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Title: Nationalist Anarchism
Author: Samuel Clarke
Date: May 02, 2020
Language: en
Topics: Shinmin, Korea, anarchist history, history
Source: Retrieved on 2020-05-04 from https://www.thecommoner.org.uk/nationalist-anarchism-a-case-study-in-the-manchurian-anarchist-movement/

Samuel Clarke

Nationalist Anarchism

Nationalist Anarchism? Is that not a clear juxtaposition? In many ways,

yes it is. Traditional anarchist theory resoundingly rejects nationalism

as much as it rejects the nation-state, treating it like a ‘superstition

artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and

falsehoods’ to use the words of Emma Goldman. Nationalist rhetoric is

seen as the tool of the oppressor, used to create an ‘imagined

community’ or imagined comradeship between the people and their elites,

which can then be mobilised to colonise, outdo or destroy those of other

communities. The poor of the nation are expected to go along with the

words of their rulers, as, according to nationalist ideology, they are

‘all in this together.’

In practise, however, nationalism is notoriously hard to shake off. In a

world beset by statehood, bureaucracies and national identity, all three

of which giving certain people enormous historical power, groups have

sought liberation from oppression by attempting to “flip” the tools of

their oppressors against them. In modern history, this had led oppressed

groups to create strong nations or identities of their own, whether that

be the Indonesians when they freed themselves from the Dutch, the

Vietnamese when they threw off the shackles of French imperialism, or

Palestinians today fighting to reclaim land from Israel. Whilst these

national identities may not have perfectly existed before, and certainly

do not entirely fit in with socialist perceptions of nationalism, they

serve as powerful rallying cries for the liberation of millions of

people.

As anarchists we may be tempted to judge these revolutions for their

commitment to statehood, but we must remember that this is quite easy to

do from the comfort of our computer screens. There are criticisms to be

made, and criticisms that are often justified, but to say simply that a

liberation movement must completely reject creating a national identity

ignores the urgency of that movement and the immediate and often

desperate need of the people for liberation from their oppressors.

As a case study, let me introduce the situation that Korean anarchists

faced in the early 20^(th) century. Colonised by Imperial Japan 1910,

Korean activists began to spark a military and diplomatic campaign with

the goal of freeing the country from the clutches of this new imperial

power. After a popular protest named the ‘March First Movement’ (삼일

운동, sam-il undong) was violently suppressed by the Japanese army, the

movement’s leaders and thousands of other activists fled to China. In

China, the independence activists, with the support of the Chinese

government, created the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea

(KPG) and the Korean Liberation Army, which would begin to lead attacks

on Japan.

Meanwhile the anarchists, who were also involved in the March First

Movement, fled in different directions. Some went to China and created

the Korean Anarchist Federation (KAF), which organised and published

works on Korean independence and anarchist theory. Many of the others,

aided by the KAF, fled to Manchuria, a territory to the north of Korea,

and began establishing various anarchist and anarcho-communist

territories, one of which would come to be known as Korean People’s

Association in Manchuria (KPAM), an autonomous anarchist zone populated

by an estimated two million Korean migrants. Unlike the two nations

bordering it, the KPAM, otherwise known as the Shinmin Prefecture, ran

on a system controlled by bottom-up decision-making that provided

economic autonomy for the working class. Unlike the recently created and

centrally-planned economy of the USSR, which adopted capitalist

management systems in its factories, the prefecture advocated for the

formation of ‘voluntary rural co-operatives’ that would be ‘self-managed

by the peasantry.’

The literature written by Korean anarchists, and by the Korean Anarchist

Federation, show a clear support for what was being established in

Manchuria. One publication, called The Talhwan (탈환, ‘Recapture’), took

a clear stance on the oppressive nature of the state:

‘No matter what kind of form it takes, government is a tool for the

minority with power to oppress the masses, and an obstacle that stands

in the way of realizing mutual human fraternity. Therefore, we do not

allow for its existence.’

To make their condemnation of the state even clearer, writers in The

Talhwan also criticise the hypocritical policies of the ‘so called

government of peasants and workers,’ otherwise known as the Soviet

Union. Separating themselves distinctly from state socialists, they

decried the ‘despotic and dictatorial’ actions of the Communist Party in

the creation of state capitalism, ‘an extended form of individual

capitalism that concentrates capital in the hands of the government.’

These activists, and the society they were creating in Machuria, were

clearly embedded in the anarchist tradition in name and practise.

Spurring these anarchists on, however, was a nationalism that could be

considered to be in conflict with anarchist principles. One Shin Chaeho

(1880–1936), another Korean revolutionary based in China, wrote

extensively on the need to destroy the occupying ‘foreign race’ of

Japan. Consider these two short excerpts from a piece of his called

‘Declaration of the Korean Revolution’:

‘To sustain the Korean People’s survival, we need to wipe out Robber

Japan. The expulsion of Robber Japan can only be accomplished by a

revolution’ ... ‘To destroy the rule of a foreign race. Why? Since at

the top of “Korea” resides a foreign race, “Japan,” a despotic country,

Korea under the despotism of a foreign race is not an authentic Korea.

To discover the authentic Korea, we destroy the rule of a foreign race.’

Devoid of context we might be tempted to judge his anarchist

credentials, but that does not mean that his work in devoid of anarchist

sentiments. In the same piece, he asserts that this revolution to

‘destroy the rule of a foreign race’ should never be led by ‘a divine

person, a sage, or a gallant hero,’ and neither should it be sparked by

‘vehement statement’ like ‘masses, let’s awaken’ or ‘the masses, be

awakened.’ Shin Chaeho believed, in true anarchist fashion, that the

revolution should be guided by the people through spontaneous,

decentralised uprising.

As the two historians of anarchism in the postcolonial world, Steven

Hirsch and Lucien Van de Walt, rightly point out, Korean anarchists like

Shin Chaeho at some point ‘had to confront the tension between anarchism

as a universal idea’ and ‘their national aspirations to achieve the

immediate goal of retaking independence from Japanese imperialism.’ This

was indicative, overall, of the ‘complex relationship in semi-colonial

contexts between national consciousness and transnational concerns.’

They quote the anarchist Sim Yongcheol to further illustrate this:

‘Since Korean anarchists were slaves who lost their country, they had to

rely with affection on nationalism and patriotism, and thus had

difficulties in practise in discerning what their main idea was and what

their secondary idea was. The reason was due to that there was the only

one: Japanese imperialism. My life is one that has drifted along with

this kind of contradiction inside.’

It is this kind of sentiment that led the historian Horiuchi Minoru to

define Korean anarchism as a ‘nationalistic anarchism.’ To be an

anarchist in this context was to deal with the balancing of two desires,

one an end goal, and one an immediate need. Dongyoun Hwang, a historian

of anarchism in Korea, refuses to consider this a failure, and believes

to call it such would be ‘eurocentric’ and show a lack of understanding

of the historical period in which they lived. Imperialism, or more

specifically, their subjection to it, led to a ‘reconfiguration’ of

their anarchism within the context of a ‘national goal and boundaries.’

We can see similar trends in other anarchist movements of the same

period, where subjugation by an imperial power with a clear identity led

to the desire to create a national “counter-identity,” even if that

identity needs to be artificially constructed to some extent.

Anarchists should not condemn these movements, but they should not be

completely uncritical either. As Maia Ramnath asserts, in her book

Decolonizing Anarchism, it would be ‘callous to discount the value of

ethnic pride’ in a context ‘where ethnicity is brutalized and culture

decimated,’ but also naive to ignore that this ethnic pride can be

manipulated and used in the formation of a hierarchical, state-bound

society. As she states:

‘In the colonial context, the defence of ethnic identity and cultural

divergence from the dominant is a key component of resistance, with the

caveat that it’s equally crucial to pay attention to who’s dictating the

“correct” expression of culture and ethnicity. No culture is as

homogeneous or static as the invented traditions of nationalism.’

In the case of Korea under Imperial Japan, we can reasonable criticise

whether Korean anarchists took the right course in fully supporting the

national movement, but we should never discount them as anarchists for

having done so. If we do, then we are looking at global resistance

movements through a eurocentric and ideologically purist lens, and

rejecting the absolute necessity of liberation from imperial oppressors.

The general lesson here is that we get into a difficult business when we

attempt to claim what is or is not an ‘anarchist movement.’ Any

movement, anarchist or not, is going to be heavily influenced by its

specific social, cultural and historical context. To ignore those is to

ignore the realities and difficulties that people face when building a

popular movement against oppression. In this case, the reality exists

that national movements give oppressed groups a power over their own

destiny that they may have never had before. We may criticise that, but

not condemn it entirely, lest we let our purism get in the way of

liberation.

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