From libcom.org
December 8, 2024
A response to Wayne Price's ‘Should Anarchists Defend Ukraine? A Response to Bill Beech’ in Black Flag, Autumn 2024, Vol4.
‘The struggle for class and self-liberation is not to be compared with national conflicts. It is the function of the impersonal State to squander lives in war, or of a superior class to regard lesser humans as expendable; thus any war of the nation-state must in itself be in the nature of an atrocity. [...] [C]ompared with other conflicts, social liberation is the most difficult of all to achieve, beside which national liberation is a divertissement. For class struggle implies not merely collective action but the breaking down of that sequence of events ingrained in our society as command-and-obey. Any form of social protest may be useful as an attempt to destroy this sequence, which saps the lifeblood of mankind and makes it possible for the few to govern the many.’
The Floodgates of Anarchy - Stuart Christie & Albert Meltzer
To those who read the pages of Black Flag, it will be clear from Wayne Price’s response to my essay ‘War on Anarchism’, that his arrogance can only be matched by his ignorance.1 It is hard to debate someone who is fully committed to remaining ignorant and who persistently avoids any discussion of specifics, while retreating into abstract slogans and idealistic positions. In response to the many facts I present and the 48 footnotes, Wayne Price offers a stale reference to Bakunin, an oblique reference about Ukrainian anti-semitism (to quarrel with an argument I didn’t make), and a reference TO HIMSELF, Wayne Price. He also gives a potted history of Ukrainian struggle for national self-determination, which is as vague, as it is emotive. And makes a baseless claim that Nestor Makhno was a nationalist. It’s clear that Price and the Natopolitans2 are much more comfortable in the giddy heights of abstract, ahistorical, non-factual idealism, than the blood and piss and vomit of the Ukrainian trenches, or the realpolitik of inter-imperial conflict. Or the realities of class struggle.
Because he doesn’t dare touch the facts, Price quarrels with points I haven’t made, such as Ukraine being a hotbed of anti-semitism, that I subscribe to a Russian view that Ukraine has no right to exist, or that the lesser evil in this conflict would be to support Russian imperialism against NATO. None of them are positions I hold, so there is no need to defend them. What Price doesn’t and cannot engage with are the points I do make: about the origins and causes of the war, about the nature and course of it, its ongoing realities.
I will comment on a few of Price’s arguments before outlining as precisely as I can the ideological differences between the Natopolitan-defencist-nationalist position on one hand and the antimilitarist-defeatist-internationalist position on the other. For those who want to skip to the summary, see the last section below.
The Final Crusade
Let’s start with the anti-semitism question, since it is a common refrain and since it is of some interest. Also, it is worth considering, since Wayne Price was at pains to introduce it into the debate. Considering that in the last year, we’ve heard the most monstrously grotesque imperialist and racist excuses for Zionism shielded by charges of anti-semitism, I am greatly tickled that Price chooses to whitewash Ukraine, which is to all intents and purposes the world champion of armed Hitlerian and Banderite folklore.
The ultimate gotcha by the Ukrainian nationalists and Natopolitans is that Zelensky himself is Jewish, so therefore anti-semitism cannot be a strong force in Ukraine. There is as much truth to this, as Obama ushering in an end to racism, as anyone with even the basic interest in the facts will acknowledge. However, how do we explain the fact that this Jewish president led a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a bona fide Ukrainian Nazi of WWII stature? The simple reason is that Ukrainian fascism’s main enemy is Russianness. It can therefore shelve the Jewish Question until Ukraine has dealt with Russia and its Russian minorities – it is the same principled deferral that Wayne Price advocates: defend the nation, and the revolution comes afterwards.
But while Price is happy to remain a keyboard warrior, the blood-steeped Azov Battalion is touring Europe (its 2024 mini-tour got quite a bit of pushback along the way), spreading their boot-shiny ideas and making links with likeminded individuals and groups. Its founder Biletsky famously stated that Ukraine’s national purpose is to ‘lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen’3 This charming lad was a Maidan ultra, then a fascist paramilitary in the Donbas (trained by NATO on how to operate grenade launchers and other US weapons) who finally graduated to being a member of the Ukrainian parliament. He is but one in a gallery of ghouls that populate the Ukrainian state and para-state formations. For those who want to follow the deep currents of Ukrainian fascism, I would point them to the two blogs of Moss Robeson: Bandera Lobby Blog and Ukes, Kooks and Spooks. There, you can read how Neo-Nazis train Ukraine’s Presidential Brigade, and its top instructor calls Ukrainians slaves that must be weaponized. About Ukraine’s Nazi paganism. About Azov Nazis visiting NATO HQ. About Holocaust denial. About Ukrainian Nazi paramilitaries invading Russia. Etc. etc. etc.
At risk of repeating myself, I want to underline that the point I am making here is not that all Ukrainians are Nazis, or that Ukraine is a Nazi state. What I am saying is that the Ukrainian fascists are playing an oversized role in shaping the Ukrainian national project, that they were directly involved in some of the worst violence of the civil war and that they continue to be the spearhead against everything Russian. They are the sharpest tools of US imperialism because their hatred of Russia and everything Russian is maniacal. To deny the size of this problem (as Price does) is to deny that these people have been strengthened by the post-Maidan governments and by the NATO sponsors of the proxy war with Russia. It is also to deny one of the causes of the war: Russia’s refusal to accept a fascist-friendly regime in Ukraine. Any regime which rehabilitates fascists from WWII4, which incorporated Nazis into its state and military structures, is unacceptable to the Russian state, this is a simple fact. Especially, if they are to be armed with NATO weapons and could become a station for nuclear missiles. But because we aren’t allowed to understand the motivations of the Russian state, we can only accept the Natopolitan analysis of why Russia invaded (to erase Ukraine!). Therefore Putin is Hitler and this is a cosmic fight to the death, on which there can be no debate. We must abandon all principles in the struggle against Russian fascism and defend the Ukrainian state. The truth is much more dirty and unpleasant: Ukraine is a tool, and every tool must be kept sharp.
The conclusion we should draw is precisely the opposite of Wayne Price’s. He believes that by minimising Ukraine’s fascist problem, we are refusing to play into the Russians’ hands, and we are supporting the ‘democratic’ Ukrainian state which must be defended against imperialist invasion. On the contrary, as anarchists, we must oppose fascism, because it is the enemy of all libertarian principles, because it is the sharpest manifestation of nationalism (and its crybully victimhood), because it is steeped in militarism and fantasies of racial purity.5 It is also the triumph of capitalism and the interests of capital. Ukrainian oligarchs Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Serhiy Taruta are bankrolling the Azov Battalion (and other paramilitary organisations) with the aim of keeping out Russian oligarchs. Their patriotism doesn’t extend to protection from US/EU capital, e.g. the Ukraine ‘reconstruction bank’, which has been set up by BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase to buy up the country cheaply and arrange for concessions to extract its wealth. We compromise ourselves as anarchists and we compromise all that is good in Ukraine, and we give the Russian state a legitimate line of attack, by giving Ukrainian fascism a free pass.6
The danger of Wayne Price’s position which advocates the defence of the nation, is the notion that there is a good nationalism and a good state, which simply and naturally emerges out of opposition to the invader and occupier. Because self-determination can only be achieved and articulated through the nation, and because self-determination precedes anarchist revolution/liberation, anarchism must be deferred until a clear, untroubled national space is secured. The complete imbrication of state and nation is something that passes Price by. He’s an anarchist committed to bolstering a state, only to tear it down. And he is prepared to go rogue, either by state collaboration or collaboration with Nazis, by joining NATO-controlled brigades, for years on end, until Russia is defeated (whatever that means, since Russia holds the world’s greatest nuclear arsenal). Then he will emerge as the anarchist that he is, and by Jove! he will show the Ukrainian ruling class what he’s made of. Only he won’t, because he’s a keyboard warrior, and the Ukrainians and the anarchists will do the dying for him.
The fatherland of the rich
In discussing the ‘national question’ and the problems of self-determination, Rosa Luxemburg proved more of an anarchist than Wayne Price or his quote from Bakunin. Her pamphlet from 1909 boldly states:
In a word, the formula, ‘the right of nations to self-determination,’ is essentially not a political and problematic guideline in the nationality question, but only a means of avoiding that question.7
Luxemburg holds fast to the class struggle, and refuses to be blindsided by floating notions of freedom and self-detemination. The nation is an instrument of class rule, national rights are expressed by the ruling class, they are expressed through ruling class interests, which come at the expense of the working class. Put simply: ‘In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist.’8
And, in a spicy retort to anarchists, she defends the class struggle:
In this case, as in many others, anarchism, the supposed antagonist of bourgeois liberalism, proved to be its worthy child. Anarchism, with characteristic “revolutionary” seriousness, accepted at face value the phraseology of the liberal ideology and, like the latter, showed only contempt for the historical and social content of the nation-state, which it set down as nothing else than an embodiment of “freedom,” of the “will of the people,” and of similar empty words.9
If you prefer this stated in an anarchist voice, we can turn to Rudolf Rocker in his big book ‘Nationalism and Culture’ (1933) - the content is broadly the same:
It is, therefore, quite meaningless to speak of a community of national interests; for that which the ruling class of every country has up to now defended as national interest has never been anything but the special interest of privileged minorities in society secured by the exploitation and political suppression of the great masses. Likewise, the soil of the so-called “fatherland” and its natural riches have always been in the possession of these classes, so that one can with full right speak of a “fatherland of the rich.” If the nation were in fact the community of interests which it has been called, then there would not be in modern history revolutions and civil wars, because the people do not resort to the arms of revolt purely from pleasure — just as little do the endless wage fights occur because the working sections of the population are too well off!10
Class struggle traverses every aspect of the nation state, it cannot be shelved in deference to the interests of the ruling class, or some fatherland of the rich. But this is exactly what Price is advocating. He starts by boilerplate libertarian statements, only to throw them all away:
Anarchists oppose their statist ruling classes. In Ukraine, anarchists do not support Zelensky’s party, nor run in elections, nor give any political support to his government. They oppose the government’s austerity policies and its anti-union laws. They do not endorse the conscription laws and the bureaucratic army. But they do not condemn the government and army for fighting against invasion and occupation! With this they can cooperate (so long as they are too weak to overturn the capitalist state).
Who are these anarchists Price speaks of? No example is given. To him ‘anarchists’, like ‘Ukrainians’ are a monolithic, united mass. These anarchists do not endorse conscription (because presumably conscription is slavery), but they also don’t condemn the government and the way it fights (through conscription!). Because they are too weak, these anarchists will and do and should abandon their anarchism, to submit to the ‘capitalist state’ which will lay claim to their bodies and send them to fight in their ‘bureaucratic army’ which they don’t endorse. Because they are too weak to fight the state, they should abandon all class war and submit to the state’s war for its own survival. As if this will increase their capacities for class struggle! Instead it’s much more likely to land them dead in a ditch. But even dead in a ditch, they will have retained their principles of cooperating with a state, as long as they denounce it. In the words of Wayne Price: ‘I would prefer revolutionary internationalism.’ But… the nation comes first.
Near the end of his text, Price upbraids me for not raising the standard of anarchist revolution. He even accuses me of pacifism. The indignity! To be honest, I’d rather be a pacifist committed to creative libertarian forces, than someone who advocates for the pressganging of working class men abroad, in the defence of soil and nation, all the while hiding behind a computer screen. As things stand, we class struggle anarchists aren’t pacifists, we are antimilitarists and internationalists. We understand the state as the mechanism of nationalist command-and-obey which claims the monopoly on violence, enshrines the justness of its wars, and the monopoly on killing machines (from tanks all the way to nuclear weapons). We don’t issue plucky and manly calls for the slaughter of our working class brothers and sisters. In fact, we see this as hopelessly compromised. We see all the politicians, all the nation states and the media and their little Natopolitans baying for hate and industrial murder. We see the racket which is the arms manufacturing and trade and the revolving doors of the military-industrial-political-media complex. We see the global system of imperial domination and economic exploitation by Western states, i.e. the NATO bloc. We see how our states are hard-wired for armed domination, war and genocide. We know the history of NATO wars and US crimes and we work against them. We understand very well that a strengthened state, engaging in war abroad will turn its sights on us domestically, at the first given opportunity.
To rhapsodise about armed revolution when our numbers are small, when our movement is divided by identity politics, separated from the mass of working class people and split by support for statist, nationalist projects like the Ukrainian one, would be unseemly. Moreover, it seems that Price can only think of revolution as an armed uprising, a Maidan-like putsch, which is why he cannot understand that antimilitarism is one of the pillars of social revolution, that undermining the control of the state and disarming it is what anarchists are working for. Until militarism is weakened, discredited and dismantled, the state’s and the nation’s stranglehold on the working class and its free liberatory forces will continue. For Price, antimilitarism is an interesting pastime, perhaps a page from history, perhaps even outside of the domain of revolutionary activity. For us, it is one of the main pillars of working class liberation, because, as Rudolf Rocker says:
War not only affects human nature calamitously in general by constant appeal to its most brutal and cruel motives, but the military discipline which it demands at last stifles every libertarian movement among the people and then systematically breeds the degrading brutality of blind obedience, which has always been the father of all reaction.11
Dreams of Ukrainian Agency
The above quoted passage from Price about cooperation with the government and the army, is the clearest expression of the position of ‘defencism’ which says that the nation comes first, libertarian struggle second. And because the nation – i.e. the Ukrainian ruling class – has allied itself with NATO12, it is also a Natopolitan defencism. In his response, Price gets exercised about being called a Natopolitan, which surprises me. He openly advocates allying with NATO against Russia. Perhaps a ‘Tactical Natopolitan’ would suit him better and his taste for paradox? Strategically anti-imperialist and libertarian, but tactically a NATO shill.
In the Black Flag issue from Spring of 2023, Price wrote: ‘That they take arms from the Western governments means little – they need arms and where else can they get them?’ In the Black Flag issue from the Autumn of 2024: 'Is the NATO involvement so great that the Ukrainians cannot be regarded as fighting for their country?’ In typically deceptive language, Price speaks of ‘Ukrainians’, never the Ukrainian state, and of ‘weapons’ instead of complete NATO training-logistics-targetting-command. In this kindergarten world, ‘Ukrainian agency’ is a notion with some currency. Which agency is that? The one that was denied when Boris Johnson was sent to tear up the Istanbul Accords in Spring of 2022? The one that sees NATO deciding on when and where Ukraine should launch its catastrophic offensives, such as Summer of 2023? The one which drives Ukrainian women to fill German brothels?13 What I see is brutal exploitation of a people in the service of NATO interests and with the aim of bleeding Russia, and ideally regime change and Russia’s Balkanisation. And their ultimate exploitation is the cynical use of their country and resources as a NATO proxy. Here, for once, Wayne Price and I agree:
‘Ukrainians, not Americans, or Germans, or French people, are doing the fighting and dying. For them it is not a “proxy war”.’
And therein is the tragedy of the thing: they are cheap meat which the American and European ruling class are using to fight Russia. For keyboard warrior Wayne Price, laying down your life is priceless. And because you are fighting in a real army, for a real nation, that means that your death can never be for the interests of your ruling class and state, which is a client state of US Empire. All is pure in this azure sky.
All is clear for Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov also, who spoke openly about his country being a NATO proxy. He reflected on how Ukraine is defending ‘the entire West’ and how Russia was seen as the greatest threat to NATO:
‘Today, Ukraine is addressing that threat. We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons.’14
That’s the Ukrainian ruling class. Here’s a sample from the British one, from the mouth of the Prime Minister who torpedoed the peace talks in the spring of 2022 and who hosts Ukrainian Nazis in the English Parliament - Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson:
‘Mate, let's face it. We're waging a proxy war!’15
Another reason, according to Price, this cannot be a proxy war, is because this is not an inter-imperial conflict. Why then is the US deciding if Ukraine can use long-range weapons to strike into Russia? Why is the whole NATO alliance committed to this war? Hasn’t every NATO war been an imperialist one? It would be an uncomfortable truth exposing interests so large that they cannot be hidden behind the fig leaf of ‘a small country’s struggle for national self-determination’. One final reason the war in Ukraine cannot be understood as a proxy conflict, is that, in that case, Wayne Price and his Tactical Natopolitans would look like US Empire’s useful idiots. But sooner or later they will have to accept the reality, since even Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s (then) Secretary General has openly spoken of the inter-imperialist origin of the war. He also confirmed that it was the actions of NATO (which Ukraine isn’t a member of), which provoked the Russian invasion. So much for ‘Ukrainian agency’:
‘President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,’ Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7 [2023]. ‘That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that. He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.’16
This is the casus belli, and therein lie the seeds for an end to this war, or a fatal escalation. Far from the question of a few weapons and provisions, the question of NATO is at the heart of the geopolitical and inter-imperialist nature of this conflict. As John Mearsheimer correctly analysed the post-Maidan moment in 2015, it was ever an inter-imperialist competition:
‘The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.’17
That was ten years ago – there is presently no basis or justification for Wayne Price and his Tactical Natopolitans holding the views that they do.
Bitter Pills
Because Price is so thoroughly NATO-pilled, he cannot accept the responsibility of Zelensky’s regime and the Ukrainian state for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian conscripts. To Price, it is all very simple: the invading Russians are killing them and they are to blame – any acknowledgement of the role of the Ukrainian state in the slaughter of the Ukrainian working class betrays what he calls ‘an imperialist mindset’.
But let’s see how a local anarchist group describes this regime which Wayne Price is working for. In their circular from November 11th 2024, the Kharkov-based anarchist group Assembly calls it ‘the agonizing dictatorship in Ukraine’. They report graffiti from the city of Zaporozhye: ‘Zelensky is an executioner’.18 Far from an imperialist mindset, this is the mindset of class struggle. And it is the support for inter-state and inter-imperial war, which is statist, militarist, nationalist, and imperialist.
To give him some due, Wayne Price acknowledges the positioning of the Ukrainian state: ‘The Ukrainian state has leaned toward the Western imperialists against Russian imperialism.’19 But this was to be expected, Price writes, after centuries of Russian domination. Our Tactical Natopolitan is so blinkered that he can’t see that something which is against Russia, isn’t automatically pro-Ukrainian. And like with the question of government and state military collaboration, this is for Price a necessary evil: one ends up in a state army which is part of an imperialist bloc, such is life, we must soldier on ‘for national self-determination’. Nothing stops us from Abracadabra! declaring that as anarchists we oppose imperialism and ‘our statist ruling classes’. It is just that these statements have been made meaningless through our actions. There is no greater support for your ‘statist ruling class’ and imperialism than to offer your body and life for it. And there is no greater hypocrisy than Wayne Price’s which calls for someone else to die in your stead.
The conservative estimate by the capitalist press is 500,000 dead, maimed and missing-in-action Ukrainians.20 The reality is surely much higher, for anyone who has followed the front lines. Since February 2022, three Ukrainian armies have been killed off by the Russian one. This is why young Ukrainian men are being pressganged by Zelensky’s heavies in a desperate bid to send 160,000 more into death’s jaw (this is a target figure they released in November 2024). Ukrainian soldiers are some of the oldest in the world, with an average age of 43 in November 2023, 10 years older than in March of 2022. A battallion commander of the 65th Brigade says:
‘I’m being sent guys, 50 plus, with doctors’ notes telling me they are too ill to serve. At times it feels like I’m managing a day-care centre rather than a combat unit.’21
60,000 cases of desertion have been launched in the courts in the first 10 months of 2024 – the total numbers are surely higher.22 Poorly trained, the soldiers are abandoned in positions which are impossible to defend, such as Vuhledar. Here is what a soldier who deserted from the 123rd brigade said: ‘No one fucking needed Vuhledar.’ It had been reduced to rubble, more than a year ago, he is convinced there was no need to leave those Ukrainian soldiers there. He puts the blame on the Ukrainian army: ‘They’re just killing them, instead of letting them rehabilitate and rest.’ But this is not enough, Ukraine’s overlords (Wayne Price’s spiritual leaders) are demanding from the client state that it lower the conscription age to 18.23 Even those ‘unfit’ for health reasons will no longer be excluded from military registration and will remain in the register.24 If you have a pulse, you are able to offer your life for the nation.
And because Price mentally lives deep in Natostan, he cannot understand that the war, as waged by Russia is an attritional one.25 This is why he makes the claim that the war is ‘stalemated at best’. Apparent small movements of the front lines are interpreted as a stalemate. But the Russian army is following the dictums of Clausewitz who advocated for the destruction of armies and not the conquest of territories:
What do we mean by the defeat of the enemy? Simply the destruction of his forces, whether by death, injury, or any other means—either completely or enough to make him stop fighting. . . . The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements. . . . Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration.26
This is why the Russians have pursued the strategy of sucking Ukrainians into cauldrons and fire pockets to devastating effect. The killing field near Robotyno, also known as Bradley Square, and the completely impregnable Surovikin Line. Bakhmut. Vuhledar. Chasiv Yar. Avdeevka. Kursk. Over 1000 days the Russians have been destroying scores of Ukrainian men and NATO machines, because they know that Ukraine’s imperial overlords, and cheerleaders like Wayne Price, are forcing them to advance despite the odds, to prove that they are a viable client and demonstrate the investment made in them by taking territory back.
Price quibbles with me quoting Noam Chomsky because he is ‘a philosophical anarchist’, who doesn’t believe or propose a strategy for anarchist revolution. Wayne Price’s strategy for anarchist revolution is to (temporarily!) give up your autonomy and enlist in a NATO proxy army. Chomsky, on the other hand, understands that adding fire to an inter-imperial conflict under the banner of ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’ is a disaster for any kind of libertarian movement or social revolution there. Chomsky is also aware of the pernicious effect of silencing antimilitarist and anti-imperial voices in our imperial NATO heartlands.27Of course, Chomsky is a threat to Price’s world view, because for Price, the carrot of (Global) anarchist revolution, like the ultimate threat of (Russian) fascism – are both used to justify whatever he wants: conscription, imperialism, nationalism.
TLDR
To conclude, let’s summarise the position of the Tactical Natopolitans. It is premised on:
denial of the origins of the war (NATO expansion),
denial of the nature of the war (a proxy war), and therefore
denial of US/NATO imperialism, which is supported by
denial of the primacy of class struggle,
under the banner of defending the nation as the ultimate vessel to defend peoples, communities, individuals.
Our position as class struggle anarchists is that this is an inter-imperial conflict, where the working class is being slaughtered, exploited and lied to. Nothing can be gained for the working class or the cause of libertarian revolution by allying ourselves with any of the states or imperial blocs. Such an alliance only weakens our cause and forces, and fatally compromises anarchism.
Lastly, we need to resolutely and completely abandon the idea that the nation is the ultimate vehicle for self-determination and liberation. There is a richness of traditions, experiences, institutions, communities, languages and cultures which exist apart from and despite the nation and the state. This is our libertarian legacy. This is where the wellsprings of anarchy stem from. We should be guided by them, and not by the siren voices of chickenhawkish imperialist ultras like Wayne Price.
- 1‘Should Anarchists Defend Ukraine? A Response to Bill Beech’ in Black Flag, Autumn 2024, Vol4, No3 https://www.anarchistfaq.org/blackflag/BlackFlag-vol4-no3.pdf
- 2 “The now-obscure term ‘Natopolitan’ appears to have been coined by the British Marxist historian EP Thompson in the late 1970s. It referred not just to NATO proper, but also (in a later gloss by Edward Said) to ‘a mentality whose web extended over a lot more activity and thought’.”
Gabriel Carlyle, review of the book ‘Natopolitanism’, Peace News, Dev 2023 - 3https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
- 4In the case of Russia, that struggle in WWII claimed circa 27m lives, so any government there is unlikely to treat this as a laughing matter.
- 5Here, Robert Paxton’s definition is quite useful:
‘Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.’
from The Anatomy of Fascism, 2004, p219
- 6This is not my opinion, it is simply a fact – Hitlerism and Banderite nationalism are historically defeated and proscribed ideologies, because of they are hard-wired for killing and genocidal racism.
- 7https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch01.htm
- 8https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch01.htm
- 9https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch02.htm
- 10https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rudolf-rocker-nationalism-and-culture
- 11https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rudolf-rocker-nationalism-and-culture
- 12NATO membership is etched into Ukrainian constitution since 2019 – see the Ukraine page on the NATO website: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm
- 13https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus253481548/Prostitution-In-den-Bordellen-sind-es-mittlerweile-etwa-50-Ukrainerinnen.html
- 14https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ukraine-shedding-blood-to-carry-out-nato-mission:-ukraine-de
- 1529th November 2024, in a Daily Telegraph podcast
- 16https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-ukraine-nato-expansion/
- 17https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4?si=AX1kgIBXZxebzMdF
- 18https://libcom.org/article/ukraine-wave-desertion-spontaneous-self-demobilization-amid-us-elections
- 19Black Flag, Autumn 2024, Vol4, No3
- 20https://kyivindependent.com/economist-casualties-estimates/
- 21https://newkontinent.org/ukraines-warriors-brace-for-a-kremlin-surge-in-the-south/
- 22https://www.ft.com/content/9b25288d-8258-4541-81b0-83b00ad8a03f
- 23https://www.reuters.com/world/us-urges-ukraine-lower-fighting-age-18-bolster-ranks-official-says-2024-11-27/
- 24https://itc.ua/en/news/unfit-for-health-reasons-will-no-longer-be-excluded-from-military-registration-and-will-remain-in-the-register-order-of-the-ministry-of-defense/
- 25There are many accounts of the attritional strategy of the Russian Army, I recommend John Mearsheimer’s https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/bound-to-lose
- 26Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Chapter 2, Princeton University Press, 1976
- 27The derangement associated with the 'Ukrainian Project' has recently reached fever pitch. While a large portion of the so-called anarchist movement is offering tactical PR support for NATO and the silencing of everyone else, bullets have also been used. This is a shocking development for 'democratic' countries in the West, so used to their superiority. Slovak President Fico was shot by a man who cited the reason for his actions as the outrage over the decision to halt military support for Ukraine. Ryan Routh, who tried to assassinate Trump on a golf course is a Ukraine ultra and seemingly recruited mercenaries for the CIA. He even wrote a NATO-on-steroids daydream in book form: 'Ukraine's Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity', where he 'clamors for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fantasizes about Trump’s assassination as well, and urges the US military to “instigate” a nuclear war with Russia.' (see the Grayzone report 'Alleged would-be Trump assassin recruited for Ukraine’s International Legion'). The first round of the Romanian election was cancelled after the anti-NATO candidate Calin Georgescu won. The reason given for why we must protect the Romanian people from themselves was Russian interference via TikTok. Since the Atlanticists have lost grip on war-weary populations via their state and corporate media, they are now working to shut down any dissent elsewhere. In a speech from 2019, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General already foreshadowed what was to come:
Sir Julian King, the EU Commissioner for the Security Union, outlined the tools that the European Union has at its disposal.
NATO’s cooperation with the EU is important because hybrid is not just a military threat.
We have seen a pattern of cyber-attacks against our countries.
Disinformation campaigns.
And attempts to interfere in our democracies.
Many of our countries have suffered from different types of hybrid attacks.
In isolation, we may not always be able to see the connections, the trends and the patterns.
But together, we can connect the dots, and see the bigger picture.
And together, we have the full range of tools to address these challenges.
NATO must remain prepared for both conventional and hybrid threats:
From tanks to tweets.
Comments
The mods here are definitely
anon (not verified) Tue, 12/17/2024 - 22:36
The mods here are definitely as dumb as their moderating decisions make them out to be. That's not a "chicken coming home to roost", that's a chickenhawk.
rollerz
anon (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2024 - 17:27
In reply to The mods here are definitely by anon (not verified)
it was submitted by anon and image was from them.
the roller is from,,,,
-thecollective_1.8
> rollerz
anon (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2024 - 20:39
In reply to rollerz by anon (not verified)
> rollerz
this is the image from the
anon (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2024 - 23:00
In reply to rollerz by anon (not verified)
this is the image from the original libcom posting of the article.
two marxists fighting
anon (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2024 - 09:44
I like when two marxists fight each other and pretend it has something to do with anarchism. Also seems like Beech didn't read the whole Meltzer and Christie book he quotes from, or read other texts by the two that touch on the subject (not to mention that he seems to not have read historical anarchists like Bakunin or Michel on the subject either).
If you think marxists like Luxemburg have better ideas than anarchists, you can always just self-identify as a marxist. No one is forcing you to call yourself an anarchist and fight other marxists like Price over it.
"Whereas the creation of a multi-racial or supra-national State leads to an empire (super-State), reaction to it on the purely idealistic ground of race, nation, or difference in religion, is bound to be progressive. It helps to whittle away the bulwark of the State and breaks up the sequence of command-and-obey; but it is only progressive while it is unsuccessful. Hope is said to be a good breakfast but a poor supper. So is the struggle for national independence. The nationalist forms a new State but continues old forms of economic exploitation. By obtaining popular consent to the forms of rule, the new State legitimises oppression. However, the spirit of rebellion often persists even when nationalism triumphant has taken its dreary course.”
- Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy (1970)
Response to Bill Beech (and Anon)
Wayne Price (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2024 - 15:42
In reply to two marxists fighting by anon (not verified)
Here is the history of this lengthy jeremiad by Bill Beech: I had written a couple of article about the Ukrainian-Russia war which appeared in the virtual journal Black Flag: An Anarchist Review (edited by Iain Mackay). Beech wrote a lengthy counter argument, saying that anarchists should not support Ukraine (the majority opinion on this list!). It appeared together with a response by me in BF (the reference is given by Beech). Then he wrote another lengthy statement, which you see above. It was not going to appear in the next issue of BF (which will concentrate on Proudhon). So he sent it here. Maybe I will write a response, as brief as possible, on a few of his many arguments. Anyone not interested should skip all this stuff.
I am not a Marxist, do not believe in the Marxist strategy of seizing state power, regard all Marxist states as really state capitalisms, reject Marx's determinism and centralism, and so on. But I do think that there are useful aspects of Marx's work (not the whole of it: "Marxism") and other aspects which overlap with revolutionary class struggle anarchism. In any case, I would not call myself an orthodox anarchist, what that would be. And who knows what kind of anarchist you are....
I like the quotation. The main points I think is that the popular desire for independence and anti=imperialism is "progressive" but that nationalism as an ideology and program must be reactionary.
Anarchists should not support
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 07:52
In reply to Response to Bill Beech (and Anon) by Wayne Price (not verified)
Anarchists should not support Ukraine since it's a nation-state and anarchists are against states! What anarchists should support is the self-determination of peoples (and smaller groups), including Ukrainians, and including the right of peoples within Ukraine to not live under the Ukrainian state.
Even some liberals are capable of recognizing that states (like Israel and all other states) don't have a right to exist, peoples do, so it's quite pathetic for a self-proclaimed anarchist to subsume the self-determination of peoples under states like Ukraine and its NATO partners, who thrive on the massacre of peoples.
You are a marxist Wayne because you don't distinguish between peoples and states (as anarchists from Bakunin on have) and you don't believe in the unity of means and ends, as an anarchist would. You believe the Ukrainian state and its NATO allies can serve as a means to a positive end. You are wrong. And history so far bears this out, whether one is an anarchist or marxist.
Self-determination is a
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 08:06
In reply to Anarchists should not support by anon (not verified)
Self-determination is a shoddy concept in any context. It's more about other-control versus autonomy. Marxists are happy to control other people. Their freedom is the freedom of the production line.
Ain't it amazing how these
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 10:32
In reply to Self-determination is a by anon (not verified)
Ain't it amazing how these marxarchists and "anarcho"-NATOists like UkWayne think "self-determination" somehow involves their *external* blabberings, hand-wringing, and involvement? Whatever happened to the Starfleet prime directive of shutting the fuck up and observing things as they unfold without the hubris of involvement? Mr. Spock weeps.
What Do We Mean by "National Self-Determination"?
Wayne Price (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 13:34
In reply to Anarchists should not support by anon (not verified)
You write, "Anarchists should not support Ukraine since it's a nation-state and anarchists are against states! What anarchists should support is the self-determination of peoples (and smaller groups), including Ukrainians...." This is self-contradictory.
"Self-determination" means that a people (mostly its workers and peasants) should determine (decide) on the kind of country they want to live in. It does *not* mean that a people should do what anarchists want. The Ukrainians as well as the Palestinians are (unfortunately) not (yet) anarchists. They each want their own state. This requires fighting against the invading Russians or the occupying Israelis. In the fight, anarchists raise a program different from nationalism and statism. But we support the fight.
The question is simple. Do anarchists support the freedom of oppressed peoples to decide their own future without imperialist and colonialist oppressors ruling them? Are you on the side of freedom (including the right to make their own mistakes) or not?
> We
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 13:56
In reply to What Do We Mean by "National Self-Determination"? by Wayne Price (not verified)
> We
How do you do, fellow anti-state anti-NATO anarchists?
You in fact contradict
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 13:59
In reply to What Do We Mean by "National Self-Determination"? by Wayne Price (not verified)
You in fact contradict yourself by saying it's contradictory for anarchists to oppose states (including nation-states) but support self-determination of peoples and then saying one of the rights peoples have is to create a state.
Either there is a distinction between peoples and states or there isn't. If one of the rights peoples had was the right to a state, this would just be futher proof of there in fact being a distinction between peoples and states, which would make the statement you call contradictory not contradictory at all but true and your own statement the contradictory one.
Anarchists can oppose states but support self-determination, especially considering there have always been peoples without states and peoples who didn't want states who nonetheless struggle against imperialism just as some statists do.
The fact that there is no right to have a state has nothing to do with anarchists wanting peoples to do what anarchists want. Even liberals working with the UN acknowledge that Israel, for example, has no right to exist, because no state has a right to exist. You, Wayne, are to the right of such liberals, not to mention to the right of anarchists like Bakunin and Michel who distinguished between peoples and states and supported the former but not the latter.
And to the fools who oppose self-determination of peoples, you cannot support freedom for individuals if it doesn't include freedom to associate and not have your association wiped out by imperialist and colonizers. If you oppose self-determination of groups, you necessarily support the restriction of the freedom of the individual too and therefore are not an anarchist but an authoritarian.
In short, national liberation
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 14:06
In reply to What Do We Mean by "National Self-Determination"? by Wayne Price (not verified)
In short, national liberation is the right to be exploited by a capitalist class who speak the same language as you and were born on the same side of an imaginary line defenses by people who speak that language. (Although NOT if you’re a Russian from the Donbas because we know that Russians are genetically evil orks.)
Seriously, don’t even try to ask Wayne how Ukrainians are “nationally oppressed” by Russia or what this has to do with the war…his knowledge of history and culture of that part of the world is as deep as a puddle, which is pretty funny for someone who’s been posting obsessively about the topic for going on three years.
Who's a Marxist?
Wayne Price (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 13:46
In reply to Anarchists should not support by anon (not verified)
You declare to me, "You are a marxist Wayne because you don't distinguish between peoples and states... and you don't believe in the unity of means and ends."
Gee, and I thought you had to believe in Marxism to be a Marxist!
I believe in NATO. Wayne
Wayne Price (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 13:54
In reply to Who's a Marxist? by Wayne Price (not verified)
I believe in NATO.
Wayne
Not by me.
Wayne Price (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 15:33
In reply to I believe in NATO. Wayne by Wayne Price (not verified)
I don't "believe in" NATO.
Perhaps you believe in Putin's Russia?
"All anarchists whom refuse
TranslationWayne (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 20:00
In reply to Not by me. by Wayne Price (not verified)
"All anarchists whom refuse NATO's generosity MUST be aligned with Putin."
TranslationWayne
Putin is one of the most
anon (not verified) Sat, 12/21/2024 - 02:45
In reply to Not by me. by Wayne Price (not verified)
Putin is one of the most consistent Ukrainian anarchists. He is a bigger Ukrainian anarchist than the Ukrainian anarchists themselves. At least he is trying to do something to destroy the Ukrainian state, instead of touchingly defending it at the cost of the lives of working class guys.
I think old Wayne should support Vladimir Putin. Glory to Anarchy!
it just flatly isn't clear
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 10:10
it just flatly isn't clear that nato expansion started the war. that's the putinite framing, putin didn't use this excuse for the second chechen war. the defensists see the invasion of ukraine as roughly similar to that, although its probably roughly similar to the russo-georgian war.
in any case, why is russian national sovereignty and influence presumed to be a cudgel against north-atlantic imperialism? the russians were happy to work alongside khomeini, assad, and the USA in the war on terror, when they were able to engage in proxy wars with the "afghan arab" saudi arabian proxies.
it's hard to engage with anarchists on this stuff because they just do not study modern warfare. the nato sympathizers do the cause of the revolution great harm; there is no doubt about that. the collobration of the SDF with the USA has essentially frozen the revolution in syria to the point that now al qaeda are the only once capable of seeing the aims of the 2011 uprising all the way through. a major tragedy. but we can't be chumps. the russo-nazi camp is also at war domestically with people who are literally exactly like us. the real cause of internationalism is to build a global anarchist movement capable of functioning within a context of geopolitical chaos: a popular anarchist militia capable of guerrilla and conventional warfare.
conventional warfare... that
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 11:17
In reply to it just flatly isn't clear by anon (not verified)
conventional warfare... that's quite a fantasy to suckle
More evidence against asshole nazi illegal alien Elon musk
Stop the trump… (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 11:56
In reply to conventional warfare... that by anon (not verified)
12.18.2024. dont wait moment longer. Stop the trump nazi regime before December January before they get started!! just came across this. See articles. Evidence. The trump regime takes took money laundering from Musk from Israel Russka India North Korea to win election. rid the world of putin trump netanhuye today don't wait any longer. Charge asshole illegal alien and deport Elon Musk with treason sedition aid abet enemy equal russka and nazi trump regime too...SEE ARTICLE More gun equipped Tesla Cybertrucks spotted in Ruska Army. in Ukraine and Chechnya 2024. See photos too... https://bulgarianmilitary.com/amp/2024/09/20/more-gun-equipped-tesla-cy…
Sending Teslas to a foreign
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 14:09
In reply to More evidence against asshole nazi illegal alien Elon musk by Stop the trump… (not verified)
Sending Teslas to a foreign military to use sounds like a hilarious prank tbh
Anyway… did you get lost on your way to Reddit or something?
"it isn't clear [to you]" <
lumpy (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 11:32
In reply to it just flatly isn't clear by anon (not verified)
"it isn't clear [to you]" <--- FTFY
"Putinite framing" is a bizarre concept in this context, given how you're literally talking about the warlord who declared war. Of course we should never trust warlords at their word but ... what the fuck is the opposite claim here? Putin woke up one morning, assumed he could landgrab with no risk whatsoever and didn't even think of 99% of the cause and effect from rolling the iron dice?
un-fukin-likely. your need to exonerate NATO is waaay more suspicious to a sincere anarchist. it's all just a zero sum game to the warlords on both sides and the western powers absolutely kept poking the bear. pull your head out of your ass or go shill elsewhere
usually westerners do not
anon (not verified) Sat, 12/21/2024 - 05:52
In reply to "it isn't clear [to you]" < by lumpy (not verified)
usually westerners do not care at all about wars. russia georgia, russia chechnya, russia kazahkstan, azerbaijan, armenia. nobody did anything about any of this. it is defintiely something that we can imagine: the US saberrattles but doesnt do anything when russia takes over crimea. instead, they did something. it is not a question of exonerating nato. russia has been acting as a great power for over a century, and probably thought it still could. in effect, it's geopolitical influence has actually sharply shifted, because now the US is giving them their own afghanistan.
"To conclude, let’s summarise
anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2024 - 15:45
"To conclude, let’s summarise the position of the Tactical Natopolitans. It is premised on:"
I'm not in any way interested in anarchists supporting the state of ukraine or whatever. However, your list here misses an important factor, and that's that Russia/Putin decided to invade another country. whether they are reacting to (potential) NATO expansion or not, they are making a conscious decisions to drop missiles/bombs on people. Removing any blame from Russia/Putin is absurd.
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