From Antimilitarismus

The war in Ukraine continues with all the negative consequences for much of the world. However, acts of desertion and draft evasion also continue, which, if widespread, could lead to the end of the war. Anarchists from the Central European region are therefore publishing this call to organise active support for deserters. Wherever we live, let us make every other day a day of international working-class solidarity and resistance against the war. Let us organise in workplaces, schools and streets to strengthen the influence of desertions. Let us fight for dignified conditions for all who refuse to serve as a cannon fodder in the inter-imperialist war.

At least 200,000 people are fleeing Russia to escape Putin’s military mobilisation, and tens of thousands more are avoiding mobilisation in Ukraine. Yet some voices claim that “the number of deserters is so negligible that it is strange to even begin to talk about it.” These cynical attempts to “make invisible” people who choose not to serve in the army, to defect or to emigrate for political reasons, must be opposed. Their voices must be heard and practical help must be given.

Anti-war speeches do not yet have the subversive power needed to stop the war, which is why it is necessary to create conditions that make it easier for other people considering a desertion to move from reflection to action. It is not a question of standing on the front line between the tanks of both armies and thinking that this will make the soldiers lay down their arms. It is about achieving the conditions at the international level that ensure that deserters can safely defect and live in another country without a risk of prosecution and social stigmatisation.

At present, opponents of the war in Russia and Ukraine have almost nowhere to go. They are trapped between national borders by their ‘own’ governments, while neighbouring countries refuse to accept them and provide them with decent material conditions. If people’s choices remain limited to the options of ‘either being forced to serve in the army or face persecution’, we can hardly expect an increase in desertions. It is necessary to achieve the opening of borders not only for civilian refugees, but also for deserters from the armies on both sides of the war line. This is precisely what can significantly weaken the dynamics of war.

But this will never be done by negotiation with the various governments which are only the local minions of the world capital state, nor will it be done by a social-democratic call to “make concessions in the area of migration policy”. Our only weapon for us, the proletarians, is the class struggle, it is the mobilization in the streets, it is the sabotage of the economy, and it is the direct action against permanent war… It is then, and only then, that the frightened ruling class is forced to let go, which will never constitute for us the goal of the struggle but only a moment from which new offensives must be carried out against the whole of this world of misery and war…

After all, the proclamations of politicians criticising the aggression of the Russian army are an expression of hypocrisy whereas they refuse to share material conditions and resources with people who refuse to serve in the army. And besides, why and how would they act otherwise, these worthy representatives of the bourgeois order!? It is necessary to stand consistently against Putin’s aggressors, as well as against the statesmen of other countries who, through their own policies, allow the army to retain its war potential. It is the governments of the countries in which we live that effectively make it more difficult to desert, and thereby they contribute to the continuation of the war.

Those who are concerned about saving lives should be thinking about how to weaken the fighting capacity of armies, how to get soldiers off the front lines, how to get them to disobey, how to motivate them to use their weapons against those who force them to go to war. Let us think about this and organise direct actions that will turn these considerations into concrete results.

SOME ANARCHISTS FROM THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN REGION (NOVEMBER 2022)

English translation: The Friends Of The Class War

Comments

Wayne Price (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 17:26

If enough Russians desert or rebel within their armed forces, the war would be over, and Ukraine would be independent.

If enough Ukrainians desert or rebel within their military, then the Russian state would win the war, crushing the workers and oppressed people of Ukraine and wiping out the Ukrainian people.

No doubt the Czech group hopes that the deserters would balance on both sides on their schedules, deserting in synchronicity. If they don't, then too many Ukrainian deserters would result in an imperialist Russian victory. (BTW, how does this fit in with all the "anti-war" anarchists who have written here that they are all for resisting the invasion, just not this way?)

anon (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 18:11

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

Oh my... Wayne! I supposed one morning your mind just started confusing nationalism for anarchism.

What is Ukriane's independence to you? Do you own land over there... ooooor was promised some by Zelensky's regime?

So feudalistic... gross!

anon (not verified) Sat, 11/19/2022 - 11:36

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I'm also not a fan of Wayne's enthusiasm for the war, but this is the one thing I'd like the don't-support-ukraine-resisting-russian-invasion crowd to actually address in a meaningful way... are you not defaulting to a Russian win in your logic?

To be clear and to elaborate... I absolutely support deserters, draft evasion, etc. - but on both sides. So I'm suspicious of the disproportionate focus on discouraging support for those fighting on the Ukraine side, especially given the fact there is a clear aggressor in this scenario. It's one thing if you think Russia succeeding is a good thing - a weird position for a supposed anti-war anarchist to take, but at least I know I disagree with it. However, if you're critical of all nation states involved, how do you square hoping one stops fighting more than the other and the logical implications of such a stance?

x0x (not verified) Sat, 11/19/2022 - 12:38

In reply to by anon (not verified)

"... are you not defaulting to a Russian win in your logic?"

If you pay your taxes are you not supporting missiles and police?!?

If you obey traffic law when you are driving are you not supporting prisons?!?

If you use grid electricity are you not supporting extractavism?!?!?

If you are not going full Uncle Ted are you not supporting Industrial Society and Its Consequences?!?!!?

Look, if you are anti-state do your fucking best to not support states. How is this so hard?

anon (not verified) Sun, 11/20/2022 - 04:16

In reply to by x0x (not verified)

I am again let down by a non-response to raising this issue. Seriously, how does this address my question, like at all? I stated I support non-participation in the war on both sides and am simply curious why there is so much focus on not supporting Ukraine military activity specifically. And I noted there is a clear aggressor in this scenario, which might even tip our focus in the direction of not supporting Russian military activity.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 11/20/2022 - 07:52

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Anarchists are discouraging all the people involved from participating in the war, and many people on both sides are.

But in the US there is a media blitz on how fantastic and brave the ukrainian military is, so people come here to refute that.

Unclear why you think there is a disproportion, but that could be one reason. Also people might not think that news in western europe or the US would reach many people in Russia.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 20:22

In reply to by anon (not verified)

If you don’t vote democrat, you must be supporting the republicans! Always support the lesser of two evils (the two choices defined by capitalist media that is). That’s the anarchist way! (Actually, you’d think anarchists are almost uniquely philosophically insulated from such easy fallacies…)

Anyway keep supporting the imperialist terrorist organization NATO which was founded to remilitarize fascists in alliance with democratic capitalism. I’m sure the future of Ukraine is much brighter than the present of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen…..

Wayne Price (not verified) Sat, 11/19/2022 - 20:33

In reply to by anon (not verified)

"What is Ukraine's independence to you? " What is the independence of the Palestinian Arabs to me? What is the self-determination of the Uighurs to me? What was the self-defense of the Vietnamese to me during the US-Vietnam war? And why should I give a damn about the freedoms of African-Americans, since I am white? Or the right to abortions for women since I am male?

The issue is not whether I want independence for Ukraine but what the Ukrainian people (its workers and oppressed mostly) want. And that I am on the side of the workers and oppressed in every land, not always agreeing with their choices, but defending their freedom to choose for themselves.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 21:00

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

“Wayne, why do you support US-backed fascists in Ukraine?”

“Well, it’s just that I’m so gosh darn anti racist and anti sexist!”

Good one. You are literally a liberal Wayne.

Luke from DC (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 23:46

And by doing so bleed Russia's army at the price that Putin migjt insert spies and saboteurs into this likely very large flow of refugees. I think Vietnam may have gotten some US deserters to Sweden during that war, but most of the heavy lifting for that campaign was done uere in the U$

Wayne Price (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 13:44

In reply to by Luke from DC (not verified)

As usual, Luke and I are in general agreement on the issue of the war (I don't know anything about the rest of his politics).

Let me add that a major force in opposing the war was inside the US military. By the end, it was virtually in a state of mutiny, disobeying orders and killing officers (and unfortunately widely using drugs). "Underground" left papers circulated among the ranks. Many antiwar activists set up "coffeehouses" off bases in the US. Veterans began to march in demonstrations, including ones where they threw their medals at the government buildings. It is not surprising that the government ended the draft after the war (except for the poverty draft).

Right now the Russian state is facing both a widespread draft refusal movement (thousands fleeing the country) as well as a low-level rebellion in the ranks of the army, including occasional killing of officers, disobeying orders, and "withdrawing" from combat despite orders. All excellent.

But things are different on the Ukrainian side. There are more volunteers than there are places for them. Of course some men would rather stay home or stay with their families. But morale is reported to be high and hatred of the invader is deep. To treat the struggle of the Ukrainians as equivalent to that of the Russian imperial army is grossly unbalanced. Revolutionary anarchists wish to overturn the Ukrainian state, but do not regard the Ukrainian people as in the same category as the Russian army.

Wayne Price (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 14:00

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

I would add that it never occurred to any radicals to call on the Vietnamese peasants and workers to refuse to fight in the rebel army --the army of North Vietnam and the southern National Liberation Front (the "VC"). Not even the pacifists among us. Nor the anti-Stalinists activists. It was only the "moderates" and social democrats who called for "negotiations", equating the two sides. Revolutionary anarchists and libertarian socialists were in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, however much we opposed the Stalinist and nationalist leaderships. We wanted the US and its puppets to be defeated.

And that's how I feel about the Ukrainian-Russian war.

anon (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 14:14

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

Quit rewriting history and imputing anarchist bona fides to official military formations and their state-sponsored paramilitaries. Arch-Stalinist Uncle Ho called and he wants his Cold War Anti-Imperialism back -- you've been using it too long. You and Luke should get a room do you can wank each other off while watching Ukrainian soldiers executing surrendering Russian soldiers. Supporters of war are also supporters of war crimes.

anon (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 19:27

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

Who knew that famous "anarchist" Wayne Price, former Maoist and current Platformist "Anarchist-Communist" would shill for a state military's conscription of it citizens? What a time to be alive!

anon (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 20:16

In reply to by anon (not verified)

He's gonna be in the Anarchist Hall of Fame and become rich like Chomsky and write stuff like umm Benjamin Franklin was actually an Mubrican anarchist.

anon (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 20:18

In reply to by anon (not verified)

i don't think Price was ever a Maoist, but for sure he was a Trotskyist. the outfit he was in converted as an organization and folded itself into what became Love and Rage. please remember that entryism is a long-standing Trot strategy; it seems that Price took the fake anarchism of Love and Rage to heart and has continued its self-destructive trajectory ever since: centralization, conformism, anti-imperialism, sectarianism, fomenting splits among other anarchists who are forced to deal with shitty public positions fostered by deliberate misreadings of history... maybe the above commentator should also have included "Ned Day" in his quip in addition to Uncle Ho.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 15:48

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Being condescending and steeped in duplicity may be characteristics of Maoists specifically, but they are certainly characteristics of Marxists and Leninists (of which Maoists are a subset) more generally. Price's history of being a Trotskyist places him firmly within the Leninist fold. His endless allegedly anarchist scribblings -- essays, books, internet comments -- are rife with the same rhetorical techniques he absorbed in his Trot days. In fact, in many places it's impossible to discern any specifically anarchist content (other than lip service to 19th century anarchist platitudes and jargon). Rather, there's a generic leftist quality to all of it, and not even a left of the left quality, but more often a distinctly non-radical quality -- and certainly not much that could be understood as revolutionary, despite his self-identification. The mere fact that he believes that the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have not been under sustained assault by Ukrainian nationalists for *at least* the past 8 years, coupled with the fact that he ignores that Ukrainian nationalism for the past 100 years has always been right wing and ethnosupremacist (and almost always pogromist), not to mention that he couches his support for those Ukrainian nationalists -- and their NATO sponsors -- in terms of national self-determination (or liberation or whatever other statist nonsense), shows rather conclusively that Price is actually on the right wing of whatever he thinks the left is/should be. But that's okay; there are plenty of other right-wing (anti-radical) Marxists who spout the same kind of bullshit.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 21:43

In reply to by anon (not verified)

People keep saying this here, that marxists support Ukraine and Wayne’s support for Ukraine is due to his leftism. Where are people even seeing this? (Progressives do not count as leftists or marxists, neither do anarchists for these purposes.) I read a pretty wide swath of left and anarchist stuff and I think the classic Marxist left has a very clear consensus against the US/NATO/Ukrainian side… progs, libs, center and conservatives are all pretty solidly in support. The anarchist “left”* and the far right are more mixed. That’s what I see anyway. I think this alignment merits consideration in its own right, beyond the impulse to do moral calculus with war crimes “over there” and pronounce one national army “good”. What is militarism doing to the social terrain around us here? Are constituencies really whole that can take such conflicting views on the same events?

I guess zizek supports Ukraine? But who cares and who else?

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 22:42

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I’m also not clear what is thought to be specifically Marxist or Trotskyist about Wayne, he comes off to me as the kind of vague “radical” or “anarcho-liberal” who’s like “ya I’m anti authoritarian, but I support progressive democrats too”. people who crave approval apparently, whose “radicalism” is little more than endless reiteration of their own righteousness… there are plenty of reasons for political obsessives to think and act foolishly, but the US disinformation state does have many tentacles. I can’t really find out anything about Wayne from the internet other than that he’s an author and a former member of various organizations.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 21:04

In reply to by Luke from DC (not verified)

Turns out they are literally murdering Russian POWs, the BBC (notorious Russian disinformation mill?) reported on it this past week. Not surprising considering the (famously pro-Russian?) UN has said that Ukraine has been doing war crimes in the Donbass for eight years.

anon (not verified) Tue, 11/22/2022 - 20:53

"centralization, conformism, anti-imperialism, sectarianism, fomenting splits among other anarchists who are forced to deal with shitty public positions fostered by deliberate misreadings of history... "

Ergo... still a TROTS!

Kinda surprising tho that a Trotskyist didn't went the way of Nazbol and fully side with Russia as they usually do.. but we got some crypto-Trots siding with Zelensky's Ukraine, which ain't really better in any way.

Wayne Price (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 11:20

It is not important that you-all do not know much about my personal political history. Why would you? I know nothing about yours. It is peculiar when you distort it grossly with great assurance, but so what?

More important is that you-all simply ignore what I write and blithely make charges which directly contradict what I have written about the Ukrainian war. I write, "Revolutionary anarchists and libertarian socialists were in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, however much we opposed the Stalinist and nationalist leaderships. " You respond, "Quit ... imputing anarchist bona fides to official military formations and their state-sponsored paramilitaries."

What can I say? Clearly plain English words are not enough.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 21:18

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

No Wayne plain words are not enough because you don’t understand the plain fact that you are a USian and you are supporting the same side as the US state, unlike in Vietnam. Anarchists opposed that war because they (correctly) saw the US state as their principal enemy, unlike you, not because they were like “critical solidarity with Stalinism” and going to fight in “anarchist” military units under stalinist command, etc… and I would hope that a leftist-anarchist like yourself can see some positive distinction between the left-wing Viet Minh national liberation movement and the US-backed, right wing Ukrainian ethnonationalist militarist movement that has been (per the UN) war criming the Donbas for almost a decade.

Don’t whine about how we don’t know your real views, defend the ones you post here, if you can. Your discourse on this topic really makes me think you’re just ambulance chasing, I don’t think you can really care when you talk so much about something you know so little about.

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 21:51

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Also Wayne's (lack of) support for Rojava especially in the context of Turkish imperialist invasions, like the new wave of attacks on Kurds happening right now, is elusive...

Seemingly only when it's a bunch of White nationalists being oppressed by non-NATO invader he goes all gong ho about doing their agit-prop here (I really wonder what is he expecting out of this...) but when it's a national liberation project that's genuinely libcom in a way any US libcom would get by, he's nowhere to be seen?

Very sus.

anon (not verified) Fri, 11/25/2022 - 03:38

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Another poster here. He also just totally disregards the hundreds of ofher conflicts throughout the world in which nationalist authoritarian Statist funded rebels or dictators kill and maim innocent folk. *mega-sigh,,,,,dry-reaches*

anon (not verified) Thu, 11/24/2022 - 16:25

once again, Wayne doubles down on his idiocies. "the Vietnamese people" is as much of a monolithic construct as "the Stalinist and nationalist leaderships" and is just as, if not more, untenable. it is the same bullshit every other nationalist (with an official leadership or not) spouts, certain that their implicitly cross-class agendas will overwhelm radical internationalists and anti-militarists. every anarchist knows that "the Vietnamese people" were made up of Buddhists and Catholics in the more urban areas, and animists/pagan in the more rural/isolated areas, those who had fought with the Japanese against the French as well as those who had fought with the French against the Japanese during WWII, those who had fought against the French before and after WWII and those who had collaborated in the colonial administrations before and after, those who were loyal servants of the Comintern and those whose nationalism was anti-communist. but we are supposed to believe that "the Vietnamese people" (or at least those who were Anti-Imperialists) had the same interests and goals in getting weapons from the Soviet Union and China to fight the US imperialist beast... such manichean rhetoric obscures far more than it enlightens. this is what conformism looks like.

Wayne Price (not verified) Fri, 11/25/2022 - 11:12

There is not much point in debating a bunch of anonymous commenters about my politics and history. It is still striking that you-all do not confront the fact that the "classical anarchists," including Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and others were for national self-determination--including supporting wars of popular self-determination and defense against imperialist aggressors. Such as the war which rages in Ukraine.

Nor do you confront the fact that almost all non-pacifist Ukrainian anarchists have supported the Ukrainian side of the war, as do Russian and Belarusian anarchists.

As for those who have some curiosity about my politics, you might look at:

Some of My Past Political Mistakes
https://www.anarkismo.net/openwire?search_text=Wayne%20Price&results_of…

What is an Anarchist? Am I an Anarchist?
https://www.anarkismo.net/openwire?search_text=Wayne%20Price&results_of…

anon (not verified) Fri, 11/25/2022 - 12:42

In reply to by Wayne Price (not verified)

So if one or more of your detractors put a name to our comments, would you respond then?

National self-determination meant something quite different in the age of colonialism -- and it meant something different for anarchists than it did for nationalists -- than it does now in the post-colonial world where it always means a state. As I and others have also constantly pointed out, anti-imperialism meant something different a hundred years ago than what it means today. The Leninist turn among radicals was a serious pivot in terms of the meaning for all those terms among those who saw themselves as revolutionaries. Luxemburg was the first prominent revolutionary to point out the thoroughly incoherent formula coming from Lenin and his sycophants, and her principled rejection of nationalism as a form of bourgeois patriotism spurred on others to the left of the Bolsheviks to retain and bolster their internationalism. This left of the left analysis is wholly ignored and absent from Wayne's feverish support of Ukrainian nationalism and war.

Wayne Price, self-declared heir of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta (even if we say, purely for the sake of argument that Wayne has understood them correctly ---- which I and others consistently dispute -- then his invocation of them is the logical fallacy of appeal to authority), is more right wing than left-wing communists. What a time to be alive!

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