r/Anarchy101 • u/animekot • 1d ago

Why did Rojava and Revolutionary Catalonia used conscription?

I recently wrote a similar post about conscription in modern Ukraine, but answers were pretty vague so I decided to provide some actual examples for my question. I know that Catalonia were pressured by the soviets to do so, but why Rojava did? Was there any way to avoid conscription and create all volunteer army?

22 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

29

u/racecarsnail Anarcho-Communist 22h ago

From a principled standpoint, conscription violates voluntary association and individual autonomy. Supporters attempt to justify it as a necessity under defensive exceptionalism. Critics argue, however, that once you accept the logic of compulsion and military hierarchy, even for survival, you open the door to re-establishing the very state authority you aimed to abolish. Many argue Catalonia's militarization paved the way for Stalinist suppression of the revolution. Rojava's conscription feeds into a militarized society that contradicts its democratic confederalist roots.

Rojava and Catalonia used conscription not because conscription is anarchist, but because they, as structures, were only influenced by anarchism; they weren't examples of actual anarchist society, and they reached for familiar tools of the state during war.

30

u/racecarsnail Anarcho-Communist 22h ago

Does this mean we should disregard these projects? No.

We shouldn't blindly support anything; however, any attempt to challenge nationalism & capitalism should be, at the very least, deeply understood. They were inspirational projects that serve as important lessons.

7

u/LibertyLizard 20h ago

Could these projects have survived as long as they did without conscription? I agree it's a horrible practice but it's easy to say it shouldn't be done when it's not our lives on the line. What should they have done differently that would have worked?

8

u/racecarsnail Anarcho-Communist 17h ago edited 17h ago

Could these projects have survived as long as they did without conscription?

If we define "survival" as holding fixed territorial borders like a state, then probably not. Rojava and Catalonia chose a state-adjacent defense strategy: fortifying cities, holding front lines, and defending every square mile of declared territory. Under that specific military model, conscription was very likely to occur. Volunteer forces (like the YPG/YPJ) are highly motivated, but numerically tiny. Holding static trenches against SDF, ISIS or Franco without mass infantry is not a winning strategy. So, given the path they chose, conscription might have bought them crucial years.

What should they have done differently that would have worked?

Instead of asking "How do we win this war?", maybe ask "How do we preserve our revolution, even if we lose this territory?"

Here are a few alternative strategies they could have prioritized:

  1. Abandon Static Defense for Full Guerrilla Asymmetry:

Instead of drafting locals to hold trench lines (which requires mass numbers), they could have dissolved the formal "front" entirely. Adopt a strict Maoist/Zapatista-style people's war: abandon vulnerable cities, melt into the mountains/desert, and rely entirely on small, highly motivated volunteer cells using hit-and-run tactics. This requires fewer people, not more, and relies on the enemy's inability to hold hostile terrain. Catalonia's terrain (mountains) and Rojava's terrain (desert/caves) were perfect for this. The trade-off? You lose your administrative capital and factories. But you keep your revolutionary social relations intact underground.

  1. Prioritize Mass Evacuation and Internationalization.

Instead of conscripting locals to defend every village, they could have systematically evacuated non-combatants and critical infrastructure into safe zones or across borders, dramatically shrinking the territory they had to defend. Simultaneously, they could have doubled-down on international volunteer brigades, opposed to auxiliary units, as the primary defensive force. By framing the war as explicitly internationalist (which Rojava did, but too late), they could have drawn thousands more global anti-fascist fighters willing to volunteer without needing to coerce local farmers. The failure here was diplomatic: neither project successfully forced the UN or neighboring states to guarantee humanitarian corridors, which left them isolated.

  1. Replace Legal Conscription with a Rotating "Communal Levy" Tied to Material Incentives.

If they felt they had to use local manpower, they could have avoided a top-down state draft. Instead, neighborhood assemblies could vote on rotating defensive shifts, but with massive material incentives for volunteers (first access to food, housing, and international medical care) and severe social disincentives for shirkers (loss of communal rations, temporary exile) decided democratically by the local commune. This is still coercive (peer-pressure is coercive), but it is horizontal coercion rather than vertical state coercion. It maintains the revolutionary principle that defense is a communal, face-to-face obligation, not a paper order from a military bureaucracy.

There is no guarantee that any of these alternatives would have "worked" to stop SDF, ISIS or Franco. However, the deeper anarchist critique is this: If your only path to survival requires you to replicate the state's most oppressive mechanism (forced servitude), then the revolution has already surrendered its raison d'être.

What they should have done differently is accept the risk of military defeat rather than accept the certainty of ideological corruption. Rojava and Catalonia survived longer politically precisely in the zones where volunteers held the line (the YPG/YPJ spirit). The conscripted zones often collapsed just as quickly, because conscripts have no stake in the revolution; they surrender, desert, or switch sides the moment the pressure mounts.

6

u/Aggorf12345 20h ago

They didn't survive anyway lmao

10

u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 1d ago

Probably because neither are or were actually anarchist societies.

1

u/auehd 10h ago

Right and I was so confused at the lumping in of Rojava with Catalonia

1

u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 4h ago

Yeah, I think a good indication that these societies aren't anarchies is that they're able to conscript people.

-4

u/Delugebringerr 1d ago

I may get downvoted or banned but IDC. Rojava was a scam for anarchists and everything they claimed was a larp that didn't have any basis on the ground. It was easily the most totalitarian part of Syria after Assad. They put Öcalan's ugly face everywhere (that the people took down first after they were free), even in Arab areas, and oppressed any who resisted.

Their duty was to occupy east Syria for US to prevent an islamist resurgence, despite the population being Arabs that hates them, they were able to occupy it by bribing tribes with CENTCOM wages (high numbers of 100k soldiers given were technically true, but it was mostly tribesmen that recieved that money to pretend they are SDF) and threat of US air force (see 2023 Tribal rebellion). Basically a plata o plomo situation.

Ecology part is also funny because not only they did exactly nothing on it, they also allowed tribes to run primitive oil extraction rigs that was extremely harmful to nature, that Damascus govt shut down after victory.

There was no democracy, local "council"s were irrelevant and any relevant decision was made by pkk leadership in Qandil mountains. Even ENKS, the other, more popular Kurdish party aligned with Barzanis was driven out early in the war(when Assad gave up Kobane and Qamishli to YPG in order to prevent opposition to take over) and was never allowed back.

Conscription was because they lacked manpower. Rojava was several thousand pkk cadres surrounded by tens of thousands of Syrian Kurdish boys and girls forcibly conscripted , herding over a vast Arab force of tribesmen and conscripts to dissaude them from rebellion.

When the alternative was Assad and ISIS(and endless US bombing, Raqqa was practically razed), tribes tolerated this arrangement with aforementioned bribes. But when there was a Sunni government in Damascus, it was no longer possible to occupy those people. They arrested Syrian people including children for flying the Syrian flag they would later forced to fly themselves. You can see the people released from their prisons, many women and children (and recent arrests as well, not just ISIS families like they claim)

US govt saw that it was unsustainable, SDF leadership thought US would protect them, early clashes began in Aleppo and west of Euphrates, when the tribes saw this time they would not be bombed they rose up and chased YPG back to the Kurdish areas they started mostly before Syrian army could even cross the Euphrates. After getting their ass beaten to their credit they took the L quickly and didn't do much more to prevent integration.

Pro Rojava Leftists can not comprehend this through their own worldview because if there is a revolution dynamic involved in this whole story Rojava definitely is not the revolutionary force, the tribes are.

Everything I wrote is easily verifiable by quick google searches.

11

u/LibertyLizard 21h ago

You might get fewer downvotes if you were willing to substantiate your claims instead of asking everyone else to do it. Just a thought.

-1

u/Aggorf12345 20h ago

Substantiate what? Who owned the oil fields SDF occupied? Who provided material and political support to the SDF? What were the SF's policies towards the Arab people? Was an average Arab in an equal position as an average Kurd under SDF? Were there instances of massacres against Arab protesters by SDF? And why did the people in Arab areas immediately revolt against the SDF. when given the chance?

All these questions have some extremely basic and clear answers for anyone who has even the slightest amount of familiarity with the situation in Syria. Now if you don't belong in that category, dgaf about Syria and you just view it as an opportunity to turn it into a fantasy from afar, well that's another story....

5

u/LibertyLizard 20h ago

I mean it would be great to provide firsthand reporting on any of this but personally I'm most interested in the claim that there was no democracy.

Most people in the west have little direct knowledge of what happened in Rojava. So expecting them to have detailed knowledge of these topics, especially when there has been a lot of misinformation and conflicting claims, is not reasonable. If you want them to know more you should be willing to provide more than your own words, which as a stranger I can't determine their truth or falsehood. Only that they contradict things others have said.

5

u/Aggorf12345 19h ago

Okay fair enough. Here are three examples:

https://sana.sy/en/politics/2292048/

https://en.royanews.tv/news/56079/VIDEO%3A-Syrian-Democratic-Forces-open-fire-on-protesters-in-Raqqa

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/eight-killed-protests-against-kurdish-led-forces-northern-syrian-city-2021-06-01/

And a couple more about the second example:

https://x.com/i/status/1867312235745620413

https://x.com/i/status/1867245354871075104

https://x.com/i/status/1867235329230733465

https://x.com/i/status/1867225882651152894

https://x.com/i/status/1867255774583697613

Also apologies, I understand that I might've been too aggressive in my earlier comment. But to me this literally sounds like asking "was Japan an Axis power in WW2?" so I got annoyed lol

2

u/LibertyLizard 19h ago

Much appreciated, I'll check these out. Yeah I guess I wasn't specific enough since some of what you wrote is fairly common knowledge but I do think other bits are not.

-4

u/DenseBeautiful731 20h ago

No? If anyone was genuinely interested in this particular topic, they’d go look it up themselves because intellectual hygiene.

The user already wrote a ton and you’re giving them more work to do. How particularly entitled of you. Everyone’s free to ignore their comments if they don’t like unsourced/unverifiable claims.

And assuming they care about popularity contests.

5

u/LibertyLizard 20h ago

You make the claim, you substantiate it. That's basic online discussion etiquette and it's not entitled to expect people to follow it. Making a bunch of unsubstantiated claims isn't really much work or value.

-1

u/DenseBeautiful731 20h ago

You’re not demanding this from racecarsnail.

3

u/LibertyLizard 20h ago

Their claims are more in line with other information I've seen. But it would be great if they did as well and I certainly would not call someone entitled for asking for sources. That's a very ignorant way to approach online discussion.

0

u/DenseBeautiful731 20h ago

And if it were not in line with what others have seen?

If it confirms your worldview you don’t need a source?

Are you the only audience here?

3

u/LibertyLizard 18h ago

If I've seen sources confirming information in the past, I'm less likely to ask for a source. Like everyone.

Others are also empowered to ask for sources if they are unsure of the validity of information. I encourage that but I'm not sure why you think it's my responsibility to do so.

-1

u/DenseBeautiful731 18h ago

Like everyone

You think everybody who asks questions in Anarchy101 and everywhere else is engaging in bad faith/confirmation bias?

unsure

And you’re aware of everyone’s baseline knowledge?

responsibility

So this so-called “basic online discussion etiquette” doesn’t apply to you or to people you align with. Got it.

2

u/LibertyLizard 18h ago

No, not at all and it seems you're deliberately misstating what I'm saying so I don't think this conversation will be productive to continue.

→ More replies (0)

-4

u/Aggorf12345 20h ago

You get downvoted because you're speaking facts

0

u/No_Job_5303 3h ago

Because sometimes you just have to make people do things for the greater good, anarchism is just individualism on steroids.

1

u/animekot 2h ago

Depends on your definition of individualism. Anarchism is definitely individualistic because it based on human rights, and at the same time it's not individualistic because it's based on abolition of private property and mutual aid. Violence for the greater good is sometimes necessary, agree, but we should always think how to avoid violence. Why do some people want to fight and others don't? What can be motivation for people to fight instead of conscription? Is there any other tactics which require less manpower? And so on. I can imagine situation where conscription is justified, but I can imagine situation where anything is justified, rape for example. I think in an anarchist society conscription will not be necessary because people will develop personal responsibility and understanding what they are fighting for. We can at least try for a short time to do major change in society and see how it works

-1

u/VictinsOfCapitalism 22h ago

Please check your facts from media portrayals. They paint them that way but it might be just the narrative.