I seem to remember from my Anarchism 101 class that anarchists are against war, which is an extension of state policy into international relations. Principled anarchists would never support the imperialist designs of their respective country's rulers. A better question would be "How often have anarchists ignored their principles?"

The anarchist case seems naive, which obvs is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but whatever.

Should anarchists have supported the Allies in WW2?

No

Yeah apart from principles, I think the key issue here is is it worth fighting, killing and dying for the Allies.

To assess that, we need to look at what the Allies did.

The propaganda about the war says it was a war of democracy against fascism. That is that accurate? If you look at a map of the world, showing what countries were democratic and which weren't, you would see an awful lot of dictatorships run by the Allies (the Eastern bloc under the USSR, Southeast Asia under the US, South Asia, the Middle East and much of Africa under the UK, North Africa under France…).

You would also see repression dissent, and mass killings by Allied powers, for example the Bengal famine caused by the British which killed around 3 million.

You will also see Allied powers put Axis officials in charge all over their occupied territories, as they still needed them as a bulwark against the working class and radical or anticolonial movements.

For example in Korea, the US put the Imperial Japanese officials back in charge. After massive public outcry, they put Americans in charge nominally and renamed the Japanese officials "advisors". The US later dissolved the Korean government and replaced it with a military dictatorship, and massacred anyone who protested against it.

In Greece, the UK made links with the fascists, while the war was still ongoing, massacred anti-fascists, and helped set up a fascist dictatorship.

The crimes of the Axis are horrific, of course, but those of the Allies are comparable.

The cause of the international working class did not evaporate when the ruling class was having a conflict over turf rights. For some groups of worker's, it was a good time to press their advantage and it is that struggle anarchists should support.

Dp

I think it's better phrased as "should Anarchists support Churchilians and Stalinsts?". Like the above posters have said, the allies weren't at war "against fascism"

If you were in France, Yugoslavia etc and trying to fight in a resistance movement, wouldn't you be somewhat dependent on the Allies for resources? Isn't that a lot of the reason for anarchists supporting 'The Allies', the need for weapons and supplies?

Resistance movements were dependent on the Allies for supplies but resistance movements weren't necesssarily good and the allies, like anyone supplying weapons in a conflict, did it strategically. The allies fought with each other over who to supply, had groups fight amongst themselves and starved groups that they felt might become difficult later on, or who didn't swear fealty quite right.
If capitalists are handing out weapons it isn't likely to be out of the goodness of their hearts.

I've read that the militarisation of resistance led to the Civil War in Syria and genuine opposition to the Assad dictatorship became a proxy war among regional and global players due to what has been mention the need for arms and hardware and logistics in a military fight thus making you dependent on outside countries for supplies.

I once read a book , a long time ago so author and title i forget, made the point that the French Resistance was not popular. Collaboration was the prevailing situation for the maority of the population.

As for Yugoslavia, i also read that Yugoslavians killed more Yugoslavians than Germans and i'm not referring to the Chetniks.

The SPGB held fast to their anti-capitalist war position even if it meant political ostracisation more so that opposition to WW1

(As an aside a work colleague CP dad was sent to Peterhead Prison for refusing to be conscripted but as stated, Once Russia was invaded...the principled stand against the capitalist war-mongers flipped.

Also I know i have said it before, but another work-colleague, an ex-RSM, once said to me...If the Soviets invaded the UK and occupied it, the only thing that will change for you and me, instead of a crown on our caps it will be a red star and we'll still be posties.)

I think that's a different question. I think when politicos talk about "support" in abstract it's pretty meaningless. So if we think about it in practical terms, for those of us who would have been in the UK or US, that would mean do we join the army or not, do we encourage others to join the army or do we encourage draft avoidance and mutiny, and do we support increasing production in essential industries or do we support sabotage and strike action.

In the UK or US if you joined the army you would be as likely to end up stealing food from Bengalis, murdering colonial subjects or massacring Koreans as fighting Nazis.

So I would say it would have been better to advocate conscription resistance/mutiny and fraternisation. And advocate breaking no strike pledges in essential industries.

For people in occupied countries the situation would be different. As elements of resistance movements were bourgeois nationalist, and so perhaps not worth fighting for (for example, many resistance fighters in Poland ended up getting locked up or executed by their Soviet "liberators"). But other elements of resistance movements were fighting directly for working class interests: for example running underground railroads, helping Jews escape, exposing the Holocaust, etc.