Interesting read and only somewhat recently heard about the " pro-Israel “anti-Germans” "

Intro

A recent book on the Revolutionary Cells of Germany, a network of militant left-wing radicals active in the 1980s and 90s, includes a curious exchange. An interviewer asks three former RC members about antiimperialism, insisting that it was a “Leninist concept”. Eventually, one of the former RC members says: “The term ‘antiimperialism’ was widely used within the left at the time, it didn’t necessarily indicate Leninism. … It meant that liberation cannot be reduced to the national frame; it needs to be international and the result of fighting an international system of exploitation.”

The questions by the interviewer, ostensibly of a younger generation, reveal a shift within the radical German left that is most commonly associated with the pro-Israel “anti-Germans” (Antideutschen), who, following German reunification in 1991, focused on criticizing nationalism, including national liberation movements. This led not only to a critique of antiimperialism, which was associated with national liberation movements, but also to an equation of antiimperialism and antisemitism.

In short, “antiimperialism” became a bad word and was largely abandoned by leftist circles. An article in the soft anti-German rag Jungle World confirmed this in 2017: “Instead of a nuanced analysis of power relations, the term ‘antiimperialism’ nowadays only serves an ideology that, thanks to a simplification of complex systems of domination, creates the basis for gruesome international left-right-alliances.”

The impact of these developments went beyond Germany. When, in 2017, I wrote a text titled “Oppressor and Oppressed Nations: Sketching a Taxonomy of Imperialism”, an old friend took me aside during an anarchist bookfair and wanted to know why I “dabbled in antiimperialist politics”, which so clearly were associated with leftist currents that anarchists should keep a distance from.

Even within Marxist circles you can encounter mistrust with regard to antiimperialism, since it is often associated with crude anti-Americanism, a vulgar “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” sentiment, and the uncritical support of “anti-Western” regimes, no matter how reactionary or hypocritical. In the Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism, editor Zak Cope states in an article titled “Imperialism and Its Critics: A Brief Conspectus” the following: “In Europe at least, the far left and far right often embrace the same adolescent ‘antiimperialist’ (‘anti-American’) ideology, leading them to proclaim support for supposed opponents of the United States, typically autocratic imperialist rivals and their satellites.”

These aren’t just straw man arguments. Tendencies of “adolescent antiimperialist ideology” exist within the left. But it is curious that these tendencies, which are far from dominant, would discredit the entire concept of antiimperialism. There are “adolescent” tendencies in antifascism and the climate justice movement as well. Do they discredit these causes? No, since they are bigger than some insufficient interpretations of them. The same applies to antiimperialism. The history of imperialism is way too closely tied to the history of capitalism to believe that anticapitalist politics can do without antiimperialism. (If you’re not convinced, I’d recommend reading Torkil Lauesen’s The Global Perspective: Reflections on Imperialism and Resistance.)

Antiimperialism does not per se mean crude anti-Americanism, and it does not per se mean Leninism either. Lenin wasn’t the first to use the term “imperialism” to describe a global system of accumulation and exploitation forming the material basis of global capital. That was the British economist J.A. Hobson, a moderate socialist with no revolutionary agenda. Lenin’s book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, published in 1917, is certainly a classic in antiimperialist circles, but it doesn’t tie all antiimperialist activity automatically to him.

I myself come from a generation in which antiimperialism simply was part of the package if you were radical left, Leninist or not. The analytical depth might have been limited at times, and the moral impetus stronger than the political one, but there was consensus on the impossibility of disconnecting matters of global justice from revolutionary movements. I came of age politically in Europe in the 1980s, but a similar understanding seemed to prevail elsewhere, too. The following is a quote from a discussion on “International Solidarity and Revolutionary Resistance” during an anarchist gathering in Vancouver, Canada, in January 1990: “Our internationalism, which connects revolutionary struggles here with the struggles in the periphery, is what creates the anti-imperialist resistance.”

I’d like to use this piece to illustrate how antiimperialism has served as an important aspect of radical politics apart from orthodox Marxism-Leninism. I’ll be using examples from anarchism, autonomism, and the Black liberation movement.

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