Marie Lousie Berneri on Post-War Imperialism in East Asia - Jeff Shantz

In the present period of imperialism, marked by debates within anarchist movements over anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, land back, and national liberation, there is renewed urgency to engage with historic anarchist positions on colonialism and imperialism, and a certain contemporary lack of familiarity with them. Many useful, if imperfect, historic anarchist statements have been overlooked or forgotten.

I began this revisiting and highlighting of historic anarchist positions with a short presentation of Victor Serge’s opposition to the colonization of Congo by the Belgian state and its social democratic leadership of the day. I followed with an examination of Camillo Berneri’s perspectives on anti-colonialism in the context of the Spanish Revolution and then an examination of Jean Grave’s pamphlet “Colonization.” In this article I explore Marie Louise Berneri’s writings on post-war imperialism in East Asia, particularly her concerns in Indonesia. These are each meant to be accessible introductions rather than full-blown analytical dissections.

Marie Lousie Berneri was a lifelong anarchist, the daughter of Giovanna and Camillo Berneri. Her father was infamously assassinated by Communists in Spain during the revolution, and she also travelled to Barcelona twice as a supporter of the anarchist revolutionaries. She later organized relief efforts for Spanish orphans and refugees.

Berneri was one of the editors of the publications Revolt, War Commentary, and Freedom. Her book Journey Through Utopia (1950) is a wonderful survey of utopian visions. A collection of her geo-political writings Neither East Nor West was also published posthumously in 1952. An ardent anti-Stalinist, she early identified the imperialist world divisions that would mark the Cold War period to follow. The articles I reference below are drawn from that collection (“British Army of Oppression Crushes Eastern Freedom, November, 1945,” “British Intervention in Asia, December, 1945,” and “Horrors of the Peace, January, 1946).

Imperialist Interests in Indonesia
In a series of articles, Berneri highlighted the immediate move by the victorious imperialist powers to begin re-dividing up the world for their own interests in exploitation and extraction. She gives particular attention to the reinforcement of imperialism in East Asia, especially in Indonesia, then colonized by the Dutch. She condemns the British and American support for re-colonization in East Asia.

“The ink of the Peace terms, which were supposed to put an end to totalitarianism, was not yet dry when American, British, French and Dutch imperialisms hurried to take over the whip with which the Japanese Government held the Indonesian and Indo-Chinese under subjection.”

While perhaps overlooked in contemporary considerations of imperialism, the Dutch colonies were of great significance in the context of a rebuilding capitalist system at the end of World War II. As Berneri illustrates:

“What is more important, the Dutch East Indies produces a great proportion of essential commodities. Tribune gives the following figures: 40 per cent of the world’s rubber, 17 per cent of copra, large quantities of petroleum, tea, sugar and coffee, and practically the total world output of quinine come from there.”

Not only were Indonesian labor and resources highly profitable for the Dutch, the US and Britain were anxious after the war to get their hands on some of it. As Berneri explains:

“The exploitation of Indonesian riches and Indonesian cheap labour has always been extremely profitable to Holland which derived from it a yearly income of £40,000,000. This not only explains why the Dutch are anxious to maintain their hold on their colonies, but also the interest shown by Britain and America. At present 80 per cent of the capital invested in the Dutch Indies comes from Holland. No doubt British and American capitalists would like to see their share of investments increased. By sending troops and armaments to crush the revolt they put the Dutch Government in their debt and pave the way to bigger investments.”

This illustrates the post-war imperialist scramble.

Social Democracy and Imperialism
Berneri takes sustained aim at the hypocrisy of social democracy and its easy and cynical abandonment of its own stated polices when the imperial interests of the state are on the line. The social democrats are really social imperialists. They offer nothing more to the global working class than the openly bourgeois Conservatives. In her terms: “The shedding of blood in South East Asia must be stopped. No faith can be put in the Labour Government. They have shown themselves cold-blooded imperialists like any Tory Government.”

Even more significantly, and instructive in the current imperialist context, Berneri directs sharp condemnation at the labour movements in the imperial core and calls out their national chauvinism which trumps class solidarity in service of the national state. In her words:

“The Trade Union Congress in Paris has shown that the Trade Unions of the home countries share the imperialist aims of their governments and look with hostility on the Trade Unions of colonial countries when these show aspirations towards independence.”

So too the opportunism of the British Communist Party of the day which “adopts an anti-imperialist policy merely when it suits Russia.”

The Imperialist “Big Lie”
The appeals made by imperialists to democracy (remember “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East?”) are exposed for the ideological gibberish they are and thrown back at its proponents with regard to their open support for those non-democracies that simply happen to be suitable to their needs. Asks Berneri:

“The excuse for British intervention—that India, Indo-China and the Dutch Indies are not fit for democracy—is farcical. Is Portugal with its fake elections a democracy? Is Spain with its prisons swarming with political prisoners a democracy? Is Poland, ruled by the G.P.U.? Is Hungary, under the heel of Butcher Horthy? Yet all those countries are recognised by Britain as independent and we are proud to call Portugal our oldest ally!”

Berneri notes that the imperialist powers are merely hiding behind ideological façade of the Atlantic Charter, which she calls The Big Lie. The Charter says, “Britain and America respect the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live, and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.” These lofty word are, of course, meaningless.

The real driving motivations are the familiar ones—the London Stock Exchange, and Wall Street along with, in this case, defending Dutch interests in Indonesia. And these interests were immense:

“In 1938 the profits the Dutch firms derived from their richest enterprises were over £25 million. The wages in Dutch concerns for a ten hour day ranged from two shillings and sixpence to seven and six a week. The average income of the inhabitants of the colony was a penny farthing a day. This is not propaganda put out by “extremists,” they are figures published by the International Labour Office. No amount of bombing of Indonesian radio stations can destroy these terrible facts.”

As Berneri most succinctly puts it: “‘Freedom’ acquires a different meaning when it is a question of buying up petrol interests or of defending rubber plantations.”

The Colonized Need Not Behave Themselves
Berneri heaps scorn on arguments, by now familiar in the case of Israeli condescension toward Palestinians, that freedom will come, only, when the colonized can show that they can behave themselves. As she puts it:

“Another argument used against the Indonesians is that the Dutch government has offered self-government to the country in any case and that the Indonesians should therefore be good boys and they will get all they demand. Similar promises were made after the first world war and the Indonesians know what to expect from such promises.”

She also disparages the cynical claim, familiar in the current context, that the imperialists are merely acting to protect hostages. In her words: “The other lie is that British troops were used in order to protect Dutch civilian internees and prisoners of war against the violence of the extremists.”

Not quibbling over the nature of the anti-colonial forces or tut tutting their violent strategies or tactics, Berneri asserts simply and clear sightedly, “They fully realise that independence will not be given to them by the Dutch government or any other, and that they will have to wrest it by force if they want it.”

Berneri makes not of the familiar litany of accusations thrown against anti-colonial resistors—“extremists,” “rebels,” “undesirable elements” and “rioters,” etc. Here she is especially harsh in her assessment, writing: “The campaign of lies and defamation which has accompanied the use of naked force in the Far East equals anything Goebbels might have engineered.”

Strikes and Work Refusals
Throughout her writings in this period, Berneri sought to address how workers (not states or parties) could do practically to defeat fascism and imperialism. Significantly, Berneri identifies the key source of opposition to imperialist monstrosity that can emerge within the belly of the beast—organized strike and work refusals against the war machine. She notes:

“The only effective help has come, and must continue to come, from the workers. The Australian workers who have refused to handle supplies for the Dutch, the British seamen who refused to carry Dutch troops, have shown the way. When Britain tried to crush the Russian revolution, dockers refused to load the Jolly George with munitions.”

She was staunch in arguing that workers should refuse to handle materials being used against anti-colonial revolutionaries. Notably, this remains a key weapon of class solidarity against imperialism today, one that has seen some life in opposition to Israel’s assaults on Gaza. Though, this organizing has only been fitful and occasional in some areas and almost completely absent in key sustainers of the Israeli state such as Canada and the US.

In another article, “Horrors of the Peace” (January 1946) Berneri had gone even further, calling on workers to “refuse to be a party to making atom bombs.” Similar calls have been made to, but unheeded by, workers producing armaments for Israel.

Berneri’s rallying cry then, remains one that must be at the forefront today: “Not a soldier—not a round of ammunition—not a machine gun—not a plane for British intervention in Asia.” Nor for imperialist intervention anywhere.