Imperialism:
“a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.”
Anti-imperialism:
“Opposition to or hostility towards imperialism”
On February 24th, 2022, Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin announced his war on Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation”. According to an NPR article published on August 24th the Ukrainian army has suffered nine thousand casualties while Russia has lost up to forty-five thousand casualties. An astonishing six point seven million refugees have been dispersed across Europe. 1 Commentators have pointed out time and time again that this is the largest European land war since World War two.
The entire world has been arrested in a state of shock over blatant Russian acts of war and violence committed in the name of imperialism. As the crisis has gone on, we have now found ourselves witnesses to some of the most reckless nuclear brinkmanship since the Cuban missile crisis. Despite all this though, many so called “anti-imperialist westerners” have bought Vladimir Putin’s de-Nazification rationale hook, line and sinker. How can this be?
It may seem counter intuitive or even repugnant to claim that one government would not be justified in invading another country because the country in question has some or even many unethical domestic policies. But the sad fact is that there would be no end to war if the geopolitical solution to human rights abuse was rooted in the destruction of domestic tyranny by foreign invasion. Sadly, that likely wouldn’t even solve the problem as a foreign invasion almost always results in a tyranny of its own, so the world would merely be trading one tyranny for another in a never-ending sequence of destruction and chaos. That’s why we shouldn’t take governments at their word when they make propagandistic claims such as, “We’re invading this country to liberate it’s people from a murderous or immoral government.”
Unfortunately, that’s never how things have worked in practice. Liberation via war is always a post hoc (after the fact) justification. The only time an invasion is justified is to stop uncontrolled expansion, as in World War two or the Napoleonic wars. Granted, ending the holocaust was a positive byproduct of invading Germany, and I’m glad we did it, but that had nothing to do with why World War two was fought. It’s rather grim to contemplate, but if the axis had not held an expansionist foreign policy, then World War two may have never been fought in the first place.
I’m saying this because I’ve seen two wars in my lifetime in which governments have used the excuse of “their government is evil, and we’re invading to liberate the people!” to launch imperialistic military adventures. Both times, there have been significant portions of the population that have uncritically accepted this rationale.
The first one was the US-Iraq war when I was a child. The US government claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam needed to be killed because he was a mass murderer. He was a mass murderer, that is true, but that had nothing to do with why we invaded. Our government knew he was a mass murderer and they specifically assisted him into power to stop the Iraqi communist party via mass murder. How could the US government have a moral problem with the mass murders that Saddam committed if they purposefully assisted in into power to commit mass murder in the first place? Of course, They then regretted putting him there like usual when they lost control of him. Many Americans uncritically accepted the US governments propaganda line and supported the Iraq war.
The second one is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s claim is that Ukraine is a neo-Nazi country and that they possess bioweapons that have been designed to target Russian genetics. Yes, I know, it’s a rather bizarre claim. The truth is that there are Ukrainian neo-Nazis in the Azov battalion, and they are a very real problem (they will be much worse after the war), but the majority of the government is not controlled by neo-Nazis.
The current president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky is a centrist liberal with Jewish heritage. 2 The party he belongs to, “Servant of the people”, is described as being “somewhere between liberalism and socialism”, with some proposals for direct democracy and anti-corruption. 3 Moreover, servant of the people holds 238 out of 450 seats in the Rada (Ukrainian parliament). The other seats belong to various independent, center left, and center right parties. Neither of the two biggest parties, Right Sector and National Corps have any seats in the Rada currently. 4 The notorious (for good reason) azov battalion is also laughably small in comparison with the broader Ukrainian army. Azov has 2500 active soldiers, while the broader army has 270 thousand active soldiers. That means azov makes up just 0.9% of the Ukrainian army. That does not include reserves.
The Nazis, though they exist in some capacity and are a problem, clearly have nothing to do with why Russia is invading in this case either. Especially when Russia’s own government is on average much further right than Ukrainian government. The majority of the Ukrainian government is liberal while they have an extreme right flank (much like America). Meanwhile, the bulk of the Russian government is far right with even further right flanks at the fringes. For instance Putin himself is known to frequently site fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyn. And yes, the Ukrainian government has unfortunately become more authoritarian as the war has gone on, but none of this justifies Russia’s invasion. Now, many Russians and international leftists associated with Marxist Leninism and sometimes even the pseudo anarchism of Noam Chomsky uncritically accept the Russian state narrative.
Here’s just a few countries in which genocides have taken place in the 20th century or 21st century:
Rwanda- 800 thousand dead in 1994 due to an ethnic cleansing of Tutsi people by Hutu militias. America and Russia did not invade.5
China- 36 million died in the 1950’s due to political purges and mass starvation caused by the failures of economic policies implemented by Mao Zedong. America and Russia did not invade.6
Turkey- an estimated 1.5 million died in the Armenian genocide of 1915. Turkey to this day denies the genocide and is a member of Nato. The American government only recently acknowledged this genocide in 2019. Currently Turkey is engaged in war of ethnic cleansing against Kurdish people in Rojava. America and Russia do not invade.7
Indonesia- From 1965 to 1966 the dictator Suharto killed somewhere between 500,000 to 3 million people in an fervor of anti-communist paranoia. America was partially responsible and assisted the dictator into power.8
Bangladesh- The Pakistani army killed between 300 thousand to 3 million people. America and Russia did not invade.9
Myanmar- According to BBC The situation that led to “killings, rapes and gang rapes, torture, forced displacement and other grave rights violations” remained unchanged. Up to 600,000 refugees have fled the country. America and Russia do not invade.10
That’s just a very small fraction. And what about authoritarian governments in general? There are too many to list, all of which exist on a daily basis without the immediate threat of invasion by either Russia or America. Many crimes against humanity have been done with the complete indifference of or even in some cases assistance from either America or Russia. In the case of America consider the anti-communist purges committed in Indonesia in which the CIA assisted the bloody dictator Suharto to power. Suharto killed somewhere between 500,000 to 3,000,000 people in the name of anti-communism. Or how about the fact that Russia has backed up the Assad Regime due to fear of “color revolutions” (pro-democracy revolutions). Assad is famous for indiscriminately dropping over 82,000 “barrel bombs” on his own country resulting in 11 thousand civilian deaths. 9
Did Russia and America launch a joint humanitarian crusade to invade these countries to stop the abuse of human lives? No. They even helped some of them commit various crimes against humanity or turned a blind eye (see Rwanda). Worse, the Russian and American governments have both also committed genocides, acts of enslavement, and have at times themselves produced authoritarian or even totalitarian policies in the case of Russia. So, how can either of these countries ever claim humanitarianism as the rationale for an invasion? They can’t. If these governments genuinely wanted to stop authoritarianism or genocide, they have to start by abolishing themselves.
Unfortunately, genocides and tyrannical governments are currently a constant factor on earth. No government could function with a foreign policy that was aimed at stopping every or even some genocides or authoritarian governments via military force. If any government consistently applied this policy, it would be permanently at war and would probably become authoritarian itself as a result of the need for massive state power required for the constant mobilization of the population and economy.
Have there been any invasions that have stopped genocide as a byproduct? Yes, World War two is a great example, and it was a positive outcome. However, that was not the reason the war was fought despite what governments say now.
The lesson is that you should never listen to a government when it claims it’s fighting a war for humanitarian reasons because that’s never the case.
To be clear, all genocides and authoritarian governments should be stopped and destroyed, but we can’t stop this kind of thing with external military invasions. Revolution must come from the people themselves in that respective region via rebellion and revolution, at which point I think it’s valid for the international community to provide material support or for international volunteers to enlist in the cause. Kurdish resistance to the Assad regime and ISIS is a great example we can learn from.
A new and troubling phenomenon has risen its ugly head in recent times; selective anti-imperialism. On the left this is rooted in the struggle against American imperialism during the cold war, particularly the Vietnam antiwar movement lead by the new left. On the right it is rooted in cynical support for foreign governments by domestic far right partisans. A great example is the support of the Russian invasion by some people in pro-Trump or neo fascist circles like the alt-right.
To understand left wing selective anti-imperialism, we look back in time at the cold war. From what I can tell two parallel trends existed prior to the new left. There were those who saw American interventionism for what was while simultaneously opposing Russian imperialism, particularly the invasion of Hungary in 1956. We’ll call this group “universal anti imperialists”, as they opposed imperialism as a broad phenomenon regardless of which power bloc was engaged in imperialist adventurism.
The other trend was the infamous “tankie” trend. At the time when the term tankie was coined it specifically referred to hard-lined British Marxist Leninists that defended the Russian invasion of hungry.12 Of course, now it’s a catch all epithet for any kind of authoritarian socialist, make of that what you will. For our sake we’ll call the supporters of the 1956 Hungarian invasion, or more broadly the geopolitical aims of the USSR in general, “eastern aligned selective anti imperialists.”
Fast forward to the Vietnam War and we can see these trends intermix and collide. From our perspective in the 21st centuryit’s hard to tell where eastern aligned selective anti imperialists and universal anti imperialists end and begin. Resistance to American imperialism in the Vietnam war was certainly a legitimate cause, however not everyone who opposed it opposed it for legitimate reasons. Unfortunately, sometimes a righteous cause can be supported by the righteous and unrighteous alike.
There were those who opposed the war because they saw one country expanding and asserting power over a colonized and oppressed nation, or because they were disgusted by the phenomenon of war in general, and those who merely supported the spread of Marxism Leninism at all costs. Of course, the supporters of Marxist Leninism may truly believe that it’s a genuinely anti-imperialist ideology, but today anyone with a level head knows that’s untrue. Just ask those who survived soviet ethnic cleansing in Ingushetia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.13
This is not to say that the struggles of 3rd world Marxist Leninists were not legitimately anti colonial, they certainly were, but Marxist Leninism as a whole was no more inherently anti-imperialist than 18th and 19th century liberalism.
Consider the American revolution and its relationship with the imperialist rivalry between England and France. The American patriots were able to secure the assistance of the French not because the French were genuinely against the imperialism of the British Empire, but because the French wanted to undermine a rival empire.
This is the exact same strategy that the USSR replicated to great effect during the cold war. In the long 19th century liberalism was seen as the great anti-imperialist ideology of its day. We can see this in the universalism of the French Revolution and the Haitian revolution, as well as the Latin American wars of independence. From Toussaint Louverture to Simon Bolivar and the eventual climax of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, liberalism promised to usher in an enlightened age of national independence and freedom from foreign oppression.
1848 however revealed liberalism to be the paper tiger it was, and it ceased to be a revolutionary force thereafter. Alas we arrive at the great socialist labor movement which picked up the mantle of anti-imperialism started by the liberals.
During 1848 liberals betrayed their former socialist comrades (no surprise here) and sided with moderate monarchists and conservatives. What Liberals saw in the 1848 the revolution was the great specter of communism, and that scared them. This is when liberalism was stripped of its anti-imperialist character, if it was ever genuinely anti-imperialist to begin with. From here out liberals were absorbed into the conservative imperialist machinery as its left face.
Let us jump forward again to the revolution of 1917 in Russia. Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik comrades ride to power on their promise of “all power to the Soviets”. Of course, all power to the Soviets in practice meant all power to the Bolsheviks. The USSR became little more than a reactionary state capitalist bureaucracy. Initially, Lenin, promised independence to the nations formerly controlled by the Russian empire. The new Russian government was on paper staunchly against imperialism and chauvinism of any kind. From here on out the newly christened communist party 14 was the new face of global anti-imperialism.
However, not long after Lenin essentially re-established the geopolitical boundaries of the old Tsarist empire. On paper the “soviet Republics” were still independent states of a larger soviet Federation with their own semi-autonomous governments. In practice they were little more than Russian puppet states. Lenin never dropped the pretense of anti-imperialism though, as it was a core ideological pillar of his new red empire.
Initially Lenin and Trotsky anticipated a global revolution that would start in Germany. The German revolution proved unsuccessful though. Considering this failure Lenin and Trotsky began to look to Asia and the Middle East in order to spread the influence of their new empire. Their strategy was similar to that of the French monarchy. They sought to undermine western capitalist empires by fomenting revolutionary independence movements in colonized nations, for better or worse.
Now, what needs to be pointed out is that these revolutionary movements were absolutely legitimate even if they were funded by an authoritarian state. Unfortunately, independence leaders don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing where they get their funding. Geopolitics from the perspective of a colonized or conquered nation is like that of a prison inmate. If one were imprisoned, they might find themselves seeking protection the gang or clique least likely to kill them. The need for survival is real, even if the means aren’t always the most preferable.
As citizens in the heart of the empire it’s not our job to judge how the people who are trapped in between two rival empires choose to survive, just as a free citizen has no right to judge how an inmate might survive the hostile environment of a prison. This might sound like an obvious statement to so called “anti-imperialists” but they often do not consider that it might also apply to a colonized nation that borders China or Russia that chooses Nato as an ally. Some nations will see the east as more threatening, perhaps due to their proximity to Russia or China, others will see the west as more threatening due to their proximity to America or Europe.
Now we arrive back at the present. Many international leftists are still stuck in a cold war mentality, where America was seen as the primary imperial antagonist. There was more than a grain of truth to that at the time. The Russian empire was mostly regional, and land locked while the sun effectively never set on the American empire, much like the British empire before it.
However, in the 21st century the American empire is in decline. It has been challenged by Russia and China. Russia is fast revealing itself to be a paper tiger, that is true and western Hegemony will likely continue for many decades to come. That doesn’t mean the other side treats its imperial subjects any better though. The kind of “multi-polar” 15 geopolitical arrangement that the Russian state seeks is not a form of anti-imperialism, but a form of counter imperialism. It’s one empire challenging another empire for control of a portion of the globe. This is not a form of anti-imperialism, it is merely a struggle between two imperial power blocs 16 over control of the world.
Why would we then, as anti-imperialist anarchists want to take the side of either empire? By taking the side of either the western or eastern power blocs we are merely engaging in selective anti-imperialism, not universal anti-imperialism. This kind of pseudo anti imperialism will see us supporting the sovereignty of one set of nations, but not another.
Consider the following scenario: all anti imperialists alive during the Cuban revolution supported the independence of Cuba during the missile crisis and the cold war, even if they didn’t agree with or perhaps even despised the Cuban regime as many anarchists did. No self-respecting leftist would be caught dead rationalizing something as barbaric and misguided as the bay of pigs invasion.
Why do so many western “anti-imperialists” justify the invasion of Ukraine then? If you compare the two scenarios, they are quite similar. In the case of Cuba, the United States government claimed that it could not allow an enemy aligned nation to exist on its border. In the case of Russia the state argues that it cannot allow an enemy aligned state to exist on its border.
But what if we stopped looking at it from the perspective of the dominant powers and instead looked at the situation from the perspective of geopolitically marginalized nations instead, and more specifically the workers within the borders of those nations? Again, we can refer to the prisoners dilemma brought up earlier. In the case of Cuba aligning with the USSR, it made a lot of sense. It’s quite unlikely that Cuban independence would ever have been threatened by the USSR or China due to Cuba’s location in the world. America was clearly the nearest threat, especially after Cubans determined that their economic interests did not align with American business interests, but rather with COMECON. 17 That was the choice of the Cuban government, for better or worse.
Today, Ukraine is in a remarkably similar position. The most immediate threat to Ukrainian independence is not western imperialism, but eastern imperialism. Russia is currently using the same justification that the United States used to invade Cuba, commit acts of terrorism, and engage in assassination attempts against Cuban heads of state. This is all because Ukraine chose to pursue its own path that did not align with Russian business interests.
We have thus far spent plenty of time criticizing the phenomenon of eastern aligned selective anti-imperialism, but what about the other side? An equally repugnant phenomenon exists in the liberal and conservative media; western aligned selective anti-imperialism. You may have noticed that western media outlets are more than happy to launch into attacks on the long and brutal history of Russian imperialism. And it is absolutely true that Russia has a very long history of colonizing and subjugating its neighbors, just as America has done in Latin America. Still, it’s quite disconcerting that liberal and conservative media outlets have now co-opted leftist anti-imperialist language.
These same outlets, CNN and Fox news, NPR, and many more almost certainly supported the Iraq and Afghanistan wars twenty years ago. Much like their eastern aligned counter parts, the western aligned anti imperialists are only engaging in a highly selective form of anti-imperialism that is hyper critical of the rival empire’s imperialist adventures, but completely blind to those of their own empire. Like the French monarchy’s involvement in America’s anti-imperialist fight for independence, these narratives and actions are not genuine anti-imperialism, but merely cynical attempts to undermine the geopolitical standing of a rival empire. It is just as George Orwell famously said; “the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Who then should we support? I think the answer is quite simple; the subjugated nations themselves and more specifically the working classes that live within them. There is no contradiction between supporting Ukrainian and Cuban independence, or Ukrainian and Irish independence, or Ukrainian and Palestinian independence. On the contrary, this would indicate a consistent opposition to the encroachment of national independence by foreign invaders.
We, as international anarchists, must abandon the false dichotomy of eastern aligned selective anti-imperialism and western aligned selective anti-imperialism and embrace universal anti-imperialist principles. If we don’t believe in the independence of Ukraine we don’t believe in the independence of Palestine. If we don’t believe in the independence of Palestine we don’t believe in the independence of Ireland. If we don’t believe in the independence of Ireland, we don’t believe in the independence of Rojava. If we don’t uphold independence for all then we don’t uphold independence for anyone. If that is the case, we are merely aligning with one imperialist world order over the other and do not deserve to call ourselves anti imperialists.
1-https://www.npr.org/2022/08/24/1119202240/ukraine-russia-war-by-numbers
2-https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/25/zelensky-family-jewish-holocaust/
3-https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2019/11/10/7231552/
4-https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/parliamentary-elections-redraw-ukraines-political-map/
6-https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/china-great-famine-book-tombstone
8-https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/opinion/suhartos-purge-indonesias-silence.html
9-https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41566561
10-https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/looking-away-from-genocide
12-https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2020/01/27/tankie-the-origins-of-an-epithet/
13-https://oc-media.org/features/after-73-years-the-memory-of-stalins-deportation-of-chechens-and-ingush-still-haunts-the-survivors/
14- Here I say newly christened because prior march 9th, 1918 Lenin’s party was known as the Bolshevik party, not the Communist party. Bolsheviks were initially the radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. They rebranded themselves as “Communists” to differentiate themselves from the more moderate Menshevik faction.
15- This is a reference to Alexander Dugins catch phrase. He uses the phrase multi polar global order to describe a geo political situation in which a large super state controls all of eastern Europe and parts of western Europe, while Nato controls the other half of the world. It should be obvious that suggesting something like this is not a form of anti-imperialism. You cannot claim to fight the concept of “empire” while attempting to build one of your own.
16- Nato and it’s allies make up one power bloc, while the alliance between Russia, China and their allies makes up another. Both of these power blocs contain member nations that have at one point or another been victims of colonization and wars of aggression by one side or the other.
O17-COMECON- Council for mutual economic assistance- an economic organization headed by the soviet union for the development of planned economies.
Anarchy or Caesarism 