Anarchist Prisoners in Russia and the War in Ukraine: Tour in France

Malatesta wanted to use money after a supposed anti-capitalist revolution. Hard pass on that.

"Malatester" accuses me of ignorantly not understanding that while "Malatesta supported national liberation...that doesn't mean he supported imperialists and their wars, as you fantasize. " What *I* wrote--clear as day--was "Malestesta opposed wars between imperialist states (as in WW I) but supported the wars of oppressed nations against imperialist states." Exactly the same as what Malatester said was Malatesta's views. Perhaps Maletester has a problem with reading comprehension?

I thank "Malatester" for pointing out the passage from Malatesta, "the primary enemy is the oppressor who is closest to him." This is still not the more famous phrase, "the main enemy is at home," by Liebknecht, but certainly has the same meaning. In any case, who said it first is a trivial issue and I regret raising it.

Instead of "primary" or "main enemy" I would prefer "the immediate enemy." Unlike inter-imperialist wars, it is the invading army which is the immediate, primary, and main enemy at the time.

It is an error to treat the Russian-Ukrainian war as a NATO-Russian war. NATO has been helping the Ukrainian forces a good deal (for its own imperialist reasons, not because it loves the rights of oppressed countries). This is now with the exception of Trump's U.S. But it is not NATO troops which are fighting and dying nor NATO populations which are being massacred from the air, nor NATO lands which have been occupied, nor NATO children who have been kidnapped.

In the U.S.-Vietnam war, the Vietnamese got important military aid from the imperialist Soviet Union, but many revolutionary anarchists (though opposed to the Vietnamese Stalinist-nationalist leaders) still supported the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. I suppose Matatester would have been neutral.

No Name denounces my opinion as like "a shitty Trotskyist pamphlet...[with] a totally counterrevolutionary strategy." Well, what was Trotsky's strategy on national wars of independence? In the "Transitional Program," Trotsky wrote that the working class (in the oppressed nation and in the imperialist nation) should be in solidarity with the people of the oppressed country, but “…the proletariat does not in the slightest degree solidarize…with the bourgeois government of the colonial country….It maintains full political independence….Giving aid in a just and progressive war, the revolutionary proletariat wins the sympathy of the workers in the colonies…and increases its ability to help overthrow the bourgeois government in the colonial country....Our basic slogan remains: Workers of the World Unite!” That was not what was wrong with Trotskyism on national self-determination! (It was Trotsky's advocacy of a new, centralized, state and nationalized economy.)

No Name writes, that my view is as "absurd as if someone claimed that supporting left-wing parties in parliament is a way to fight against parliamentarianism." Yes, that would be absurd. But it would not be absurd to try to form a United Front with left-wing parties *outside* of parliament if (when) political freedom-of-association (a bourgeois-democratic freedom for which many have died) is threatened. Not because we are for the "rights" of the Democratic Party, but because we are for the democratic rights of workers and oppressed, socialists and anarchists. This is what the Italian anarchists tried to do to fight the rise of Mussolini's fascists (but the Communists and Social Democrats would not cooperate). This is revolutionary strategy.

let's start abolishing capitalized words then maybe later we can start abolishing capitalism altogether.

I hope Malatester and the following Anonymous understand that they are agreeing with me. Class conflict is very important, even central, to how our society works.
But it is not at all the *only* factor. I think of society as a pile of Pick-Up-Sticks, leaning on each other, each playing a role in holding the overall pile in place, with some more central than others. We should be pulling at each "stick" whenever we can, with the aim (contrary to the game) of pulling the whole pile down.

My point was that, among the various subsystems of oppression which interact with class exploitation, is *imperialist national oppression.* Revolutionary anarchists must oppose *all* forms of oppression (sexism, racism, anti-ecological, LGBT bigotry, anti-semitism, etc., etc.)....including the exploitation of the nations of the Global South by world imperialism. ("Global South" includes Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. "World imperialism" includes Russia and modern China.) That's the point.