The National Question

[Althusser]

What is the correct stance on the national question as theorized by different groups within the left?

EDIT: I rephrased the question as Ostrinski suggested.

[Red Enemy]

The national question is:

What is the position of Marxists on different "nationalities", and struggle for self determination and sovereignty.

Some Marxists outright support all cases of national self determination: From Quebec to Palestine to Tibet and back.

Others abhor all of these struggles.

The rest view it on a case by case basis: what is the best situation for the international working class? Marx and Engels, for instance, supported some and opposed others.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I think you are going to get several different kinds of answers due to the way you phrased it. Essentially socialists are internationalists who reject national boundaries because the working class has no national line, no interests in killing one another for territory; it is the ruling capitalists classes, pitted against one another in order to fill up on profits, that have an interest in maintaining borders.

Such is a gross oversimplification but it is a gist of the situation.

For some more details on this see this study guide to one of Stalin's pieces which he examined the National Question: http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxism-and-national-t177208/index.html?p=2552414#post2552414

[Ostrinski]

The national question is a series of debates among communists about what the correct stance toward the issues of national liberation, national self-determination, and anti-imperialism should be for communists.

I'm not sure if it goes back before Lenin vs. Luxemburg, but the debate about the national question between those two gave us the pretty standard arguments for both sides that are still used today. The national question isn't really "rejected" by anyone on the left because it's an objectively existing issue regardless of what your stance is toward it.

Lenin believed that every national identity should have the right to national self-determination, to choose their own cultural destiny. Luxemburg believed that making national self-determination a principle was a bad thing because in her view it was not the communist responsibility to take sides in wars between the bourgeoisie. Lenin's view has become the standard view for Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists) today and Luxemburg's view was adopted by the communist left with perhaps some mild changes.

I think perhaps Lenin thought that national liberation circumstances could create conditions for heightened proletarian class-consciousness and provide communists with an opportunity to intensify the struggle against the domestic bourgeoisie while Luxemburg theorized that the heightened national consciousness that is spawned by any national liberation movement could very well have the opposite effect and in fact serve as the foundation of yet another platform in inter-imperialist conflict.

Needless to say I think the historical experience of twentieth century national liberation movements has proved one of them to be right and the other to be wrong.

[The Jay]

The national question is a series of debates among communists about what the correct stance toward the issues of national liberation, national self-determination, and anti-imperialism should be for communists.

I'm not sure if it goes back before Lenin vs. Luxemburg, but the debate about the national question between those two gave us the pretty standard arguments for both sides that are still used today. The national question isn't really "rejected" by anyone on the left because it's an objectively existing issue regardless of what your stance is toward it.

Lenin believed that every national identity should have the right to national self-determination, to choose their own cultural destiny. Luxemburg believed that making national self-determination a principle was a bad thing because in her view it was not the communist responsibility to take sides in wars between the bourgeoisie. Lenin's view has become the standard view for Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists) today and Luxemburg's view was adopted by the communist left with perhaps some mild changes.

I think perhaps Lenin thought that national liberation circumstances could create conditions for heightened proletarian class-consciousness and provide communists with an opportunity to intensify the struggle against the domestic bourgeoisie while Luxemburg theorized that the heightened national consciousness that is spawned by any national liberation movement could very well have the opposite effect and in fact serve as the foundation of yet another platform in inter-imperialist conflict.

Needless to say I think the historical experience of twentieth century national liberation movements has proved one of them to be right and the other to be wrong.


That right there is a good summary. The issue isn't as clear cut as the OP made it seem because different people mean different things when talking about it. There are logical arguments on both sides IMO, so read, talk and make your own decision.

[Althusser]

Thank you for this information. I've heard about the Lenin v. Luxembourg discrepancy about whether or not self-determination and national sovereignty should be supported by communists. And I've heard a few negative comments from left communists about the struggle against French colonialism in Vietnam, so I guess the pieces fit.

Anyway, The question came up because I was chatting with a Maoist, and he was telling me about he dislikes "fake trots" who "don't even try to act like Leninists" (as opposed to Orthodox Trotskyists who he finds slightly more tolerable) because the "fake trots" in the party he was referring to "rejected the national question."

I'm sure he just meant that those specific Trotskyists are "fake trots" because they reject certain national liberation struggles and take a more Luxemburgist approach to the National Question rather than a Leninist one. Thank you for the information. Anything else I should know on the subject would be appreciated.

[blake 3:17]

At the OP -- I don't think there is a one size fits all solution to this question. And support for national rights does not automatically mean advocating independent statehood.

The Lenin-Luxemburg is certainly not the be all and end all, and it happened in a particular time and place, and not necessarily applicable to the world in 2013.

The classic Marxist work on nationalism is Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities which addresses the more complex questions of what a nation is and how they come to be. I'd also recommend Michael Lowy's Fatherland or Mother Earth?

The former was instigated by the very perplexing question of the wars between China, Vietnam and Cambodia. The latter gives a fairly good over view of marxist perspectives on the national question and ends up building on Otto Bauer's conception of the nation as a people sharing a common destiny.

[Geiseric]

The national question is a series of debates among communists about what the correct stance toward the issues of national liberation, national self-determination, and anti-imperialism should be for communists.

I'm not sure if it goes back before Lenin vs. Luxemburg, but the debate about the national question between those two gave us the pretty standard arguments for both sides that are still used today. The national question isn't really "rejected" by anyone on the left because it's an objectively existing issue regardless of what your stance is toward it.

Lenin believed that every national identity should have the right to national self-determination, to choose their own cultural destiny. Luxemburg believed that making national self-determination a principle was a bad thing because in her view it was not the communist responsibility to take sides in wars between the bourgeoisie. Lenin's view has become the standard view for Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists) today and Luxemburg's view was adopted by the communist left with perhaps some mild changes.

I think perhaps Lenin thought that national liberation circumstances could create conditions for heightened proletarian class-consciousness and provide communists with an opportunity to intensify the struggle against the domestic bourgeoisie while Luxemburg theorized that the heightened national consciousness that is spawned by any national liberation movement could very well have the opposite effect and in fact serve as the foundation of yet another platform in inter-imperialist conflict.

Needless to say I think the historical experience of twentieth century national liberation movements has proved one of them to be right and the other to be wrong.

Stalin's view on nationality was hugely different than Lenin's and Trotsky's, the "Man of Steel" (that's what Stalin means, seriously) was basically a great russian chauvanist, and his toadies were known for being racist towards Georgians specifically which is what Lenin's last testament was about, if you've read that. Stalin defined a nation by a people with a common culture and a homeland to call their own, which was different than Lenin's, who held the stance that nationalities were only important because of the racism capitalism relies on.

Lenin's view on say black people or Mexicans in the U.S. would agree with the notion of self determination, seeing as Mexicans and Blacks are oppressed specifically for being Mexican or Black, so they have the right (and should be supported by Communists) to fight against racism, seeing as capitalism can't survive without it, which is what Huey Newton and Malcolm X figured out.

[Blake's Baby]

'Lenin's' position on the national question is Stalin's position, because it was Stalin who wrote the document 'Marxism and the National Question' in 1913 which was the Bolsheviks' official position paper. Lenin said very little about the national question, he mostly stuck to arguing Stalin's position aginst Luxemburg's.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, I think "the national question" needs to be addressed not generally as "national questions" but as "the national question" in specific contexts. The answers here in Canada, for example, ought to be different when we're talking about Quebec and about Mohawks, for example.