Bakunin’s Anarchism Against Campis--Response to Bill Beech
by Wayne Price
Bill Beech has continued his polemics against those who support the Ukrainians in the Ukrainian-Russian war. In his view, anarchists should oppose both sides in the war, especially the Ukrainian side. Aside from name-calling, his arguments usually amount to showing that the Ukrainian capitalist state acts like a capitalist state, and that U.S. imperialism acts imperialist. I will discuss a couple of topics which I think are at the center of our dispute. They may be of interest even to those who have not read Beech’s paper.
Pro-Russian Campism
On the Left, there are people who have been called “campists” or “tankies.” They see U.S. imperialism, and its allies, as the single evil “camp” which must be fought. Any state or force which opposes U.S. imperialism is regarded as positive, to be supported. They ignore that other states are imperialisms, such as Russia or China. They downplay that many oppressed nations have brutal dictatorships, which exploit their own people—such as the Taliban or the Iranian Ayatollahs. Their sole issue is Western imperialism.
Bill Beech is not a “campist” in this sense. He is not Stalinist. As an anarchist, he opposes the states of Russia, China, Iran, etc. In his first denunciation of me, “War on Anarchism,” he wrote, “Let’s…oppose various neo-Stalinists who see in Russia an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist force.”
Yet he, and quite a few others, hold an anarchist variant of campism. They present the U.S. as the outstanding danger to the world. He writes, “We see the global system of imperial domination and economic exploitation by Western states, i.e. the NATO bloc. …We know the history of NATO wars and US crimes….”
But “the global system of imperial domination and economic exploitation” has not been only by Western states. In history, the nations of Eastern Europe and within the USSR were also dominated imperially and exploited economically. Today’s Russian rulers are fighting to restore this imperialism to its full glory.…and beyond. Today the state capitalist rulers of China are working to make their state the equal or superior of the U.S. in “imperial domination.” Meanwhile China oppresses the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Mongolians, and the Hongkongers, while threatening to invade Taiwan. Other, weaker, states are trying to do the same on a regional scale, as Iran seeks to dominate the Middle East.
Beech takes a pro-Russian stance on the war. He cannot deny that it was Russia which first attacked Ukraine. It is still invading, bombing, occupying, and slaughtering the people. Nevertheless, he puts the blame for the war on the Western imperialists. The Russian state just had to invade because the NATO alliance was expanding eastward. He calls pro-Ukrainian anarchists “Natopolitans.” He condemns us for our “denial of the origins of the war (NATO expansion)…and therefore denial of US/NATO imperialism.”
Undoubtedly, the U.S. and its NATO allies are imperialist, in fact the most powerful imperialists in the world. As such the U.S. is constantly pushing to increase and solidify its military power and economic wealth. This is especially true in recent decades, as the U.S. declines in its world-domination, and struggles to shore itself up against other powers. Therefore the push to expand NATO eastward and even into the Pacific region.
But the Russian state is not merely passive. It does not only react to U.S. initiatives. Under Putin, it has been trying to rebuild its European and world influence. It wants at least to regain its domination over the states which once made up the Soviet Union. It invades other countries, within and without its borders, and plays great power politics. Nobody forced Putin to invade Ukraine; it was his own decision. Over the years, Russian aggression has made many in Eastern Europe—both the upper classes and the working classes—fearful and (unfortunately) interested in gaining NATO protection. We anarchists are opposed to both imperialisms and oppose these countries joining either NATO or the Russian bloc.
Beech’s other explanation of the start of the war is “Russia’s refusal to accept a fascist-friendly regime in Ukraine.” (He writes “fascist-friendly” rather than “fascist” because he acknowledges that Ukraine is not fascist or Nazi.) This is absurd. In his footnotes, Beech quotes a definition of “fascism.” Interestingly, Putin’s Russia fits all the parts of the definition, to a tee. This is why the Putinists are so friendly with fascist forces all over Europe and the U.S. It is why U.S. neo-Nazis march with signs, “Russians are our Friends!” It fits Trump’s adoration of Putin and the pro-Russian stance of so many Republicans and others on the U.S. far-right.
Beech sneers at the idea that “Russia invaded (to erase Ukraine!).” Yet Putin has repeatedly stated that Ukraine was not a real country. He condemned the Bolsheviks for establishing a Ukrainian Republic in the USSR. In those regions of Ukraine where the Russian forces rule, they have set up schools only in Russian, which is now the official language. A victory for Russia will be a disaster for the culture, language, and nationality of Ukrainians.
Certainly the U.S. remains the strongest state, with the biggest and most widespread military and the wealthiest economy. But it is not the only capitalist state nor the only imperialism. U.S. imperialism aids the Ukrainian state, only for its own imperialist reasons. But Russian imperialism has actually attacked Ukraine! The class enemy is not “the global system of imperial domination and economic exploitation by…the NATO bloc.” The class enemy is all of world capitalism.
National Self-Determination
To Beech, anarchism and national self-determination are incompatible. He regards national self-determination as the same as nationalism, to be completely rejected. Only the class struggle matters, not “floating notions of freedom and self-determination.” Apparently the class struggle is something distinct from “freedom and self-determination.”
We are not just disputing about Ukraine. Rejection of national self-determination means refusal to support the Palestinian people against Israel and its U.S. supplyer. (All trends among the Palestinians call for a state.) It means that it was wrong in the sixties to support the Vietnamese against U.S. imperialism.
At the height of the British empire, anarchists defended independence struggles in India and Ireland; presumably Beech thinks this was wrong. After World War II, many French anarchists supported the independence fight of the Algerians; something Beech must also think a mistake.
Some ignorant anarchists (not Beech) think that “national self-determination” (or “national liberation”) was invented by V.I. Lenin. Actually, it was originally part of the democratic program raised by the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary epoch. This program called for freedom of speech, of the press, of association, to bear arms, of religion, of dividing the land among those who work it, of equality in all matters (only excepting wealth), etc. And of the freedom of all peoples to decide their own futures.
Of course, the capitalist class never lived up to its promised program. Whatever freedoms were gained were won by the struggles and sacrifices of the people, from below. Now we are in the epoch of capitalist decline. All freedoms come under attack. The democratic freedoms can only be consistently and permanently won through the international revolution of the working class and its allies among all the oppressed.
Revolutionary anarchist-socialism is not for less freedom and democracy than what capitalism offered. Our program is for more—much more—freedom than capitalism has ever promised! And such freedom may only be won through class struggle, which is the fight of the exploited against the capitalists, their state, and all their forms of oppression (race, gender, sexual orientation ….and national oppression).
Luxemburg vs. Bakunin
Beech is sort-of responding to my article in Black Flag, “Should Anarchists Defend Ukraine? A Response to Bill Beech.” I began with a quotation from Errico Malatesta, “True [anarchist] socialism consists of hoping for and provoking, when possible, the subjected people to drive away the invaders, whoever they are.”
I followed with a brief excursus on the views of Mikhail Bakunin. He distinguished between states and homelands. The states are instruments of the ruling classes, which whip up “political patriotism” and nationalism. But homelands are communities based on culture, language, geography, and history. Bakunin opposed all states but defended the workers in exploited homelands. “I feel, frankly and always, the patriot of all the oppressed homelands.”
He declared, “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.” This is national self-determination but it is also anarchism.
Bakunin wrote, “Nationality, like individuality, is a natural fact. It denotes the inalienable rights of individuals, groups, associations, and regions to their own way of life….I will always champion the cause of oppressed nationalities….” (Dolgoff 1980; p. 401)
Beech brushes these references aside. Instead, he cites the views of the great revolutionary Marxist, Rosa Luxemburg (also the anarchist Rudolf Rocker). She argues that all nations are divided by classes, a ruling class and working classes. She concludes, “…’the nation’ as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist.” Similarly, Rocker is quoted as writing, “It is, therefore, quite meaningless to speak of a community of national interests….”
I am a big fan of Luxemburg, but she was wrong to oppose national self-determination. The two quotations may be interpreted in two ways. One is to admit that nations (peoples, countries, national communities, etc.) exist but are not “homogeneous” or classless, bloc-like, “communities of national interests.” Nations are real, but are full of internal conflicts, especially of class. (This view is a rejection of nationalism, which denies these class conflicts.)
The other interpretation might be to say that “‘the nation’…does not exist.” There is really no Ukraine, nor Russia, nor France, nor Italy, nor China. Their existence is really an illusion created by the state. This is nonsense. Granted that nations are historical creations with uncertain boundaries, they exist in the historical actions and thinking of their people. Neither Marxists nor anarchists have been able to persuade working people that they are not parts of countries.
Brian Morris quotes an anarchist scholar, “Bakunin, Cahm concluded, unlike Marx and other revolutionaries, ‘appreciated the importance of national loyalties and aspirations in the context of social revolution. Where other revolutionary socialists dismissed this as a creation of the ruling classes rather than as a strong, natural, and instinctive feeling.’” (Morris 1993; p. 132)
Felipe Correa of Brazil, writes, sharply, “There is, on the part of different researchers, a minimization of the theme of national and anti-imperialist liberation in Bakunin’s life and work from 1864 onward. Perhaps this is explained…by the fact that these researchers live, in most cases, in the central countries of the North Atlantic axis.” (Correa 2024; p. 307)
I refer to Bakunin’s views, not because this proves he was right (he was wrong on a number of matters). What it does prove is that national self-determination is compatible with anarchism, in the opinion of a “founder” of revolutionary anarchism. This is contrary to Beech’s claim that to support national liberation is to betray anarchism, socialism, internationalism, and the working class.
Conclusion
The probable response to this argument is that national struggles in Ukraine, Palestine, etc. are not carried out by stateless “homelands.” They are fought by national states and would-be national states, usually with conventional armies (sometimes with guerrilla warfare).
To be consistent with Bakunin, revolutionary anarchists should support the popular rebellion against the aggressor—the Ukrainian workers and others who do not want to be occupied and killed by the Russian empire, or the Palestinian peasants who do not want to be robbed and massacred by the Israeli state (with U.S. weaponry). We are in solidarity with them.
But we are opposed to the nationalist, statist, and capitalist or state-capitalist program of the dominant leadership. We wish to win over the Ukrainian workers and Palestinian peasants to anarchist-socialism. This can only be done by supporting their fight, being on their side, while explaining (as best as we can under the circumstances) the need for revolution by the working class and all oppressed. To stand aloof, to condemn both sides, both the oppressed and the oppressor, the invader and the invaded, is to betray our program and values.
As I write, the Trump administration is waiting to officially take over the U.S. national government. Donald Trump and his top supporters have long rejected U.S. support for Ukraine, even as they snuggle up to Putin’s Russia. What their actual policy will be, remains to be seen. U.S. imperialism may cease to be the main backer of Ukraine. At this time, I can only discuss principles, and watch how matters develop.
References
Beech, Bill. “I Would Prefer Revolutionary Internationalism.”
https://anarchistnews.org/content/i-would-prefer-revolutionary-internati...
Beech, Bill. “War on Anarchism.” Black Flag: An Anarchist Review. https://www.anarchistfaq.org/blackflag/BlackFlag-vol4-no3.pdf
Correa, Felipe (2024). Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin. Montreal/NYC: Black Rose.
Dolgoff, Sam (Ed.) (1980). Bakunin on Anarchism. Montreal: Black Rose.
Morris, Brian (1993). Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Montreal: Black Rose.
Price, Wayne. “Should Anarchists Defend Ukraine? A Response to Bill Beech.” Black Flag: An Anarchist Review. https://www.anarchistfaq.org/blackflag/BlackFlag-vol4-no3.pdf
