Anarchism and nationalism

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Anarchism and nationalism both emerged in Europe following the

pan-Slavic movement prior to his conversion to anarchism. There has been a long history of anarchist involvement with nationalism all over the world as well as with internationalism
.

During the early 20th century, anarchism was very supportive of

Catalan nationalists, among whom the use of Esperanto was extensive.[4]

Irish anarchist Andrew Flood argues that anarchists are not nationalists and are completely opposed to it, but rather they are

Anarchist Federation in Britain and Ireland views nationalism as an ideology totally bound up with the development of capitalism and unable to go beyond it.[6]

Overview

Anarchist opposition to nationalism

A critique of nationalism from an anarchist point of view is

Leninists use as a mean of controlling their subjects.[10]

In 1984, Perlman also wrote a work in the

post-left anarchist tradition on the subject of nationalism called The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism.[11] In it, Perlman argues that "[l]eftist or revolutionary nationalists insist that their nationalism has nothing in common with the nationalism of fascists and national socialists, that theirs is a nationalism of the oppressed, that it offers personal as well as cultural liberation".[11] To challenge these claims and in his view "to see them in a context",[11] Perlman asks "what nationalism is - not only the new revolutionary nationalism but also the old conservative one".[11] Perlman concludes that nationalism is an aid to capitalist control of nature and people regardless of its origin. Nationalism provides a form through which "[e]very oppressed population can become a nation, a photographic negative of the oppressor nation" and that "[t]here's no earthly reason for the descendants of the persecuted to remain persecuted when nationalism offers them the prospect of becoming persecutors. Near and distant relatives of victims can become a racist nation-state; they can themselves herd other people into concentration camps, push other people around at will, perpetrate genocidal war against them, procure preliminary capital by expropriating them".[11]

Mikhail Bakunin and nationalism

Anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin, who embraced nationalist causes such as pan-Slavism and Siberian separatism before proclaiming himself an anarchist

Prior to his involvement with the anarchist movement,

Later exiled to

eastern Siberia, Bakunin became involved with a circle of Siberian nationalists who planned to separate from the Russian Empire. They were connected with his cousin and patron Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky, the Governor General of Eastern Siberia, whom Bakunin defended in Alexander Herzen's journal The Bell.[14] It was not until a full four years after leaving Siberia that Bakunin proclaimed himself an anarchist. Max Nettlau remarked of this period in his life that "[t]his may be explained by Bakunin's increasing nationalist psychosis, induced and nourished by the expansionist ideas of the officials and exploiters who surrounded him in Siberia, causing him to overlook the plight of their victims".[15]

National-anarchism

Among the first advocates of national-anarchism were Hans Cany, Peter Töpfer and former

Alternative Green (published by former Green Anarchist editor Richard Hunt) and Jonathan Boulter to develop the Anarchist Heretics Fair.[17] Those national-anarchists cite their influences primarily from Mikhail Bakunin, William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner and Leo Tolstoy.[16] However, the ideas that have influenced the national-anarchists could be seen as cherry-picked to fit a nationalist narrative, running contrary to the beliefs expressed by the influential anarchists.[citation needed
]

A position developed in Europe during the 1990s, national-anarchist groups have arisen worldwide, most prominently in Australia (New Right Australia/New Zealand), Germany (International National Anarchism) and the United States (BANA).

Although the term national-anarchism dates back as far as the 1920s, the contemporary national-anarchist movement has been put forward since the late 1990s by British political activist

national borders and universal equality between different nationalities as being incompatible with the idea of a synthesis between anarchism and fascism.[18]

National-anarchism has elicited skepticism and outright hostility from both

authoritarian anti-statism that would result in authoritarianism and oppression, only on a smaller scale.[22]

By country

China

Anarchists formed the first labor unions and the first large-scale peasant organizations in China. During the roughly two decades when anarchism was the dominant radical ideology in China (roughly 1900–1924), anarchists there were active in mass movements of all kinds, including the nationalist movement.

A small group of anarchists, mostly those associated with the early Paris Group, a grouping of Chinese expatriates based in France, were deeply involved in the nationalist movement and many served as "movement elders" in the

Revolution of 1911
.

After the Nationalist Revolution, anarchist involvement with the Kuomintang was relatively minor, not only because the majority of anarchists opposed nationalism on principle, but also because the KMT government was more than willing to level repression against anarchist organizations whenever and wherever they challenged state power. Still, a few prominent anarchists, notably Jing Meijiu and Zhang Ji, both affiliated with the Tokyo Group, were elected to positions within the KMT government and continued to call themselves anarchists while doing so. The response from the larger anarchist movement was decidedly mixed. They were roundly denounced by the Guangzhou group, but other groupings that favored an evolutionary approach to social change instead of immediate revolution such as the Pure Socialists were more sympathetic.

The "Diligent Work and Frugal Study" program in France, a series of businesses and educational programs organized along anarchist lines that allowed Chinese students from working-class backgrounds to come to France and receive a European education that had previously been only available to a tiny wealthy elite, was one product of this collaboration of the anarchists with nationalists. The program received funding from both the Chinese and French governments as well as raising its own independent funds through a series of worker-owned anarchist businesses, including a tofu factory that catered to the needs of Chinese migrant workers in France. The program allowed poor and working-class Chinese students to receive a high-quality modern university education in France at a time when foreign education was almost exclusively limited to the children of wealthy elites, and educated thousands of Chinese workers and students, including many future Chinese Communist Party (CPC) leaders such as Deng Xiaoping.

Following the success of the

Stalinists
had been using it as a vehicle to gain membership and influence.

Partly because of the growing power of the right-wing within the KMT and the repression of workers movements advocated by that right-wing, the anarchists opted not to join the KMT en masse or even work within it. Instead, the result of this last collaboration was the creation of China's first Labor University. The Labor University was intended to be a domestic version of the Paris groups Diligent Work and Frugal Study educational program and sought to create a new generation of labor intellectuals who would finally overcome the gap between "those who work with their hands" and "those who work with their minds". The goal was to train working-class people with the skills they needed to self-organize and set up their own independent organizations and worker-owned businesses which would form the seed of a new anarchist society within the shell of the old in a dual power-based evolutionary strategy reminiscent of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

The university would only function for a very few years before the Nationalist government decided that the project was too subversive to allow it too continue and pulled funding. When the KMT initiated a second wave of

libertarians
, escalated.

Ireland

The armed struggle against

statist and seek to dominate and exploit the Irish nation to empower their competing sovereign states. Anarchism would instead create a political system without the nation state where communities are self-governing on the local level. The achievement of home rule, or political self-determination, is therefore a precondition for and a consequence of anarchism. At its root, the anarchist objection to Irish nationalism is that nationalists use reprehensible means to demand far too little. Still, anarchists seek to learn from and examine the liberatory aspects of the struggle for Irish independence and the WSM includes a demand for complete British withdrawal from Northern Ireland
in its platform.

In two articles published on Anarkismo.net, Andrew Flood of the WSM outlines what he argues was the betrayal of class struggle by the IRA during the war of independence and argues that the statism of traditional Irish nationalism forced it to place the interests of wealthy Irish nationalists who were financing the revolution ahead of the interests of the vast majority of Ireland's poor. The

Irish Citizens Army, a workers militia which was led by James Connolly and based in the radical wing of the Irish Home Rule and Irish union movements, is held up as a better example of how the larger revolutionary movement could have and should have been organized.[23]

The WSM has produced a number of articles and essays on the relationship between anarchism and Irish republicanism over the years. Their position is that anarchism and republicanism are incompatible and opposed to each other, but that anarchists can and should learn things from Ireland's long history of struggle. In their analysis, republicanism has always been split between rich people who want to rule directly and working class movements that demand social equality and community self-governance instead of simply trading foreign bosses for local ones. In "The Republican Tradition – A Place to Build From?", the WSM wrote:

In Ireland in the 1790s we had a mass republican movement influenced by the American and then the French revolutions. That movement included those who favored a radical leveling agenda as well as the democratic agenda of mainstream republicans. Edward Fitzgerald, the military planner of the rising was one such proponent. But it also contained those like Wolfe Tone who saw an independent Ireland as opening up its own colonies in the Caribbean. In the north Henry Joy McDonald had to remove the existing United Irish leadership paralyzed by fear of the mob seizing property before the rising there could get underway, weeks after it had begun in the south. After its defeat and before his execution he warned future republicans to beware that "the rich always betray the poor." [...] This process was mirrored in republican movements elsewhere. Left republicans would build real popular struggle but then be confronted with the need to preserve national unity in the face of the wealthy republicans whose funds were often needed for arms backing off because they feared for their privilege. And this is where we find the roots of the early anarchist movement. [...] So in terms of historical development anarchism and republicanism have a lot in common, in fact anarchism is arguably an offshoot of republicanism, an offshoot that emerged for the first time in the 1860s but has emerged on other occasions since then including in 1970s Ireland where some of those leaving the official republican movement became anarchists while other anarchists were joining both provisional and official republican movements.[24]

According to this analysis, anarchism is the successor to left-wing nationalism, a working-class movement working to achieve the liberation that the republican movements that toppled the worlds monarchies in the last two centuries promised, albeit never delivered. According to the WSM, although the ideas of anarchism are fundamentally different from those of nationalism, it is still possible to learn from nationalist movements by studying the working-class elements of those movements that demanded more than the bourgeoisie leadership was willing or able to deliver. In "An Anarchist Perspective on Irish Nationalism", Irish anarchist Andrew Flood wrote:

Anarchists are not nationalists, in fact we are completely against nationalism. We don't worry about where your granny was born, whether you can speak Irish or if you drink a green milkshake in McDonalds on St Patrick's Day. But this doesn't mean we can ignore nations. They do exist; and some nationalities are picked on, discriminated against because of their nationality. Irish history bears a lot of witness to this. The Kurds, Native Americans, Chechins, and many more have suffered also – and to an amazingly barbaric degree. National oppression is wrong. It divides working class people, causes terrible suffering and strengthens the hand of the ruling class. Our opposition to this makes us anti-imperialists. [...] So fight national oppression but look beyond nationalism. We can do a lot better. Changing the world for the better will be a hard struggle so we should make sure that we look for the best possible society to live in. We look forward to a world without borders, where the great majority of people have as much right to freely move about as the idle rich do today. A worldwide federation of free peoples – classless and stateless – where we produce to satisfy needs and all have control over our destinies – that's a goal worth struggling for.[5]

The

Anarchist Federation views nationalism as an ideology totally bound up with the development of capitalism
and unable to go beyond it, stating:

At heart, nationalism is an ideology of class collaboration. It functions to create an imagined community of shared interests and in doing so to hide the real, material interests of the classes which comprise the population. The 'national interest' is a weapon against the working class, and an attempt to rally the ruled behind the interests of their rulers. [...] Anarchist communists do not simply oppose nationalism because it is bound up in racism and parochial bigotry. It undoubtedly fosters these things, and has mobilised them through history. Organising against them is a key part of anarchist politics. But nationalism does not require them to function. Nationalism can be liberal, cosmopolitan and tolerant, defining the 'common interest' of 'the people' in ways which do not require a single 'race'. Even the most extreme nationalist ideologies, such as fascism, can co-exist with the acceptance of a multiracial society, as was the case with the Brazilian Integralist movement. Nationalism uses what works – it utilises whatever superficial attribute is effective to bind society together behind it.[6]

India

In the 1910s, Lala

British India or elsewhere.[26]

Spain

During the

Bietan jarrai motto that they adopted for their new revolutionary armed organization ETA.[27]

Ukraine

Classical anarchist theory posed

Northern Ukraine.[31]

Following the ratification of the

counterrevolutionaries" that sought to establish a Ukrainian nation state.[33] Throughout the Ukrainian War of Independence, the Ukrainian anarchists took a stance of internationalism and condemned Ukrainian nationalism in their Russian language newspapers.[34] When the Ukrainian nationalist Nykyfor Hryhoriv launched an anti-Bolshevik uprising, the Makhnovists immediately condemned him for his antisemitism and his divisive politics. According to the historian Frank Sysyn, "the [anarchist] movement as a whole [was] opposed to Ukrainian nationalism."[35] There was only one short-lived case of cooperation between the Ukrainian nationalists and the anarchists, in September 1919, when the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen accepted a wounded Makhnovist contingent that had been forced into retreat by Denikin's offensive.[36] Only four days later, the Makhnovists denounced Petliura as an agent of the White movement and the Petliurists began to fear Makhno intended to "deal with Petliura as he had with Hryhoriv."[37]

(right) together with their daughter Yelena.

Despite their hostility to Ukrainian nationalism, the Ukrainian anarchists were not "

Halyna Kouzmenko, the Makhnovschina increasingly used the Ukrainian language in both its propaganda and educational activities, leading to a notable Ukrainization of the Makhnovist movement.[41] Kouzmenko even attempted to convert the Makhnovists to Ukrainian nationalism, but this campaign was aborted after a nationalist plot to assassinate Makhno was uncovered. Nevertheless, Ukrainian cultural activities and the Ukrainization of the Makhnovschina continued unabated.[42] Despite the movement's increased Ukrainization, the bulk of the movement's cadre was still made up of Russian and Jewish anarchists, who espoused a clear internationalist and anti-nationalist ideology.[43]

The Soviet historian Mikhail Kubanin noted that the number of ideological anarchists within the Makhnovist ranks diminished substantially by the later period of the war, with the Nabat themselves breaking with the Makhnovists by November 1920. But his claims of the Makhnovists forming a "truce, non-aggression pact, and joint action against the Soviets" with the Petliurists were contradicted by his own sources, which noted "no official link" between the two opposing camps and only scant examples of "certain chance meetings".[44] There were cases of former Petliurists joining the Makhnovists in 1920, which introduced more Ukrainian nationalists into their ranks, but Makhno claimed to resist their influence, as the Makhnovist command was still strongly opposed to nationalism.[45] Former Makhnovists came to view the confluence of Ukrainian nationalists and the anarchists as a result of desperation, brought on only at the last minute by the successful Russian offensive, rather than as the culmination of a gradually increasing nationalist sentiment.[46]

While the emergence of a Ukrainian national consciousness had largely been a product of the war of independence against the Hetmanate, the Ukrainian anarchist movement only developed a national consciousness as a result of the Bolshevik victory in the

Dielo Truda.[48]

Anarchism and anti-imperialism

Black anarchism

Black anarchism opposes the existence of a

classical anarchist
movement on racial issues.

Black anarchists oppose the

anti-racist conception, based on the universalism of the Age of Enlightenment which is proposed by the classical anarchist tradition, arguing that it is not adequate enough to struggle against racism and that it disguises real inequalities by proclaiming a de jure equality. Pedro Ribeiro has criticized the whole of the anarchist movement by declaring that "[i]t is a white, petty-bourgeois Anarchism that cannot relate to the people. As a Black person, I am not interested in your Anarchism. I am not interested in individualistic, self-serving, selfish liberation for you and your white friends. What I care about is the liberation of my people".[49]

Black anarchists are influenced by the civil rights movement and the Black Panther Party, seeking to forge their own movement that represents their own identity and tailored to their own unique situation. However, in contrast to black activism that was in the past based in leadership from hierarchical organizations, black anarchism rejects such methodology in favor of developing organically through communication and cooperation to bring about an economic and cultural revolution that does away with capitalism, racist domination and the state. In the @narchist Panther Zine, Alston wrote:

Panther anarchism is ready, willing and able to challenge old nationalist and revolutionary notions that have been accepted as 'common-sense.' It also challenges the bullshit in our lives and in the so-called movement that holds us back from building a genuine movement based on the enjoyment of life, diversity, practical self-determination and multi-faceted resistance to the Babylonian Pigocracy. This Pigocracy is in our 'heads,' our relationships as well as in the institutions that have a vested interest in our eternal domination.[50]

Independence anarchism

"Estelada anarquista" flag used by Negres Tempestes, a Catalan anarcoindependentista organization active in Barcelona[51]

Independence anarchism (also known as anarcho-independentism) attempts to synthesise certain aspects of

national liberation movements with an opposition to hierarchical institutions grounded in libertarian socialism. Where a certain nation or people exists with its own distinct language, culture and self-identity, independence anarchists concur with supporters of nationalism that such a nation is entitled to self-determination. While statist nationalists advocate the resolution of national questions by the formation of new states, independence anarchists advocate self-government without the need for a state and are committed to the key anarchist societal principles of federalisation, mutual aid and anarchist economics. Some supporters of the movement defend its position as a tactical one, arguing that secessionism and self-organisation is a particularly effective strategy with which to challenge state power.[52]

Independence anarchism frames national questions primarily in terms of equality, and the right of all peoples to cultural autonomy,

Post-colonial anarchism

Post-colonial anarchism is a relatively new tendency within the larger anarchist movement. The name is taken from an essay by Roger White, one of the founders of Jailbreak Press and an activist in North American

anti-imperialist
framework.

Where traditional anarchism is a movement arising from the struggles of

, among other sources.

References

  1. ^ a b Firth, Will. "Esperant Kaj Anarkiismo". Nodo50. Retrieved 21 September 2020. "Anarkiistoj estis inter la pioniroj de la disvastigo de Esperanto. En 1905 fondiĝis en Stokholmo la unua anarkiisma Esperanto-grupo. Sekvis multaj aliaj: en Bulgario, Ĉinio kaj aliaj landoj. Anarkiistoj kaj anarki-sindikatistoj, kiuj antaŭ la Unua Mondmilito apartenis al la nombre plej granda grupo inter la proletaj esperantistoj, fondis en 1906 la internacian ligon Paco-Libereco, kiu eldonis la Internacian Socian Revuon. Paco-libereco unuiĝis en 1910 kun alia progresema asocio, Esperantista Laboristaro. La komuna organizaĵo nomiĝis Liberiga Stelo. Ĝis 1914 tiu organizaĵo eldonis multe da revolucia literaturo en Esperanto, interalie ankaŭ anarkiisma. Tial povis evolui en la jaroj antaŭ la Unua Mondmilito ekzemple vigla korespondado inter eŭropaj kaj japanaj anarkiistoj. En 1907 la Internacia Anarkiisma Kongreso en Amsterdamo faris rezolucion pri la afero de internacia lingvo, kaj venis dum la postaj jaroj similaj kongresaj rezolucioj. Esperantistoj, kiuj partoprenis tiujn kongresojn, okupiĝis precipe pri la internaciaj rilatoj de la anarkiistoj."
  2. ^
    Ética
    será el Ateneo Naturista Ecléctico, con sede en Barcelona, con sus diferentes secciones la más destacada de las cuales será el grupo excursionista Sol y Vida.
  3. ^ a b Díez, Xavier (1 April 2006). "La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923-1938)" (PDF). pp. 1–36. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 6 May 2011. La insumisión voluntaria: El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923–1938).
  4. ^ Del Barrio, Toño; Lins, Ulrich (27–29 November 2006). "La utilización del esperanto durante la Guerra Civil Española". Nodo50. International Congress on the Spanish Civil War. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  5. ^ a b Flood, Andrew. "An Anarchist Perspective on Irish Nationalism". Workers Solidarity Movement.
  6. ^ a b "Against Nationalism". Anarchist Federation. 3 April 2009. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  7. ^ Woodcock, George. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. p. 233.
  8. ^ Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century. p. 283.
  9. .
  10. .
  11. ^ a b c d e Perlman, Fredy (Winter 1984). "The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism". Fifth Estate. Retrieved 20 September 2010 – via Libcom.org.
  12. ^ Bakunin 1848.
  13. ^ Knowles n.d.
  14. ^ Billingsley n.d.
  15. ^ Nettlau 1953.
  16. ^
    S2CID 144248307
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  17. ^ a b c d e f g Sunshine, Spencer (Winter 2008). "Rebranding Fascism: National-Anarchists". The Public Eye. 23 (4): 1–12. Retrieved 12 November 2009.
  18. ^
    Intelligence Report
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  19. ^
    S2CID 143709925
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  20. ^ .
  21. ^ .
  22. ^ Lyons, Matthew N. (Summer 2011). "Rising Above the Herd: Keith Preston's Authoritarian Anti-Statism". New Politics. 7 (3). Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  23. ^ Flood, Andrew. "Insurrection in Ireland". Anarkismo.net. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  24. ^ "The Republican Tradition - A Place to Build From?". World Socialist Movement. 26 November 2010. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  25. ^ Puri 1983.
  26. ^ Aldred 1948.
  27. ^ Pascual, Jakue (27 October 2011). "Aizkora eta sugea". Anarkherria. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
  28. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 279.
  29. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 279–280.
  30. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 280.
  31. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 280–281.
  32. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 284.
  33. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 284–285.
  34. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 285–286.
  35. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 286.
  36. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 287.
  37. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 287–288.
  38. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 288.
  39. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 288–289.
  40. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 289.
  41. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 289–290.
  42. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 290–292.
  43. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 292.
  44. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 293.
  45. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 293–294.
  46. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 294.
  47. ^ Sysyn 1977, p. 303.
  48. ^ Sysyn 1977, pp. 303–304.
  49. ^ "Senzala or Quilombo: Reflections on APOC and the fate of Black Anarchism". Anarkismo. 11 May 2005. Retrieved 20 September 2010.
  50. ^ Alston, Ashanti (October 1999). @narchist Panther Zine. 1 (1).
  51. ^ Negres Tempestes (20 March 2006). "Negres Tempestes Presentation". Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  52. ^ "Qui som". Negres Tempestes. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  53. .

Bibliography

External links