“Together Against Capitalist Wars and Against Capitalist Peace!” May 2024.
Throughout the week between 120 and 150 revolutionary internationalists against capitalist war gathered in Prague for the Congress to begin communicating and coordinating.
From the start the event was fraught with problems. In part due to the lack of experience of the organisers, and in part due to the reality on the ground of a split in the anarchist movement in the Czech Republic.
This split, along the lines of opposition to all capitalist wars and support for the state in some. Between revolutionaries and defenders of their national bourgeoisie.
The repercussions of this played out in real time before us in what one foreign delegate noted in their report back, as the consequence of “the fog of war”. A foretaste of the splits to come.
The inaugural session on the theme of the conference took place in the Liben District of Prague on Wednesday May 22nd, attended by around 50 of the first arriving delegates.
Introduced by a comrade from the Anti-Militarist Initiative (AMI), the theme of opposing war at home and abroad and opposing the capitalist social peace at home are two sides of the same coin.
The poverty ‘peace’ at home is the austerity and repression of their class war against us, preparing and enabling the slaughter of our class on the front lines of the conflicts: Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, Yemen, Iran, wherever imperialist blocs grind on their fault lines.
It concluded with lines from one of our own articles (Capitalism’s ‘Social-Peace’ is Class War! 12th Mar 2024):
“The war is no further away than the nearest arms or components factory. No further than the nearest logistics depot, transport hub, communications centre. The war is where the ports and airports are, the military bases and their reserve volunteers’ stations.
It is the rail networks and motorways, the towns, estates, cities and factories where we as workers’ pay the price of war in widening poverty and worsening austerity. Worsening conditions, lower pay and the threat of military call up or conscription.
In truth we cannot move without being at war and when we notice it, the rhetorical guns blaze “disrupter, extremist, terrorist!” We are already, through our toleration of their economic planning and its social and political consequences, being partially conscripted by capitalism and its state actors into its destructive rivalry.”
Discussion was widespread but in full agreement on the Internationalist position the workers have no nation and, opposition to all wars. The use of the language of the West’s ‘Culture-Wars’, often used against revolutionists, such as accusations of ‘Westsplaining’ or speaking with the ‘colonial voice’ was undermined by the contributions from Russian and Ukrainian exiles present at the congress.
A Russian comrade from the group New Promethius explained how the social peace in Russia was in part maintained by hiding the impact of the war. Increasing workers’ wages so they have a sense of gain.
He also talked of a policy of recruiting from the poorer republics offering more money than workers could earn in their lifetime to be paid if they live or to their families should they die, thus protecting the large urban centres from the direct experience of depopulation and body bags.
Perhaps most impacting was from a Ukrainian comrade on the Ukrainian worker’s experience:
“There are no more professional soldiers to send. They can pick you off the street and just send you. A guy used to get a few weeks and then few day’s training. Now he gets nothing.
He can get picked up and sent to the front. He’s no idea how to fight, he doesn’t last a month before he’s dead. He’s not a warrior he’s just a guy in the street.”
This was followed by another Russian comrade now living in Germany who said opposition in Russia was limited but often centred around “peace” groups the 2 main exceptions where KRAS [see their short statement to the congress as they couldn’t attend below] and the mothers of dead soldiers who have begun to organise. This was backed up and agreed with by our Ukrainian comrade.
Despite this promising start, organisation from this point began to fall apart. Venues were cancelled through the actions and influence of the pro-war anarchists of the Czech Anarchist Federation, and events were cancelled to enable search for new ones.
From this point effectively two programs began to take shape. A group of foreign comrades attending, in the absence of scheduling and venues, organised alternative meetings at different locations, and we look forward to hearing the outcomes of the work they have done.
While we continued to discuss and have meetings with other different international delegations, we prioritised our meagre resources to continue where we could the revised program of the original, if now truncated Congress and will report more on this later.
Report by Dreyfus
From KRAS -IWA to the Prague Action Week conference:
We, the members of KRAS-IWA, as the inheritors of the anti-militarist anarchist tradition of the 1915 manifesto, welcome the participants of the international conference who gathered to speak out against capitalist war and the so-called capitalist “peace” and reject the alleged leftists and pseudo-anarchists who in capitalist they take sides in wars.
We hope that this forum will be an important step to create a practical interaction from below and regardless of the boundaries of different organizations, among all truly anti-war and anti-militaristic social forces.
Unfortunately, the situation in our country and the difficult connection with other parts of Europe do not give us the opportunity to attend the conference in person. But we are with you in spirit.
We are sending a statement of our view of the war question and request you to make it known to the conference participants.
In Solidarity
KRAS – AIT
AnarCom Network 