thought they were a nation. It is what they believe that is important, not what I believe or you the writer believe or what Putin thinks. The Ukrainians should have the freedom of self-determination.

It is irrelevant that anarchists do not approve of the form which their self-determination has taken: a nation with a capitalism and a state. We hope to change their minds. But the Russian army does not have any rights here.

"What makes Ukraine a nation (country, people, national community, whatever) is that the Ukrainian people think they are a nation."

So are the people of the Donetsk Republic, who think their region is a nation independent from Ukraine. Can't stop your own democracyyyy, Wayne!

"Of course Ukraine has a long history, of centuries of being recognized by everyone as a nation, mostly under Czarist or Stalinist rule"

It's dating back to around 1918, which doesn't count for "a long history of centuries..."

There's no earlier instance of a nation known as "Ukraine". "Oukraine" was just a word of a region of Russia bordering with Crimea. The first political instance of Ukraine was the Ukrianian People's Republic, that was a puppet regime of the German and Hapsburg empires. It collapsed pretty quick and those who should be your historical heroes, the Makhnovists, have fought against them. With success.

You picked the wrong side, Jack.

"If we want to persuade anarchists to be for Marxism we have to infiltrate movements of anarchists who are fighting for anarchy but have many wrong opinions otherwise. And raise our Marxist views as the best way to win our joint objectives." FTFY.

A DISGUSTING page straight from Trotsky's entrism playbook.

As an international anarchist -of RENOWN!- I'm sising with...

the ducks.

And the wild pidgeons, and cats, and wolves, and all the rest of the wild gangs living by and for themselves.

And those at the zoo...
and those in the labs too.

Also with myself, and my mom...
coz that's really where I'm from!

Yeah come on guys, it’s okay for anarchists to support fascist nationalists as long as their war crimes are only “small potatoes,” as long as they happen far away, and they are supported by the same word-dominating government that protects my access to treats at the cost of, well, war crimes happening far away, etc.

Come on, doesn’t it FEEL like Ukrainian are the “good guys”? Isn’t there a “good guy” in every situation that we should be rooting for? If you don’t get it, just trying consuming heaping helpings of mainstream media.

Remember:

Cluster bombs are only “small potatoes”
Raping and torturing civilians and prisoners in only “small potatoes”
Enlisting neo Nazi paramilitaries into the regular armed forces is “small potatoes”
Overthrowing the government and banning minority languages is “small potatoes”

Wayne, your brain might be the smallest fucking potato on this site.

Let me ask you this, smarty-pants: Would you rather be cluster bombed to death or small potato cluster bombed to death? Would you rather an anarchist in a Ukrainian prison or an anarchist in a small potato Ukrainian prison?

That's what I thought.

Anarcho-Stateists for the self-determination of the anti-anarchist Ukrainian State backed by NATO and the USA!

Hey, I just read that comrade Biden is asking for another $25 billion for the war. It’s likely to pass as only the right flank of the gop has even questioned it. The whole rest of the US Congress is in agreement with so many of us enlightened anarchists about supporting the great nation of Ukraine, whose war crimes are, when you think about it; really just small potatoes. Slava Raytheon!!! What luck that the Good Anarchist Cause, which happens to align with Ukrainian nationalism, also just happens to align with the most powerfully violent and wealthy political and economic structures on earth.

You folks remind me of those who support Israel against the Palestinians. Any criticism of Israel is countered by references to the problems of the Palestinian Arabs. In Gaza they are ruled by Hamas, a jihadist fanatical group. In the West Bank, by the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt regime. Both are authoritarian semi-states. And they are allied with the neighboring Arab states, every one a capitalist, authoritarian, government, many being semi-feudal culturally and mysogynist. And all of these statements are true.

Yet it is still true that the Israeli state is the oppressor of the Palestinians, robber of their land and liberty, as well as the USA's major military watchdog in the region. Anarchists must support the freedom of the Palestinian people (nation, etc.) to self-determination. (The Jewish people of the region should be allowed to live there, but not to have self-determination. Unfortunately, they have their self-determination, their Zionist State, which involves the oppression of another people.) Regardless of the faults of the Palestinian misleadership, revolutionary anarchists are in solidarity with the Palestinian people ( not their misleaders or rulers) against the Israeli state and the US state.

The same goes for solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

Ukraine and Israel both would literally not exist if not for the US funding them. They are both US puppet states. I

War Crime Wayne’s arguments largely hinge on denying the eight years of war in the donbass as anything other than a “Russian false flag”. His talking points on Ukrainian history are the exact same highly selective sound bite tidbits that you can read in the NYT. I don’t know why he loves western democracy so much but I’m done talking with/about this creep. Have fun cheering for anarchists to go die for Ukrainian nazism, whoever you are.

Once again UkWayne has merely repeated the orthodox Trotskyist position on "national self-determination." It is the same stupid anti-imperialism that almost all western anarchists had to deal with from the end of WWII through the end of the cold war. For principled anti-statists and anti-militarists, this anti-imp bullshit was rightly seen as bullshit: you only get two choices, the bad guys (invaders) and the good guys (heroic defenders). For (ex?) trots like UkWayne, there's only one actual choice for "revolutionary anarchists" (shouldn't there be a copyright after that?), and that's to embrace "the people" defending their national self-determination. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now that the national leadership ("misleadership" in UkWayne's typical Trotskyist formulation) is thoroughly bourgeois, nationalist, authoritarian, and in alliance with unsavory states and actors. The ONLY thing that matters is national self-determination for invaded nations/countries/people/states -- apparently all synonymous in typical Trotskyist confusionism. UkWayne will never explain what constitutes a "nation" positively because it's impossible to do so while even pretending to have the analytical parameters of an anarchist, since anarchists are almost to a person opposed to nation-states and the citizenry they pretend to represent. Even stupid Marxists are smart enough to recognize that a state doesn't equal the people, since the state is an instrument of class domination. UkWayne, in his putrid war fever, has forgotten that little tidbit of Marxist wisdom, preferring to throw in his lot with the persecutors of Ukrainian pacifists, anti-militarists, and political dissidents -- surely THOSE are the Ukrainians being actively oppressed. Not so, declares our intrepid ammosexual! The oppressed are those proud Ukrainian patriots killing Russians! With weapons generously supplied by those perennial champions of the oppressed everywhere: the pentagon and NATO! Nowhere does UkWayne acknowledge the strategy of revolutionary defeatism, mutiny, sabotage, and other acts of non-militarized resistance. UkWayne continues his plunge into the quagmire of nationalism, statecraft, and war, those areas of famous anarchist intervention. Gimme a fucking break.

"revolutionary anarchists are in solidarity with the Palestinian people"

Nope they aren't. Of course the old New Left was, but that's an old story... that you are now sadly part of.

The Palestinian Cause has nothing anarchistic or of interest to internaitonal anarchists. This is another ethno-state project, backed by former Nazis, rooted in the flaming ressentiment against Jewish settlers and its purported radical Leftist character has yet to be demonstrated.

I'd like to see you support another non-nationalist movement that also isn't interwoven with Nazi or Neonazi grouips, Wayne. That'd be refreshing to see!

There you have it! Zionist anarchism, a logical result of refusing to support an oppressed people from their semi-imperialist state oppressors. Perfectly consistent with all you folks who cannot distinguish between an oppressor imperialist capitalist state and an oppressed and attacked (non-imperialist) country with a state and capitalism.

BTW, I have written more than once about Chechens, Uyghurs, Myanmarians, Taiwanese, Puerto Ricans, African-Americans, Indigenous People in North America, and other oppressed nations and nationalities.

Your logic is what led to certain anarchists supporting Israel back in its early days. It's also what leads to the whole Kurdish cheerleading. Fact is hard consistent anti-post-nationalism is what avoids anarchists from getting egg on their face in the future. I actually would prefer that the Russians lose this whole thing and see Putinism come to an end, but this can all be done without giving currency to the Ukraine nation state.

So you, like me, want to see the end of Putinism and Russia lose the war, without strengthening the Ukrainian capitalist state. OK, how? to you it seems pretty easy, but I don't see it. I mean without fantasies of all the Ukrainians and Russians rising up in a Gandhian nonviolence revolution at the same time.

Oh fuck off, Wayn... we know all about your WIDE dead angle on Neonazism as well as "Left" antisemitism. Coz of course nothing has happened in the world for the past 80 years or so... All a figment in the imagination of Putinist post-modern anarcho-individualists!

Nop fuockimg Weaynme ios guinna guit me tyo fiockling fuigjt in a fyucvking warf yuos fyiokimg hypoicriotical ftickling traitoire tyo peasce amd tyh anarcvh iodeal!

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