[Saeko]

I don't understand how someone with a materialist view of history can regard nationhood as a relatively unimportant force. And I would like to address Marxists specifically here.

I understand that nations and nation-states are constructs that appeared very recently in history. However, I don't agree that it is relatively unimportant and only a tool of the international capitalists, nor do I believe that the capitalist class itself is internationalist despite the fact that capitalism itself cross-cuts borders.

Back in feudal times, it made sense as to why society would be divided primarily along class lines. The peasants within the same country did not interact with each other across villages much, economically or otherwise, so it was impossible for them to form a common national identity. The noblemen did though, and so it was easy for them to form a common class identity as well as a national identity.

But this is the key point. The concept of "nation" appeared among the nobility first, and that's simply because, as trade and industry expanded, it became clear that noblemen of one region had common interests due to geography or natural resources or just simple proximity against noblemen of other regions. Plus, a common language would help with establishing a complex system of laws and lubricate trade.

This is not to imply that nationhood somehow erased class. But it did emerge as a form of conflict alongside class conflict and is at least as important.

It seems obvious to me that, unless leftists start taking nation-states seriously, any hope for an internationalist workers movement is futile. Ultimately, if people are to identify with their class rather than their nation, then ordinary, everyday functions of the state will have to be gradually replaced by worker's organizations that cut across state lines.

[fuser]

don't understand how someone with a materialist view of history can regard nationhood as a relatively unimportant force. And I would like to address Marxists specifically here.

What?

We don't see nationhood/nationalism as unimportant.

Let Comrade Stalin tutor you with his gentle words.

Marxism and National Question

You can ignore chapter 5 to 7 as they deal with specific cases.

Back in feudal times, it made sense as to why society would be divided primarily along class lines. The peasants within the same country did not interact with each other across villages much, economically or otherwise, so it was impossible for them to form a common national identity. The noblemen did though, and so it was easy for them to form a common class identity as well as a national identity.

Forming a common national identity doesn't mean that society ceases to exist on class lines. I can convert to Islam today and start identifying with all Islamist in the world but my economical relationship within the society won't change.

This is not to imply that nationhood somehow erased class. But it did emerge as a form of conflict alongside class conflict and is at least as important.

important in historical sense, yes. But it doesn't mean that working class should cheer up for these petty conflicts which advances their cause in no way whatsoever.

It seems obvious to me that, unless leftists start taking nation-states seriously,

I don't mean to sound harsh but unless leftist critique actually got a hang of what leftism/Marxism is, its kinda hard to take their critique seriously.

I strongly recommend you to read that text by gentle father of nations.

[Saeko]

No, I think you guys do regard nationalism as unimportant in the sense that you do not ascribe to it the same explanatory status as class. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that, according to Marxism, nation-states were created by the capitalists to divide up the working class. You certainly don't seem to regard international conflict as another force that shapes history, but rather as just another expression of class conflict.

I think that both kinds of conflict are important in the sense that each is to some extent independent but has an effect on the other. Sometimes inter-state conflict exacerbates class conflict and sometimes it alleviates it, and vice versa. Sometimes class-conflict within a civilization is much more dominant over inter-state conflict, and so on.

And I think that this backseat role that states play in Marxist theory is inconsistent with materialism.

Your responses:

Forming a common national identity doesn't mean that society ceases to exist on class lines. I can convert to Islam today and start identifying with all Islamist in the world but my economical relationship within the society won't change.

important in historical sense, yes. But it doesn't mean that working class should cheer up for these petty conflicts which advances their cause in no way whatsoever.

are meaningless to me, because there are no workers-as-such. There are only British workers, French workers, German workers, etc. And so, it makes no sense to ask what advances the cause of all workers everywhere.

That is, unless workers were organizing themselves across state boundaries. Only then could we sensibly speak of the interests of all workers.

[Hanged_Man]

Leftists do recognize Nations. Actually many Leftists are the genuine nationalists while bourgeois nationalists only engage in culture politics for the most part. Leftists have to explain to the subalterns why ruling class policies do not serve the majority of the country but only the interests of the minority a lot of the time. In World War 1 Leftists in Europe where saying to British, German and French workers that there is no point in getting slaughtered in an imperialist war because dying for no reason is bad and because it doesn't serve the national interest.

Sometimes inter-state conflict exacerbates class conflict and sometimes it alleviates it, and vice versa.

Most people do not want to exacerbate class conflict. The material conception of history is about contradictory forces acting against each other which always create changes to different degrees. That doesn't mean that it doesn't allow for a state of internal equilibrium where change still takes place.

[fuser]

No, I think you guys do regard nationalism as unimportant in the sense that you do not ascribe to it the same explanatory status as class

What the?

Unless we say that nationalism is as important as class conflict, we think nationalism is unimportant? This makes no sense at all.

"Unless Marxism becomes Fascism, I can't take you Marxists seriously."

but I always thought that, according to Marxism, nation-states were created by the capitalists to divide up the working class.

No. There was no conscious sinister plot. Nationalism at the time period was indeed a progressive force.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment"...

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society...

The bourgeoisie ... has agglomerated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier and one customs tariff.

And I think that this backseat role that states play in Marxist theory is inconsistent with materialism.

State plays a backseat role in Marxism? And you have discovered that Marxism is inconsistent with materialism?

Wrong on both accounts, please do study some Marxist texts first.

are meaningless to me, because there are no workers-as-such. There are only British workers, French workers, German workers, etc. And so, it makes no sense to ask what advances the cause of all workers everywhere.

What?

Forming a common national identity doesn't mean that society ceases to exist on class lines. I can convert to Islam today and start identifying with all Islamist in the world but my economical relationship within the society won't change.

What exactly is meaningless about it?

Plus of course there are working class everywhere, selling their labor for wages, anyhow my post regarding national conflict was not meant as in "working class of everywhere", obviously a war between two nation will affect working class of those nations more directly and yet they don't advance working class cause one iota. While American working class pays more taxes after Iraq war, capitalists are busy reaping the benefits from their new found resources. Yeah, working class should totally cheer for their capitalist lords making more profit and happily give up their lives in foreign lands because hey our flag is of same color.



Nationalism (the left variant) can still be progressive force for many places in world, do not forget most of the freedom struggle post ww2 was led by leftist nationalist/Marxists, so much for nation being unimportant to Marxists.

[The Immortal Goon]

No, I think you guys do regard nationalism as unimportant in the sense that you do not ascribe to it the same explanatory status as class. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that, according to Marxism, nation-states were created by the capitalists to divide up the working class. You certainly don't seem to regard international conflict as another force that shapes history, but rather as just another expression of class conflict.

The nation-state was not created as a cynical ploy by mustache-twirling capitalists. As fuser rightfully pointed out, the nation-state was a progressive step in the ending of feudalism:

From that time to the Paris Commune, from 1789 to 1871, one of the types of wars were wars of a bourgeois-progressive, national-liberating character. In other words, the chief content and historical significance of these wars were the overthrow of absolutism and feudalism, the undermining of these institutions, the overthrow of alien oppression. Therefore, those were progressive wars, and during such wars, all honest, revolutionary democrats, and also all Socialists, always sympathised with the success of that country (i.e., with that bourgeoisie), which had helped to overthrow, or sap, the most dangerous foundation of feudalism, absolutism and the oppression of other nations. For example, the revolutionary wars waged by France contained an element of plunder and conquest of alien territory by the French, but this does not in the least alter the fundamental historical significance of these wars, which destroyed and shattered feudalism and absolutism in the whole of old, serf-ridden Europe. In the Franco-Prussian war, Germany plundered France, but this does not alter the fundamental historical significance of this war, which liberated tens of millions of German people from feudal disintegration and from the oppression of two despots, the Russian tsar and Napoleon III.

But what you really want to get at is why we're not flag-waving jingoists. And it's because capitalism, which fueled the progressive destruction of feudalism, has become an international mode of production:

That is, unless workers were organizing themselves across state boundaries. Only then could we sensibly speak of the interests of all workers.

We look at the system as a whole, which exists beyond nations as capitalist trade does. There's a reason Marx's organization was called the International, and that the communist anthem is the Internationale...

[Cromwell]

Internationalism presupposes nationalism. That's why most leftists support nationalism as expressed by oppressed nations.

Nationality as a social fact is an accepted part of Marxian analysis. Look at the constitution of the Soviet Union:

"Here, in the camp of socialism: reciprocal confidence and peace, national liberty and equality, the pacific co-existence and fraternal collaboration of peoples."

And, earlier, the (1918) constitution of the RSFSR:

"The Russian Soviet Republic is organized on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of soviet national republics."

...

If you look through my earlier postings (on this topic, in this very sub-forum), you'll see that I, too, struggled with this question. I couldn't understand why some leftists took such a hard anti-nationalist line, in general, but made exceptions for the Irish or the Palestinians, for example. It's because nationalism describes two different things; a force for national liberation (which includes reasonable forms of irredentism) and a force for national chauvinism (which includes imperialism and unreasonable forms of irredentism).

So, if I described myself as an English nationalist it would be assumed that I would be talking about the latter, since the English have no need for national liberation (apart from a constitutional hiccough, like 'the West Lothian Question').

The fascist attitude to the national question is, essentially, "Marxism plus Social Darwinism". They recognise this exact same reality but they consider it to be a moral good that some nations dominate others. Compare the thoughts of Enrico Corradini with those of Giuseppe Di Vittorio, both could be described as Italian nationalists.

[Saeko]

I think you guys are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say.

Yes, I know that there is a place for nation-states in the Marxist conception of history, and no I don't believe that Marxists believe that nationalism is the result of a conspiracy of mustache-twirling capitalists.

What I'm saying is that, just as one's relation to the mode of production is a source of social conflict and change, so is one's relation to other people via his nation and its own distinctive economic interests. This is despite the fact that capitalism is an internationalist system.

[The Immortal Goon]

How you interact with the physical world certainly affects you more than a mental conception of lines on a map you've probably never seen in real life anyway.

We are materialists. We see what we see, hold what we hold. Telling me that the conception of a country in a specific mental abstraction that you personally have is exactly as real to me as the fact I got up and went to work to day is absurd.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I think you guys are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say.

Yes, I know that there is a place for nation-states in the Marxist conception of history, and no I don't believe that Marxists believe that nationalism is the result of a conspiracy of mustache-twirling capitalists.

What I'm saying is that, just as one's relation to the mode of production is a source of social conflict and change, so is one's relation to other people via his nation and its own distinctive economic interests. This is despite the fact that capitalism is an internationalist system.

It's one thing to recognize there are different cultures: if you want to really fit in in Brazil, you're going to need to learn Portuguese, appreciate a good derrière, and so on. In England, you might want to get used to tea. In Ireland I suppose you'll want to get used to watery potato soup, grass, and tree bark. ... Or maybe I'm thinking of North Korea, it's easy to confuse the two.

It's another thing to say that there is an abstract nationalism at play. Some cultures are more individualist or collectivist, but by and large, groups of people represent the same types of people across the world, with the same kind of hopes and dreams, just some with less opportunity than others. Marxists don't hyperventilate about the prospect of people of different skin colors and backgrounds intermingling with each other. Immigration is not an issue as long as people are willing to work together and cooperate, because Marxists recognize the enormous need for humanity to unite and cooperate for the good of the species. We don't need to be divided by artificial class differences, or by arbitrary national borders that serves only to divide us when we should be moving towards working together. Capitalism, and also fascism, are not long-term solutions for the human race. Capitalism and economic stratification has to be overcome if humanity can ever truly move forward. Poverty and slavery can never be overcome until we move past capitalism, and war can never be overcome until nationalism gives way to internationalism.

[Saeko]

How you interact with the physical world certainly affects you more than a mental conception of lines on a map you've probably never seen in real life anyway.

We are materialists. We see what we see, hold what we hold. Telling me that the conception of a country in a specific mental abstraction that you personally have is exactly as real to me as the fact I got up and went to work to day is absurd.

It's another thing to say that there is an abstract nationalism at play. Some cultures are more individualist or collectivist, but by and large, groups of people represent the same types of people across the world, with the same kind of hopes and dreams, just some with less opportunity than others. Marxists don't hyperventilate about the prospect of people of different skin colors and backgrounds intermingling with each other. Immigration is not an issue as long as people are willing to work together and cooperate, because Marxists recognize the enormous need for humanity to unite and cooperate for the good of the species. We don't need to be divided by artificial class differences, or by arbitrary national borders that serves only to divide us when we should be moving towards working together. Capitalism, and also fascism, are not long-term solutions for the human race. Capitalism and economic stratification has to be overcome if humanity can ever truly move forward. Poverty and slavery can never be overcome until we move past capitalism, and war can never be overcome until nationalism gives way to internationalism.

This is the kind of thinking that I find to be inconsistent with materialism. A nation-state is not simply an abstract set of arbitrary lines on a map. Each country covers a specific geographic region, containing or not containing interesting features such as coast-lines, rivers, mountains, and various kinds of natural resources. Furthermore, the people of that country have a shared set of cultural norms and a language which makes it easier for them to communicate and live with each other than with outsiders. A state is also a specific organization, with well-defined boundaries, which people of a certain country use to resolve conflicts with each other and advance common interests (often against people of other countries).

The simple fact that not every country will have the same access to the same resources means that they have to compete with each other for control of those resources, and that results in inter-state conflict. Furthermore, this is not a vertical conflict between economic classes, but a horizontal one with workers and capitalists of one country competing with the workers and capitalists of another country.

[Cromwell]

The simple fact that not every country will have the same access to the same resources means that they have to compete with each other for control of those resources, and that results in inter-state conflict. Furthermore, this is not a vertical conflict between economic classes, but a horizontal one with workers and capitalists of one country competing with the workers and capitalists of another country.

I do think that I've addressed this point. Marxian analysis does not reject this assessment, it simply repudiates the belief that such an arrangement is better for the working class of any country than the alternative (which is international socialism).

The reason is that capitalism will, always, tend towards inequality in the long run.

So, the fascist and the communist are engaged in a battle to convince the working class of the truth; either that he is better off as a soldier of his nation or as a soldier of his class.

[Saeko]

I do think that I've addressed this point. Marxian analysis does not reject this assessment, it simply repudiates the belief that such an arrangement is better for the working class of any country than the alternative (which is international socialism).

The reason is that capitalism will, always, tend towards inequality in the long run.

So, the fascist and the communist are engaged in a battle to convince the working class of the truth; either that he is better off as a soldier of his nation or as a soldier of his class.

And "what is better for the working class of any country" is a meaningless term unless there is such a thing. Unless workers actually are organized across state lines (for example, by making and enforcing laws for all workers anywhere or something similar) it makes no sense to speak of the collective interests of an international working class (except in an abstract sense).

On the other hand, it does make sense to speak of the collective interests of groups like "French workers" because the tools for their organization in the form of the French state are already present. They just have to seize control of it.

[Rich]

Workers in prosperous countries have a material interest in controlling and limiting immigration. In Britain the most damaging thing about mass immigration is it pushes up the cost of housing. As people become more prosperous they desire bigger houses and gardens and they also become more concerned about protecting green belts the environment and national parks. Workers become middle class in their aspirations. Immigrants from very poor back ward countries create crime and put huge strain on public services and infrastructure.

But I don't have to persuade the British working class of this, they know it. The British working class had never supported mass immigration. Workers even marched in support of Enoch Powell in the sixties. Of course leftie Middle Class Marxists, the people who always run these so called Dictatorships of the Proletariat, these comically named workers' states always know better than the working class. But whether I'm right or wrong, one thing's for sure the working class have zero interest in international solidarity. How many workers in the rest of Europe went on strike to support the Greek workers?

Its well off Libertarians and Middle Class leftie liberals that push for mass immigration not the working class.

[Bounce]

And "what is better for the working class of any country" is a meaningless term unless there is such a thing. Unless workers actually are organized across state lines (for example, by making and enforcing laws for all workers anywhere or something similar) it makes no sense to speak of the collective interests of an international working class (except in an abstract sense).

On the other hand, it does make sense to speak of the collective interests of groups like "French workers" because the tools for their organization in the form of the French state are already present. They just have to seize control of it.

The aim is to create such a thing; evidenced in the 'republics of the Soviet Union'.

National movements are often supported as the removal of imperialist governments should allow for democratic reform and domination by the numerically larger proletariat. Thus controlled, the aims of the state become similar to that of other nations. Ergo, while the capital is still administrated within national borders, the aims of the government and that of the people become synonymous. From this vantage point is it no difficult to speak of "collective interests" and much less so if you desire the destruction of the 'nation State'.

[The Immortal Goon]

This is the kind of thinking that I find to be inconsistent with materialism. A nation-state is not simply an abstract set of arbitrary lines on a map. Each country covers a specific geographic region, containing or not containing interesting features such as coast-lines, rivers, mountains, and various kinds of natural resources. Furthermore, the people of that country have a shared set of cultural norms and a language which makes it easier for them to communicate and live with each other than with outsiders. A state is also a specific organization, with well-defined boundaries, which people of a certain country use to resolve conflicts with each other and advance common interests (often against people of other countries).

Let me put it in two ways.

In the first, you yourself separate countries into different abstractions. "Cultural norms," as if they appear from the shadows and never take any form. Language, as if it's something God placed upon the Earth for any individual without any rhyme or reason. Resources, as if the nation decided on what they wanted and decided to trade on an even keel with whatever they had.

But this isn't how nations were formed. The settlers in the North American West had a line drawn across a map in London and suddenly they were either Canadian or American. There was no decision that they poured over, in creating the nation, upon the ground. Later, immigrants came upon based upon material convenience—not at all because they really felt that a homestead 200 miles from a Canadian flag was better than a homestead 200 miles from an American one. Because of cost, shipping, and other material goods.

The languages are often disjointed, and vary from place to place. Belgium, famously, has two languages but is a single country. And other countries are the same.

The resources are hardly shared because of some democratic process in which everyone holds hands and shares with each other based on what they decided that they have or do not have. The oil in the Middle East belongs to Britain, the US, and China. The country that the British and French created in order to facilitate oil production is exactly what it sounds like. Enough blood has been spilled that some really hold onto the name, but they collapse as per needed.

It's easy enough to see how this material truth you preach falls apart into thin air within decades.





The Marxist, however, would offer explanation based upon the material conditions upon which the country was built and moved. To explain the change in political geography by taking nationalism as a material condition comparable to the means of production is to believe that the map of Africa changed based upon magic alone.

Clearly, the means of production and the interaction of the material had a greater influence upon the creation of nationalism than vice-versa.

Further, the nationalism that is toted by the jingoist exists in his head alone. The appeal of someone from the Bronx to his nationalism will not appeal to the fervent jingoism of someone in rural Kentucky. Both may be very sincere about their nationalism, but it is not the same in the least. They both are members of different countries that they are probably fervently loyal to, which do not exist as a political entity but as different political expressions.

The British nationalist may regard Ireland as part of Britain, but the Irish nationalist certainly does not. And yet this nebulous field of the bias of the mind, we are told, is a firm political reality, based upon what?

You may say that the truth is that borders do exist. But even this is only partially true. The CEO can go to any country upon the planet free of restrictions—for him, the borders simply do not exist. For the middle-class backpacker on an adventure, the borders are mere checkpoints for a stamp collection. For the laborer, it's a concrete reality complete with a wall that is impenetrable. Again, the supposed indestructible material reality is reduced to a concept.

There is rarely a unanimity in values and policy as you pretend, and for the most part, people interact with their governments as rarely as possible.

An actual material condition would be your means of production, and these extend beyond borders. You view the world the way you do because of how you interact with it, because of what you can hold, because of what is made, because of what you make.

Not because someone pointed at a map and said, "There you are."

[Noelnada]

Belgium, famously, has two languages but is a single country.

Three languages officially.

On the other hand, it does make sense to speak of the collective interests of groups like "French workers" because the tools for their organization in the form of the French state are already present. They just have to seize control of it.

I honestly do think you have a point in regards to international communism in our times.

How are communist parties supposed to convince let's say high-paid German steel workers that they will have to renounce to a part of their material advantages in order to be able to raise the standard of living of vietnamese textile workers, which would be necessary if we would have a sudden transition towards world communism. That's why workers in well doing countries will rather vote for nationalist parties than for communist parties, since they have, recognized the privileges they have, at least for now.

I do belive that our best chance to reach global communism someday is to focus on the development of supra-regional modes of governances (like the EU) in order to slowly abolish the differences between workers conditions inside regions in a first time and between regions in a second time while getting rid of nation-states. And continue to work on improving capitalism till it becomes obsolete.

[The Immortal Goon]

How are communist parties supposed to convince let's say high-paid German steel workers that they will have to renounce to a part of their material advantages in order to be able to raise the standard of living of vietnamese textile workers, which would be necessary if we would have a sudden transition towards world communism. That's why workers in well doing countries will rather vote for nationalist parties than for communist parties, since they have, recognized the privileges they have, at least for now.

The fate of the high-paid American steel workers speak for itself.

Steel consumption goes up:



...But it's not coming from the United States. None of the good union production jobs are:



Instead of siding with an international class, the US workers sided only with US workers, and turned themselves into units groveling to keep jobs going overseas.

Why should Germany's workforce renounce to a part of their material advantages in order to be able to raise the standard of living of vietnamese textile workers?

Because the Vietnamese textile workers will be taking their jobs.

Again, the bourgeoisie creates a national state—but only the proletariat are bound by its borders.

Things may look good wherever you are at the moment, but even being the hallowed generation that created far the most powerful nationstate that the world had ever seen was a hollow victory for the workers of said country. International capitalism always beats the working class, so long as the working class doesn't assert itself:

[Rei Murasame]

Just putting this up as an item of interest as well:

Here is the answer to your questions!

(1) What we understand by the economic conditions, which we regard as the determining basis of the history of society, are the methods by which human beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc. Under economic conditions are further included the geographical basis on which they operate and those remnants of earlier stages of economic development which have actually been transmitted and have survived – often only through tradition or the force of inertia; also of course the external milieu which surrounds this form of society.

If, as you say, technique largely depends on the state of science, science depends far more still on the state and the requirements of technique. If society has a technical need, that helps science forward more than ten universities. The whole of hydrostatics (Torricelli, etc.) was called forth by the necessity for regulating the mountain streams of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We have only known anything reasonable about electricity since its technical applicability was discovered. But unfortunately it has become the custom in Germany to write the history of the sciences as if they had fallen from the skies.

(2) We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines historical development. But race is itself an economic factor. Here, however, two points must not be overlooked:

(a) Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. [...] Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding. [...]

[...]

So basically people cannot simply disregard the national question, according to Engels.

[The Immortal Goon]

So basically people cannot simply disregard the national question, according to Engels.

I don't know that I have anything to disagree with, so far as Engels says.

He is clear that nationality is a result of economics, as his first point makes clear.

It must also be pointed out that history is a moving, breathing thing for Marx and Engels. The reason that these things like a nationstate exist is because it does—not because it's the engine of society. Once the progressive nature of nationality is reached (see Lenin above) then it becomes reactionary. Which is why Marxists are staunch defenders of Irish nationalism in Europe today, and were of Irish and Polish nationalism in Europe at Marx and Engels' time:

An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations. The little bit of republican internationalism between 1830 and 1848, was grouped around France which was destined to free Europe. Hence it increased French chauvinism in such a way as to cause the world-liberating mission of France and with it France’s native right to be in the lead to get in our way every day even now. (The Blanquists present a caricature of this view, but it is still very strong also among Malon and company.) Also in the International the Frenchmen considered this point of view as fairly obvious. Only historical events could teach them – and several others also – and still must teach them daily that international cooperation is possible only among equals, and even a primus inter pares can exist at best for immediate action.

So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore, neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself, nor can there arise real international intercourse between the proletarian parties in Germany, etc, with other than émigré Poles. Every Polish peasant or worker who wakes up from the general gloom and participates in the common interest, encounters first the fact of national subjugation. This fact is in his way everywhere as the first barrier. To remove it is the basic condition of every healthy and free development. Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme, appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.

It is unimportant whether a reconstitution of Poland is possible before the next revolution. We have in no case the task to deter the Poles from their efforts to fight for the vital conditions of their future development, or to persuade them that national independence is a very secondary matter from the international point of view. On the contrary, independence is the basis of any common international action. Moreover in 1873 a war between Germany and Russia was at the point of breaking out, and the constitution of some kind of a Polish state, which could form the core of a later real one, very much within the realm of possibility. And if my lords, the Russians, do not stop soon their Panslavist intrigues and agitation in Herzegovina, they may be drawn into a war which will put to shame their own, Austria’s and Bismarck’s worst fears. Only the Russian Panslavist party and the Tsar have an interest to let the matter in Herzegovina become serious. We can have as little interest in the gang of Bosnian robbers as in the stupid Austrian ministers and bureaucrats who are now making so much noise there. Thus even without revolution, merely through a European collision the constitution of an independent Poland proper [Kleinpolen – ed] would not be so far from possible, just as the Prussian Germany proper [Kleindeutschland – ed] which was invented by the bourgeois was not reached by way of the revolutionary or parliamentary path of their dream, but as a result of war.

Thus I hold the view that there are two nations in Europe which do not only have the right but the duty to be nationalistic before they become internationalists: the Irish and the Poles. They are internationalists of the best kind if they are very nationalistic. The Poles have understood this in all crises and have proved it on the battlefields of all revolutions. Take away their expectation to re-establish Poland; or persuade them that the new Poland will soon fall into their laps by itself, and they are finished with their interest in the European Revolution.

We, in particular, have no reason whatever to block their irrefutable striving for independence. In the first place, they have invented and applied in 1863 the method of fighting which the Russians are now imitating with such great success (see Berlin und Petersburg, appendix 2); and secondly they were the only reliable and capable lieutenants in the Paris Commune.

Who are, by the way, the people who fight against the nationalist strivings of the Poles? Firstly the European bourgeois with whom the Poles have lost all credit since the insurrection of 1846 with its socialist tendencies; and secondly the Russian Panslavists and people influenced by them, such as Proudhon who looked through the coloured glasses of Herzen. Among the Russians, even the best, there are today only very few who are free from Panslavist leanings or memories.

But, again, to look at Lenin, we see that history has moved to a capitalist-imperialist stage of history. Again, nationality becomes absolutely necessary internationally, just as it had been in Europe earlier. And thus, in today's society, nationalism (for virtually every "first world" country) takes a reactionary tendency as it has fulfilled its progressive nature:

The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible. Our contingent of workers and peasants which is upholding Soviet power is one of the contingents of the great world army, which at present has been split by the world war, but which is striving for unity, and every piece of information, every fragment of a report about our revolution, every name, the proletariat greets with loud and sympathetic cheers, because it knows that in Russia the common cause is being pursued, the cause of the proletariat’s uprising, the international socialist revolution. A living example, tackling the job somewhere in one country is more effective than any proclamations and conferences; this is what inspires the working people in all countries.

The October strike in 1905—the first steps of the victorious revolution—immediately spread to Western Europe and then, in 1905, called forth the movement of the Austrian workers; already at that time we had a practical illustration of the value of the example of revolution, of the action by the workers in one country, and today we see that the socialist revolution is maturing by the hour in all countries of the world.

If we make mistakes and blunders and meet with obstacles on our way, that is not what is important to them; what is important to them is our example, that is what unites them. They say: we shall go together and conquer, come what may. (Applause).

The great founders of socialism, Marx and Engels, having watched the development of the labour movement and the growth of the world socialist revolution for a number of decades saw clearly that the transition from capitalism to socialism would require prolonged birth-pangs, a long period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the break-up of all that belonged to the past, the ruthless destruction of all forms of capitalism, the co.-operation of the workers of all countries, who would have to combine their efforts to ensure complete victory. And they said that at the end of the nineteenth century “the Frenchman will begin it, and the German will finish it”[164]—.the Frenchman would begin it because in the course of decades of revolution he had acquired that intrepid initiative in revolutionary action that made him the vanguard of the socialist revolution.

Today we see a different combination of international socialist forces. We say that it is easier for the movement to start in the countries that are not among those exploiting countries which have opportunities for easy plunder and are able to bribe the upper section of their workers. The pseudo-socialist, nearly all ministerial, Chernov-Tsereteli parties of Western Europe do not accomplish anything, and they lack firm foundations. We have seen the example of Italy; during the past few days we witnessed the heroic struggle of the Austrian workers against the predatory imperialists.185 Though the pirates may succeed in holding up the movement for a time, they cannot stop it altogether, it is invincible.

The example of the Soviet Republic will stand before them for a long time to come. Our socialist Republic of Soviets will stand secure, as a torch of international socialism and as an example to all the working people. Over there—conflict, war, bloodshed, the sacrifice of millions of people, capitalist exploitation; here—a genuine policy of peace and a socialist Republic of Soviets.

Things have turned out differently from what Marx and Engels expected and we, the Russian working and exploited classes, have the honour of being the vanguard of the international socialist revolution; we can now see clearly how far the development of the revolution will go. The Russian began it—the German, the Frenchman and the Englishman will finish it, and socialism will be victorious.