Independence movements

[Revy]

With the recent Catalonian referendum, and the upcoming Scottish referendum next year, I feel it is necessary to establish a basic idea of how the far-left should respond to these movements.

[Q]

I gave a very basic stance earlier on:


Marxists have a dual approach towards the national question, on the one hand striving for the greatest possible unity of the working class, but on the other hand solving the national consciousness among parts of the working class. Not by suppressing it, but by overcoming it.

More concretely, Marxists in Spain should defend the full self-determination of the people of Catalonia up to and including independence, while the Marxists in Catalonia should emphasize on the unity with the working class in Spain and indeed Europe and the world.

We can only gain genuine unification of the working class if this happens on a voluntary basis among equals. For this we strive for working class unity that supersedes the capitalist state and puts forward the need for a socialist alternative.

[ellipsis]

Nationalism is a slippery slope. People forget that by defining what area and what people make up a nation, that you inherently excluded people and create a hierarchy and an "other," a people unlike you who you think of differently.

That said I think Marxists should seek to be a part of these movements so that they can influence them and perhaps co-opt them, only to further class consciousness and the condition of the working class and not for the benefit of the party.