On September 15th the Centro di Documentazione Contro la Guerra organized an open assembly called “La Guerra in Ucraina non va in Vacanza” (The war in Ukraine doesn’t go on holiday) to which IP participated. The venue was located in a central nerve of Milan at the COX 18, an occupied space since 1976, also home to the well known Calusca City Lights, now the Archivio Primo Moroni, an extensive archival project of leftist literature. The purpose of the assembly was to denounce the barbarism that is still underway in the Ukraine after 19 months from its inception, with still no end in sight.
The assembly lasted about two and a half hours and the format was very open: after a concise introduction given by the organizers, in which they restated their position of “revolutionary defeatism”1, Sandro Moiso who writes for the journal Carmilla spoke for about 45 minutes delineating the current “world disorder”; afterwards, the floor was open to discussion.
Many people intervened without any formal restraints, stating their positions, adding nuances and posing questions. The tone was never academic and many voices were heard. According to the organizers the modest turnout of about 30 people was a bit disappointing since the aim was to open the discussion of the war to a wider audience and not only to “few experts who are already certain of everything ”. But regardless of the turnout, the format and tone of the assembly was successful in connecting a range of experiences to “defeatism”, a position which was continuously bolstered throughout the evening.
In his opening remarks Francesco of the CDCG stressed that the current war in Ukraine is not simply another war among many; rather it is an inter-imperialist conflict that signals the beginning of generalized war, one that is characterized by a “new disorder” in which American unipolarity is being challenged. Once again, he said, capitalism is offering us an “out-out” situation: socialism or barbarism.
The second point that Francesco underlined was the necessity to combat the “habituation” to the war, which, he said, is nothing less than the preparation for the working-class to join in the butchery on a multi-polar terrain. As the habituation to the war deepens, he noted, there has been a growth of pacifists on the left, including many anarchists, who are in support of sending weapons to the Ukraine. This must be countered, Francesco said, by exposing the link between War and Capitalism. An assembly, he admitted, has no pretension of being a political organization. It can only point to things. Francesco, but also others from the assembly, urged the participation in upcoming strikes and protests in Italy (Oct 8, Nov 4 and 19) saying that it is imperative to intervene with a defeatist position, since the war is either absent from the agenda or holds a secondary place in these strikes and protests.
Sandro, in his talk, tried to stress the fact that this war has taken on characteristics reminiscent of previous world wars. For one, war is no longer being conducted through “special military operations” (even though they are spun that way on the home front), but is being fought by mobilizing the general army and on a massive human scale. Evidence of this, for example, is the fact that the Ukraine has recently asked the EU to send back military aged men (and boys) that have deserted “their” country. Now that Ukraine is on the counteroffensive, they need more weapons and more soldiers.
Another indicator of a move towards generalized war is the emergence of new “global players”, characteristic of the multi-polarity through which this war is likely to evolve: China, Brazil, Turkey, to name a few. War, Sandro stressed, brings contradictions of all kinds such as the formation of coalitions like BRICS, which enfolds countries who have historically been in conflict, including Ethiopia and Egypt; in this same context China has also mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia; German and French right wing parties are now poised “against the war” due to Europe’s dependency on a Russian gas supply; and with the virtual drying up of the Silk Road commerce, Biden, at the recent G20 summit, proposed a shipping corridor linking India with the Gulf States and Europe in order to circumvent China, a fantasy because Chinese companies control virtually the entire Port of Piraeus in Greece which would be fundamental link in this supposed rout…All these contradictions are all expressions of an anti-unipolarity (sometimes understood as an anti-Americanism). But this must not, Sandro highlighted, be confused with anti-colonialism. We must understand these contradictions, Sandro insisted, by giving importance to the aleatory chaos that accompanies history and war.
Politically, all of this disorder and contradiction makes the formation of any mass anti-war movement very difficult. However, according to Sandro, war can become a catalyst for igniting a social antagonism. Regardless, he concluded, in the absence of a proletarian mass struggle, we can only exist as propagandists.
At the end of the talk many voices were raised from the assembly.
A few people spoke about the voracious militarization of civil society by the Italian state, now taking place in the schools, the militarized restructuring of the police and a rise in state’s expenditures on military propaganda as well as modernizing military bases (like the one in Ghedi that can now rapid-load nuclear warheads onto F35s).
One worker expressed optimism on the grounds that recent worker movements have gained some terrain in their struggles for wages and that these movements, which are a sign of worker’s strength, should not be neglected.
Another worker spoke passionately on the need of desertion and revolution.
A militant, working with COBAS (one of Italy’s national trade unions that attempts to maintain a base committee structure), stood up and declared that revolutionary minorities should “move beyond propaganda” and attempt to form united fronts. This sparked a discussion in which the dangers of the united front, as a sort of organizational form of compromise, were pointed out on a historical basis; even Genova was denounced as a failure due to a united front2.
When it was my turn to speak I pointed out the dangers of nationalism in preparing the terrain for the worker’s involvement in capitalist wars. This sparked a discussion on new and “subtle” forms that nationalism has taken. In particular how “individualist fears” are able to capture the class by involving them in the war economy; such as, for example, when inflation hit, prime minister Mario Draghi appealed to people’s precarious condition by saying “tighten your belts for the sake of our nation”. I insisted that defeatism must adjust to the way that the formation of the identity of the collective-worker has been integrated into nationalism on racial, xenophobic and ethnic grounds. I argued that this aspect of using biological and semi-biological markers to divide the working class has become a central part of modern warfare; and that this characteristic of imperialism, which was taken from colonialism, continues to be a further basis for the disappearance of any distinction between soldier and civilian, since entire populations can be portrayed as “the enemy”.
Sandro spoke with regards to the dangers of “ethnic nationalism” imagining the possible ease with which an American proletariat could be shifted onto a pro-war terrain by fabricating a “yellow fear”, reminding us that during the Vietnam war, the protests that helped defeat the American home front, were mostly made up by students, the black working class and veterans, while the white working class remained in the factories and in support of the war.
In the end, it was emphatically restated that capitalism has no choice but to proceed through its worsening crisis and accelerate towards war. Anti-war voices that propagate a “revolutionary defeatist” position, in which no side can be taken, must remain intransigent! In no uncertain terms must we ally ourselves with visions that would lead to a participation in capitalist barbarism!
IP applauds efforts such as this assembly that openly denounces imperialist barbarism and attempts to understand war as an inevitable outcome of capitalist relations of production. Moreover, the assembly format is able to engage the working class through open discussion while maintaining a revolutionary attitude towards crisis, nationalism and war.
S.Y.
Italy, September 17- 2023
AUDIO RECORDING OF THE ASSEMBLY
1 Here (Italian) and Here (English) is the document written by the CDCG as a contribution to the June assembly
2 The anti G8 protests that took place in Genova 2001 became famous both because of the protest’s scale and for the brutal state violence in repressing the demonstration which ended in the outright execution of Carlo Maria Giuliani. Sandro argued that the Social Forum which was the main organizer of the demonstration was essentially a united front. While police charge thousands of protesters on the coast, supposed representatives the Forum told people to go home, that the demo had been a success. In the end the media pinned the violence on a handful of black bloc.