In the last century, the world was divided ideologically into two mainblocs, on one side the USA with its allies and on the other, the USSRwith its satellites. The communist parties of different currents and thevarious left-wing movements professed the unconditional defense of the"anti-imperialist" camp (imperialism being assimilated to the UnitedStates and Western states) with the consequence of blind support fornational liberation struggles. even if there was nothing socialist aboutthem; the main thing being that they go against thegeo-military-economic interests of the USA and its allies. Once mostcolonized countries gained their independence, the communists and theirallies gave their support to the newly independent countries, regardlessof the policies of the country's ruling class; always in the name of"anti-imperialism". On the side of the Capitalists, the reasoning wasjust as simplistic: they were the camp of Good fighting against the campof Communist evil. This simplistic and reductive vision is a goodexample of what we call campism, a tendency to reduce a politicalsituation to a confrontation between two camps, and therefore to alignoneself with one camp against the other. Any other position (sometimescalled "the third camp"), which refused to choose "the least worst" andto send the two false alternatives back to back as being allauthoritarian, would lead the Communists to treat you as a dirtyimperialist or the pro-Americans to call you sold to the Reds.With the war in the Middle East and since Russia's invasion of Ukraine,campism has become fashionable again. Indeed, during the civil war inSyria in 2011, a divide crossed the left, two conceptions opposed eachother: for some the dictatorial regime of Bashar el Assad is"anti-imperialist" and would be the victim of an attempted overthrow byjihadists interposed. From this perspective, it would therefore havebeen necessary to support the Syrian regime, despite the obviousmassacres it was perpetrating; for others, the rebels were progressiveand democratic forces, despite the presence of bloodthirsty radicalIslamists among them, and therefore, it was the rebel camp that shouldhave been supported. This type of situation comes up regularly duringany conflict and particularly today during the Israeli-Palestinianconflict. We are asked to take sides with one or the other of the twocamps and people who, like us, have decided not to support any of theStates (current or future) but who choose to be in solidarity with thepopulations are described as objective allies of the opposite camp oridealists.In view of the above, everyone will understand that there are two kindsof campism, left or right. We will not talk about right-wing campists,they are enemies. But we want to address the question of left-wingcampists. Let's move on to the binary side of their "analyses". We caneasily get past "comrades" of this kind. But it must be said that we areused to it because in fact campism is not new - and neither is ourinternationalist (or anationalist to be more precise) position.Campism has been in the genes of Marxism from the beginning. Indeed, inthe Communist Manifesto of 1848, Marx already laid the foundations byaffirming that the priority of the proletarians is to take power to leadthe nation. "As the proletariat of each country must first of allconquer political power, establish itself as the ruling class of thenation, become the nation itself, it is still thereby national." Fromthen on, we understand that for Marx, the first task of communists isnot to make a socialist revolution, but a national revolution and toaccompany certain "less bad" bourgeois forces against other reactionaryartistocratic or bourgeois forces. "In France, the communists rallyaround the Democratic-Socialist Party against the conservative andradical bourgeoisie,[...]in Switzerland, they support the radicals,without ignoring that this party is made up of contradictory elements,half of socialist democrats, half of radical bourgeois. In Poland, thecommunists support the party which sees, in an agrarian revolution, thecondition of national emancipation[...]. In Germany, the Communist Partyfights in agreement with the bourgeoisie, whenever the bourgeoisie actsrevolutionaryally against the absolute monarchy. As we see, from itsorigin, Marxism aims to make national alliances with bourgeois forcesagainst other bourgeois forces, and therefore to take the side of onecamp against another in an inter-bourgeois conflict.During the War of 1870, Marx again chose his side, but this time not forgeopolitical or ideological reasons, but more prosaically because hewanted the victory of the German Empire in the hope that this would makeit possible to liquidate the French workers' movement, that is to say,to eliminate his libertarian adversaries in the international labormovement: "The French need to be beaten. If the Prussians arevictorious, the centralization of state power will serve thecentralization of the German working class. German preponderance,moreover, will transport the center of gravity of the European movementfrom France to Germany... The preponderance on the world theater of theGerman proletariat over the French proletariat would at the same time bethe preponderance of our theory over that of Proudhon" (Letters toEngels, volume IV, page 339) After this fine example of nationalistprose, Marx wants "the German army to subdue the proud and frivolousFrench workers". Engels replied: "The victory of Bismarck will be thevictory of our thought against the thought of Proudhon and, moreover,the Parisian workers need a lesson." Here we find a second constant ofcampism: if we scratch a little at the political motivations whichpresent themselves as the defense of the freedom of a people againstoppression, very often the real intentions which underlie thesepositions are indeed less noble. We can also wonder if some of ourcontemporary campers do not also have very personal motivations. We cantherefore wonder why Jean Luc Mélenchon can place himself as thechampion of the defense of the Palestinians in the face of Zionistcolonialism after having gone the same week to Morocco to praise KingMohamed VI, who nevertheless behaves like a perfect colonialist. inWestern Sahara. This is because the campist changes according to his owninterests: those he claims to defend are in fact often only pretexts orclaims hiding his real political intentions...The refusal of campism is also an invariant of anarchosyndicalism sinceits origins. In 1914, when the First World War broke out, left-wingcampism wreaked havoc. All socialists and communists (with rareexceptions) and also, it must be said, some anarchists took up the causeof one camp against another, aligning themselves with their bourgeoisie.Again, the campist anarchists only took positions in 1916 (in themanifesto of the 16) after almost 2 years of war which had alreadycaused millions of deaths, where the Marxist socialists had foundered inAugust 1914. In Italy, this The question of campism split therevolutionary syndicalist movement in two, the anarchosyndicalists -with Borghi - refusing to take sides, the revolutionary syndicalists -behind among others Edmondo Rossoni and Michele Bianchi - choosing theside of war. In this adventure they met another campist socialist, acertain Benito Mussolini, with whom they founded the National FascistParty... In Argentina, on the other hand, the globalist anarchists ofthe FORA organized general strikes in 1917 against the war, which forcedthe government to remain neutral during conflict.After the First World War, the Marxist internationalists who had refusedwar and met in Zimmerwald vibrated to the echoes of the young Russianrevolution. But a new campism then appears: this time, for the SovietUnion or for the Capitalist States. The Comintern, which leads the RedTrade Union International, calls on everyone to take a stand. Theanarchists who had refused campism during the First World War (Rocker,Schapiro, Borghi, Emma Goldman, FORA, etc.) met again and founded theInternational Workers' Association (AIT) in December 1922 - ourinternational organization which is still present today . Immediately;the AIT is called upon to pronounce on the notion of a "United Front"into which the Red International Trade Union is trying to drag it in thename of anti-imperialism. The different sections of the AIT,unanimously, spoke out against the "United Front" and placed the RedInternational of Moscow and the Yellow International of Amsterdam backto back. The AIT inaugurates the "third camp position". The MoscowInternational therefore declared a war to the death, which wasinaugurated by the assassination of two anarchosyndicalists, Clos andPoncet, at the Paris Labor Exchange on January 11, 1924. Trotsky, evenin his exile and chased by the Stalinist police, will continue to"declare war to the death on the anarchosyndicalist international" inits Transition Program of 1938...However, this refusal to position oneself on the side of the communistsdid not mean positioning oneself in favor of the capitalists. Sectionsof the AIT increased revolutionary attempts in the 1920s and 1930s -notably in Spain and Argentina, where workers made attempts atexpropriation and collectivization on a large scale and for more or lesslong periods. The capitalist states understood well that theanarchosyndicalists were their bitter enemies, and implemented againstthem a policy of systematic physical liquidation of a brutality whichhad no equivalent than that which was in force on the Soviet side.The AIT and the anarchosyndicalists took part in anti-colonialiststruggles from the start, but with their own sensitivity. Thus the AITparticipated in the work of the International League against imperialismand colonial oppression founded in 1927 in Brussels. However, theanarchosyndicalists intervened to counter the campist discourse of theCommunists, through the voice of Arthur Lehning, the secretary of theAIT, in a prophetic declaration which warned against nationalistillusions: "This is the common task of the working class white andcolored to develop a world revolution from this struggle againstimperialism. Because the true freedom of the colonial peoples will come,not only through national independence, but above all through economicfreedom - the end of all forms of exploitation of the working class. Itis for this reason that the struggling colonial peoples should becareful not to create a new form of exploitation through a nationaliststate in place of the exploitation through their "mother countries"current, and not to establish the dictatorship of a political party inplace of the exploitation of the one who now oppresses them. Because anydictatorship, by its very nature, means the recreation of state power;the resulting oppression of the working masses, while its militaryorganization makes the danger of war permanent instead of putting an endto it. And its system of state capitalism leads to a search for marketsthat can give rise to new economic conflicts. The AIT urges workers ofall races and classes to wage unceasing struggle against governments andthe state in order to wage war using their economic power and bringabout social revolution. Thanks to this struggle, they can take chargeof their economic lives and build a new society on the basis of a trulyfree Soviet system, for which the destruction of the state is anecessary preparation. Workers of all lands and all races, unite! Longlive the social revolution! Long live the freedom of the workers of theworld.! ".In 1930, when the French left was not much interested in the colonialquestion, the Algerian section of the CGTSR-AIT, organized a campaignagainst the ceremonies of the centenary of the colonization of Algeria,but refusing to sink into Algerian nationalism, calling on the contraryfor the fraternization of workers on both sides of the Mediterranean.The refusal of campism is not a refusal to engage. Thus during theDreyfus affair, the anarchists took up the cause of Dreyfus, not from a"campist" point of view, but from a humanist, global point of view. Inhis pamphlet "Anarchists and Anti-Semitism" published in 1898, SébastienFaure clarifies the position of the anarchists: "Should we enter intothe Esterhazy conspiracy or the Dreyfus conspiracy? Could we resolutelyside with this one against that one, or the first against the second?Neither for one nor the other! We have excluded from the debate thepersonalities of Dreyfus and Esterhazy, and we have taken a much broaderand higher point of view; and this, from the first to the last line.Christian or Jewish authoritarians, Christian or Jewish capitalists,Christian or Jewish officers, are the same enemies for us. But theoppressed, whatever their rank, their tribe, their country, becomes ourcompanion in misery, our brother in pain. We do not ask him his name,nor that of his land. We ask him to put his hand in ours and close hisranks against ours. When a man has fallen, when he suffers, when he isdying, we ask him neither his nationality, nor his political opinions,nor his faith, nor his background. We come to his aid, we rescue himfrom danger, we compete with him against death. It's spontaneous, it'sgood, it's human.» Thus the anarchists did not defend "the honor of thesoldier Dreyfus" but the injustice done to a human being because of his"race" and in the name of the Nation.Likewise, during the Second World War, while the workers' movement ingeneral and the revolutionary movement in particular had collapsed,campism led certain activists - Trotskyists (Henri Molinier) inparticular but also ultra-pacifists - to join the Collaboration camp.Others joined the Resistance but abandoned all revolutionary principlesin favor of the narrowest French nationalism. The AIT militants inFrance, for their part, did not abandon the position of the "3rd camp",although a certain number had been put in camps by the French Republicas early as 1939 as "undesirable foreigners", internment which wasprolonged and sometimes even in the extermination camps by Vichy and theNazis. They set up a group of internationalist Resistance fightersaround André Arru and Voline (who combined the facts of being ananarchist, stateless person of Russian origin, Jew and freemason, andwhich meant immediate execution in the event of arrest by the Gestapo...) who of course carried out anti-Nazi and anti-Vichy resistance (forexample providing papers to resistance fighters or hunted Jews) BUTwithout forgetting to resist against the "allies" - Gaullists orcommunists, by warning about their authoritarian side which will notfail to assert itself once the Nazis are defeated. The Spanish anarchistmilitants of the CNT-AIT formed a maquis at the Barrage de l'Aigle,which fought the Nazis with weapons in their hands, but which explainedvery clearly to the French Resistance that they were not fighting forFrance and did not wish to serve as cannon fodder for the liberation ofthe French Republic. As Francisco Ponzán, one of those responsible forone of the largest escape networks of resistance fighters, allied airmenwho fell in occupied France and hunted Jews and who was shot by theNazis in 1944, said: "It is not the French homeland which is in danger,nor the freedom of France which is at stake, it is Liberty, culture andworld peace.» This demonstrates that even in the darkest hours, no oneis obliged to put aside their internationalist humanist principles, itis always possible to refuse narrow nationalism.Even today, rejecting campism is not a refusal to engage or act. Butthis is taking the side of humans, and not that of a System or a Party.This refusal requires certain courage, like that of our Ukrainiancompanions in Assembly who, while resisting the aggression of theRussian army by participating in civil solidarity actions, tirelesslydenounce the corruption and authoritarianism of the Ukrainiangovernment, or like our companion Ilan Shalif, an 86-year-old Israeli,who has demonstrated tirelessly for 30 years alongside the Palestiniansof the village of Bi'lin against colonization, and who despite theOctober 7 massacre by Hamas refuses to let himself be invaded by hatredagainst all Palestinians.We are currently witnessing, depending on the various conflicts, areturn of this ideology of confrontation between the axis of good andthe axis of evil, which is in fact the description of campism, whichconsists of saying anyone who is not with me, is against me (like in thegood old days of the Cold War). It is a binary ideological vision, whichcalls for supporting any kind of scum for any reason: anti-colonialiststruggle, national liberation struggle, anything that appears remotely"anti-imperialist" but authentically interclassist and nationalist, fromthe moment the enemy of my enemy enters into conflict. Campism is notinternationalism, it is not solidarity: it is blindness.http://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1372_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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