Thoughts born of a protest march in solidarity with Ukraine …
“Patriotism as a feeling of exclusive love for one’s own people, and as a doctrine of the virtue of sacrificing one’s tranquillity, one’s property, and even one’s life, in defence of the weak among them from slaughter and outrage by their enemies, was the highest idea of the period when each nation considered it feasible and just, to subject to slaughter and outrage the people of other nations for its own advantage.” The words are Leo Tolstoy’s and they are perhaps difficult for many to accept in the current context of the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine, and when so many understandably and willingly seek to support and defend the Ukrainian state.
But for Tolstoy, there is no good patriotism to oppose to bad patriotism, for they are all conducive to a “definite feeling of preference for one’s own people or State above all other peoples and States, and therefore it is the wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got; and these are always obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States.”
But can this still be said of the Ukrainian government’s and the Ukrainian peoples’ defence of their country? What advantage could they seek, as a nation, in defending themselves?
Our contention – and it would seem to us that this is something that we would share with all anarchists – is that in taking up arms against the Russian army, one is not, or should not – if it is possible to make moral demands in such a situation –, defend a flag, a government or a state, but the freedom of all to self-governing equality, something that recognises no state or sovereign borders. A war to perpetuate nation-state forms is, in the end, to feed future violence and wars.
To desire the well-being for one’s “own” community, for those with which one lives and creates, in such a way that it does not infringe on the well-being of others, is to desire the same for everyone. And this is not only not patriotic; it is the “reverse of patriotic”.
Patriotism is the fuel which sustains the hierarchy and oppression of government, economic rulers and religious authorities. For this reason, the ruling classes inflame patriotism, “perpetrating every kind of injustice and harshness against other nations, they provoke in them enmity towards their own people, and then in turn exploit that enmity to embitter their own people against the foreigner.”
Freedom from inter-state war, peace, will only come, for Tolstoy, with the end of governments, states. “To deliver men from the terrible evils of armaments and wars, which are always increasing and increasing, what is wanted are neither congresses nor conferences, nor treaties, nor courts of arbitration, but the destruction of those instruments of violence which are called governments, and from which humanity’s greatest evils result. To destroy governmental violence only one thing is needed: it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports that instrument of violence, is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and above all—is immoral.”
We share Leo Tolstoy’s essay Patriotism and Government of 1900.
A woman and a child walk as they flee from Ukraine to Hungary, after Russia launched a massive military operation against Ukraine, at a border crossing in Beregsurany, Hungary, February 25, 2022. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
I know that this outburst, outside the framework of geopolitics, devoid of the contextualisation of historical background, economic interests, or international balances, may seem superficial and puerile, but these days I cannot rid myself of a thought that repeats itself without my even wishing it, like conceptual garlic that adds bitterness to these fearful times. How macho, how male, I feel, what an excess of machismo, I intuit, how much male chauvinism is ahead of us, I tremble.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine proceeds, anarchists throughout Russia continue to mobilize in protest, joininng thousands of other Russians. Here, we publish two statements from longtime Russian anarchist projects that offer some analysis of the situation in Russia and how the invasion of Ukraine might shift it.
Protests are scheduled in Russia for tomorrow (Sunday, February 26). We are still waiting for a report from our contacts in Ukraine, which we will publish when it arrives.
Russia itself has become an information battlefield in the course of the invasion. The Russian government has attempted to block access to Twitter so that Russians will not see what is happening in Ukraine or, for that matter, elsewhere in Russia. On the other side of the barricades, the Kremlin website was hacked. Whether the Russian people decide to support this invasion at great cost to themselves—or to oppose Putin’s agenda at great risk to themselves—may well determine what happens in Ukraine in the long run.
“Peace is a privilege reserved for those who can afford not to fight in the wars they create—in the eyes of madmen, we are just figures on a chart, we are just barriers in their path towards world domination.”
A proclamation by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, gave the green light for Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. Putin claims that Russia’s act of war against Ukraine is aimed at supporting the Russian-occupied Crimea and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in Ukraine, which is flirting with NATO membership at Western instigation. On Tuesday, 22 February, Russia recognised the independence of its informal protectorates in Donbas, exacerbating existing tensions with the Euro-Atlantic axis that supports the Ukrainian regime.
Against War and Militarism: Resolution of the IWA Founding Congress(1922)
Militarism is the system of monopolistic State violence for the purpose of defence and expansion of the national theatre of exploitation (defensive war or war of aggression), for bringing fresh theatres of exploitation under control (colonial war) and for coming down hard on the rebellious popular masses (strikes, unrest, rioting).
In every instance, the object is to preserve and increase the profits of the ruling classes, to wit, the proletariat’s enemy class.
Militarism is the last and the mightiest resort at the bourgeoisie’s disposal in keeping the working class under the thumb and snuffing out its struggles for freedom.
AT THIS most critical moment it becomes imperative for every liberty-loving person to voice a fiery pro- test against the participation of this country in the European mass-murder. If the opponents of war, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would immediately join their voices into a thunderous No!, then the horror that now menaces America might yet be averted. Unfortunately it is only too true that the people in our so-called Democracy are to a large extent a dumb, suffering herd rather than thinking beings who dare to give expression to a frank, earnest opinion.
Front to front are the two enemy defenses: the barricade of the people and the military trench. The barricade shows to the sun its enormous, irregular bulk, and appears to be proud of its deformity. The military trench flaunts its geometrically plotted lines, smirking at its hunchbacked rival. The people, mutinous, are behind the barricade; the soldiers are found behind the trench.
There is no nefarious deed, no criminal passion that interested parties do not try to excuse, justify, and even glorify by means of noble reasons. This is, in essence, a source of comfort, for it shows that certain loftier ideals devised by humanity over the course of its evolution have by now seeped into the universal consciousness and linger and prevail even in times of the greatest aberration. But this does not make it any less necessary that the deception be exposed, and the sordid interests and atavistic brutality lurking under the cloak of noble sentiments be denounced.
Thus, lying assurances that the undertaking would be simple, and about the great benefits the Italian proletariat would reap from it were not enough to justify and persuade the people to embrace the loot-and-pillage war that the Italian government meant to wage on the people of Libya. It would be really too outrageous if a man, other than a complete brute, were to be incited to carry out a murder on the assurance that the intended victim is defenseless and has lots of money and that there is no risk of being discovered and punished. So other, loftier motives had to be marshalled, and the naïve persuaded that this was a rare opportunity when one might become rich while performing a selfless act of magnanimity. And they came up with the need to exercise “the nation’s energies” and show the world what “our folk” are worth, their right and duty to spread civilization and, first and foremost, love of country and the glory of Italy.
We shall not bother here with the supposed material benefits, first of all because, in our view, these could never justify aggression, and then because these days few people have any belief left in such benefits, unless we are talking about the profiteering by a tiny band of monopolists and military suppliers. But it is worth our while to take a closer look at the moral arguments that have been deployed to justify the war.
You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach. there is nothing like such a permission, but, on the contrary, not only is all murder forbidden but all insulting of others is forbidden also, and we are told not to do to others what we do not wish done to us. And you ask, Is there not some fraud in all this? And if so, then for whose sake is it committed?
Yes, there is a fraud, committed for the sake of those accustomed to live on the sweat and blood of other men, and who therefore have perverted, and still pervert, Christ’s teaching, given to man for his good, but which has now, in its perverted form, become a chief source of human misery.
In this hasty update, we review some of today’s efforts to resist the Russian invasion of Ukraine—from both Russians within the repressive conditions of Russian society and Ukrainians experiencing the full force of military attacks. There is a great deal more to be said about this subject than we can cover here. We will return to analysis shortly, but for now, we aim chiefly to put this information at your disposal rapidly. Those who require background may begin here for a Russian perspective or here for a Ukrainian perspective.
Leo Tolstoy: The moral corruption of patriotism
Thoughts born of a protest march in solidarity with Ukraine …
“Patriotism as a feeling of exclusive love for one’s own people, and as a doctrine of the virtue of sacrificing one’s tranquillity, one’s property, and even one’s life, in defence of the weak among them from slaughter and outrage by their enemies, was the highest idea of the period when each nation considered it feasible and just, to subject to slaughter and outrage the people of other nations for its own advantage.” The words are Leo Tolstoy’s and they are perhaps difficult for many to accept in the current context of the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine, and when so many understandably and willingly seek to support and defend the Ukrainian state.
But for Tolstoy, there is no good patriotism to oppose to bad patriotism, for they are all conducive to a “definite feeling of preference for one’s own people or State above all other peoples and States, and therefore it is the wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got; and these are always obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States.”
But can this still be said of the Ukrainian government’s and the Ukrainian peoples’ defence of their country? What advantage could they seek, as a nation, in defending themselves?
Our contention – and it would seem to us that this is something that we would share with all anarchists – is that in taking up arms against the Russian army, one is not, or should not – if it is possible to make moral demands in such a situation –, defend a flag, a government or a state, but the freedom of all to self-governing equality, something that recognises no state or sovereign borders. A war to perpetuate nation-state forms is, in the end, to feed future violence and wars.
To desire the well-being for one’s “own” community, for those with which one lives and creates, in such a way that it does not infringe on the well-being of others, is to desire the same for everyone. And this is not only not patriotic; it is the “reverse of patriotic”.
Patriotism is the fuel which sustains the hierarchy and oppression of government, economic rulers and religious authorities. For this reason, the ruling classes inflame patriotism, “perpetrating every kind of injustice and harshness against other nations, they provoke in them enmity towards their own people, and then in turn exploit that enmity to embitter their own people against the foreigner.”
Freedom from inter-state war, peace, will only come, for Tolstoy, with the end of governments, states. “To deliver men from the terrible evils of armaments and wars, which are always increasing and increasing, what is wanted are neither congresses nor conferences, nor treaties, nor courts of arbitration, but the destruction of those instruments of violence which are called governments, and from which humanity’s greatest evils result. To destroy governmental violence only one thing is needed: it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports that instrument of violence, is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and above all—is immoral.”
We share Leo Tolstoy’s essay Patriotism and Government of 1900.
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