How To Be Anti-Imperialist
There is a lot of discussion about anti-imperialism and what imperialism is but there is far more attention paid to what imperialism is, leaving “anti-imperialism” to become a mere attitude of opposition to whatever we label as imperialism. Discussions about what imperialism is aren’t unimportant. They’re critical. Discussions about how individuals can practically be anti-imperialists are just as critical and, in times like these, even more urgent.
There are plenty of Communists who have talked about this but answers about practical steps are often scattered among the works on our reading lists. Not only that, but they often tackle these questions in the context of specific, historical situations. This requires us to pick apart how they approached those questions to answer our own questions. However, this article is not meant to be a replacement for those texts or doing that work. We absolutely still need those!. My intention here is to condense a lot of that into a quick guide for when we don’t have the time to do that first.
This article also won’t get into what imperialism is, discuss the nature of imperialism today in any real detail, or talk about current issues regarding imperialism. We will leave that to people who articulated it better than I could. Right now, we’re going to stick to the most urgent questions:
What does it mean to be anti-imperialist? How do we go about that? What do we do when we’re facing the horrors of violence and death with no “good” options? This short piece is meant to push that conversation to the forefront. It’s intended to be a short, practical guide on how to be anti-imperialist that can help people answer the question of “what do I, as an individual, do about this?”
We will start off by asking what it actually means to be something at all. This seems like a philosophical diversion that doesn’t match the urgency of our situation, but trust me for a short moment. All of this requires us to look at the world a little differently than we’ve been taught to. After that, we will briefly overview two important standpoints that we need to take with us if we want to be anti-imperialist: the materialist standpoint and our class standpoint. Finally, we will conclude with a simple plan of action that you can immediately start implementing as soon as you’re done reading this.
What Does It Mean to Be Anything?
Among Norse Heathens, we have a saying that defines our ethical worldview that I strongly believe Communists should take to heart. I don’t say this because I am a Heathen and want to convert people towards a mystical way of viewing things. Our ethics aren’t dictates handed down from on high. They’re grounded in a materialist understanding of the world and the existence of things in it. I don’t advocate for this saying as a Heathen. I advocate for them as a Communist who believes that these words summarize our attitude towards what it means to be something:
We are our deeds
Just like being a capital-C Communist, being an anti-imperialist is not about what we think or feel. It’s about what we do. In fact, I would go as far as to argue that we shouldn’t even think about what it means to “be an anti-imperialist”. The question is what it means to “be anti-imperialist”. Rather than getting caught up in essence & identity and trying to figure out what an “anti-imperialist” person does, we should be asking what “anti-imperialist” actions we can take. We are our deeds. If we are to be anti-imperialists, our deeds must be anti-imperialist.
The Materialist Standpoint: Working Within the Real World
When we first learn about the difference between idealism and materialism, we learn that idealism is when you consciously believe that ideas are the driver of history and current events. That is one kind of idealism but, remember, we are our deeds. Even if we consciously believe in materialism and can be called materialists, we can still be idealist if our deeds contain the seeds of idealism. More specifically, we are being idealist when we analyze things or communicate our takes when we do either of those things based on unconscious, idealist assumptions.
Being a materialist is not about simply believing in materialism. We learn so many things over the course of our lifetimes that are laced with idealist assumptions. Those don’t go away simply because we adopt a materialist standpoint. We need to actively identify how these idealist assumptions impact our conceptions of things and come to new, updated, materialist conceptions of those things. In the context of imperialist conflicts, we do this a lot in two key areas: how we think about talking and what we talk about.
How We Think About Talking
Our conception of “communication” is one conception that many of us have yet to update. We think about talking, whether in person or on social media, as something that can be separated from action and the material world. We act as if we are engaging in the “marketplace of ideas” even when we consciously reject that notion, but we aren’t.
From the materialist standpoint, communication is action. Talking is doing something. All communication originates from someone who exists in a particular time, place, and position, is transmitted through a real, concrete medium (e.g. social media), and is interpreted by real people in a different place and position.
We often have little control over who we communicate to through very public mediums of communication like Twitter. What makes things even more complicated is that we have almost no control over how people interpret our message and what we do with it. For example, when we condemn a country that is actively under attack by US imperialist forces, potentially changing the minds of other “leftists” on a particular issue is not the only thing you’re doing.
Even if you think what you’re condemning them for does not warrant a US invasion… there are people who do think that. They can see that as evidence that everyone agrees they are doing this bad thing and conclude that current US attempts at intervention are justified. Is that not what you wanted to happen? Too fucking bad. People who saw your post do and now they’re out there advocating for war with more outrage than they were before. We live in the real world, not the marketplace of ideas.
What We Talk About
The other area where idealism slips into our conversations around imperialism is in the discussions that we choose to engage in and the questions we accept as “up for debate”. Let’s say that one country (country A) apparently invaded another (country B) and the US wants to intervene. The US imperialist media will talk about whether or not country A had a right to invade. They’ll say no and others will take this question to social media where people will litigate whether the apparent invasion was “rightful”. Some will agree but others will attempt to push for what they feel is an anti-imperialist answer to this question: “yes, they were justified in invading.”
What this conversation amounts to is a debate about whether or not they should have invaded… but they already have in this case. All this debate does is advocate for whether or not some alternate course of past events would be better. But that doesn’t matter. People are dying now. The troops from country A are already in country B and combat is happening. Whether or not this should have happened does nothing but distract from the drumbeat for US intervention because the alternate course of events we’re debating can’t be brought about. It’s gone forever.
The materialist standpoint takes the world for what it is now. We reject conversation about what past events were preferable in favor of what future course of events from the present moment would be preferable. We can choose between future courses of action. In urgent time, that is all we should be concerning ourselves with.
Our Class Standpoint: Proletarian Internationalism
The other standpoint that we need to bring with us when figuring out what our personal courses of action should be is our class standpoint. That standpoint is the standpoint of proletarian internationalism. That’s a word that’s loaded with ideology but the core of it boils down to this: we only care about what’s good or bad for us and “us” means working-class people around the world. On one hand, we don’t care what happens to the ruling class of any country, including our own. On the other hand, an attack on working people anywhere should be taken as a personal attack on us.
We don’t win wars waged between bourgeois nation-states. All that we can ever do is lose. We’re the ones doing the dying on both sides while the spoils of war go to the wealthy ruling classes who never fight their own wars. Our goal during any conflict is to mitigate how much we lose. Our goal, now and forever, is peace among the working peoples of the world.
We determine what the best outcome of a war is based on which leaves the fewest of us dead. If we support the victory of one country over another, it is not because we want that country to be the victor or because we glorify death. We only do that when we believe that country’s victory will lead to a quicker and more lasting peace. But, if it’s on the table, peace will always be the first thing we call for. If it isn’t, we call for whatever will most quickly put it back on the table where it belongs.
Our class standpoint is important because it lets us know whose side we are on. But it is just as important for reminding us whose side we aren’t on. We are not on the side of any bourgeois nation, particularly our own nation. We can get in the habit of talking about “what we should do” about a situation when we are really discussing the actions that will be ordered by our imperialist ruling class. That’s not because we’re stupid. It’s an intentional tactic that’s baked into the discussion of the situations so that we come to identify with the imperialist ruling class against our working-class brethren in other countries. It’s so that we feel the only power we have is the power exercised by imperialists.
We must recognize and reject this. They are not us. When we talk about what we should do, that “we” does not include imperialists or refer to what they might do. Even when it comes to creating pressure against intervention, we need to set crystal clear examples that help people understand that we don’t even have a legitimate say in the decision on whether or not our country will intervene in a conflict. Our conversations are not about persuading working people to choose an option other than war. It’s to persuade them to join us in mobilizing pressure against the imperialist ruling class to force them to make a decision that they don’t want to make.
How Can We Be Anti-Imperialist this Very Second?
Communists understand that conscious activity is what we call praxis, a constant cycle of theory that leads to action in practice, which leads to theorizing and repeating the cycle once more. Correct practice praxis requires both correct theory and correct practice. So, let’s deal with each in turn.
Applied Anti-Imperialist Theory
The correct theoretical approach to this starts with taking a step back and viewing the situation through our two standpoints: the materialist standpoint and our class standpoint. The way that discussion about imperialist interventions is framed serves particular class interests that are irreconcilable with our own class interests. Any position we take in this discussion is bound to serve the interests of imperialists, directly or indirectly. Even if we propose an anti-imperialist answer to the question on the table, the frame of the debate prevents us from creating the pressure required to mobilize our class on behalf of our own class interests.
Rather than playing their game and proposing anti-imperialist answers, we need to reject the very premise of discussion and propose anti-imperialist questions in place of the bourgeois, imperialist ones that are propagated. It is useless to waste time arguing about the “sovereignty” of bourgeois nations or getting caught up debating whether an impossible, alternative course of past events would be better than what we’re looking at now.
We need to accept the real world we see right now as our starting point and international proletarian class interests as our end. This will give us the proper theoretical lens for discussing imperialist interventions. We need to determine which potential outcomes lead to the fewest of us dying. Which outcomes will lead us to the quickest and most durable peace to stop the killing? If peace is off the table, how can it be put back on the table?
Applied Anti-Imperialist Practice
To come to a correct practice on this question, we need to use the same two standpoints we used to develop a correct theoretical approach. As proletarian internationalists, we know that “we” does not include the imperialist nations we live in. We cannot directly affect those decisions, so our opinions do not matter on their own. We can’t make our enemy’s decisions but we can pressure them to make decisions they’d rather not make. We do this by mobilizing our class and creating pressure against the intervention they are already determined to carry out.
We reject their question and replace it with ours, rooted in a materialist standpoint and our class outlook.
As materialists, we recognize that our communication does not occur in a vacuum. When we talk publicly, we cannot help but communicate to our broader social networks. So, we need to keep in mind that we are not participating in a battle of ideas. We are participating in a battle to mobilize the working class against war or keep it demobilized to allow for war. Anything and everything we say will affect that battle, whether we like it or not, and that battle takes precedence over any theoretical discussion we might also be participating in.
Because we have so little control over the impact of our communication and because we cannot help but participate in the battle for anti-war, anti-imperialist mobilization, we need to compensate with clarity of action. Our communication on the topic should be restricted to a clear message: none of the stuff they’re debating on Fox or CNN matters. What matters is how do we save as many of our lives as possible.
The only way to do that is to mobilize people in our home countries to put enough pressure on our own imperialist governments to cease any interventions and escalations of violence. Period. Do you have concerns about what another country is doing? Trust your anti-imperialist comrades who are in a better position to understand their situation and mobilize their own working-class neighbors to pressure their government to take the best course of action for us. Do not shirk your duty because you believe you are more capable of doing what needs to be done in their area of responsibility than they are.
The only way to do that is to mobilize people in our home countries to put enough pressure on our own imperialist governments to cease any interventions and escalations of violence. Period.
This restriction on our speech is not self-censorship anymore than it’s self-censorship to not share your life story with a grocery store cashier or to talk about what heavy items you leave in your cart on a first date. The key consideration here is context.
There is a time and a place for talking about other things. There is a time and a place for “principled criticism,” “nuance,” and “theoretical debate.” But, if you’re reading this, it’s because people are dying. As I am writing this, most people are worried about the people dying across the Ukraine and Novorossiya. At other times, it was people dying in Syria or Occupied Palestine that were foremost on people’s minds. In the future, you may, unfortunately, be reading this and thinking about how working-class Koreans, Venezuelans, Kenyans, or whoever else may be under attack.
But wherever you are and whenever you may be reading this, anti-imperialists have a job to do.
