This article first appeared in The Anvil Vol 12 No 3, published 30 June 2023.
After the fall of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine became independent. The United States promised Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards, but it didn’t take long for Uncle Sam to renege. Without a global rival to consider, and concerned to find a new mission for NATO after the end of the Cold War, successive US Presidents agreed to requests from most countries in Eastern Europe to join. As each individual new member sought security in NATO, the threat of NATO to Russia increased. In a world of competing States, security for one is bought at the expense of insecurity for its neighbours.
Independent Ukraine was a country split culturally and politically into two halves. Western Ukraine spoke Ukrainian and looked to build economic relations with the European Union, especially with Germany. Eastern Ukraine spoke Russian and looked to preserve its industrial integration with Russia. Corrupt oligarchs from the two factions alternated in power, while the working class was politically marginalised. In 2014, a protest movement against the Russian-leaning Viktor Yanukovych grew into the Maidan Uprising. Politically diverse at the beginning, it shifted to the Right after Fascists physically beat the Left into dropping their banners and ceasing propaganda. By late February, Yanuykovych’s party had deserted him and he fled. Pro-West corrupt oligarchs took charge.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, didn’t take kindly to the defeat of his client and, the next month, sent the Russian army to occupy Crimea. A sham plebiscite ratified its accession to Russia, though it is probable that a genuine plebiscite would have achieved the same result, albeit with a smaller majority. In April, unrest started in the Donbas, covering the two most eastern Ukrainian provinces. Though the leaders there may have been politically independent at the beginning, it didn’t take long before Russian soldiers and Russian guns turned them into puppets. A messy, low-level civil war started up, before largely petering out a year or so later.
In 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected President on an anti-corruption platform. Though Russian-speaking and Jewish, he nevertheless pursued a pro-Western course, aimed at joining both the EU and NATO. By 2022, Putin had lost patience and ordered the Russian army to invade. The Ukrainian army, better motivated and better organised, fought the invasion to a standstill and later recaptured significant ground. A Ukrainian offensive started a few weeks ago. It is making progress, but very slowly against a Russian military that is heavily dug in. A revolt by the leader of the Wagner group, a company of mercenaries, recently exposed deep divisions within the Russian ruling class and weakened Putin’s position, perhaps seriously.
Anarchists don’t support the nation State or its military. We therefore oppose the provision of money, weapons or personnel to the military forces of any State. Here in Australia, we have a special responsibility to oppose the Australian military.
Instead of supporting national militaries, we advocate fighting the class struggle, a position which does not change purely because one State invades another. We oppose war production. We encourage desertion, draft resistance, selective sabotage and diversion of war materiel to the revolutionary movement.
An exception to opposing the war effort is that we do not oppose specific measures to protect cities from aerial attack from planes, drones and such like. An exception to draft resistance is that revolutionaries may submit to conscription in order to engage in anti-war activity within the military.
At the front, Anarchists encourage fraternisation and the refusal of offensive operations. In occupied territory, Anarchists should fight for leadership of the resistance. And finally, we maintain our position even if it leads to the defeat of the military forces of the State in which we live. If some other State invades Australia, we are prepared to see the State conquered and to conduct resistance against the occupier rather than contribute to the victory of the Australian State.
First and foremost, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We oppose NATO and call for its dissolution, but the desire of the Ukrainian Government to join it doesn’t justify what Putin is dishonestly calling a “special military operation”. The invasion, though …