The Brooklyn Rail

March 2022: a warm, sunny day in Berlin ideal for a street protest. A few weeks after the Russian invasion in Ukraine we gather for a demonstration under the slogan No war but the class war, a somewhat time-worn slogan that has admittedly little to show for itself in present-day reality. The days when anti-war agitation by radicals like Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, or, for that matter, Lenin resonated with millions of workers tired of being cannon fodder for their rulers are clearly long gone, and so is the period of turmoil around 1968, when rebellious GIs subverted America’s military adventure in Vietnam. A world order marked by imperial tensions ready to spill over into full-out war, however, is still very much with us, arguably more so than in recent decades. And while we gather in the center of Berlin for our little helpless statement of discontent, it has only been a few weeks since chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, solemnly announced a Zeitenwende, a “historic turning point” marked by Russia’s aggression: a turning point, in Scholz’s understanding, that forces the German state to massively ramp up its military spending by 100 billion euros, even exceeding NATO’s goal of dedicating 2 percent of GDP to “defense,” something the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had so far rejected.

With a turnout of a few hundred people—pathetic by Berlin’s standards, where “revolutionary May Day” easily attracts a crowd of ten thousand or more—the anti-war march proves symptomatic of the political climate. As a liberal columnist pointed out, just a few years ago Scholz’s announcement would have faced opposition from the churches and the trade unions all the way to the far left. Now, even the so-called radical milieu seems uncertain about the situation and hence paralyzed. In fact, with respect to the war in Ukraine, sections of the left and many supposed radicals act as a “vanguard of retrogression,” to borrow a phrase of Loren Goldner’s. Hardly a week goes by without some leftist celebrity practicing public repentance for having refused military service back in the day, a case of youthful naïveté, as the Russian aggression now clearly shows; meanwhile, to name just one drastic example, Anarchist Black Cross in Dresden (normally a prisoner support group) makes it known that the Ukrainian comrades-turned-combatants for whom they do fundraising have in many cases joined battalions dominated by the far right, a somewhat problematic decision in their opinion, but apparently no reason to reconsider the nature of the “Ukrainian resistance” they support, let alone to break off relations.

Since Russia’s attack, the political climate in Germany has been dominated by a hyper-moralistic black-and-white image of the war. It is a war of absolute evil vs. absolute good. Unlike rational Western states, Russia as the embodiment of absolute evil is led not by geopolitical or economic interests (something that might allow for a settlement stopping the bloodshed), but by the most sinister intentions: it seeks to wipe out the Ukrainian nation, is pursuing nothing short of genocide. Ukraine, by contrast, is a country populated by heroic freedom fighters, completely united by their determination to defend not only their own freedom but ours as well. What is striking here are the mechanisms that sustain such a view in spite of all kinds of available information that at least complicate the picture somewhat. Whereas authoritarian regimes like Russia produce national consent by fairly primitive means (state propaganda, massive censorship, prison camp for dissenters), what is at work in a more liberal country like Germany might be called democratic amnesia: facts contradicting the official version do get reported, only to be forgotten in the very same instant. The Ukrainian government’s (successful) request for cluster bombs, the banning of numerous political parties in the country, the extreme national chauvinism displayed not only by its ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk (who, after embarrassingly defending the Nazi-collaborator and Ukrainian national hero Stepan Bandera, was recalled to Kyiv—only to be promoted to deputy foreign minister)—all of this does get reported by the still fairly pluralistic media, but has zero impact. Whereas the authoritarian Russian regime builds on simple lies—Nazis took over Ukraine in 2014, Russia’s “special operation” is a defensive move against a military threat—the democratic public in Germany produces conformity by selectively building on those facts that fit the bill. Guy Debord distinguished between the (authoritarian-statist) “concentrated spectacle” and the (liberal-market) “diffuse spectacle.” Most importantly, the latter in this case requires framing the war as an isolated event that started in February 2022, making the whole recent history of Ukraine as a battle-ground between NATO and Russia disappear in the dark. “The West” thus appears not as a party pursuing its own interests, but as an altruistic force driven by nothing but immaculate ethics when shipping ever more arms to Ukraine. The perfect embodiment of this hyper-moralistic and self-righteous stance is foreign minister Annalena Baerbock from the Green party, proponent of an “ethical” and even “feminist” foreign policy, who seems to have the time of her life shaking hands with Zelenskyy in Kyiv, leading the fight for the Free West.

However, “the West” is anything but a homogeneous entity. While the US hardly suffers from the war—with its state representatives openly boasting about how great a deal arms supply to Kyiv is, massively weakening the Russian rival without losing a single soldier—the picture in Germany is strikingly different, given its massive dependence on Russian oil and gas. Securing Ukraine as part of Europe’s liberal market order, thus opening up investment opportunities and access to cheap labor, is no doubt in the long-term interest of German business as well. In the short term, however, the consequences of the war for the German economy—and for the population facing sky-rocketing energy costs—have been nothing short of disastrous. In a sense, the government sacrificed economic stability for the sake of political stability on the European continent, thus assuming its role as the regional hegemonic power. And the price for pursuing this agenda is very high.

National pacifism

This constellation, in turn, reactivates a peculiar kind of German “pacifism” with a long and pretty awful tradition. Already in the “peace movement” of the early 1980s opposing the deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles on German soil, nationalistic sentiments ran high. Portraying the German government as a docile lap-dog of evil Uncle Sam, the call very often was one for more national sovereignty; with good reason, the left-wing armed group Revolutionäre Zellen (Revolutionary Cells) back then published a communiqué with the telling title “Beethoven vs. McDonald’s,” pointing out the vulgar anti-Americanism in parts of the “peace movement.” Similarly, in the mass demonstrations against US military intervention in Iraq in 2002–2003, Social-Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder (along with his French colleague Jacques Chirac) was sometimes hailed as an icon of peace and good statesmanship for not falling in line with the US State Department: the very same Schröder who had just a few years before successfully broken the post-’45 taboo of German foreign military intervention by joining NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia (a military operation, for that matter, that also violated international law).

Today, despite all efforts by the state and the liberal media to elevate the bloodshed into a noble war to defend freedom and democracy, around half of the German population is against supplying more arms to Ukraine. This has not translated into any serious anti-war movement, based on a rejection of nationalism and solidarity with those designated as cannon fodder on both sides, but instead expresses itself in a massive upswing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the one hand, and attempts by left-wing populists to gain ground, on the other. The AfD, posing as a “peace party” (while of course calling for a stronger military), is no doubt partly driven by admiration for Vladimir Putin, whose authoritarian rule, national chauvinism, and vicious crusade against a supposed “Western” queer-feminist decadence very much embody their own aspirations. However, there is more to it. Given the disastrous effects the war of sanctions has on the German economy, they believe serving the national interest calls for a fundamental change of course. Hence Björn Höcke, representing the more or less Nazi wing of the party, praised Putin for “pointing out that Germany and Russia are natural partners in Europe: German technology and Russian raw materials. Together we would be unbeatable.” By contrast, “America’s interests are not Europe’s interests.” This is the old vision of “Eurasia” as a counter-hegemonic force against US dominance, promoted by reactionaries who oppose “German culture” and “the Russian soul” to the alleged commercial decadence of the Anglo-American world, and shared by a minority fraction of the German establishment that acts more out of economic self-interest. Since in Germany, unlike in the US, the massive hike in the cost of living is to a significant degree caused by the end of cheap Russian oil and gas, this kind of propaganda clearly contributes a lot to the current upswing of the AfD. According to polls, it would now score more than 20 percent of the vote in national elections (more than twice their last result) and over 30 percent in most of Eastern Germany.

On the other hand, a motley crew headed by Sahra Wagenknecht—a prominent politician of the Left Party about to set up her own, more national-populist electoral project—tried to tap into the widespread war skepticism by publishing a “Manifesto for Peace” in February 2023. Calling for an end to arms supplies, an immediate armistice, and peace talks, and correctly pointing out the risk of a nuclear escalation that has ominously vanished from public discourse, the manifesto also displayed patriotic sentiments by “reminding” the chancellor of his oath to “protect the German people from harm.” Somewhat surprisingly for a peace manifesto, but fully in line with such rhetoric, any mention of the additional 100 billion Euros to be poured into the German military is nowhere to be found in it. Even more startlingly, but then again consistent with its general outlook, the “Uprising for Peace” rally for which the manifesto called featured as one of its main speakers none other than Dr. Erich Vad, a retired German general (who proved his tactical skills by not wearing his uniform for the occasion). To turn the whole affair into a veritable postmodern spectacle, figures from the far right—including AfD politicians—made known their intention to join the rally initiated by a leftist celebrity. Though ultimately only a small share of the thirteen thousand who attended the event at the Brandenburg Gate (a carefully chosen national symbol), and attacked by parts of the crowd, the presence of the far right at the “Uprising for Peace” says a lot about this kind of pacifism. It has nothing in common with a principled anti-militarist opposition, but believes in better statesmanship—one that is more in line with the true “national interest”—and thus erases the class lines that any serious movement against wars would have to start from. It is a hotbed of democratic illusions at best, of nationalism in the worst case, and in practice both things at the same time.

For the pro-war center of the political and media landscape, this was more than welcome. The partial overlap of “left-wing” pacifists and the far-right seemed to vindicate its view that anyone who questions the government’s politics enters a shady zone beyond democratic reason and decency, ultimately serving as a fifth column of Putin’s regime.

Radical confusion

Meanwhile, as indicated above, the radical left finds itself in a desolate state. The more traditionalist fractions lean towards Moscow, which, though no longer the beacon of “socialism” they once worshiped, is still seen as a counterweight to Western imperialism and hence, in this reading, as a lesser evil. (Or maybe, what they liked about Eastern state socialism all along was not so much the socialism but the state). Reading their press, one might actually think NATO’s central command started the war. While consistent in their opposition to propping up the German military, this fixation on Western imperialism and near-silence about the authoritarian nature of the Russian regime amounts to complete political bankruptcy.

It is partly against this blindness that Eastern European leftists have cultivated a polemical discourse against so-called “Westsplaining.” Playing on the common phenomenon of “mansplaining,” it attacks the lazy habit of explaining the world in terms of geopolitics, imperialism, and so forth, to put the blame on NATO while ignoring the perspective of those on the ground, the Ukrainian population faced with a brutal onslaught by the Russian military. This is certainly true and a legitimate response to those harboring sympathies for Russia, but, unfortunately, goes much further. Starting off from a banality—of course, anyone taking a stance on the war in Ukraine should try to find out as much as possible about the situation in the attacked country and listen to what comrades and others there have to say—the critique of “Westsplaining” ultimately feeds into the contemporary fashion of “identity politics” that elevates a speaker’s position over what is being said. Put more simply, the privileged Western left should get over its squabble with NATO and Western capitalism and accept as true and correct what “the” left in Ukraine believes is the right thing to do in the current situation—namely, defending “their” country against Russia. This is essentially a rehash of the old anti-imperialist moralism that tried to silence any critique of “national liberation movements” in the global south as arrogant and playing into the hands of Western imperialism; only this time, the imperialism whose defeat is the one and only aim legitimizing all kinds of bizarre alliances is the Russian one. Given the sobering balance-sheet of these “liberation movements” and their cheerleaders in the metropolitan left, it is startling to witness the reemergence of such a logic.

The author of the angry rant that started this discourse, entitled “Fuck leftist Westsplaining,” laid claim to having a “much more nuanced” perspective on NATO, as it is the only protection for Eastern Europeans against Russia’s imperial appetite. The specific conditions of NATO expansion “effectively made us second-class members of NATO, but hey ho, that is all we could get and we went for it.”¹ “We” obviously refers here to the countries concerned, and it is this reference to nations as innocent entities that has found resonance in certain parts of the (formerly) radical milieu in Germany. “Ukraine is not an imperialist state, but a young country, whose independence and nation-building Russia does not accept,” some argue; others are morally outraged about leftists who want to “deprive Sweden and the states bordering Russia of the sovereignty to decide about joining a military alliance.”² It is hard to believe that people who in some cases have consistently opposed the existing order for decades should now, under the impress of Russia’s war, metamorphose into Atlanticist liberals, but it is unfortunately the case.

However, this fatal reorientation starts from a problem that cannot be minimized. It is true that Russia’s initial war aim was to install a subservient regime in Kyiv that would have probably looked very much like the Hell on Earth that is Lukashenko’s Belarus. No doubt the living conditions of the Ukrainian population would have deteriorated significantly in this scenario. Ukraine is far from being the idyllic democracy as which it is being sold by the warmongers (in fact, in the Economist’s “democracy index” it ranked a lousy 87), but people do not get sentenced to fifteen years in prison camp for participating in a demonstration. Since 2014, when the long-standing conflict between pro-Western and pro-Russian oligarchs was decided in favor of the former, a certain breathing space for oppositional movements has opened up and places like Kyiv have become something like a safe haven for activists fleeing Russia and Belarus. A Western left that does not take these aspects into account, as they uncomfortably complicate the picture, would indeed be guilty of ignorant “Westsplaining.” To argue that, as forms of class domination, all states are equal is not serious materialist analysis, but bad abstraction. The issue, then, is not “nation-building” in a “young country,” not “national sovereignty,” but the fear of seeing a certain minimum of freedom trampled under Putin’s boots.

To derive from this the necessity of supporting “national defense,” of joining ranks with the Ukrainian state apparatus and the bourgeoisie, is, however, an altogether different matter. This is the moral blackmail going on since February 2022: those who oppose arming the Zelenskyy regime want to throw the Ukrainian population to the sharks of Russian fascism. What is completely left out in this reading of the situation is a long history of workers’ struggles for political rights and civic freedoms, for rights and freedoms that they need for their organization as a class. The history of the twentieth century, when the proletariat had gained a certain size and strength, is not short of successful struggles of this kind. As the British group Angry Workers put it:

For both tactical and political reasons, workers should avoid trying to fight the invasion militarily—which makes them more likely to get massacred and completely swept up in a nationalist-imperialist dynamic that they can’t control—but fight the dictatorship on their own terms, like workers did in Brazil, Poland, South Korea, or South Africa in the 1980s. They were all successful in the sense that they regained liberties, largely avoided getting slaughtered, and retained, at least initially, an element of class independence. Solidarnosc, the PT, or ANC were shit organizations … but within that dynamic, workers proved that they could organize themselves under the duress of a police state, not just through workplace struggles, but underground networks, acts of sabotage and guerrilla activities. Even now in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, women are coming together to demonstrate against forced conscription.³

By contrast, the notion of some kind of “autonomous” participation in the war effort has all but crumbled. The “Territorial Defense Forces” which some Ukrainian anarchists and leftists have joined are firmly integrated into the central command. And, as it seems, this integration also extends powerfully to the ideological level. While Zelenskyy himself had initially, when arms supplies were still coming in slowly, signaled readiness for some compromise—Ukrainian lives, he explained back then, are more important than Ukrainian territory—the declared aim now is to reconquer all of the country, Crimea included. An editor of the Kyiv-based left-wing journal Commons, himself a member of a “Territorial Defense Unit,” said this on the matter: “If over the course of negotiations Ukraine is forced to accept painful compromises, the search for scapegoats will begin, and revanchist sentiments will be on the rise. However, if Ukraine wins, a joint victory will be able to overcome old divisions in society and make political debates within the country more open.”⁴

Significant parts of the German radical left seem to act under the influence of such voices from Ukraine. What those immediately affected by the war say and do carries a higher moral weight for them; to question their politics would in this perspective amount to a lack of “international solidarity.” In recent decades, just as in the more distant past, the question of war has again and again proven to be a gateway into the mainstream. First it was the Green Party, born not least of all out of the pacifist movement of the eighties and populated for some years by eco-socialists and Marxists, that underlined its successful integration into the existing order by giving a green light for the bombing of Serbia in 1999—in fact, no one could have done the job more credibly than the former-streetfighter-turned-foreign-minister Joschka Fischer, who declared that “a new Auschwitz” had to be prevented in Kosovo. Then, in 2002–2003, huge parts of the anti-fascist movement made the astonishing discovery that “the West” represents a more liberal order than Saddam’s Iraq and came out in favor of the war coalition led by the US. Now, in the face of Russian aggression, anarchists, feminists, and former “autonomists” of all stripes have detected in the NATO-backed Zelenskyy regime the lesser evil worth supporting.

Ironically, while this turn is usually presented as an expression of empathy with “the Ukrainian people,” it seems that not everyone in Ukraine shares such sentiments, at least not their practical consequence—being sent to the front to die for the nation. What has also crumbled more and more over the last year is the image of a people united in its willingness to defend “their” country—and, of course, the freedom of all of us. “Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, cheerfully declared. In reality, the number of men of military age who have fled Ukraine is currently estimated at 650,000, and presumably many more hide from conscription within the country.5 As a Ukrainian comrade explained a year ago, the last wave of volunteers lining up for combat had occurred in Spring 2022; now, reports about sabotage by Ukrainian soldiers unwilling to be sent to the meat grinder surface more and more. As goes without saying, the Zelenskyy government has not only banned men between the age of eighteen and sixty years from leaving the country, thus treating them as the property of the state, as any state would do; it is now also trying to get those who managed to flee extradited from European countries, even though there is no legal basis for such a request. And if Ukrainians are so eager to die for their country and “for Europe,” why in the world did Zelenskyy sign a law in January 2023 that introduces more drastic punishment for not following orders in the army and for desertion? On such matters, very little is to be heard from those both in Ukraine and abroad clamoring for support for “national defense.” By contrast, the anarchist group Assembly stated in 2022 that “already months ago we should have seen massive demonstrations in front of Ukrainian embassies for opening the borders [for deserters].” This group is not based in New York or Berlin or some other cozy place in the West, but in war-torn Kharkiv.

In fact, what is flawed, indeed scandalous about the discourse around “Westsplaining” is not so much the attempt to silence Western leftists with dissenting views; it is the–at least implicit–claim to speak for “the” Eastern European left, if not for the whole of the population. It constructs East and West as homogeneous blocs and acts as the self-proclaimed representative of the former. In reality, the left, radical, and anarchist landscape in those countries is as diverse and conflict-ridden as anywhere. There are Russian anarchists who support the Ukrainian war effort and others who do not. About such questions, it is not “identity” that decides, but political arguments. And, beyond those tiny milieus whose impact on the course of events is minimal anyways, the population seems equally divided. According to a recent survey, 41.5 percent of Ukrainians are in favor of continuing the war and 43.3 percent for negotiations or freezing the conflict; in the east and the south of the country, the regions hardest hit by the hostilities, the latter options score more than 50 percent.⁶

Desertion and defeatism

Of course, individual desertion does not amount to “revolutionary defeatism,” a political strategy aiming to defeat one’s own country in order to overthrow the government. Leaving aside the many issues historically related to this strategy, to propagate it today is ahistorical and futile. The workers’ movement in which such questions were practically relevant and not just lofty ideas is dead as a stone and a new one has not yet emerged, not even in embryonic form. Neither in Russia nor in Ukraine are there any forces in sight that might use the opportunity of an escalating crisis to advance a program for the transformation of society into a higher, classless association of free individuals.

The best that can be hoped for at the moment–and worked towards–is an end to the bloodshed, to workers massacring workers. Glimpses of hope can be seen in the anti-war resistance in Russia and Belarus that goes as far as fire-bombing military centers and sabotaging rail-tracks, and in the deserters on both sides. Publicizing such resistance in order to counter nationalist myths is one of the few things the dispersed and ridiculously weak subversive circles abroad can do in the given situation. It is not a lot, but it is in any case better than joining in the current war-mongering. How will those on the left who want to see “Ukraine’s sovereignty” defended by Western weapons react when – next stop on the road to hell – it is “Taiwan’s sovereignty” menaced by a sinister authoritarian regime? While “revolutionary defeatism” is a mere noble wish for the time being, to see “the main enemy in one’s own country” (Karl Liebknecht) should serve as a practical guide-line. In this sense, to come back to the beginning, the complete lack of opposition in Germany to a massive arms build-up is an ominous sign.

1. Zosia Brom, “Fuck leftist westsplaining”, March 2022, https://freedomnews.org.uk/2022/03/04/fuck-leftist-westplaining.
2. Ilya Budraitskis et. al, “Für einen solidarischen Antiimperialismus”, analyse & kritik, August 16th 2022, https://www.akweb.de/bewegung/ukraine-krieg-internationalismus-fuer-einen-solidarischen-antiimperialismus; Rainer Trampert, “Die Welt als Anspruch und Beute”, Jungle World, February 24th 2022, https://jungle.world/artikel/2022/08/die-welt-als-anspruch-und-beute.
3. “Working class independence and the war in Ukraine—Thoughts after 100 days of carnage”, June 2022, https://www.angryworkers.org/2022/06/13/working-class-independence-and-the-war-in-ukraine-thoughts-after-100-days-of-carnage/
4. “Humanitarian Aid is Not Enough”, Interview with Taras Bilous, June 2022, https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/46677/humanitarian-aid-is-not-enough.
5. “Kiev is searching for 650,000 conscripts,” Harald Stutte, September, 2023, https://www.rnd.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-kiew-sucht-650-000-verschwundene-wehrpflichtige-LGSOXAFH6NEE3LCNW5CFGG466E.html
6. Facebook-Post by Vadym Yakovlev.