Inaugural meeting of the Network of Anarchist Internationalists – NAI.   November 9th, 2025

From ANTIMILITARISTICKÁ INICIATIVA [ AMI ]

Over the last few months, various revolutionary internationalist anarchist organisations put their names to the following statement. Though itself ready for an update it was the precursor to establishing a new network of anarchist internationalists to achieve the following:

Collective solidarity, practical on the ground and in revolutionary principle;  To be a hub for the exchange and presentation of information and propaganda; To distinguish ourselves from those oppositionist groups that use the name anarchism but no longer defend Revolutionary internationalism and, to provide a coherent reference point in the libertarian tradition as other international initiatives take place around the imperative of ‘no war but the class war.’

The supporting signatories are appended below and more invites will go out to others who hold to revolutionary internationalist opposition to all wars as subsequent meetings to develop the network progress.

“The Network of Anarchist Internationalists is:  For revolutionary defeatism in every waring state!

Will: Support war resisters, draft dodgers, deserters, and conscientious objectors!

Calls for: A major libertarian internationalist initiative to counter militaristic propaganda!

Nuclear catastrophe approaches!  The ruling classes ‘East’ and ‘West’ are charlatans whose lust for power and profit is increasingly based on the war industry. 

The self-styled West is articulating scenarios of a new world war. For them, the ‘free world’ is fighting an existential battle against ‘autocracies’ increasingly identified with orientalist stereotypes threatening to destroy our alleged ‘civilisation’.

Nations in this ‘democratic’ camp such as Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, are lauded as fighting the same global battle of the ‘good guys’ against the ‘evil’. This logic even enlists Syria’s islamists on the side of the ‘good guys’.

On the other side, Russia, China and Iran, totalitarian states ruled by secret police, party enforcers and clerics. Each violently suppresses our class’s struggle against austerity and the march to war.

For a libertarian internationalist initiative against the militaristic propaganda disseminated daily, which presents our supposedly “good” armed states as if they were a humanitarian enterprise!

We need to offer practical and moral support to war resisters, draft dodgers, deserters and groups taking internationalist positions, especially in the war zones.

Supporting refusal, conscience, desertion and draft evasion on all sides of the war fronts, for revolutionary defeatism, is fundamental. Russia and Ukraine themselves recognise desertion as a major obstacle to their death programmes.

This support within the framework of our internationalism, promotes initiatives to challenge nationalism and borders, territorial sovereignty, the nation-state or it’s proto-state rivals, building new mechanisms of international solidarity and siblinghood.

The front lines are closer than you think, no further than the nearest arms or components factory, than the nearest logistics depot, transport hub or communications centre. 

The war is where the ports and airports are, the military bases and their reserve barracks. It’s the rail networks and motorways, the towns, estates, cities and factories where we as workers’ pay the price of war in poverty from worsening austerity.  And now the threat of conscription.

We cannot move without being at war and when we notice it, the rhetorical guns blaze “disrupter, extremist, traitor!”  We must be all these things.  It’s time to distinguish our movement clearly from those who support “some wars before the class war”. 

We are clear that revolutionaries not only oppose their wars but call for the transformation of war resistance into a social revolution!  We do not call for a return to the situation before the war, their “capitalist peace”, which is just their repression of us in preparation for their next bloody enterprise.

What can we do practically, individually and collectively, home and abroad? On the most basic level, thinking globally, acting locally.  Refuse their consensus and call out the hypocrisy, advocating for ourselves and our class across frontiers.  Collectively, reject their ‘national interest’.

Link our struggles to austerity and their war profiteering.  Everything we do for ourselves, and our class hinders their ‘warfare-state’.  Join in solidarity across locality and trade – victory on the home front is a victory and example abroad.

From the Arctic rivers to the Red Sea, from Taiwan to the Congo basin, continental frontiers are aflame or bristling in preparation. The changing faces of the superpower masquerades change nothing. They want us to fight – one capitalism, one war! The danger is real, the danger is now!

Comments

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/18/2025 - 17:34

Always funny when anarchists take up a Leninist term, revolutionary defeatism, but have no idea what it means, confusing it with anti-militarism or refusal and desertion. Also funny when they think internationalism means pretending colonialism doesn't exist. It's like white people who say they don't see color.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/19/2025 - 10:58

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

This fact is only true in some cases. Yes, if we are speaking scientifically, white is the combination of all colors and black is the absence of color.

And yet, I feel certain that if you had to choose upon pain of death, the white stone out of a pile of black stones you would be able to, because we don't see in the abstract, we see in the actual.

But possibly you are trying to be cute by saying in a roundabout way that race is not real. Again, true and not true. Race is a social construct, and race has real effects on real people in the actual world.

In my experience, the only people who say they don't see color when referring to people are white supremacists trying to dupe others about their beliefs.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/19/2025 - 18:40

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

"the only people who say they don't see color when referring to people are white supremacists trying to dupe others about their beliefs."

Only in your indoctrinated mind, fella. People with dark skin complexion are brown-skinned people to me (even if they're called Black as social construct), just like those White supremacists are pinky beige bigots who, yes, are hard-convinced of the existence of Race, not the contrary, and have committed violence and murder due to this very conviction.

Race is a creation of imperialism and its slave trade, and that's an historical fact. Not just the Western empires. Slaves used to be valued along the lines of racial-based properties. Just like the horror of enslavement, I don't wanna see it live any longer, even if I know society will be maintaining it.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/20/2025 - 16:31

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Regarding 1734:
It's even funnier when USA type anarchists get their notions of reality from Stalinism, as you do. If a good idea is a good idea, then it may well be of use even when coming from a dubious source. Maybe the anarchists in question are trying to engage with the larger reality around us on a larger reality's term, rather than simply being loyal to a historically superannuated dogma. Revolutionary defeatism is a society-wide approach to the problem, as opposed to the nebulous atomized resistance that you appear to be positing as an alternative. The atomized response is all that a subculture of disengaged drop-outs can ever come up with.

Anti-colonial struggles have consistently proven to be pro-capitalist struggles. The only war worth fighting is a social war between social classes.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/20/2025 - 19:12

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Yeah, I'm a Stalinist like Bakunin when he said back in the 1870s that "every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself.” Stalin used a time machine and forced him to say that.

Stalin also used his time machine to force Lenin to say "“if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be ‘just,’ ‘defensive’ wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory ‘great’ powers.”

Sorry I can't be a true Trotskyist-Luxemburgist anarchist like you who doesn't have the slightest clue what anarchists believed or how Lenin defined revolutionary defeatism.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 14:58

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

To 19:12 -
Bakunin's 'Collectivist Anarchism' is based on market relations, so that tends to render the rest of his song and dance routine useless.

And I never hitched the rest of my cart to Lenin and his politics. Frankly I'm not even sure that he coined the concept of revolutionary defeatism, although it was spot on and all the real revolutionaries are always for this.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 07:30

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

"It's even funnier when USA type anarchists get their notions of reality from Stalinism"

lol... no that was your mom. So to say, this stupid shit's not even worth arguing with.

"Anti-colonial struggles have consistently proven to be pro-capitalist struggles."

What is your historical reference for such a brutish claim? The post-war decolonization movement, right? I can safely guess you got your anarchist history classes from MAGA or the CIA... Read a few books, dumbass.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 15:09

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

To 07:30 -
The basis for this 'brutish claim' is the 100 percent track record of what's happened every place on earth where a national liberation movement has taken power. These are pro-capitalist political movements. They are not about a global social revolution to abolish wage labor and commodity production.

Check out a title published by Monthly Review press under the neutral-sounding title 'Revolution in the Third World' by a French writer named Chalieu (sp?). The original title, 'Myth of the Third World Revolution' is more telling.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 20:50

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Just because those natlib movements weren't conforming to your marxist ideals doesn't make them capitalistic. I have yet to read this book by *Chaliand*, but that's absurd to be dismissing *every single* national liberation movement, in, say, Africa, as capitalist. Is this what Bougainville and Angola have been about? Not quite.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 08:02

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

20:50 - Angola is a fossil fuel kleptocracy. Anyone who is not in a coma can see that. And regimes produced by national liberation struggles definitely conform to your pro-capitalist anarcho-liberal, not antagonistic to any aspect of the existing state of things sentiments.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 20:52

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

You're clearly confusing the FNLA with the MPLA. Of course the latter were pro-Soviet Castrists... so not "pro-capitalists", at least not back in the civil war times. If foreign Big Oil's in the country these days, this is likely due to same-old buying offs of government officials over the years, especially since the country has stabilized.

I'm very critical of natlib movements and especially for not being anarchist movements that lean toward state-building... but to say they're ALL pro-capitalist is a pretty self-defeating statement.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Sat, 12/20/2025 - 16:51

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

It is not all that funny to see anarchists call themselves "internationalists" when they deny the fight against colonialism and imperialism--as is implied in the slogan, "No War But Class War." Class (capitalism today) is not the only oppression and the state is not the only organization of oppression, although both are central and important. Women's oppression, white supremacy, LGBTQ oppression, ecological destruction ("domination of nature"), and many others may be mentioned--not least the exploitation of colonies and neo-colonies by imperialist powers. All these are supported by and intertwined with class and state. The fight against them all is supported by all principled and consistent anarchists, up to war against the oppressors.

The slightest knowledge of anarchist tradition would show that wars of national liberation were supported by revolutionary anarchists--internationalists--from the start. Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Makhno, Bonnano, and many others supported oppressed peoples (countries, nations, communities, whatever term is preferred) in their wars. Bakunin wrote, "I feel, frankly and always, the patriot of all the oppressed homelands....Every people, weak or strong, every nation, large or small, every province, every commune has the absolute right to be free, autonomous, to live and govern themselves according to their particular interests.” Malatesta declared, “…True
[anarchist-] socialism consists of hoping for and provoking, when possible, the subjected people to drive away the invaders, whoever they are.” (Further references available on request for the ignorant.)

In today's world, all oppressed nations either have their own (capitalist) states or are trying to achieve states. Unfortunately, anarchists have not yet persuaded their people of stateless socialism. However, to refuse to support a people's liberation struggle because they have or want a state means to capitulate to the imperial invader and to abandon the workers, farmers, and poor to their own and the oppressor's rule. Anarchists are open in their opposition to states and capitalism while, at the same time, supporting all peoples in their struggles at whatever level of consciousness they have reached so far.

The statement does not reject the Palestinian people. Their leaders are jihadists, secular nationalists, and Marxist-Leninists--all aiming for (their own) authoritarian state. True internationalist revolutionary anarchists are politically opposed to all of them and find ways to say so. But we remain in solidarity with the Palestinian people against the Israeli and U.S. states. The exact same method should be used in relation to Ukraine and any other oppressed nation.

Of course the initiating issue here is the Ukrainian-Russian war. Much has been written on this topic by me and others. What is saddest here is that these would-be "internationalists" have been so flummoxed by this war (between an oppressed nation and an imperialist state) that they have abandoned the central principle of anarchism: to be on the side of all those oppressed and exploited, against all authoritarianism and domination, whether by the state or any other source. Shame on them.

Black Cat (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 05:09

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Wayne Price is like a broken record player that plays the same part of a song over and over again. If this record player cannot be "repaired," perhaps it is better to destroy it and throw it in the trash.

Let's summarize:

1) Wayne claims that there are other forms of oppression. But revolutionary anarchists have known this for a long time. https://antimilitarismus.noblogs.org/post/2025/08/04/is-class-still-rel…
They also know that the response cannot be identity politics, but class struggle. For example, we cannot find a solution to colonial or racist oppression if we abandon the terrain of class struggle.

2) Wayne quotes anarchist classics to "prove" that supporting national liberation struggles, i.e., nationalism, is right. But just because some anarchists made a mistake in their analysis doesn't mean we have to repeat that mistake today.

3) Wayne, like his soldier friends, creates emotional pressure by claiming that anyone who does not support the Ukrainian army is refusing to support the oppressed in their fight against their oppressors. This is a lie and manipulation. Internationalist anarchists support the oppressed in Ukraine in their struggle against the oppressors. By oppressors, I mean Putinists, Russian imperialism, the Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian army, etc. The broken record plays a song in which Russia is the only oppressor. But while his friends serve in the Ukrainian army, that same army forcibly mobilizes the proletariat. The Ukrainian state army is not a liberating institution. It is an oppressor, and we support the oppressed who are fighting against it. Similarly, we also support the fight against the Russian army. For us, however, this does not mean unreservedly serving the Ukrainian state and its war policy, which massacres the proletariat just as much as Russia's war policy. The difference may be in quantity and methods, but the principle is the same. We support neither Russia nor Ukraine. Only the proletariat.

Note: Perhaps it would be more helpful to the proletariat if we stopped wasting time on further discussions with people like Wayne. It's funny how Wayne Price protects the illusion that his opponents are just talking nonsense, but in practice they are not helping anyone or organizing direct action against the war. Let him live with his illusion. When he meets a deserter from the Ukrainian army or someone who fled mobilization, maybe he'll tell him what he thinks about the national liberation struggle. Maybe he'll say it so emphatically that it will hurt Wayne a lot. But that's life. When you defend aggressors, you have to expect that someone might respond with violence.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 13:41

In reply to by Black Cat (not verified)

2) Were anarchists mistaken to support national liberation struggles though? Should Kanaky still be under the direct control of France (like it is)? Should the Congo still be under the direct control of Belgium (like it isn't any longer)? Anarchists did make mistakes in the past but I'm not sure how this is one of them. Others have argued that national liberation is wrong because it hasn't ended capitalism, but they seem to forget this is the case for literally every single kind of struggle, including workers' struggle. Ending slavery (in some countries) didn't end capitalism. Women's liberation struggles haven't ended capitalism. Does that mean those struggles are wrong and we're better off with slavery and the more intense patriarchal systems of the past? Seems like the real reason some anarchists and marxists oppose national liberation is because they're of the colonizer countries, not the colonized.

Tim Declercq Mon, 12/22/2025 - 02:14

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Even so, how would this apply to Ukraine? To find out which country, if any, controls another one could look at which country's security and repressive apparatus is active and in control in another country. Ukraine isn't full of FSB bases, it's full of CIA bases, so if anything it's a US colony and this has been the case since 2014. In Kanaky it's the French security apparatus running the show, in earlier Congo it was the Belgian security apparatus running the show, and in Ukraine it's the US security apparatus running the show.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 10:31

In reply to by Tim Declercq

It applies in that Ukraine needs to be freed from Russia, Ukraine, the US, the EU and Canada, etc. Just like how Kropotkin and Malatesta were in agreement about the Greeks of Crete being righteous (if not perfect) in their struggle for freedom from the Ottoman Empire but it being wrong for anarchists to get directly involved or ignore British imperialist intervention. There's no contradiction between anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, or between anti-militarism and anti-colonialism. In fact, I'd argue you can't be fully anti-militarist without being anti-colonial, just like you can't be fully anti-colonial without being anti-militarist. Both Wayne and the ACG type leftcom anarchists are equally wrong in that they think the one stance cancels out the other. Whereas the members of the CNT who said they couldn't really be internationalist if they didn't free Morocco from Spain were right! Just as the CNT/FAI members who opposed militarism and militarization were more right than those who resigned themselves to it.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 17:20

In reply to by Tim Declercq

Tim argues that Ukraine is dominated by US imperialism and not by Russian imperialism. His proof? "Ukraine isn't full of FSB bases...."

This is only partially true. Bases of Russian police and agents are mighty plentiful in Crimea and the parts of the Donbas which have been conquered by the imperialist Russian military.

But it is true that the rest of Ukraine is not full of Russian police bases. Why? Because the Ukrainians have spent their lives and blood fighting to keep the invading Russian army from seizing the whole of Ukraine and planting their FSB bases in every city, town, and neighborhood. The Russians would have done that already if Tim and co-thinkers had their way. Instead the Ukrainians had the nerve to fight against the Russian state's aggression.

As for the capitalist Ukrainian state's taking aid from Western imperialism, even from the CIA (although Ukraine is hardly "full" of CIA "bases") this is mainly due to the long-standing threat of Russian aggression, which was finally implemented in the current invasion. By all means, Ukrainian, U.S., and all anarchists must be opposed to the CIA's machinations. But the immediate enemy is the invading army which has seized whole sections of Ukraine and planted its own police bases throughout its occupied territory.

Tim Declercq Mon, 12/22/2025 - 20:33

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Your NATO shilling is tiresome. As for all the CIA bases in Ukraine, why are you even bothering denying this? Even bourgeois media has reported extensively on this, including in particular on the dozen or so secret bases that were under threat by the invasion as they were right next to the border, for example: https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-maintains-12-secret-bases-212250351.html

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Wed, 12/24/2025 - 12:29

In reply to by Tim Declercq

Tim's pro-Russian shilling is also boring, a "broken record" indeed. As anyone can read, I did not deny the existence of CIA bases in Ukraine nor the pro-Western policies of the Ukrainian government (to be opposed by anarchists, I wrote).

But I answered Tim's "argument" that Ukraine did not have FSB bases, which, he claimed, showed that Russia was not dominating Ukraine! I pointed out that the reason there were no Russian police bases in most of Ukraine was that the Ukrainians had fought hard to keep them out! If Tim (and others) had their way, the Ukrainians would not be fighting against the imperialist invasion and there *would* be FSB bases throughout Ukraine!

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/26/2025 - 14:46

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Wayne, you're an American who's already gotten your way. Ukraine is the biggest arms importer on the planet. Your government has been arming and training Ukraine's armed forces for years (since Obama for the training, since Trump's first admin for the arming). Is the role of anarchists to ride the coattails of the state they live under? The Ukrainian state needs no help from American anarchists. Ukrainian and Russian refugees, on the other hand, could use some help. You stand well outside the anarchist tradition that you invoke. Especially with regard to Malatesta and Kropotkin's stance on Crete in 1897 and its wider implications. You are neither anti-militarist nor anti-imperialist, you even believe that American and Israeli militarism and imperialism are necessary so that the Ukrainian state can be as well-armed as possible. You are the opposite of an anarchist.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/27/2025 - 16:07

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

well said. if the wayniac had any self-awareness or was capable of digesting differing viewpoints, this would skewer him. unfortunately for everyone, the armored militarist WAYNE TRAIN has no brakes

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Sat, 12/27/2025 - 16:43

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

You (anonymous 14:46) write, "Wayne, you're an American who's already gotten your way." I am an "American" by national culture, but I am an internationalist, committed to the liberation of the world. I do not regard the U.S. government as "my" government, as representing me or my class in any way.

And I have not "gotten [my] way," unfortunately. My way would be for the Ukrainian people to win their full independence from the invading Russian army without becoming dependent on U.S. imperialism.

You declare, "The Ukrainian state needs no help from American anarchists." But the Ukrainian people (not the state) could use the support of anarchists in every land. And particularly, U.S. anarchists should openly denounce Trump's pressure on "the Ukrainian state" to surrender to Russian aggression (a pressure you do not object to, apparently).

You refer to "Malatesta and Kropotkin's stance on Crete in 1897 and its wider implications." But Malatesta's comments on Crete were not abstract general principles as you think. He supported the Greek national rebellion against the Turkish empire, in Crete. He did not oppose Greek anarchists joining the rebellion. But he advised *Italian* anarchists not to organize a force to join the Greeks because it would be difficult for them to make their politics independently known. There were enough activities for anarchists to do in Italy, he argued. This was a practical piece of advice, not a statement of general principles. (In any case, I have never called on U.S. anarchists to go fight in Ukraine.)

Even more ridiculously, you assert, "you even believe that American and Israeli militarism and imperialism are necessary so that the Ukrainian state can be as well-armed as possible." I never said anything remotely like this. Necessary? I have said that I support the Ukrainians' right to get arms from anyplace they can, just as Irish nationalists tried to get arms from Germany in both World Wars. I am not for anarchists campaigning for the U.S. (or Israel) to send arms to Ukraine, of course.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/28/2025 - 10:41

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

You're an American and it’s your government whether you like it or not, just like you don't stop being white just by saying you don't see color. It's a matter of social structures not just your personal choice. As Malatesta said, "for an anarchist, the primary enemy is the oppressor who is closest to him, and against whom he can fight more effectively," whereas you believe the opposite, that as an American your primary enemy is Russia (which isn’t currently invading and occupying America, which would make it a “close” enemy as Malatesta defines it).

You’ve gotten your way to the extent that Ukraine has been supported by NATO more than any other country in the world has been supported by any group of countries. You haven’t gotten your way to the extent that NATO and Ukraine haven’t yet been victorious. Malatesta said that a victory for the Brits over the Boers would be bad for the British people. You have nothing to say about NATO victory over Russia aside from that you want it. Unlike Malatesta, you’re not an anarchist because you’re not anti-statist, anti-imperialist or anti-militarist. You are simply a campist for the NATO states.

When I referred to “Malatesta and Kropotkin's stance on Crete in 1897 and its wider implications”, I used it as a concrete example of a specific war and specific imperialist conditions, not as an abstract general no war but class war example. And I was referring more so to British imperialist intervention than to national liberation forces, something that both Malatesta and Kropotkin commented on. The example of Crete 1897 more closely aligns with the current Russia-NATO-Ukraine conflict than does World War I, which is why I used it.

Malatesta wrote, “for the moment, there is nothing to be said about Candia. The island is in the hands of the Greek king’s men and the forces of the European coalition. Its fate lies in the hands of the diplomats…”

Kropotkin wrote, “in relation to the Cretan issue, we should do nothing. (The movement has been moulded from above, by the State, and, besides, the issue is complicated by British capital or insurrectionary activities of the peasants).”

Neither of them opposed national liberation movements, on the contrary, they strongly supported them, too strongly if anything (which groups like ACG are willfully ignorant about). But they also said that anarchists shouldn’t turn a blind eye to British/Euro imperialism. Whereas you are a campist for NATO imperialism.

The Irish sub-state rebels had to buy and smuggle German weapons themselves into their own occupied country. Whereas the Ukrainian state imports weapons, more than any other country in the world does, into the non-occupied parts of its territory, with NATO support. Not comparable situations at all. It’s not a matter of denouncing Irish sub-state rebels or random Ukrainian civilians in either case, it’s a matter of opposing militarism as a global system and the arms companies of your own state (which kills Palestinians and Sudanese). If you believe the Ukrainian state has a right to Israeli and American weapons, as you say it does (pretending it’s just a matter of civilians or sub-state actors), that right is meaningless without functioning Israeli and American arms industries. You either don’t understand this very simple point or you’re playing stupid and deflecting.

The Irish sub-state rebels did nothing wrong in buying and smuggling-in German weapons. It does not follow from this that there is nothing wrong with German militarism and imperialism and that the Irish or other rebels have a “right” to German weapons. Anarchists don’t believe that peoples have a right to be supplied by capitalists or states. They believe it is right to use what means are available to you in sub-state social struggle. They do not believe that participation in the State, and arms transactions between states, and the most powerful state military alliance in the world are part of anarchism. Very simple, when you’re an anarchist and not a campist.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 18:09

In reply to by Black Cat (not verified)

Yes, like a "broken record player" I keep on supporting the oppressed of the earth, including people in oppressed nations. Sorry about that.

(1) Yes, anarchists have always known that there are many forms of oppression and exploitation--which was my point. And the classical anarchists were always for class struggle, you betcha! (Unlike many anarchists on AnarchistNews these days.) But they did not think that class struggle was the only form of struggle for freedom. They did not sneer at "colonial or racist oppression" as mere "identity politics." Class is central, but it overlaps and integrates with all other oppressions, which are also as real as rocks.

(2) Bakunin, etc., did not regard national liberation as "nationalism." They were against nationalism but for national self-determination/liberation. That Black Cat don't understand the difference is telling. It is true that the classical anarchists might have been wrong about some things. But Cat has to give some reasons why they were wrong; clearly it was not because they did not understand what anarchism is all about!

(3) You claim to be for the liberation of Ukrainians, but you do not support their real life immediate fight against the domination and oppression by the actual invading and mass-murdering Russian imperialist army. Yes, the Ukrainian workers and others face many oppressions, but only one is an immediate imperialist invasion. I am all for struggling against Zelensky's neoliberal austerity and union-busting policies through union and other mobilizations. But this hardly requires a failure to actively oppose the Russian invasion. Nor am I for "unreservedly serving the Ukrainian state and its war policy" as can easily be determined with a little reading.

You write, "When [Wayne] meets a deserter from the Ukrainian army or someone who fled mobilization, maybe he'll tell him what he thinks about the national liberation struggle." And when you (Black Cat) meet Ukrainians whose homes have been bombed out, whose relatives have been killed, whose children have been kidnapped, and whose culture, language, and national self-determination are threatened with destruction, then maybe they would tell you what they think about national liberation!

I am delighted to see that other writers more or less agree with me (aside from references to Lenin and Stalin). An anarchism which does not oppose colonialism and imperialism is no anarchism at all.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/31/2025 - 08:44

In reply to by Black Cat (not verified)

"The difference may be in quantity and methods, but the principle is the same"
Don't you think the living beings that make up that difference would disagree?
Does "support" in this context mean anything beyond a thought?

What is with threatening price with "destruction" and throwing him in the trash? Where in the real world is the tone adopted here persuasive and solidaristic? Some comrades think their best chance of not being murdered by Russian imperialists and whatever they do to the women once the men are dead, is to join the major organized fighting force capable of repelling the imperialists. It is hard for me to figure out a good faith interpretation of the position which shames and excludes those comrades for doing such. Our comrades are fighting for their lives

Ilan Shalif (not verified) Fri, 12/26/2025 - 23:00

There are more kinds of oppression and exploiting than class oppression. Good people are against all kinds of oppression and exploiting... But, anarchists keep to their own kind of struggles not adopting automatically the means of the oppressed and exploited. No war but class war means the anarchists do not adopt the military means the oppressed use. (Nor are we adopting automatically Statist urges of the oppressed. We support the struggle of the Palestinians against the occupation and transfer of them but not adopting the Statist solution many of them hold.)

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