Capitalism’s war without end or Class War?

by Wayne Price Thu Mar 09, 2023 07:59 drwdprice at aol dot com

On the Ukrainian-Russian War, Dreyfus of AnarCom Network takes the "No War but Class War" position. As usual for those who take this view, he or she reduces the issue to an inter-imperialist conflict between the Russian state and the US state and its allies. This is regarded as essentially the same as World War I, or WWII, or the Cold War. Naturally, as anarchists we oppose both imperialist sides.

At no point does Dreyfus ask about the people of Ukraine, who are mostly workers, farmers, lower middle class people, and the poor. While they have a state and a capitalist economy, they are real, living, people, with a culture and politics of their own. They are being invaded, occupied, bombed and shot, killed in large numbers, by an imperialist power which openly declares that they are not a people, not a country, and should be totally assimilated into the Russian empire. Their fight is not an inter-imperialist war but a struggle for national self-determination. (While Ukraine is not itself imperialist, it has taken arms from the Western imperialists, as opposed to being smashed--as is its right.) The NATO powers have their own imperialist motives of course, but it is the Ukrainian people who are fighting and dying for their country's independence, not NATO soldiers.

Anarchists stand for freedom. Bakunin, Malatesta, Daniel Guerin, and many other revolutionary anarchists (but not all) have supported the fight of oppressed peoples for self-determination. They distinguished between wars of national independence against imperialist aggression and wars between imperialist states.

Today, almost all Ukrainian (non-pacifist) anarchists are supporting the Ukrainian side in the war. So do almost all Russian and Belarusian anarchists. So should all revolutionary class struggle anarchist-communists (anarchist-socialists).

by Wayne Price Thu Mar 09, 2023 08:03 drwdprice at aol dot com

For further discussion, see my essay, "Are Anarchists Giving In to War Fever? In Defense of Anarchists Who Support the Ukrainian People."

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32731

by mazen Mon Mar 13, 2023 23:45

why supporting Ukrainian workers means only sending them arms to kill and die , their lives are supposed to not be dispensable , their lives matter not to just be sacrificed for the freedom of their nation or state , why you do not go and share their destiny and struggle , freedom loving anarchists went to Spain to defend its freedom , why not in Ukraine now

by Wayne Price Wed Mar 15, 2023 04:17 drwdprice at aol dot com

To Mazen: It is not I but the Ukrainian workers who have decided to “kill and die”, defending their homes and families and their country. Ordinary people have volunteered to be part of the struggle. There are often more volunteers for the Ukrainian army than there are positions open at any one time.

It is the Ukrainian workers who have decided to “be sacrificed” in the struggle against the imperialist invader, occupier, and mass murderer of the the Russian state. It is the majority of Ukrainian (and Russian and Belarusian) anarchists who have decided to support the Ukrainian people’s struggle. They did not need any encouragement from me. Nor do they need any discouragement from you.

by mazen Wed Mar 15, 2023 17:20

neither the German or English workers before the Somme offensive , nor the Iranian workers fighting for Khomeini' s paradise or the Iraqi ones fighting for the great Arab state or nation imagined by Saddam

by Wayne Fri Mar 17, 2023 09:20 drwdprice at aol dot com

Mazen: World War I, between the Anglo-French war and Germany was a war between two imperialist camps, unlike the Russian/Ukrainian war. And there was a lot of discontent among the soldiers, including mutiny in the French army and participation in the German revolution.

The war between Saddam’s Iraq and Khomenei’s Iran was between two oppressed nations, neither one imperialist (although each state wanted to dominate their region). A case can be made for supporting Iran, but I won’t go into that. Again, this was not a war between an imperialist world power and a poor, oppressed, nation.

In any case, the Ukrainians are not fighting due to my urging but because they are aware—unlike you—that their people, their homes, their culture, their national identity and language, and their towns, villages, and homes, are under aggressive imperial attack and massacre. Unlike the lying propaganda of World War I, this is really happening and they are right to resist.

Mazen, You ask me ad hominem, if I support the Ukrainian struggle, “why you do not go and share their destiny and struggle?” I ask instead, Why don’t you go to Ukraine and tell them not to resist Russian aggression?

by mazen Sun Mar 19, 2023 00:31

The war between Saddam and Khomeni was not between two opressad nations , it was between two opressing dictators , your obsession with imperialism is a little bit funny here ... Thank god that you decided not to support Khomeni , that would be a catastrophe , for ordinary Iranians as for everybody
Don't know why you are so proud that in your free Ukraine , that is of Mr Zelinsky , no other opinion can be tolerated , allowed or could be expressed but yours and Mr. Zelinsky's , that is exactly the type of freedom that I do not like or support , hope you agree with me too ... In a free country , ordinary people are allowed , expected and should say what they think about their own life and fate , not to be told , forced , silenced when they think for themselves despite what their leaders think or want
Thanks for your humbleness , I thought you compare yourself with freedom loving anarchists , like Malatesta or Bakunin , so humble of you to compare yourself with somebody like me , who does not care for the freedom of nations or preserving their national identity
I never consider myself a member of any herd , let it be a nation or any other , I do care for the freedom of everyone on this earth regardless their national identity or other charachteristics forced upon us by birth ; but I am responsible , first and before all , of mine ; which I am not ready to sacrifice or restrain under any cirumatances or alibi

by mazen Sun Mar 19, 2023 00:31

The war between Saddam and Khomeni was not between two opressad nations , it was between two opressing dictators , your obsession with imperialism is a little bit funny here ... Thank god that you decided not to support Khomeni , that would be a catastrophe , for ordinary Iranians as for everybody
Don't know why you are so proud that in your free Ukraine , that is of Mr Zelinsky , no other opinion can be tolerated , allowed or could be expressed but yours and Mr. Zelinsky's , that is exactly the type of freedom that I do not like or support , hope you agree with me too ... In a free country , ordinary people are allowed , expected and should say what they think about their own life and fate , not to be told , forced , silenced when they think for themselves despite what their leaders think or want
Thanks for your humbleness , I thought you compare yourself with freedom loving anarchists , like Malatesta or Bakunin , so humble of you to compare yourself with somebody like me , who does not care for the freedom of nations or preserving their national identity
I never consider myself a member of any herd , let it be a nation or any other , I do care for the freedom of everyone on this earth regardless their national identity or other charachteristics forced upon us by birth ; but I am responsible , first and before all , of mine ; which I am not ready to sacrifice or restrain under any cirumatances or alibi

by Wayne Tue Mar 21, 2023 01:34 drwdprice at aol dot com

I have an “obsession with imperialism” because today’s world capitalist system takes the form of imperialism. Maybe to you this is “a little bit funny,” but the oppression and exploitation of most of humanity by a small number of capitalists in a few countries is no joke.

You write, “Don't know why you are so proud that in your free Ukraine , that is of Mr Zelinsky , no other opinion can be tolerated , allowed or could be expressed but yours and Mr. Zelinsky’s.” I have no idea where you get the idea that I am proud of political repression in Ukraine. I have never stated this. It is a lie. I have repeatedly stated that Ukrainian anarchists should be spreading the ideas of revolutionary anarchism as best as they can under war conditions.

I also don’t get your references to my “humbleness.” Probably you are calling me arrogant for “comparing myself” to Bakunin and Malatesta. I made no comparison. I merely showed that Bakunin, Malatesta, and many other anarchists had supported national liberation struggles and distinguished them from inter-imperialist wars.

You conclude, “I never consider myself a member of any herd , let it be a nation or any other.” But I do not give a damn about what you think about yourself. The question is what the Ukrainians think, that they consider themselves Ukrainians, and want to decide their own future without being invaded, occupied, bombed, massacred, their children kidnapped, their language suppressed, and their people destroyed. We who love freedom must be in solidarity with them.

by mazen Mon Mar 27, 2023 04:05

Wayne , the way you think about imperialism is this : you are just anxious about defining who is the imperialist side in any conflict and then you support the side who is fighting it , this is so simplistic and automatic .... ISIS is a stubborn anti imperialist man , they think that the world is being ruled by the wrong imperialism ... Imperialism is just a way of repression and exploitation , I suppose that you are against any repression and exploitaion , not only of this imperialism or that , by this system or that ... Iran Iraq war is a good example you decided not to answer

You challenged me before , to go to your free Ukraine to tell the Ukrainain oworkers not to kill and die for their state or nation , of course neither me or anyone can do so in your free Ukraine ... What I understood is that you are proud of the degree of freedom enjoyed by your freely devoted Ukranian workers , that is decided not by them as you implies , but by the thugs of Zelinsky , the watchdogs of his regime who take so great care to decide what Ukranians can hear and talk about

Man , why you don't give a shit about what German workers wanted under Hitler or Italian ones under El Duce , they defined themselves , freely , as Germans or Italians and were for the greatness of their nations ... You know why you resort to such harsh languange in your answer , because you don't want to see or admit what is in front of your eyes : nations are made , they are artificial things created by a prevailing elite who would promote its hegemony as freedom of *its nation*....

It is a total illusion that Ukranian peasants defined themselves as Ukranian since the dawn of history and will do so until its end , for a long long time these poor humans were defined only by the name of their master , the master of their village , no more

And for a long long time they defined themselves by the masters and churchs that controlled them and by the later's prevailing ideology

You don't want to admit that Ukraine is just a herd , created by Zelinsky and alike , just to rob Ukranian workers of what Putin is willing to rob them of

Please go back to the peasants wars and revolts in the middle ages , those peasants revolted against , and were massacred by their fellow landlords ... The Parisian proletariate revolted againts their capitalists and statesmen
Nationalism is just a lie to convince people to abide by the laws and orders of their own governments , to accept exploitation of their own capitalists , and of course to kill and die on the hands of workers and opressed from *other* nations

The Ukrainan workers whome you want to keep killing and dying , whome you love so dearly to that extent , they just want , like other workers from the underdeveloped world , to be allowed to work in the fluent rich big capitalist states as their colleagues from Eastern Europe , that was the whole idea of MIDAN revolt

Finally , take it easy man , you are not Biden , nor a general , a CEO or a capitalist , you got nothing for your fierce support for the going meat grinder in Ukraine , don't be so emotional about the ongoing slaughter , you will only damage your health , Iet aside the lives of Ukranian workers who you love so much that you wish them dead

by Wayne Price Tue Mar 28, 2023 07:40

According to you, I love the Ukrainian workers so much I “wish them dead.” I want “the Ukrainian workers…to keep killing and dying.” Gee, and I thought it was the imperialist Russian state that wanted to kill as many Ukrainian workers as possible and then dissolve the Ukrainian nation. And that you did not want them to resist (presumably because a victory by the Russian state would end the killing?).

You think the “whole Idea of the Maidan revolt” was to get better jobs in Western Europe. You Mazen have such contempt for the Ukrainians that you say “Ukraine’s just a herd.” You think that the Ukrainian workers who are resisting the invasion and mass murder by imperialist Russia are no differently motivated than were the workers in fascist Italy and Germany in World War II. (That the majority of the German working class were opposed to Nazism is something you miss, as was the Italian antifascist revolutionary forces which fought the fascists near the end of the war.)

I don’t like to get into personalistic arguments, let alone name calling. I know nothing about you as a person as you know nothing about me. But your lack of concern about the conquest of a people by a murderous imperialist invasion is cold and cruel, especially for someone who apparently regards himself as an anarchist.

by mazen Tue Mar 28, 2023 13:07

Your world is painted in black and white , consists only of saints and demons , where workers rarely do any mistakes and where they are ulmost always derived with their good nature towards freedom and good

I see it in a different way , here , on earth , there is neither saints nor demons , just human beings , with all their shortcomings and strengths , with only a rare few that can overcome the temptation of authority when they get the chance to dominate ,

And believe it or not , yes , Ukrainian workers fighting under Zelinsky against Putin's aggression and the German ones who supported Hitler and the Russian workers who revolted against their tzar , they are all alike , they all , we all , have the same nature , they are neither saints nor demons , they do mistakes , horrible things and good things , they must be vigilant all the time or they would be used , abused , deceived , or even deceive others , etc

In your world there is no Zelinsky , but even you cannot notice him he still shares some important features with your saints , he is Ukrainian and not an imperialist ... On the other hand you cannot deny that he is not a worker or that he is not repressing your saints or not robbing them

In your world also there is no Biden or NATO , you choose to ignore them as you implicitly choose the lesser evil theory

Use harsh language , call me names , I will do that if needed also , life is so short and to see what is really in front of us we need to get rid of all the taboos , to go beyond all the limits , I have no fixed dogmas that I should abide by , nothing can frighten me and make me stop being critical or even ridiculous and I expect the same from you and everyone , no offence and no regrets ... If I discover that anarchism is a shit I would say it without any hesitation , the only thing that makes me an anarchist is that anarchism is difficult to be domestified