The Meaning of the Nation for Communitarian-Anarchism (2019)

By the Free Nationalists of North Brabant

* Source: Retrieved on 27/6/2022 from vrijenationalisten.blogspot.com and translated by d'Arma

* First published: Monday 25 March 2019

Today, the term 'nation' is usually equated with the 'nation-state' of the (French) bourgeois revolution of 1789. However, this misleading definition completely ignores the original meaning of the term. The term 'Nation' is derived from Latin and means 'people' in the most literal sense. It is therefore in this context that the nation must be seen within the community anarchist thinking.

The national question was not left untouched by anarchists, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), father of contemporary anarchism. Although Bakunin strongly disliked bourgeois nationalism, he did not reject all forms of nationalism. Bakunin made a clear distinction between the state and the fatherland (the nation). He defined the homeland as “the indisputable and sacred right of every human being, every human group, association, commune, region and nation to live, feel, think, will and act in the way it pleases.”

He contrasted the bourgeois nationalism of the authoritarian state with the liberating nationalism of the people. According to him, the people had “a natural, real love”for their homeland. In his view, this nationalism was not a false abstraction imposed by the bourgeois state, but a social reality. In his last work, 'Statism and Anarchy' (1873), Bakunin wrote: “Each nation, however small it may be, has its own character, its own way of living, speaking, feeling, thinking and acting in the way one that wishes. It is this character, their specific way of existence, that forms the basis of their identity. It is the result of the whole of their historical life and all the conditions of that people and their living environment, it is a purely natural and spontaneous phenomenon.”

Homeland was what a community of individuals collectively decided it was. For Bakunin, the principle of self-determination was central:“Like any individual, every nation is forced to be what it is and enjoys the unquestionable right to be itself.” Bakunin's communal anarchism called for a brotherhood of free nations; anti-authoritarian organic communities that grew from the people and worked together on the basis of autonomy and mutual respect.

Another important thinker for communal-anarchism was the German anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870-1919). Landauer was one of the pioneers of the Munich Soviet Republic, which is why he was murdered by the Freikorps in 1919.

Landauer's anarchism was strongly opposed to Marxism and often built on Proudhon's mutualism. Like Bakunin, he saw the community as a natural phenomenon. For Landauer, “the family, the community and the people represented the only truly natural social units, from which a truly solidary, harmonious and organic society can grow without coercion.” He believed that the nation is the special way in which human nature and the unique qualities of the individual express themselves within the community.

Landauer also made a clear distinction between the nation and the state. In his view, the nation was anarchist in its essence. During the Middle Ages, when the state slowly but surely began to dominate society, the nation's natural social solidarity was replaced by coercion and oppression. It replaced voluntariness with authoritarian systems and laws.

For Landauer, anarchism first and foremost represented a return to nature, a reunion with the folk spirit and the revival of the social relations of the past. Unlike Bakunin, Landauer did not see the revolutionary destruction of the state as an absolute necessity. For him it was more important that individuals became aware of themselves and rediscovered the spirit within themselves. Then these individuals could establish parallel 'popular communities' capable of resisting the state's power.

Conclusion:

Anarchism opposes any form of totalitarianism; it represents a movement that starts at the grassroots and does not need representatives, bureaucrats or leaders. Anarchism opposes any form of domination and coercion, it advocates for bottom-up organization. Self-responsibility and self-discipline to replace dependence and authority. Self-government in all aspects of life takes the place of the hierarchical division. 

For anarchists, the nation is something natural and organic. It represents a free community based on a shared linguistic, cultural and historical background. It is the collective feelings and thoughts of the community that shape the nation. Nationalism in the anarchist sense is thus not an illusion created by the state, but arises from the free choice of the individuals who are part of it.