The Cowardice of European Pacifism
Eight months have passed since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, many towns and villages are in ruins, and the torture of the Kremlin regime in the occupied territories continues unabated. Nevertheless, among Western anarchists and leftists the voices of pacifists continue to be loud. Those who call on Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms and stop resisting the Russian invasion.
https://pramen.io/en/2022/11/the-cowardice-of-european-pacifism/
"It would seem that eight months is enough time to thoroughly study the issue of the war and to understand the balance of power and the meaning of surrender for Ukrainian society. But pacifists ignore reality and insist on some magical world in which they support thousands of defectors from Ukraine/Belarus/Russia while setting aside the political reality of the region. Western pacifists, hoping to somehow intervene in the conflict, begin working with dubious organizations from Belarus and Russia."
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"Many European pacifists, through their political stance, justify their own outright cowardice. The fear of destroying a comfortable peaceful corner of Europe, built, among other things, on the exploitation of the rest of the planet, is now becoming the main reason for calls to lay down their arms. Even the smallest possibility of violence against the so-called first world automatically leads to leftist and anarchist pacifists willing to sell out their own comrades for life in a peaceful region. Moreover, pacifists are willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of people in Ukraine who would be destroyed by the Russian regime in the event of a triumph."
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"International solidarity is a difficult job, requiring a considerable amount of not only organizational effort, but also political education, to understand what that solidarity means in an individual situation. Fortunately, some European anarchists have chosen the path of true international solidarity, whether it is helping refugees from Ukraine and other war-torn regions, or directly supporting progressive forces fighting the war.
While we criticize pacifism, we remain opposed to militarism, the ideology of the state aimed at developing its own military power. Primarily the Soviet militarism with which we were forced to grow up even after the collapse of the USSR itself. The very same militarism that made this war possible. And for us the only possible anti-militarism at the moment is the destruction of the military might of the Russian state, which threatens the complete destruction not only of the regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries of the former empire, but of the entire planet.
We support our anarchist comrades who have taken up arms to fight the Russian aggressor as well as the resistance in the occupied territories against Putin’s regime."