The war and "the left" - what do "we" do?

[rekil]

Wow what fucking spanners flicked to the end of that post and saw this

Note the air quotes around russian disinformation. Best of luck ringing some antifascist value out of this carnage.

Bucha’s Month of Terror (Published 2022)

We documented dozens of killings of civilians and interviewed scores of witnesses to uncover Russian atrocities in Ukraine.

www.nytimes.com

Working class people are just insects to the likes of those freaks.

 

[hitmouse]

An appeal for financial help (thread)

In passing, as someone who's still trying to get a better understanding of what the Ukrainian left looks like, I found that thread interesting, and learned something new:


Apparently, in the middle of a major war, anarchists are still capable of holding deep grudges against each other over an argument about ket.

Also, this seems to be the main donation info from that thread:

UKRAINE: CALL FOR FINANCIAL AID

Dear comrades from all over the world! Ukraine is suffering from the most devastating war since 1945 on our soil. If you want to help volunteers please send us financial aid on the following accounts of 'Sotsyalnyi Rukh'.

rev.org.ua

 

[Nigel]

The article I mention is now up here:

No War But Class War: Against State Nationalism and Inter-Imperialist War in Ukraine – Abolition Media

abolitionmedia.noblogs.org

It's worth a read, a fairly well-argued and thoughtful setting out of a particular line. I also think it's deeply wrong, infuriatingly so in some places.

Great article. probably one of the best I've seen from libertariain left yet!

 

[hitmouse]

A different perspective from Montreal:

Reflections on the Anarchist Demo at the Russian Consulate

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info On Sunday, March 27, 2022, a small but determined group of anarchists marched to the Russian consulate in Montréal, in solidarity with anarchists, anti-fascists, and anti-war movements active in the territories of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. We held up...

mtlcounterinfo.org

 

[hitmouse]

The article I mention is now up here:

No War But Class War: Against State Nationalism and Inter-Imperialist War in Ukraine – Abolition Media

abolitionmedia.noblogs.org

It's worth a read, a fairly well-argued and thoughtful setting out of a particular line. I also think it's deeply wrong, infuriatingly so in some places.

A response to that article is now up:
A Response on Ukraine and “No War But Class War”

 

[zahir]

Podcast recorded in January, before the start of the invasion.

Elephant in the room #37 – Anarchists and war in Ukraine – AND

a-dresden.org

For weeks, Putin has been moving military forces in the direction of Ukraine. Over 120 000 soldiers with military equipment spread all around the border. The chance of military invasion is extremely high with Ukrainian government mobilizing forces and different countries sending military support. Putin continues to build up military pressure. Official reason: attempt to stop expansion of NATO. In reality, we see Russian imperial politics in action with an attempt to return influence over Ukraine. Anarchist in Ukraine have their own perspective on what is happening as well as what can be done in upcoming situation. We spoke to the activist currently living in the country about past, present and possible future of political conflicts in Ukraine and outside it.

 

[Wilf]

A response to that article is now up:
A Response on Ukraine and “No War But Class War”

I thought the original article was awful. As you say, well written in the sense of establishing a line, but in a way that took you to profoundly wrong places. For one thing it was highly one sided in its emphasis on US imperialism over Russian. The US might be 'worse', historically, but fucking hell, the very thing we are talking about here is Russian imperialism. They are the ones doing the fucking bombing and killing. And amid all the theory and analysis, there was no mention - unless I missed something on my skim read - of the actual effects of the invasion. Bombing, shooting, raping. There's something profoundly wrong if you pitch your analysis at a point which ignores atrocities that are happening in just about real time.

I found the detour around 'allyship' both annoying and pointless and agree with the reply piece. Most of all though the 'solidarity not morality' bit was infuriating. Fwiw, I think we should be guided by solidarity in response to the war (what that is, what we can actually do, probably not a great deal - all difficult questions). But what followed was a bog standard 'morality = liberal conscience' line. What 'morality' is, what its roots are, whether there are universal principles all real and obvious questions. But I'm happy to go with my visceral disgust at a well armed imperial power bombing maternity hospitals. And bombing those maternity hospitals with a view to extending the power and reach of Putin's regime.

I realise the way I'm coming across is open to all sorts of criticisms, 'yeah, but, Nato... that's anti-theoretical... where's your class analysis...' etc. I sort of feel I've got all that stored up in the Captain Obvious Locker and, fffs, who on the left is genuinely supporting Nato or the US anyway? Yes, I want Ukraine to get weapons so they can defend themselves and in the contemporary world that has to come via Nato countries and arms manufacturers, but what's the alternative? The alternative is them not getting the weapons and getting killed. Anyway, the single point I really wanted to raise is about having an instinctive response to the war and invasion. Seeing one state kill and terrorise and bomb neighbouring people is fucking horrendous. My disgust is informed by anarchism (strongly) and knowledge of the 30 year background, but is emphatically an instinctive, even 'moral', response.

 

[zahir]

Statement by the organisers of an alternative to the 'Berlin Easter March' (google translation)

Alternativer Ostermarsch 2022: Stoppt russische Kriege – für Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit - Adopt a Revolution

Ukrainische und syrische Aktivist*innen organisieren gemeinsam einen "Alternativen Ostermarsch", denn von der "Friedensbewegung" fühlen sich viele von ihnen verraten.

adoptrevolution-org.translate.goog

Ukrainian and Syrian activists are organizing an “Alternative Easter March” together, because many of them feel betrayed by the “peace movement”.

The call for the “Berlin Easter March” makes no mention of Russian aggression towards Ukraine. The hiding of the perspectives of war victims is not an isolated case. In recent years, too, many Easter marches have primarily criticized NATO's rearmament and called for the disarmament of the Bundeswehr. This fundamentalist pacifism ignores the aggressors - and has thus rhetorically paved the way for the wars of dictators and autocrats. We think it's time to finally listen to the victims of war!

The call for the “Berlin Easter March” makes no mention of Russian aggression and the right to self-defense. This appalls us as Ukrainian and Syrian activists and moves us, together with solidarity supporters, to register our own Easter march. For peace, freedom and justice and against Russian wars of aggression!

 

[zahir]

Ukraine War video dispatch: North-Eastern European anarchists respond to the Russian narrative - Freedom News

This is the first of, hopefully many, video and written reports from Ukraine and around produced for Freedom by film-maker and journalist Alexis Daloumis. Alexis spent last few weeks in Kiyv, and previously you may have heard of him due to his other production, Belkî Sibê: A Journey Through The...

freedomnews.org.uk

This first piece of reportage is a dynamic cross edit of the interviews of more than a dozen anarchists and antifascists talking about the causes of the war and responding to the rhetoric of the Putin regime in regards to the reasons and aims of the invasion. These interviewees are the very last people that anyone can consider nationalist and that gives their testimony a particular value, extending beyond the scope of Anarchist and far-left audiences, to anyone who is looking for a more sober and even “objective” locally grounded approach to the unfolding events, beyond the control of any corporate or state media, Eastern or Western.

 

[The39thStep]

Statement by the organisers of an alternative to the 'Berlin Easter March' (google translation)

Alternativer Ostermarsch 2022: Stoppt russische Kriege – für Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit - Adopt a Revolution

Ukrainische und syrische Aktivist*innen organisieren gemeinsam einen "Alternativen Ostermarsch", denn von der "Friedensbewegung" fühlen sich viele von ihnen verraten.

adoptrevolution-org.translate.goog

What was the turnout like?

 

[zahir]

I've no idea tbh.

 

[frogwoman]

Genocide in Ukraine. Episode: Genocide in Ukraine Podcast Republic . Media: https://chtbl.com/track/5899E/podtr...playlist=bc7f369b-dce6-43c2-897e-ae2d0145ca12 . -- Sent from Podcast Republic.

Robert Evans from Behind the Bastards interviews a Ukrainian anarchist, Romeo Kokriatski

 

[LDC]

Another very good and in-depth article by Simon Pirani about Ukraine and support (or not) from the left for the fight against the Russian invasion and war.

Supporting the Ukrainian resistance. Six questions

Download this article as a pdf Russia’s war on Ukraine is a nightmare – and for all who try to articulate our humanity actively, who not only hope for social justice and peace but try to do somethi…

peopleandnature.wordpress.com

Serge Forward be interested on your take on this.

 

[Serge Forward]

Another very good and in-depth article by Simon Pirani about Ukraine and support (or not) from the left for the fight against the Russian invasion and war.

Supporting the Ukrainian resistance. Six questions

Download this article as a pdf Russia’s war on Ukraine is a nightmare – and for all who try to articulate our humanity actively, who not only hope for social justice and peace but try to do somethi…

peopleandnature.wordpress.com

Serge Forward be interested on your take on this.

It looks interesting but, sorry, I've been ill with the covids and it's all a bit tldr for me right now. I'm just about up to watching cat videos.

 

[LDC]

It looks interesting but, sorry, I've been ill with the covids and it's all a bit tldr for me right now. I'm just about up to watching cat videos.

Yeah me too with the plague. Hope you get better soon.

 

[hitmouse]

A statement from the Czech AF, critiquing an IFA/IAF compromise statement:

Private Site

 

[Serge Forward]

Yeah me too with the plague. Hope you get better soon.

You too pal. At least this variant (plus being triple jabbed) is a piece of piss compared to when I caught it early doors in the pandemic.

 

[frogwoman]

It looks interesting but, sorry, I've been ill with the covids and it's all a bit tldr for me right now. I'm just about up to watching cat videos.

Hope you're better soon

 

[Serge Forward]

Cheers frogwoman. I'm okay, it's nearly all cleared up now. And I'll soon be up to reading our LynnDoyleCooper's recommended lengthy articles

 

[RD2003]

I found the detour around 'allyship' both annoying and pointless and agree with the reply piece. Most of all though the 'solidarity not morality' bit was infuriating. Fwiw, I think we should be guided by solidarity in response to the war (what that is, what we can actually do, probably not a great deal - all difficult questions). But what followed was a bog standard 'morality = liberal conscience' line. What 'morality' is, what its roots are, whether there are universal principles all real and obvious questions. But I'm happy to go with my visceral disgust at a well armed imperial power bombing maternity hospitals. And bombing those maternity hospitals with a view to extending the power and reach of Putin's regime.

I realise the way I'm coming across is open to all sorts of criticisms, 'yeah, but, Nato... that's anti-theoretical... where's your class analysis...' etc. I sort of feel I've got all that stored up in the Captain Obvious Locker and, fffs, who on the left is genuinely supporting Nato or the US anyway? Yes, I want Ukraine to get weapons so they can defend themselves and in the contemporary world that has to come via Nato countries and arms manufacturers, but what's the alternative? The alternative is them not getting the weapons and getting killed. Anyway, the single point I really wanted to raise is about having an instinctive response to the war and invasion. Seeing one state kill and terrorise and bomb neighbouring people is fucking horrendous. My disgust is informed by anarchism (strongly) and knowledge of the 30 year background, but is emphatically an instinctive, even 'moral', response.

Abstract morality might say that Ukraine should get all the weapons it demands. They have already had a hell of a lot, and the result is thousands of dead Ukrainians (and Russians). 'The west' is determined to fight to the very last Ukrainian... If they hadn't had them, thus diluting their ability to resist, arguably fewer, but still too many, Ukrainians (and Russians) would have died. Workers predominate among the dead civilians (and soldiers from working class backgrounds) in both scenarios. Working class people (cannon fodder) are always the main losers in war, at the expense of those who enrich themselves from it. And people from both sides are going to enrich themselves immensely as a result of this war, as is, as usual, the international arms industry. And there is going to be no definitive victory for any side: neither the Ukrainian state, nor the Russian state, nor those fuelling the conflict from outside. Biden has invested so much politically that he can't be seen to back down, and Putin can't afford anything seen as a defeat either. Blood everywhere and many more lives to be destroyed for some time to come, not least among the Ukrainian pawns in the game. Arguments that stress that Russia has no right to demand anything of Ukraine ignore the fact that it inevitably will, and also ignore the place of Ukraine in both Russian history and the Russian nationalist mentality. Neither Russian history nor its nationalist outlook, which usually prevails no matter who controls the state, can possibly just vanish. Russia will push this to its very limit, and if thse who oppose it respond in kind then it's very bad news indeed for all of us. The likelihood of Russia accepting a place in the world where it is just another country without anything to boast about is almost non-existent. Sure enough, as we have seen, such people can sometimes gain control there, but historically they have always proved only temporary.


This is why I tried to start a discussion in the 'War will always be with us' thread. 'The left' no longer has a convincing answer to why we constantly go to war, which derives from the fact that it no longer has a coherent ideology nor a movement which is capable of mobilising working class people, nor any real chance of creating one in the prevailing conditions of a de-industrialised west, and the inevitable erosion of working class solidarity that follows. Which means that the working class the world over will remain at the mercy of the 'imperialisms' and whatever they decide to do, and explains the current situation of a small and impotent class struggle-oriented left, disorientated and at the mercy of the predominant narrative, spending its time raging, mostly online, at the (possibly bigger for what it counts) anti-imperialism-focussed wing of the same fragmented, loosely-termed movement. Hardly anybody else has even heard about the argument, let alone the semi-imaginary red-brown alliance that is the focus of so much internet ire-as if, in these circumstances, there can actually be a winner in that pseudo-debate and it would count for something.

Hearts are ruling heads in this fiasco, which is, on the ground, no worse than what routinely takes place in Africa, or has done (and currently is) in the Middle East, or did in Vietnam. The only difference is that the threat of nuclear war looms. And such is the hysteria that people, including some of those with actual power, talk as if nuclear conflict is actually worth the risk. Once this war is over (presuming it doesn't put an end to most of us and destroy civilisation), another one will be along soon.

 

[Humberto]

It's not 'abstract morality'. Ridiculous comment.

 

[RD2003]

It's not 'abstract morality'. Ridiculous comment.

A morality-based approach then, if you like. Makes no difference.

'Boo-hoo isn't this just awful?' Yes it cunting well is. But it gets nobody anywhere and will merely be repeated next time around...

 

[DaveCinzano]

Fair trade arms from Iran.

Artisanal IEDs

 

[Humberto]

A morality-based approach then, if you like. Makes no difference.

'Boo-hoo isn't this just awful?' Yes it cunting well is. But it gets nobody anywhere and will merely be repeated next time around...

There are people resisting, asking for help.

 

[Humberto]

Pleading for it. Dying in their homes.

 

[RD2003]

There are people resisting, asking for help.

There are no 'these people'. The ruling elites in Ukraine are asking for help because they've thrown in their future and wealth with NATO and the EU. Everybody else* is led by the nose by these people, as everywhere else.

* Although it is indeed understandable that they do so while under attack, even while, to one degree or another, aware that they are ultimately going to lose even if they win.

 

[RD2003]

Pleading for it. Dying in their homes.

Happens in places like Africa quite a lot. Nobody gives a toss,

 

[Humberto]

There are no 'these people'. The ruling elites in Ukraine are asking for help because they've thrown in their future and wealth with NATO and the EU. Everybody else* is led by the nose by these people, as everywhere else.

* Although it is indeed understandable that they do so while under attack, even while, to one degree or another, aware that they are ultimately going to lose even if they win.

Let Vlad have what he wants to end the war?

 

[RD2003]

Let Vlad have what he wants to end the war?

Without a de-escalation there will be, at the very least, many thousands more deaths. It depends on what people want.

Some people want to gamble on pushing Russia (which is far from being just Putin) to the very limit. That is a very dangerous game with a nuclear armed state that may or may not believe its own rhetoric. I'm not the only one, and among the least clever, of those who seem to think it just might.

 

[Humberto]

Putin invaded you muppet. Oh don't mind Russia.