Soon after the escalation of the war in Ukraine, two completely different tendencies began to emerge under the banner of anarchy. One tendency insists that all inter-state wars are wars of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, and therefore our participation in them cannot benefit the interests of the exploited class. The other tendency focuses on material, ideological and propaganda work in support of Ukraine’s state war effort and it sees such an approach as a pragmatic step for future self-organization.
Regarding these two tendencies, many speak of a fundamental split within the anarchist movement. But the “split theory” assumes that these are different manifestations of one movement, which does not match reality. Rather, what we are witnessing is the development of two completely different movements using the same anarchist symbolism: a revolutionary proletarian movement that sees the world through the perspective of class struggle, and a movement of red and black social democracy that sees the world through the lens of radical democratism, i.e. left reformism and opportunism.
While the first movement builds its basis in the development of proletarian autonomy in opposition to the power of the bourgeois class, the basis of the second movement is an inter-class collaboration – the national union of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie. In case of war in the Ukraine, the first movement seeks to link up with the proletarians in the Ukraine, Russia and other parts of the world; the second movement attaches the proletariat to the project of the bourgeoisie by pushing it to support those bourgeois factions that are now facing pressure from the Russian-Chinese imperialist bloc. While these movements both claim the label of anarchist, in reality they are two movements standing in opposition to each other. The tension and contradiction between them cannot be abolished or overcome. Revolutionary energy and counter-revolutionary energy clash here.
The manifestations of sabotage by the left of capital
When we refer to the antagonism of two opposing movements, we are talking about very specific conflict situations where one side is trying to assert itself at the expense of the other. The social democratic and pro-war tendency of the left of capital now has the numerical and material superiority. Its adherents are aware of this, hence with a certain amount of self-confidence they lead attacks against revolutionary anarchist structures and projects. Their aim is to deprive the authentic anarchist movement of resources, support, spaces for presentation. In short, to suppress and marginalize it. The arsenal of methods used is wide. Sometimes, for example, anarchist projects are blocked from public events under various pretexts. In the Czech Republic, a popular excuse is the “lack of capacity”. This is done by inviting various liberal associations, NGOs or charities to an event and then telling the anarchists that there is no room left for them. Let’s think about the Riot Over River festival or the winter Anarchist Bookfair in Prague. Another method is to actively pressure various collectives to deny cooperation to anarchist and antimilitarist projects. We can mention, for example, the pressure exerted by the Anarchist Federation and the publishing house Utopia libri on the collective of the Brno Bookfair to prevent the Antimilitarist Initiative and the historical association Zádruha from attending the event. It is characteristic that such pressures are usually carried out in a completely scheming manner behind the backs of the persons to whom the access should be denied, and are often accompanied by a dishonest, slanderous campaign: anarchists are falsely labelled as aggressors or pacifists, dogmatists, puritans, Putinists or opponents of aid to the war-affected population. Such absurd accusations are often based on distortions, outright lies and denial of the accused persons’ ability to defend themselves. For people less familiar with the context, such vague and unproven accusations are often enough to break cooperation with anarchists. In practice, this can mean cancelling an event a few days before it is due to take place, as it was the case with the “Make Tattoo Not War” fundraiser, which was cancelled at the instigation of the membership of the Anarchist Federation. The latter, as in other cases, did not even have the courage to inform of its decision directly the people concerned. This suggests that even if they are attacking from positions currently in the majority tendency, they fear direct confrontation. This is a weakness that the anarchist movement should strategically exploit against them.
The propaganda strategy is an issue in itself. The left of capital systematically tries to reduce the revolutionary anarchist current in its media to the voice of a few. In doing so, they want to feed their propaganda to give their followers the feeling that this is not actually a movement on its own, but the marginal voice of a few isolated lunatics. This is manifested, among other things, by the fact that anarchist critical voices, expressed anonymously, are speculatively attributed to the same individuals over and over again, as if there could not possibly be anyone else with the same views. The expressions of collectives are also arbitrarily presented as expressions of individualities, and some groups that have been active for many years are even labelled as non-existent, as the Anarchist Federation does in the case of the Třídní válka group.
The efforts to “erase” some anarchist projects from historical memory cannot be ignored. For example, the Anarchist Federation likes to use a list of all the reformist associations present in reports of events, but not to mention the participating anarchist initiatives. To this propaganda pressure can also be added the active destruction of anarchist propaganda in the streets (posters, stickers, graffiti) when being overlaid with the propaganda of the left of capital. For example, there are such absurd situations where poster invitations to the internationalist anti-war congress are systematically pasted over with invitations to the May Day rally organized by groups claiming to be against the war.
The seriousness of the situation is also illustrated by the case of the informers Anatoly Dubovik and Alexander Kolchenko, who threaten the security of anarchists in Russia by providing sensitive information to the repressive forces. The left of capital in the Czech environment accepts these informers and continues to uncritically give space to their voice. This happens, for example, on the website and in the magazines of the Anarchist Federation, in the Kontradikce journal and at the Anarchist Bookfair in Prague. If this environment accepts those denouncing anarchists living in Russia to the Putin regime, what will happen when the drama of war will come closer to our homes!? In such a case, it can be expected that the people behind these projects will actively promote this abhorrent behavior in the local context. Any defiance of their pro-war line may be a pretext. These denunciators can label and threaten anyone who will undermine national unity with proletarian internationalism. Anyone who refuses to submit to forced mobilization. Anyone who decides to leave the country illegally. Anyone who refuses inter-class collaboration between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the name of an anti-fascist or “anti-imperialist” coalition. Anyone who will support deserters and soldiers rebelling against their own officers. Anyone who will advocate the defeat of their own government and the bourgeoisie, regardless of the war propaganda that will portray this as aiding the enemy.
Keep in mind that the left of capital, despite its declared anti-statism, never hesitates to fight its opponents with the help of the repressive forces of the state when it has the opportunity to do so. It is in the interest of revolutionary anarchism to prevent it from doing so and to deprive it of this opportunity. The risks are too great to be ignored or underestimated.
The need for effective defense
You might think that the ways how the activities of revolutionary anarchism are sabotaged by the left of capital are not worthy of much attention. We think that the opposite is true. We must make the defense against this phenomenon one of our priorities. The attacks that the anarchist milieu is facing are escalating and are having a not insignificant impact on our activities.
In the past there have been attempts to devote ourselves to our own anarchist activity and to ignore the left of capital. It didn’t work out! This proved impossible and huge obstacles were constantly put in our way. The left of capital has taken every opportunity behind our backs to attack and sabotage our activities. Practice has therefore taught us to accept the fact that there is an insurmountable antagonism between the anarchist movement and the left of capital. It is impossible to coexist without conflict. The other side will harm and attack us even if there is only ignorance or silence from our side.
Whenever the anarchist movement faces attacks from fascist or ultra-conservative forces, it never hesitates to use all available means to defend its own space and its membership base. Our movement should not hesitate even when such attacks are organized under the banner of anarchy, because by doing so it demonstrates that people can practically side with the counter-revolution and state policy, even if they theoretically claim to be a revolutionary force.
We must analyze how people act and what are the consequences. It doesn’t matter how they call their action and which banner they wave. If someone sabotages the anarchist movement, it is necessary to respond uncompromisingly with an organized self-defense. The left of capital is one of the many obstacles that revolutionary anarchism must consciously and collectively overcome.
* SOME ANARCHISTS FROM THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN REGION (JUNE 2024)