Conghaileach
7th June 2004, 19:01
from The Plough #40...
THE SOCIALIST UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATIONAL QUESTION
Throughout history, nationalism has taken (1) many different forms
(conservative, radical etc), (2) has/is supported by many different
social groups (bourgeoisie, working class, etc), (3) has very
different political effects (reactionary, progressive). When dealing
with nationalism, it is necessary like Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Connolly to reject an abstract and timeless theory of nationalism. It
was always historical and concrete.
The fundamental point is that their analysis of nationalism was
always put in terms of (a) the strategic interests of the working
class, and thus always emphasised (b) the relation between
nationalism and democracy. Marxists have to understand simultaneously
the social roots of national struggles and the national content of
the class struggle.
It is a commonly held misconception that Marx and Engels did not
understand the importance of nationalism. They are famous for writing
in the Manifesto that "the workers have no country". Does that mean
that they have no interest in the nation? In fact, Marx and Engels
understood very well the importance for nationalism for working class
politics. In the same Manifesto, they write that the
proletariat "must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must
constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though
not the in the bourgeois sense of the word."
The question of the leading class of the nation is of extreme
importance. Societies are divided into classes, so the "national
interest" must be represented by one of them. The most progressive
class in society would be truly national in so far as it was able to
take the whole society forward, even while it was promoting its own
interest. If it is not that of the proletariat, the nationalism will
be that of the ruling classes that conceive their own interest as
those of the entire nation. That capacity to represent the interest
of a particular social class as those of the entire nation is very
important.
Similarly, they have been accused of intending to abolish national
differences. However, what Marx and Engels foresaw was not the
complete disappearance of all national distinctions whatever but
specifically the abolition of sharp economic and social differences,
economic isolation, invidious distinctions, political rivalries, wars
and exploitation of one nation by another. In the case of Ireland and
Britain for example, they advocated "the transformation of the
present forced Union into an equal and free Confederation if
possible, or into complete separation if necessary" (255). The Irish
question was decisive in the formation of the Marxist analysis of the
national question.
For Marx and Engels, there was nothing intrinsically progressive
about Irish nationalism; the right of a nation to self-determination
is not absolute. Marx and Engels were clearly aware that the relation
between England and Ireland was one of oppression. But, Marx's
support for the Irish struggle was "not only acted upon feelings of
humanity. There is something besides." (404) His support for
Ireland's right to self-determination was based on a class analysis.
In the 1840s and 1850s, Marx and Engels believed that Irish freedom
would be a by-product of a working class revolution in Great Britain.
But in 1869, he wrote: "Deeper study has now convinced me of the
opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anything
before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in
Ireland." (398) Why? Marx thought that the English aristocracy
maintained its domination at home through its domination of
Ireland. "A nation that oppresses another forges its own chains."
(255) This is why "to accelerate the social revolution in Europe, you
must push on the catastrophe of official England. To do so, you must
attack her in Ireland. That's her weakest point. Ireland lost, the
British Empire is gone and the class war in England till now
somnolent and chronic, will assume acute forms." (404) Thus, for
English workers, "the national emancipation of Ireland is no question
of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment, but the first
condition of their own social emancipation." (408) Therefore the task
for socialists was everywhere to put "the conflict between England
and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with the
Irish." (408) Their position on Ireland was analysed in terms of the
European and British revolution. The situation was assessed in terms
of its impact on the balance of forces between classes in Europe,
Britain and Ireland and how it would increase the class struggle.
Regarding the class struggle in Ireland, they arrived at the
conclusion that the land question, "is not merely a simple economic
question but at the same time a national question, since the
landlords there are its mortally hated oppressor." Marx saw the
relation between the national question and the class struggle in the
following terms: "In Ireland the land question has hitherto been the
exclusive form of the social question, because it is a question of
existence, of life and death, for the immense majority of the Irish
people, and because it is at the same time inseparable from the
national question." (407) The solution advocated by Marx was "What
the Irish need is (1) self-government and independence from England,
(2) an agrarian revolution, (3) protective tariffs against England."
(158) It was in the interests of the class struggle that the Irish
should give a central importance to the national question. In an 1882
letter to Kautsky, Engels wrote that the Irish "have not only the
right but even the duty to be nationalistic before they become
internationalistic", "they are most internationalistic when they are
genuinely nationalistic." (449) To the idea that workers of oppressed
and oppressor nations should somehow put their national differences
behind, Engels replied: "If members of a conquering nation called
upon the nation they had conquered and continued to hold down to
forget their specific nationality and position, to 'sink national
differences' and so forth, that was not Internationalism, it was
nothing else but preaching to them submission to the yoke, and
attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror
under the cloak of Internationalism. It was sanctioning the belief,
only too common among the English working men, that they were
superior beings compared to the Irish." (419)
What was true of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, in the
later part of the 19th century was mirrored all over the world with
the imperialist stage of capitalism. Imperialism is a worldwide
system of colonial oppression and financial domination of the
overwhelming majority of the world by a small number of capitalist
countries. A handful of imperialist countries obtain high profits of
the exploitation of oppressed people worldwide. Imperialism thus
divides the world into oppressed and oppressor nations. Lenin, after
Marx and Engels, developed the most advanced Marxist understanding of
the national question. For Lenin, the focal point in the socialist
programme "must be that division of nations into oppressor and
oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism." (CW21, 409) If one
confronts the reality of imperialism, the first fact is that the
world is now divided between oppressor and oppressed nations, and
that national oppression has not only been extended, it has
intensified. Imperialism has also the effect of dividing the working
class. The super profits are able to "buy off" a layer of the working
class in the oppressor countries.
Lenin wrote "The policy of Marx and Engels on the Irish question
serves as a splendid example of the attitude the proletariat of the
oppressor nation should adopt towards national movements, an example
which has lost none of its practical importance." (CW20, 442)
Socialism for Lenin "will remain a hollow phrase if it is not linked
up with a revolutionary approach to all questions of democracy,
including the national question." (CW21, 413) Within their ultimate
aim of socialism, communists support "every revolutionary movement
against the present social system, they support all oppressed
nationalities, persecuted religions, downtrodden social estates etc.
in their fight for equal rights." (CW20, 34) He wrote this important
statement: "Increased national oppression under imperialism does not
mean that Social Democracy should reject what the bourgeoisie call
the 'utopian' struggle for the freedom of nations to secede but, on
the contrary, it should make greater use of the conflicts that arise
in this sphere, too, as ground for mass action and for revolutionary
attacks on the bourgeoisie." (CW22, 146) Nationalism is a potent
mobilising agent and the necessary framework for the transition to
socialism in societies dominated by imperialism. Lenin was keenly
aware of nationalism as a catalysing agent. His analysis is based on
distinctions between oppressor nations and oppressed nations,
bourgeois nationalism and revolutionary nationalism. In so far as the
oppressed nation fights the oppressor "we are always, in every case,
and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the
staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression." (CW20, 411-
412) "The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general
democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is
this content that we unconditionally support." (CW20, 412)
Consequently, Marxism must take both tendencies of nationalism into
account by advocating "firstly the equality of nations and languages
and the impermissibility of all privileges in this respect (and the
right to self-determination); secondly the principle of
internationalism and uncompromising struggle against the
contamination of the proletariat with bourgeois nationalism, even of
the most refined kind." (CW20, 435) The task of the socialists is not
simply to tail the bourgeois nationalism. Democratic demands, Lenin
argued "must be formulated and put through in a revolutionary and not
a reformist manner, going beyond the bounds of bourgeois legality,
breaking them down, going beyond speeches in parliament and verbal
protests, and drawing the masses into decisive action." (CW22, 145)
Real revolutions do not take a "pure" form, with a "pure" working
class. Responding to Socialists who had dismissed the 1916 rising as
a nationalist revolt, Lenin replied: "To imagine that a social
revolution is conceivable without revolts of small nations in the
colonies and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts of a
section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without the
movement of non-class conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian
masses against oppression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy,
the foreign yoke, etc- to imagine that is tantamount to repudiating
social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says 'we are
for socialism', and another somewhere else lines up and says 'we are
for imperialism' and that will be a social revolution! ... Who ever
expects a 'pure' social revolution will never live to see it. Such a
person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what
revolution is". ("The Discussion of Self Determination Summed Up",
CW22, 355-356) The role of nationalism and national question is
crucial for the socialism: "The dialectics of history are such that
small nations powerless as an independent factor in the struggle
against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, one of the
bacilli which facilitate the entry into the arena of real power
against imperialism, namely the socialist proletariat." (CW22, 357)
The rising failed, but Lenin nevertheless defended its
validity. "The misfortune of the Irish is that they rose
prematurely, but only in revolutionary movements which are often
premature, partial, sporadic, and therefore unsuccessful will the
masses gain, experience, acquire knowledge, gather strength, get to
know their real leaders, the socialist proletarians, and in that way
prepare for the general onslaught, in the same way as separate
strikes, demonstrations, local and national, mutinies in the army,
outbreaks among the peasantry, etc, prepared the way for the general
onslaught in 1905." (CW, 358) The 1916 Rising was also significant
because it took place in Europe. "The struggle of the oppressed
nations in Europe, a struggle capable of going to the lengths of
insurrection and street fighting, breach of military discipline in
the army and martial law, sharpens the revolutionary crisis in Europe
infinitely more than a much more complete rebellion in a single
colony." (CW, 357) The stance of Marx, Engels and Lenin on Ireland
and the Irish question are the model for the socialist understanding
of the national question
THE SOCIALIST UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATIONAL QUESTION
Throughout history, nationalism has taken (1) many different forms
(conservative, radical etc), (2) has/is supported by many different
social groups (bourgeoisie, working class, etc), (3) has very
different political effects (reactionary, progressive). When dealing
with nationalism, it is necessary like Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Connolly to reject an abstract and timeless theory of nationalism. It
was always historical and concrete.
The fundamental point is that their analysis of nationalism was
always put in terms of (a) the strategic interests of the working
class, and thus always emphasised (b) the relation between
nationalism and democracy. Marxists have to understand simultaneously
the social roots of national struggles and the national content of
the class struggle.
It is a commonly held misconception that Marx and Engels did not
understand the importance of nationalism. They are famous for writing
in the Manifesto that "the workers have no country". Does that mean
that they have no interest in the nation? In fact, Marx and Engels
understood very well the importance for nationalism for working class
politics. In the same Manifesto, they write that the
proletariat "must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must
constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though
not the in the bourgeois sense of the word."
The question of the leading class of the nation is of extreme
importance. Societies are divided into classes, so the "national
interest" must be represented by one of them. The most progressive
class in society would be truly national in so far as it was able to
take the whole society forward, even while it was promoting its own
interest. If it is not that of the proletariat, the nationalism will
be that of the ruling classes that conceive their own interest as
those of the entire nation. That capacity to represent the interest
of a particular social class as those of the entire nation is very
important.
Similarly, they have been accused of intending to abolish national
differences. However, what Marx and Engels foresaw was not the
complete disappearance of all national distinctions whatever but
specifically the abolition of sharp economic and social differences,
economic isolation, invidious distinctions, political rivalries, wars
and exploitation of one nation by another. In the case of Ireland and
Britain for example, they advocated "the transformation of the
present forced Union into an equal and free Confederation if
possible, or into complete separation if necessary" (255). The Irish
question was decisive in the formation of the Marxist analysis of the
national question.
For Marx and Engels, there was nothing intrinsically progressive
about Irish nationalism; the right of a nation to self-determination
is not absolute. Marx and Engels were clearly aware that the relation
between England and Ireland was one of oppression. But, Marx's
support for the Irish struggle was "not only acted upon feelings of
humanity. There is something besides." (404) His support for
Ireland's right to self-determination was based on a class analysis.
In the 1840s and 1850s, Marx and Engels believed that Irish freedom
would be a by-product of a working class revolution in Great Britain.
But in 1869, he wrote: "Deeper study has now convinced me of the
opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anything
before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in
Ireland." (398) Why? Marx thought that the English aristocracy
maintained its domination at home through its domination of
Ireland. "A nation that oppresses another forges its own chains."
(255) This is why "to accelerate the social revolution in Europe, you
must push on the catastrophe of official England. To do so, you must
attack her in Ireland. That's her weakest point. Ireland lost, the
British Empire is gone and the class war in England till now
somnolent and chronic, will assume acute forms." (404) Thus, for
English workers, "the national emancipation of Ireland is no question
of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment, but the first
condition of their own social emancipation." (408) Therefore the task
for socialists was everywhere to put "the conflict between England
and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with the
Irish." (408) Their position on Ireland was analysed in terms of the
European and British revolution. The situation was assessed in terms
of its impact on the balance of forces between classes in Europe,
Britain and Ireland and how it would increase the class struggle.
Regarding the class struggle in Ireland, they arrived at the
conclusion that the land question, "is not merely a simple economic
question but at the same time a national question, since the
landlords there are its mortally hated oppressor." Marx saw the
relation between the national question and the class struggle in the
following terms: "In Ireland the land question has hitherto been the
exclusive form of the social question, because it is a question of
existence, of life and death, for the immense majority of the Irish
people, and because it is at the same time inseparable from the
national question." (407) The solution advocated by Marx was "What
the Irish need is (1) self-government and independence from England,
(2) an agrarian revolution, (3) protective tariffs against England."
(158) It was in the interests of the class struggle that the Irish
should give a central importance to the national question. In an 1882
letter to Kautsky, Engels wrote that the Irish "have not only the
right but even the duty to be nationalistic before they become
internationalistic", "they are most internationalistic when they are
genuinely nationalistic." (449) To the idea that workers of oppressed
and oppressor nations should somehow put their national differences
behind, Engels replied: "If members of a conquering nation called
upon the nation they had conquered and continued to hold down to
forget their specific nationality and position, to 'sink national
differences' and so forth, that was not Internationalism, it was
nothing else but preaching to them submission to the yoke, and
attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror
under the cloak of Internationalism. It was sanctioning the belief,
only too common among the English working men, that they were
superior beings compared to the Irish." (419)
What was true of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, in the
later part of the 19th century was mirrored all over the world with
the imperialist stage of capitalism. Imperialism is a worldwide
system of colonial oppression and financial domination of the
overwhelming majority of the world by a small number of capitalist
countries. A handful of imperialist countries obtain high profits of
the exploitation of oppressed people worldwide. Imperialism thus
divides the world into oppressed and oppressor nations. Lenin, after
Marx and Engels, developed the most advanced Marxist understanding of
the national question. For Lenin, the focal point in the socialist
programme "must be that division of nations into oppressor and
oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism." (CW21, 409) If one
confronts the reality of imperialism, the first fact is that the
world is now divided between oppressor and oppressed nations, and
that national oppression has not only been extended, it has
intensified. Imperialism has also the effect of dividing the working
class. The super profits are able to "buy off" a layer of the working
class in the oppressor countries.
Lenin wrote "The policy of Marx and Engels on the Irish question
serves as a splendid example of the attitude the proletariat of the
oppressor nation should adopt towards national movements, an example
which has lost none of its practical importance." (CW20, 442)
Socialism for Lenin "will remain a hollow phrase if it is not linked
up with a revolutionary approach to all questions of democracy,
including the national question." (CW21, 413) Within their ultimate
aim of socialism, communists support "every revolutionary movement
against the present social system, they support all oppressed
nationalities, persecuted religions, downtrodden social estates etc.
in their fight for equal rights." (CW20, 34) He wrote this important
statement: "Increased national oppression under imperialism does not
mean that Social Democracy should reject what the bourgeoisie call
the 'utopian' struggle for the freedom of nations to secede but, on
the contrary, it should make greater use of the conflicts that arise
in this sphere, too, as ground for mass action and for revolutionary
attacks on the bourgeoisie." (CW22, 146) Nationalism is a potent
mobilising agent and the necessary framework for the transition to
socialism in societies dominated by imperialism. Lenin was keenly
aware of nationalism as a catalysing agent. His analysis is based on
distinctions between oppressor nations and oppressed nations,
bourgeois nationalism and revolutionary nationalism. In so far as the
oppressed nation fights the oppressor "we are always, in every case,
and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the
staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression." (CW20, 411-
412) "The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general
democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is
this content that we unconditionally support." (CW20, 412)
Consequently, Marxism must take both tendencies of nationalism into
account by advocating "firstly the equality of nations and languages
and the impermissibility of all privileges in this respect (and the
right to self-determination); secondly the principle of
internationalism and uncompromising struggle against the
contamination of the proletariat with bourgeois nationalism, even of
the most refined kind." (CW20, 435) The task of the socialists is not
simply to tail the bourgeois nationalism. Democratic demands, Lenin
argued "must be formulated and put through in a revolutionary and not
a reformist manner, going beyond the bounds of bourgeois legality,
breaking them down, going beyond speeches in parliament and verbal
protests, and drawing the masses into decisive action." (CW22, 145)
Real revolutions do not take a "pure" form, with a "pure" working
class. Responding to Socialists who had dismissed the 1916 rising as
a nationalist revolt, Lenin replied: "To imagine that a social
revolution is conceivable without revolts of small nations in the
colonies and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts of a
section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without the
movement of non-class conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian
masses against oppression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy,
the foreign yoke, etc- to imagine that is tantamount to repudiating
social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says 'we are
for socialism', and another somewhere else lines up and says 'we are
for imperialism' and that will be a social revolution! ... Who ever
expects a 'pure' social revolution will never live to see it. Such a
person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what
revolution is". ("The Discussion of Self Determination Summed Up",
CW22, 355-356) The role of nationalism and national question is
crucial for the socialism: "The dialectics of history are such that
small nations powerless as an independent factor in the struggle
against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, one of the
bacilli which facilitate the entry into the arena of real power
against imperialism, namely the socialist proletariat." (CW22, 357)
The rising failed, but Lenin nevertheless defended its
validity. "The misfortune of the Irish is that they rose
prematurely, but only in revolutionary movements which are often
premature, partial, sporadic, and therefore unsuccessful will the
masses gain, experience, acquire knowledge, gather strength, get to
know their real leaders, the socialist proletarians, and in that way
prepare for the general onslaught, in the same way as separate
strikes, demonstrations, local and national, mutinies in the army,
outbreaks among the peasantry, etc, prepared the way for the general
onslaught in 1905." (CW, 358) The 1916 Rising was also significant
because it took place in Europe. "The struggle of the oppressed
nations in Europe, a struggle capable of going to the lengths of
insurrection and street fighting, breach of military discipline in
the army and martial law, sharpens the revolutionary crisis in Europe
infinitely more than a much more complete rebellion in a single
colony." (CW, 357) The stance of Marx, Engels and Lenin on Ireland
and the Irish question are the model for the socialist understanding
of the national question