Anarchist Viewpoints On The War In Ukraine - From Ukraine, Russia, And Belarus
Some American “anarchists”, like their “conservative” counterparts, have been fooled into supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - or at least not supporting the fight of the Ukrainian people against it. Yes, Ukraine isn’t much of a democracy, yes, the government is corrupt and is run by wealthy kleptocrats for the purpose of stealing more money from the people, but Putin and his government are far, far worse, and they would extinguish whatever exists of democracy in Ukraine and make it a vassal state of their “Greater Eurasian Empire”, in fact they would exterminate every element of anarchist resistance which they could find - and there’s plenty of evidence that this is exactly their intent. So it’s entirely legit for anarchists to fight against Russian imperialism, not only in Ukraine, but in Belarus and Russia itself. And far too many American “anarchists” have been turned into corporatist, authoritarian stooges, fighting against everything that they loudly have proclaimed themselves to be for, hence the phenomena of “Antifa” fighting working class people, and destroying their small businesses in favor of corporatist hegemons and oligarchs - by whom they are richly funded. “No War But Class War” in the US has taken on an ironic meaning, it’s the elite university-educated bourgeoisie fighting against the working class, to further state capitalist domination - and then supporting people like Putin, with his coterie of hegemons and oligarchs, against the working class of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia…
“Operation Solidarity – Day 66
to our friends,
today we want to present you two important contributions about our work – and once again wish you a militant may 1st.
We are the Ukrainian anti-authoritarian volunteer network Operation Solidarity.
Though we are people who carry many differing points of view, we share a common understanding of Russian aggression. That understanding is, in summary: that we condemn the invasion by the Russian Federation and their leadership who has orchestrated it.
As anti-authoritarian activists, we immediately joined the resistance movement at the onset of the war. Many of our comrades joined the ranks of the defence forces. Our purpose, therefore, is to supply them with everything they need as well as help others in need whenever we are capable.
One Might ask, “How could people who have consistently opposed the state for many years now defend it with arms and solicit military gear from around the world?”. Our understanding of this war as imperialist and an act of aggression against the people unites us. Here are our reasons why:
This is not–to use the Kremlin’s words–a “war of denazification” Ukraine certainly does have a far-right problem, but its scale and influence are exaggerated by Russian propaganda, which exploits and parasitizes the language and tradition of anti-fascism. Ukraine is a much freer country than Russia, which has increasingly resembled a fascist regime more and more each day since the war began.
This is not a war to liberate Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Today the majority of combats taking place in Ukraine take place in the predominantly Russian-speaking areas, where Russian-speaking people are the main victims of these atrocious war crimes. That is why Ukrainians do not greet the Russian army with flowers and instead enlist with the Territorial Defence to meet “the liberators” in a far different way than Russia claims.
This is not Russia’s war against NATO. It is not NATO’s war against Russia with Ukraine as a proxy either. We are critical of Western imperialism that is so evident in other parts of the world. However, it is Russia – a state that tries to impose its hegemony in the region – that is responsible for this particular war. If Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO’s expansion to the East were the real reasons for war, it would already end. Or, perhaps, it wouldn’t even start.
This is also Putin’s war against his own people. The “special operation”, as the Russian state demands and enforces it be labelled, allowed the Kremlin to institute a brutal dictatorship, repress anti-war demonstrations, eradicate all opposition mass media, and leave so very many Russian citizens who disagreed with the government to leave the country. Belarus, too, finds itself in the same situation. Russian policy treats this systematic repression of dissidents and freedom as a blueprint for the hegemony it wishes to establish over this region as a whole.
Russia’s ambitions of empire yield demands of a magnitude far too costly for anyone to agree with for “peace at any cost”. To kowtow to their demands would inevitably lead to the defeat of all the regional progressive forces. What a peace treaty entails is highly dependent on the situation on the battlefields. That is why we call everyone for whom freedom, equality, sisterhood, and brotherhood are not empty words, to support the Ukrainian resistance movement. There are several ways you can do this, such as by:
Directly supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine or the Territorial Defence;
Supporting volunteer movements and humanitarian initiatives;
Helping Ukrainian refugees;
Demanding that your governments provide financial, humanitarian or military aid to Ukraine;
Advocating for the cancellation of Ukrainian external debt, which would be vital for post-war reconstruction.
Finally, you can support Operation Solidarity. In doing so you can be assured that your support will help anti-authoritarians who fight for a free society. A society free from prejudices, inequality, and aggression.
https://t.me/solidarnistinua”
More:
Operation Solidarity – Day 64
29. April 2022 Leave a comment
to our friends,
first of all, we would like to give you another insight into our practical work in ukraine:
Before the war, Maxim defended the rights of refugees who had fled to Ukraine from conflicts and authoritarian regimes in other regions. And today 4 million have been forced to flee Ukraine because of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Now human rights activists are defending the country on the battlefield so that people can return here as soon as possible. Operation Solidarity has handed over tourniquets, load-bearing equipment, tactical goggles and a thermal imaging camera to Maxim’s unit.
https://t.me/solidarnistinua
at this point we would like to thank samuel, who has supported us with his layout-skills since the beginning of our work – and that with a lot of initiative and creativity. you can see some of his work on the material page.
if you are looking for help with layout (and unlike us also maybe even with the possibility to pay something for it), please contact him.
another project we have worked with from the beginning is the solidarity apothecary – they are currently distributing medicine at the border in poland to refugees and need some support:
there will be another solidarity event for us in berlin soon, thank you.
and last but not least we want to point to this interview with one of the imprisoned anarchists in belarus - An excerpt:
“At the very beginning of the current captivity, I was greatly encouraged by McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s “Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” “He knows: you have to laugh at what torments you, or you can’t keep your balance, or the world will drive you crazy. He knows that life has a painful side, but he doesn’t let pain overshadow comedy, just as comedy doesn’t let pain overshadow comedy.”
Like the Little Prince, I tried to follow a firm rule: “get up in the morning, wash your face, tidy up, and immediately tidy up your planet.
Together with Jean Batista, I strolled through Amsterdam in Albert Camus’s The Fall. I looked at the world through the eyes of Hermann Hesse’s Damien. Reread Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Words” about his decision to become a writer. “The whole man, absorbed in all men, he is worth all, he is worth anyone.”
Of the “thematic” I read Dovlatov’s The Zone, Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Dead House, the first volume of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (in part). I reread again Akhmatova’s beautiful and terrible Requiem.
I wanted to finally read the novels of Andrei Platonov, but here his texts don’t appeal to me at all. But I read his little fairy tale story “The Unknown Flower”, such a beauty.
I reread good old Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” and “Man to Himself”. More than 10 years ago he left a strong imprint, now the patriarchal notes of his works are more critical. I’ve been reading Frederick Perls’s Gestalt Therapy Practicum.
My boldest encroachment was Ricoeur and Gadamer’s Phenomenology of Poetry. I only got through the introduction, but learned that language is metaphorical at its core and that rationality is only a superstructure, that metaphor for poetic language is like a model for scientific language.
This paragraph from Michel Houellebecq’s Opera Bianco hooked me:
There must have been a moment of inclusion when we had nothing against this world. Why is our loneliness so great now? Perhaps something must have happened, but the reasons for the explosion remain incomprehensible to us. We look around, but nothing seems real to us anymore, nothing seems lasting to us anymore.
The last thing I read so far was Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea: “man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated”.
My acquaintance with 10 volumes of paperwork about a non-existent extremist entity is coming to an end. Next will be “the trial.” And so “I lie on my bunk, clutching a volume of Kafka to my chest”.
Do you get postcards or messages from your comrades on the outside?
I get letters from family, and intermittently, and not all from friends. In six months I have received three letters from people I do not know. Postcards of solidarity do not reach me, but several from St. Petersburg were passed on through my mother. From other countries nothing comes either, except Russia. However, in early January 2022 I received a parcel from Warsaw with chocolate and Christmas cards, without the letter. I was very surprised and glad to get such a surprise.
Tell us a couple of stories/people that you remember from your time in the detention center.
There are a lot of interesting people, not all stories can be told. My first roommate was Alexei Shchitnikov, whose car accident in August turned into a 364. There was a man on 342 who took the world very literally and tried intrusively to impose his own rules. Later a man from Borisov stopped by and told me about a military doctor with the same peculiar traits. I believe in accidents less and less. Andrei Pocheryko from Grodno, who cut the stickers of Rabochy Rukh, and got an article for treason against the state. Countless “success stories” by clutchmen, jokes about bitcoins buried in the vegetable garden, and startup ideas a la “drone mephedrone”. An Armenian calling a Turkmen a Tajik.
Here’s the story of a great guy. He was running shisha houses in Minsk, the son of a famous female Gestaltist, and is still learning her craft himself. Three of them got drugs for the purpose of using, one of the company was followed, they detained him too. The charges were part. 3 under 328, they managed to prove part 1. Got 4.5 years open prison arrest. It was a year ago. Already served half a year. Re-examined the case, all the testimony is unchanged. Even the guy who bought it told me how it was. Part 3, 6.5 years in the penitentiary.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you became an anarchist, and why you continue to believe in these ideas?
After this question, I close my eyes, go through my memories all the way back to my childhood, and rather ask myself “why?” and “what does this mean to me?”
There is a sense of justice and a desire for freedom. The only question is how far one can go: psychologically, philosophically, politically. Sensitivity to what is happening inside and outside seeks some kind of harmonious synthesis of the personal and the social. This need stung me from the inside and demanded a concrete resolution. At the same time, anyone who has experienced the effects of power knows of its oppressive effect. This is the point from which the search began, both theoretical and practical.
With this kind of worldview, it is not surprising that of the books that “made me an anarchist” the most was Albert Camus’ The Rebellious Man, which consists of an analysis of the development of existential and historical rebellion. I love music. Having the coolest diy-punk scene in the country, it was hard not to learn that “black rubber is made of power” and meet people with similar views. The personal factor is huge. Meeting amazing people, I realized that many of them were anarchists. The song “Only anarchists are pretty” set the record straight. I’m kidding. Feminists influenced me just as much.
I’ve been helping the homeless people of Minsk for about 10 years as part of the Food Not Bombs initiative. Starting out of a personal desire to help people in need, I became increasingly aware of society’s social problems. Or rather, the role of the state in creating problems for society. In 2012, I was detained at a concert in support of this initiative. That was my first encounter with the police. The authoritarian state itself pushed me to radicalize my views. This is how I became an anarchist.
For me it was important to change the social in an anti-authoritarian direction. I participated in various social, educational and environmental initiatives. In our collectives, interaction and decision-making sought to conform to the ideals of equality, our rhythms of resistance supported all of us in the streets.
Admittedly, for a while, having already developed an anti-authoritarian worldview, I did not call myself an anarchist, treating the word respectfully. It was too cool for me. And scary. Sitting in Volodarka now, accused of participating in the extremist formation Pramen (it doesn’t matter that I am not a member of this media group), I realize that in the common people’s mind, which is represented by the current government, this same fear has not gone anywhere. Solidarity, mutual assistance, self-government and self-organization, personal and social freedom and responsibility still sound too extremist and are called destructive activities.”
https://abc-belarus.org/?p=14912&lang=en
freedom for all!
solidarity will win”
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From Russia - avtonom.org:
”If Ukraine is defeated by Russia, the same authoritarian government that has systematically tortured anarchists and crushed social movements and labor organizing in Russia will control more territory and more people’s lives. Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian anarchists who are participating in the territorial defense have been very clear that they are not fighting for the Ukrainian government but rather against the Russian government, in hopes of staking out a foothold from which to transform Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian society in the future. The consistent anarchists among them, at least, do not argue that Ukrainian democracy is worth defending, but rather that it is impossible to organize in the conditions that prevail in Russia and Belarus right now. They don’t seek to stabilize the Ukrainian government, but to destabilize the Russian government, as they believe this will create the greatest possibility of upheaval in the entire region.
As anarchists and anti-militarists, we ought to be critical of every undertaking that involves any kind of compromise with the state. But our critiques will be most useful if they are well-informed. To willfully shut one’s ears to pleas of actual Russian and Belarusian anarchists who have fled from repression in those countries to Ukraine—and who cannot easily flee to Europe!—in the name of a doctrinaire “anti-militarism” is a poor excuse for solidarity. To shout over their voices, attempting to drown out their pleas with ignorant platitudes from the other side of the ocean, is still more reprehensible.
Yes, we should work towards the defeat of the Russian government, but not by some more powerful government, not by NATO—and not by nationalists of any country. If we make it clear to the millions of ordinary people in Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Georgia, Poland, and for that matter Syria, Myanmar, and everywhere else on the receiving end of the Russian government’s threats that anarchists do not give a damn what happens to them—that they can all die under Russian bombs for all we care, and that if they do anything to defend themselves, we will declare that they are fascist-adjacent—then we will put NATO and the nationalists in a much stronger position. In that case, the vast majority of those who are afraid of ending up like the residents of Mariupol will opt for nationalism or call for more NATO-backed militarization, seeing that we have no real solidarity or strategy to offer them. Proponents of both Putin and NATO would love for anarchists everywhere to adopt such a self-defeating position. So would proponents of the Azov Battalion.
Yes, we should work towards the defeat of NATO, but NATO’s eventual collapse will leave something equally terrible in its wake unless we organize on an international basis starting now. Supposed anti-imperialists whose response to the Russian invasion is to call for isolationism—effectively saying that everyone should just fight against his own (!) state, or against the biggest imperial force, and leave the other states alone—are giving Putin a free hand to torture every anarchist he can get his hands on. They misunderstand the global capitalist ruling class, which is an international entity bound by its own internal solidarities, even in the midst of a war like this. No proletarian has capitalists or politicians of his or her “own.” Empire is not a matter of one nation ruling other nations; it is a structure, like the state itself, that has multiple interconnected centers. Internationalism means fighting against all the politicians and capitalists of the world and standing in solidarity with all others who fight them, even if our comrades in warzones are forced by their dire circumstances to prioritize which ones they confront first. If all of us had extended proper solidarity to Russian anarchists starting in 2012, when the crackdowns there began, perhaps things would never have reached this terrible juncture.
It’s not surprising when the lackeys of certain politicians and capitalists accuse anarchists of serving rival politicians and capitalists. Their agenda is obvious. But anarchists should not sling such accusations at other anarchists lightly. If all it takes to be accused of being pro-NATO and pro-fascist is to defend yourself against a government that is opposed by NATO and fascists, it will take very little to disrupt our networks. Actual pro-Putin tankies [Stalinists] would love to have such an easy means to fracture our movements. So would the FBI and FSB.
If it’s awkward to find yourself opposing the same enemy that another of your enemies is fighting, just wait until civil war arrives in the United States. Many anarchists have already experienced being called Nazis when they fight against the police and being accused of being shills for neoliberalism when they fight against the Nazis. We know better than to pay any mind to the liberals and fascists who attempt to reduce all conflict to a false binary between nightmarish alternatives. When people who call themselves anarchists attempt to do the same thing, we should not be cowed by their invective.
So what should we do, if we don’t look to armies to bring an end to wars? What alternative can we propose to the Sholem Schwarzbards of our day, lest they join the military?
If we want to stop the Russian invasion without legitimizing militarism, nationalism, and government, the first step is to support grassroots anti-war organizing in Russia and Belarus, which is disproportionately anarchist, and to support anti-authoritarian prisoners in Russia and Belarus, of whom there are many. The next step is to target capitalists of all nationalities who continue to finance or benefit from Putin’s imperial adventures—we should do this via direct action, sending the message that social movements can address militarism directly without seeking protection from any rival militarist state. If we can do those things effectively, it will position us well to exert pressure against NATO militarism, fascist recruiting, and Ukrainian state repression. If we don’t do those things effectively, pro-NATO and pro-nationalist critics will be able to argue persuasively that we are doing nothing to halt the Russian assault on Ukraine, and they will consequently be able to continue to use the Russian invasion to rally support.
We will be most effective in achieving our immediate aims and in building long-term networks of international solidarity if we are communicating directly with anarchists from a variety of tendencies and vantage points in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Likewise, we ought to do our best to maximize the likelihood that anarchists in Ukraine survive the war, including the ones who are fighting against the Russian invasion. It is a good thing that the anarchists who have chosen to fight in Ukraine have access to medical IFAKs, plate carriers, and the like. We should have raised money years ago to supply the same resources to anarchists fighting in Rojava, quite apart from the question of whether participating in military action qualifies as “anarchist.” There are really not that many of us and we should treat each other’s lives as precious even when we disagree. Having failed to do so in the past is no justification for failing to do it now.
We should oppose all tendencies to dehumanize people on all sides of the war, whether by calling Russian soldiers “orcs,” changing the subject to Azov in discussions about the suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians, or centering the lives of Ukrainian refugees over the lives of refugees who do not benefit from white privilege.
Finally, we should be organizing to support refugees and migrants of all nationalities—as Ukrainian and Polish anarchists aligned with the projects attacked in “No War but the Class War” have already been doing, despite the authors’ citationless claim that anti-border organizing has been “sidelined by the fetishizing of militancy in the form of state-backed militias.” We need to organize with refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, and everywhere else, learning from their experiences and analyses, not immediately branding them as “defen[ders] of the Western liberal-democratic project” when their perspectives differ from ours (as the “No War” authors do in their efforts to discredit Syrian refugees who fled the Putin-backed massacres in Western Syria).
Solidarity with refugees should also extend to the Ukrainian citizens that the Ukrainian government has forbidden from leaving Ukraine on account of their age and ascribed gender.
The only hope for lasting peace in Ukraine lies in not military conflict but in mutiny and rebellion—especially on the side of Russia, which initiated this war. A unilateral mutiny in the Ukrainian military alone would only guarantee that Kyiv and Lviv end up looking like Mariupol (and that there would be endless sequels to the Network case in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as well as Russia). We have to foment rebellion on both sides of the battle lines; as Andrew argued, it will take “a mass movement on both sides of the frontline and in the armies themselves.” Presumably, that is just what Russian and Belarusian and Ukrainian anarchists are working towards in their various efforts to cooperate, none of which received a mention in the “No War” text—either because the authors are oblivious of them or because they consider them to be “NATO-aligned.”
Mobilizing an international resistance that can prevent wars like the one in Ukraine is already challenging. It will only become more difficult if we needlessly write off massive segments of the worldwide anarchist movement as pro-NATO or pro-fascist. We should maintain dialogue with those who are trying out hypotheses other than our own, the better to learn from the results and refine our own critiques.
What proposal do the authors of “No War but the Class War” make regarding how to respond to invasions without participating in state-aligned military formations the way that Schwarzbard did? They speak abstractly about “condemn[ing] invasion and militarization” and “solidarity with anti-war protestors, defectors from the armed forces, and conscription saboteurs.” Condemnations alone are not worth the bytes they are printed on, and as for solidarity with anti-war protestors, the authors’ chief contribution to that seems to be smearing the anarchist projects that have been translating and publishing Russian anarchist perspectives.
The most concrete thing we have to go on from the authors about how they intend to express this “solidarity” is the image they use to illustrate their article: a screenshot of a video taken by an anti-war arsonist who set fire to a military registration and enlistment office in the city of Lukhovitsy. Once again, however, the witness they have summoned testifies against them: the Russian anarchist venues that have circulated news of this action, foremost of which is Anarchist Fighter, are advocates of anarchist participation in the territorial defense of Ukraine. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian anarchists accept a false dichotomy between fighters in Kyiv and arsonists in Lukhovitsy—that dichotomy is an import product from San Francisco.
In this case, as well as in their ill-fated choice to invoke the spirit of Sholem Schwarzbard, the authors appear to have made the classic insurrectionist error of assuming that those they perceive as employing the most militant tactics must therefore share their politics. Somebody burned a recruitment center, so he or she must agree that Ukrainian nationalism is as terrible a scourge as Russian militarism—never mind that the arsonist spray-painted a Ukrainian flag as a part of the action! Sholem Schwarzbard shot a former president—therefore he cannot possibly have violated Rosa Luxemburg’s instructions and enlisted in the French army to fight in the Second World War!
One of the most fundamental divides in the world is between ideologues who assume that everything is simple and those who suffer the complications of the world in their own communities, on their own bodies. It’s effortless to “refus[e] to stand on any side of a war between imperialist states” when you’re ten thousand miles away, but it is more complicated for people in Kharkiv, Minsk, and Moscow right now. Do we have more to learn from dialogue with those for whom such a question is easy because it is abstract, or from those for whom it is painfully complicated?” https://avtonom.org/en/news/spirit-sholem-schwarzbard-addressing-confusion-about-war-ukraine
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From Belarus:
WE AND THE WAR
Over the past month you have seen that our team publishes information extremely rarely, and on the site itself news almost does not appear. This is due directly to the events taking place in Ukraine. Some of our comrades are involved in one form or another in the fight against the Russian invasion, and the focus of our collective has shifted to just that. Not on the publication of articles and political perspectives, but on the practical use of our skills against the “Russian world”. The very Russian world, which the Belarussian dictatorship is a representative of.
We fight not for the Ukrainian state, corrupt politicians or big business. Our struggle is primarily aimed at the protection of the people from the atrocities of the Russian dictatorship. And we believe that right now every anarchist from Belarus, Ukraine or Russia should make every possible effort to fight Putin’s fascism, which is marching all over the planet under the symbols Z and V.
This does not mean that you have to join the territorial defense here and now and take up arms. There are many tasks that are important to the existence of the resistance. Join this struggle – there can be no neutral position in this situation. The fight against Lukashenko’s dictatorship is directly related to the destruction of the Putin regime.
Our struggle is not a battle for the borders of this or that state. We do not want new presidents who would be able to solve all problems. We want a world where people decide how to live and how to rebuild their country, and where social and economic systems are built so that there can be no more oligarchs or new dictators.
For a world without wars, state and capitalism
Pramen” https://pramen.io/en/2022/04/we-and-the-war/