Catalonia Strikes over suppression of Independence Referendum

Democracy and Class Struggle says Wales and all other nations of Europe hear the voice of  Catalonia rally to her support

On the Situation in Catalonia by French Maoist Comrades

Democracy and Class Struggle is pleased with this statement of French Maoist comrades who have applied Marxism Leninism Maoism to the National Question and avoided the trap of Imperialist Economism  unlike many on the Left in Europe.

Red Salute to French comrades.

What is happening in Catalonia? This nation, located in several regions where the culture is Catalan (Valencia, Baleares, Andorra, …), mainly in the Spanish State and partly in the French State, has a quickly evolving political situation with an unprecedented political crisis. Since 2015, the Generalitat Government (the political organization holding regional executive and legislative power in this “autonomous community”, which was integrated centuries ago into the Spanish State) has promised to move towards independence. To this end, the Generalitat convened a referendum on October 1, 2017.

The Conservative Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy (leader of the Partido Popular, representing the right wing coming from the Francoism) seems ready to use all means at its disposal to prevent the referendum, which the Constitutional Court declared illegal. It should be remembered that the police searched the Catalan regional government offices and seized nearly 10 million ballots on September 19 and 20, that 14 senior regional government officials were arrested on September 21, that the court has subpoened more than 700 Catalan mayors, that private companies that contributed to independence propaganda have been searched, and that the Constitutional Court announced fines of 6,000 to 12,000 euros daily for 24 referendum organizers until they comply with the “Justice’s” resolutions. 60 websites promoting the referendum have been shut down, the election campaign and placing of posters for independence made illegal, and Madrid has placed the region’s finances under surveillance to prevent illegal financing.

The Constitution considers Spain one indivisible State. In spite of the existence of different nations within it (Catalonia, the Basque Country, but also Asturias, Galicia, Andalusia …), the legacy of the empire and Francoism remains profoundly marked in the organization of the State. The bourgeoisie continues to celebrate “Hispanic Day”, and the main right-wing party, the PP, is the direct heir of the Francoist bureaucracy. But in reality, the Spanish bourgeoisie is a class torn between its imperialist character and the reality that they have not achieved centralization of state power. The country was built on gold from the colonization of Latin America, but there was a significant industrial delay afterward. Moreover, Spain has not completed its process of centralization, as France did by crushing its national minorities much more effectively with the spread of a republican Jacobin ideology. Only a few regions of northern Spain truly experienced the industrial revolution in the 19th century, such as the Basque Country (Euskal Herria), Catalonia (Catalunya), and Galicia.

These contradictions have created great misery in the countryside, glaring economic inequalities, strong national revendications, and deep political instability. The majority of the bourgeoisie is closely linked to the Catholic Church, openly despises the people and does not seek to hide it under a layer of progressivism. In opposition, the labor movement developed mainly on an anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist basis. In particular, the contradictions in Spanish society led to reactionary uprising and then to the civil war of 1936-1939, which saw the intervention of fascist powers, and of Mexico and the USSR. Basques and Catalans mobilized alongside the Second Republic, hoping to obtain national independence, or at least some autonomous status and liberties.

The defeat of the Republic temporarily silenced national aspirations. The anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist movement was swept aside, the Communists plunged into clandestinity, and the bourgeoisie crushed the proletariat. The democratic transition begun after Franco’s death in 1975 merely repainted the facade of the old authoritarian and nationalist state: despite the parliamentary form of the state, Spain has some of the most repressive laws in Europe. The torture of revolutionary and independence activists is common, and it is still not possible to openly criticize the monarchy.

But let us come back to the current situation. Who leads the independence movement in Catalonia? The direction of the movement is clearly in the Catalan bourgeoisie’s hands. In terms of class, part of the proletariat and of the bourgeoisie, and the majority of the petit bourgeoisie are of Catalan culture. However, “the very rich and the very poor are Spanish”: the big bourgeoisie, like the most precarious proletarians who migrate to Barcelona and the industrial zones to try their luck, are closer to Spanish culture.

At the last Diada (National Day of Catalonia), the national holiday became a protest for independence and brought together a million people. For a decade, the quick economic development of Catalonia encouraged the Catalan small and middle bourgeoisie to openly support the movement for independance. To simplify, let us say: for the bourgeois, it is more advantageous to keep all taxes in Catalonia than to pay them to Madrid. Catalonia still accounts for 20% of Spain’s GDP, 30% of its exports and 50% of its high-value-added activity! There is a reactionary idea that “the Catalans” should not have to sacrifice for the rest the Spanish population. 

However, should the Catalan movement be rejected as a whole? No. 

It is a national struggle with a progressive characteristic (independence from an imperialist state). 

But this is not a revolutionary struggle. National oppression targets the people, but also the nation as a whole.

Revolutionaries of the French State must follow the situation closely. It is a potentially explosive situation in Spain and could have very important consequences at the European level, leading to a domino effect in the Basque Country and elsewhere, for example in Scotland and Northern Ireland.It is clear that Madrid did not believe that the situation would worsen to this extent. The Conservatives believed that they were entering into a simple economic bargain with the Catalan bourgeoisie, whose participation in the independence vote they presumed was an engineered spectacle to mobilize its electoral base.

But the Spanish bourgeois, whether conservative or socialist, neglected a factor: driven by its base, disappointed by the decline of the Generalitat against the Conservatives, the Catalan bourgeoisie went farther than expected. It can still give up the independence project and get away with it by doing what the bourgeois politicians do best, that is, by theatrics. They may argue that threats (a Spanish army general suggested that they would defend the constitutional order “by any means”) and repression prevent them from holding the referendum because of the ballot seizures and subpoens, websites closures, and trials and financial oversight of the Generalitat.

But Madrid plays a very dangerous game. Civil disobedience is massive in Catalonia. There have been large student demonstrations in recent days, many schools are occupied, and unions have given notice of a general strike starting from October 1 if the referendum was prevented fromgoing forward. If the local police forces, the Mossos, still obey Madrid, the administration will disobey openly. Searches of public buildings have shocked the public. And the trials of the Catalan leaders can push the masses to go for broke. Here we are faced with a situation of double or nothing: either the government temporarily crushes the independentist movement, or it radicalizes it and loses its ability to face popular pressure.

In any case, the next few weeks will be decisive. Thus, our Party takes the following positions:

We recognize the definition of a nation as a stable, historically constituted community born on the basis of a community of language, territory, economic life and psychic formation that is reflected in a community of culture.

The Spanish State used and continues to use force against the Catalan nation to prevent it from seceding. We support the Catalan nation’s right to self-determination. 

If the Catalan nation feel the necessity to secede and thus create an independent state, it is because it feels oppressed by the Spanish state. We must support it right to self-determination.

Comrade Lenin teaches us that, “The principle of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgeois society and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully recognises the historical legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent this recognition from becoming an apologia of nationalism, it must be strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements, in order that this recognition may not lead to bourgeois ideology obscuring proletarian consciousness.” (Critical Notes on the National Question, 1913)

The bourgeois nationalism of every oppressed nation possesses democratic content directed against oppression – this is what we support. On the other hand, we do not support the content aimed at strengthening the nationalism and privileges of the national bourgeoisie and which breaks the class consciousness of the proletariat by obscuring class distinctions between bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and proletarian.

“On the plea that its demands are “practical”, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations will call upon the proletariat to support its aspirations unconditionally…The proletariat is opposed to such practicality. While recognizing equality and equal rights to a national state, it values above all and places foremost ??the alliance of the proletarians of all countries, and assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers’ class struggle. To the workers the important thing is to distinguish the principles of the two trends. Insofar as the bourgeoisie of 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. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against.” (Lenin, quoted by Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in The National Question in Turkey, 1971)

We therefore support the right of self-determination of the Catalan nation. And we support the unity of the Catalan and Spanish proletariat against the interests of the bourgeoisie and landlords.

Source http://www.pcmaoiste.org/communique/sur-la-situation-en-catalogne/

http://www.redspark.nu/en/national-liberation-struggle/on-the-situation-in-catalonia/

As a Korean saying goes, sorrow is laugher's daughter - Japanese Warmongering gets response from North Korea

Democracy and Class Struggle says Japan is taking the lead warmongering in North Asia even sidelining South Korea in anti DPRK actions saying just like Trumps poodle that dialogue is not needed.

Pyongyang, October 2 (KCNA) -- Prime Minister Abe, the chief cabinet secretary, the foreign minister and other government authorities of Japan are now getting hell-bent on the anti-DPRK moves.

At the recent UN General Assembly Abe said that "pressure, not dialogue, is needed" over the issue of the DPRK while running around the UN stage like a headless chicken to meet leaders of different countries so as to incite "solidarity of the international community".

In particular, Foreign Minister Kono who assumed office not long ago had telephone talks with the foreign ministers of UNSC member states and toured Middle East countries to beg for cooperation in pressurizing the DPRK, only inviting derision of the world.

The Japanese politicians left no stone unturned to clamor about "maximum pressure" on the DPRK, through so-called speech, appearance on TV, summit, telephone talks and other occasions, irrespective of object and place. Their behavior is little short of mad rackets.

The true nature of the Japanese reactionaries using the "theory of crisis on the Korean peninsula" and "fiction of threat from the north" for political purpose has already been exposed to the international community.

The sanctions and pressure rackets Japan keeps up joining the U.S. in its moves to stile the DPRK are aimed to ceaselessly strain the situation on the peninsula under the pretext of the latter's counteraction.

Japan thinks that it can without difficulty attain its political aims when "security crisis" goes into gear.

The "security crisis" based on the situation of the peninsula is just a "problem" that has to be invented as it helps calm down the strong domestic and international protest against the revision of constitution, facilitate Japan's militarization and at the same time strengthen inside unity and save the present rulers driven into a tight corner with corruption and irregularities, economic difficulty, etc.

The Japanese reactionaries have already revised the law on punishing organized crimes and drastically increased defense cost and dissolved the House of Representatives in the wake of cabinet reshuffle for early elections. This is part of efforts for sinister political goal.

Nevertheless, it's too early to wear a complacent smile.

As a Korean saying goes, sorrow is laugher's daughter.

Japan's such rackets inciting the tension of the Korean peninsula is a suicidal deed that will bring nuclear clouds to the Japanese archipelago.

No one knows when the touch-and-go situation will lead to a nuclear war, but if so, the Japanese archipelago will be engulfed in flames in a moment. This is too self-evident.

If the Japanese people, the first victim of nuclear disaster in the world, are offered in sacrifice owing to handful militarist reactionaries' political aim, it will be a tragedy of the century.

The Japanese politicians should stop acting rashly in an attempt to derive a benefit from the tense situation on the Korean peninsula and had better think twice about the consequences

GALIZA: Call of the “Committee Building the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia” on the situation in Catalonia.

Red Salute to Comrades in Galicia

GALIZA: Call of the “Committee Building the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia” on the situation in Catalonia.

September 27, 2017 Anton Faisca/Redspark

To the Galician working people:

The sovereign decision of the majority of the Parliament of Catalonia to convene a referendum on self-determination for next October 1, was answered with repression by the State of the Spanish oligarchy.

The de facto annulment of Catalonia’s self-governance status, with the intervention of the administrations and the arrest of political leaders, is the first step towards widespread repression in both rebel Catalonia and other peoples of the Spanish State.

Not surprising! That is the only answer that knows a reactionary and fascist bourgeoisie, direct heir to the Franco dictatorship in the Bourbon restoration regime of 1978.

But, this time, they did not do a good analysis, because they do not know, in this new concrete reality of the 21st century, the power of a determined people to take their destiny in their hands. Where there is oppression, there will always be rebellion, this is the science of the Revolution.

We are also fully aware that the political process of national liberation in Catalonia is being led by the same oppressive and corrupt bourgeoisie which, in other times, was part of the block of the oligarchy that endorsed the fascist Bourbon restoration imposed by Franco. 

That same bourgeoisie now faces the most recalcitrant sectors of the Spanish bourgeoisie in antagonistic contradiction. The same bourgeoisie, because of this, needs an alliance with the radical petty-bourgeoisie of ERC and worker class sectors of the CUP, of an assembly and anti-capitalist tendency, to achieve a new political space in the form of a Republic, taking into account the patriotic sentiment of the majority of the Catalan people.

We are also aware that the proletariat in the whole Spanish State and in oppressed nations, lacks strong revolutionary Communist parties, capable of leading the process. So, we are facing a stage in which the bourgeoisie and the democratic petty-bourgeoisie are hegemonic wings.

The work of the Communists, must be articulated in these circumstances in the necessary partisan construction around a revolutionary line and the revolutionary ideology of the proletariat; Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Unique guarantor for the construction of the three basic elements of the revolution: The Party, The United Front and the Popular Army.

Without them, the masses nothing will have!

In parallel to this, we must denounce the revisionist renegades who, being falsely called “communist”, are once again aligned with the oligarchy of the monarchist-fascist regime shouting for the “unity of Spain”, denying Marx the saying: “The people who oppress other peoples can not be free”.

This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the popular uprising of Naxalbari in India and the centenary of the Great Socialist Revolution of October led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia.
It is their red flags, their rich experiences, the ones that must guide us!

The monarch-fascist regime is hurt of death! We all must be aware of this and act accordingly.

From the “Committee Building the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia” we want to show all our internationalist and class solidarity with the Catalan working people in their struggle for national liberation.

We call upon our working people to raise the red flag of proletarian internationalism and defend our brother people against fascist repression.

For the revolutionary general strike that paralyzes repression until national liberation!
People’s War until Communism!
For the People’s Republic of Catalonia!
For the People’s Republic of Galicia!
Fascism never again!

Source

http://dazibaorojo08.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/galiza-call-of-committee-building.html

The European Union on Catalonia - A Statement that will live in infamy

             Hundreds Injured by Spanish Police in Catalonia and EU Praises Mariano Rajoy 


Democracy and Class Struggle says the European Commission on Spanish State violence in Catalonia is a shameful document that praises leadership of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy not the Catalan struggle for democratic rights.


European Commission - Statement
Statement on the events in Catalonia

Brussels, 2 October 2017

Under the Spanish Constitution, yesterday's vote in Catalonia was not legal.

For the European Commission, as President Juncker has reiterated repeatedly, this is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain.

We also reiterate the legal position held by this Commission as well as by its predecessors. If a referendum were to be organised in line with the Spanish Constitution it would mean that the territory leaving would find itself outside of the European Union.

Beyond the purely legal aspects of this matter, the Commission believes that these are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation.

We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics.

We trust the leadership of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish Constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.

Democracy in Crisis as Spanish Police Crush Catalan Vote

Puerto Rico remembers The Young Lords Struggle in USA

The UPG (Galizan People’s Union) condemns the repression unleashed against the Catalan people and upholds the right to self-determination

The  UPG (Galizan People’s Union) condemns the repression unleashed against the Catalan people and upholds the right to self-determination
01/10/2017/

The violent repression carried out by the Spanish regime on Sunday 1 October intended to prevent the Catalan people from freely deciding its own future only served to fully expose the absolutely authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of the Spanish political system which does not hesitate to unleash police repression to deny basic rights and civil liberties, especially to thwart the exercise of the right to self-determination.

As we have repeatedly stated in the past, it is not Mariano Raxoi’s government and the People’s Party who  are not solely to blame for this anti-democratic conduct, but the Spanish State itself, i.e. the political regime born out of the Transition and the Constitution of 1978, falling back on the would-be legality of a constitutional text which states that the “Spanish people” is the exclusive holder of political sovereignty, thereby effectively denying the right of nations such as Catalonia and Galiza to decide freely over their own future.

It is also important to remember that all of the Spanish political parties publicly declared themselves to be against the referendum held on 1 October, despite its having been called by the Catalan government, democratically elected by the people and in  accordance with the legislation passed by the Catalan Parliament; some, such as the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and Ciudadanos lent the Spanish government their unconditional support, while others, such as Podemos and the United Left (IU) attempted to deglegitimise the result of the ballot under the pretext of ‘a lack of guarantees’ which, as was to be expected, they laid at the door not of the Spanish but of the Catalan Government.

Trying to camouflage the denial of the right of Catalonia to decide for itself and to become a sovereign State if that is the will of the Catalan people behind the fiction of a referendum agreed on with the Spanish regime which, as they know full well, never was and never will be possible, is the lowest of political shams and shows the true colours of the so-called left-wing organisation in Spain which have already made it clear that their claim to ‘break’ with the regime is nothing more than hot air and demagoguery because, when it comes down to it, they too in practice deny the sovereignty of the nations within the Spanish State, be it Catalonia or Galiza.

What the independence process and the referendum in Catalonia effectively did was to expose the true face of the Spanish political system and its so-called ‘democracy’. Denying basic rights and freedoms is how the Spanish regime responds to the will of our nations to be free. No state which violates basic rights and the freedom of expression, opinion, assembly, information and the right to decide through a ballot, resorting instead to violence to curb these rights, can be considered to be in any way democratic.

There will be some in Galiza who think that none of this has anything to do with us. Nothing could be further from the truth. The basic social, economic, cultural and linguistic, problems, etc. which affect our country are rooted in the political dependency we suffer and the denial by the Spanish State of our capacity to decide freely over our own affairs and interests. It is vital for the Galizan people to breaking free of this yolk in order for us to be able to build a better future of welfare, prosperity and freedom for ourselves.

Indeed, above and beyond the basic need to defend democratic rights, all of our nations have a vested joint interest in ending oppression and domination by the Spanish State. It is clear that the national question, especially in the light of the situation in Catalonia, is the key decisive factor which is shaking the foundations of the Spanish political system. For that reason, we must actively defend democracy and the right to self-determination and redouble our efforts to explain to all of those around us why, more than ever, Galiza needs to achieve national sovereignty.

The ongoing attack on rights and freedoms in Catalonia is an attack on the rights and freedoms of all of those who live within the confines of the Spanish State and all of the nations still part of it and who yearn to be free. It is, therefore, essential to defend democracy and the right of the peoples to decide, to exercise our right to self-determination and to build independent, sovereign states of our own. Today, by defending the freedom of Catalonia, we are also defending the freedom of Galiza and all people.

We know that no amount of repressive violence by the State will ever be enough to crush the sovereign will of the Catalan people who took to the polls en masse throughout the country and who has already gained its own Republic. Today we reiterate our wholehearted support for Catalonia as it democratically exercises its right to self-determination. And we also once again repeat our commitment to continue strengthening the self-organisation of the Galizan people and to continue working for a truly democratic break with the old regime, paving the way for full national independence and a sovereign State of our own: the Republic of Galiza.

The Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism by V.I Lenin

Lenin’s classic “What Is to Be Done” was written in opposition to economism.

Economism is a tendency in the workers movement that only focuses on economic struggle – struggle for wages, welfare and rights in the workplace – and that limits itself to union work.

As a resistance to this, Lenin puts forward at versatile political struggle with a much wider spectrum of resistance against the bourgeois state.

Lenin's in an October 1916 Article " A caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" illustrates how the blinkered economist viewpoint had been extended to national struggles by Kievsky  -  one cannot read this 1916 article without being struck by how many of Kievsky'Lefts mistaken ideas on the national question are present on the so called "revolutionary" left particularly in UK and USA today.

We reminded the "British" Left of their mistakes on the National Question many years ago in our article the Cosmopolitan Left and the National Question.

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-cosmopolitan-left-and-national.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/la-izquierda-cosmopolita-y-la-cuestion.html


Our recent articles addressing Imperialist Economism in relation to Catalonia

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-national-question-once-again.html

https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/mlm-and-national-question-national.html

The Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism[8]

Written: Written in August-September 1916
Published: First published in the magazine Bolshevik No. 15, 1929. Signed: N. Lenin.

The old Economism[9] of 1894–1902 reasoned thus: the Narodniks[10] have been refuted; capitalism has triumphed in Russia. Consequently, there can be no question of political revolution. The practical conclusion: either “economic struggle be left to the workers and political struggle to the liberals”—that is a curvet to the right—or, instead of political revolution, a general strike for socialist revolution. That curvet to the left was advocated in a pamphlet, now forgotten, of a Russian Economist of the late nineties.[11]

Now a new Economism is being born. Its reasoning is similarly based on the two curvets: “Right”—we are against the “right to self-determination” (i.e., against the liberation of oppressed peoples, the struggle against annexations—that has not yet been fully thought out or clearly stated). “Left”—we are opposed to a minimum programme (i. e., opposed to struggle for reforms and democracy) as “contradictory” to socialist revolution.

It is more than a year now since this nascent trend was revealed to several comrades at the Berne Conference in the spring of 1915. At that time, happily, only one comrade, who met with universal disapproval, insisted on these ideas of imperialist Economism right up to the end of the Conference and formulated them in writing in special “theses”. No one associated himself with these theses.[12]

Subsequently two others associated themselves with this comrade’s theses against self-determination (unaware that the question was inextricably linked with the general line of the afore-mentioned “theses”).[13] But the appearance of the “Dutch programme” in February 1916, published in No. 3 of the Bulletin of the International Socialist = Committee,[14]   immediately brought out this “misunderstanding” and again compelled the author of the original theses to restate his imperialist Economism, this time, too, as a whole, and not merely in application to one allegedly “partial” issue.

It is absolutely necessary again and again to warn the comrades concerned that they have landed themselves in a quagmire, that their “ideas” have nothing in common either with Marxism or revolutionary Social-Democracy. We can no longer leave the matter “in the dark”: that would only encourage ideological confusion and direct it into the worst possible channel of equivocation, “private” conflicts, incessant “friction”, etc. Our duty, on the contrary, is to insist, in the most emphatic and categorical manner, on the obligation thoroughly to think out and analyse questions raised for discussion.

In its theses on self-determination[1] (which appeared in German as a reprint from No. 2 of Vorbote[15]), the Sotsial-Demokrat[16] editorial board purposely brought the matter into the press in an impersonal, but most detailed, form, emphasising in particular the link between self-determination and the general question of the struggle for reforms, for democracy, the impermissibility of ignoring the political aspect, etc. In his comments on the editorial board’s theses, the author of the original theses (imperialist Economism) comes out in solidarity with the Dutch programme, thereby clearly demonstrating that self-determination is by no means a “partial” question, as exponents of the nascent trend maintain, but a general and basic one.

The Dutch programme was laid before representatives of the Zimmerwald Left[17] on February 5–8, 1916, at the Berne meeting of the International Socialist Committee.[18] Not a single member of the Zimmerwald Left, not even Radek, spoke in favour of the programme, for it combines, indiscriminately, such points as “expropriation of the banks” and “repeal of customs tariffs”, “abolition of the first Senate chamber”, etc. The Zimmerwald Left unanimously, with practically no comment, in fact merely with a shrug of the shoulders, dismissed the Dutch programme as patently and wholly unsuitable.

However, the author of the original theses, written in the spring of 1915, was so fond of the programme that he declared: “Substantially, that is all I said, too [in the spring of 1915],[2] “the Dutch have thought things out”: “with them the economic aspect is expropriation of the banks and large-scale production [enterprises], the political aspect is a republic and so on. Absolutely correct!”

The fact, however, is that the Dutch did not “think things out”, but produced an unthought out programme. It is the sad fate of Russia that some among us grasp at precisely what is not thought out in the newest novelty....

The author of the 1915 theses believes that the Sotsial Demokrat editors lapsed into a contradiction when they “themselves” urged “expropriation of the banks”, and even added the word “immediately” (plus “dictatorial measures”) in § 8 (“Concrete Measures”). “And how I was reproached for this very thing in Berne!” the author of the 1915 theses exclaims indignantly, recalling the Berne debates in the spring of 1915.

He forgets or fails to see this “minor” point: in §8 the Sotsial-Demokrat editors clearly distinguish two eventualities: I. The socialist revolution has begun. In that event, they say: “immediate expropriation of the banks”, etc. II. The socialist revolution has not begun, and in that event we shall have to postpone talking about these good things.

Since the socialist revolution, in the above-mentioned sense, has obviously not yet begun, the Dutch programme is incongruous. And the author of the theses adds his bit of “profundity” by reverting (he always seems to slip on the same spot!) to his old mistake of turning political demands (like “abolition of the first chamber”?) into a “political formula for social revolution”.

Having marked time for a whole year, the author returned to his old mistake. That is the “crux” of his misadventures: he cannot solve the problem of how to link the advent of imperialism with the struggle for reforms and democracy— just as the Economism of blessed memory could not link the advent of capitalism with the struggle for democracy.

Hence—complete confusion concerning the “unachievability” of democratic demands under imperialism.

Hence—ignoring of the political struggle now, at present, immediately, and at all times, which is impermissible for a Marxist (and permissible only for a Rabochaya Mysl[19] Economist).

Hence—the knack of persistently “sliding” from recognition of imperialism to apology for imperialism (just as the Economists of blessed memory slid from recognition of capitalism to apology for capitalism).

And so on, and so forth.

A detailed examination of the errors the author of the 1915 theses commits in his comments on the Sotsial-Demokrat self-determination theses is impossible, for every line is wrong! After all, you cannot write pamphlets or books in reply to “comments” if the initiators of imperialist Economism spend a whole year marking time and stubbornly refuse to concern themselves with what ought to be their direct party duty if they want to take a serious attitude to political, issues, namely: a considered and articulate statement of what they designate as “our differences”.

I am therefore obliged to confine myself to a brief review of how the author applies his basic error and how he “supplements” it.

He believes that I contradict myself: in 1914 (in Prosveshcheniye[20]) I wrote that it was absurd to look for self-determination “in the programmes of West-European socialists”,[3] but in 1916 I proclaim self-determination to be especially urgent.

It did not occur (!!) to the author that these “programmes” were drawn up in 1875 1880, 1891![21]

Now let us take his objections (to the Sotsial-Demokrat self-determination theses) point by point.

§1. The same Economist refusal to see and pose political questions. Since socialism creates the economic basis for the abolition of national oppression in the political sphere, therefore our author refuses to formulate our political tasks in this sphere! That’s ridiculous!

Since the victorious proletariat does not negate wars against the bourgeoisie of other countries, therefore the author refuses to formulate our political tasks in relation to national oppression!! These are all examples of downright violation of Marxism and logic, or, if you like, manifestations of the logic of the fundamental errors of imperialist Economism.

§2. The opponents of self-determination are hopelessly confused in their references to its being “unachievable”.

The Sotsial-Demokrat editors explain to them two possible interpretations of unachievability and their error in both cases.

Yet the author of the 1915 theses, without even trying to give his interpretation of “unachievability”, i. e., accepting our explanation that two different things are confused here, persists in that confusion!!

He ties crises to “imperialist” “policy”: our expert on political economy has forgotten that there were crises before imperialism!

To maintain that self-determination is unachievable economically is to confuse the issue, the editors explain. The author does not reply, does not state that he considers self-determination unachievable economically; he abandons his dubious position and jumps over to politics (unachievable “all the same”) though he has been told with the utmost clarity that politically a republic is just as “unachievable” under imperialism as self-determination.

Cornered, the author “jumps” again: he accepts a republic and the whole minimum programme only as a “political formula for social revolution”!!!

He refuses to defend the “economic” unachievability of self-determination and jumps to politics, maintaining that political unachievability applies to the minimum programme as a whole. Here again there is not a grain of Marxism, not a grain of logic, save the logic of imperialist Economism.

The author wants imperceptibly (without stopping to think, without producing anything articulate, without making any effort to work out his programme) to jettison the Social-Democratic Party minimum programme! No wonder he has been marking time for a whole year!!

The question of combating Kautskyism is again not a partial, but a general and basic question of modern times:   the author does not understand this struggle. Just as the Economists turned the struggle against the Narodniks into an apology for capitalism, so the author turns the struggle against Kautskyism into an apology for Imperialism (that applies also to §3).

The mistake of the Kautskyites lies in the fact that they present in a reformist manner such demands, and at such a time, that can be presented only in a revolutionary manner (but the author lapses into the position that their mistake is to advance these demands altogether, just as the Economists “understood” the struggle against Narodism to mean that the slogan “Down with the autocracy” was Narodism).

The mistake of Kautskyism lies in projecting correct democratic demands into the past, to peaceful capitalism, and not into the future, to the social revolution (the author, however, falls into the position of regarding these demands as incorrect).

§3. See above. The author bypasses also the question of “federation”. The same old fundamental mistake of the same old Economism: inability to pose political questions.[4]

§4. “From self-determination follows defence of the fatherland,” the author obstinately repeats. His mistake here is to make negation of defence of the fatherland a shibboleth, deduce it not from the concrete historical features of a given war, but apply it “in general”. That is not Marxism.

The author has been told long ago—try to think up a formula of struggle against national oppression or inequality which (formula) does not justify “defence of the fatherland”. You cannot devise such a formula, and the author has not challenged that.

Does that mean that we reject the fight against national oppression if it could be interpreted to imply defence of the fatherland?

No, for we are opposed not to “defence of the fatherland” “in general” (see our Party resolutions),[5] but to using   this fraudulent slogan to embellish the present imperialist war.

The author wants to pose the question of “defence of the fatherland” in a basically incorrect and unhistorical way (but he cannot; he has been trying in vain for a whole year...).

His reference to “dualism” shows that he does not under stand the difference between monism and dualism.

If I “unite” a shoe brush and a mammal, will that be “monism”?

If I say that to reach goal a we must
(c)–>a<–(b)

travel to the left from point (b) and to the right from point (c), will that be “dualism”?
Is the position of the proletariat with regard to national oppression the same in oppressing and oppressed nations? No, it is not the same, not the same economically, politically, ideologically, spiritually, etc.

Meaning?

Meaning that some will approach in one way, others in another way the same goal (the merger of nations) from different starting-points. Denial of that is the “monism” that unites a shoe brush and a mammal.

“It is not proper to say this [i. e., to urge self-determination] to the proletarians of an oppressed nation”—that is how the author “interprets” the editors’ theses.

That’s amusing!! There is nothing of the kind in the theses. The author has either not read them to the end or has not given them any thought at all.

§5. See above on Kautskyism.

§6. The author is told there are three types of countries in the world. He “objects” and snatches out “cases”. That is casuistry, not politics.

You want a concrete “case”: “How about Belgium”?

See the Lenin and Zinoviev pamphlet[22]: it says that we would be for the defence of Belgium (even by war) if this concrete war were different.[6]

You do not agree with that?

Then say so!!

You have not properly thought out the question of why Social-Democrats are against “defence of the fatherland”.

We are not against it for the reasons you believe, because your presentation of the question (vain efforts, not really a presentation) goes against history. That is my reply to the author.

To describe as “sophistry” the fact that while justifying wars for the elimination of national oppression, we do not justify the present imperialist war, which on both sides is being waged to increase national oppression—is to use “strong” words without giving the matter the least bit of thought.

The author wants to pose the question of “defence of the fatherland” from a more “Left” position, but the result (for a whole year now) is utter confusion!

§7. The author criticises: “The question of ‘peace terms’ is not touched upon at all.”

Strange criticism: failure to deal with a question we did not even raise!!

But what is “touched upon” and discussed is the question of annexations, on which the imperialist Economists are utterly confused, this time together with the Dutch and Radek.

Either you reject the immediate slogan against old and new annexations—(no less “unachievable” under imperialism than self-determination, in Europe as well as in the colonies)—and in that case you pass from concealed to open apology for imperialism.

Or you accept the slogan (as Radek has done in the press)—and in that case you accept self-determination of nations under a different name!!

§8. The author proclaims “Bolshevism on a West-European scale” (“not your position,” he adds).

I attach no importance to this desire to cling to the word “Bolshevism”, for I know such “old Bolsheviks” from whom God save us. I can only say that the author’s proclamation of “Bolshevism on a West-European scale” is, I am deeply convinced, neither Bolshevism nor Marxism, but a minor variant of the same old Economism.

In my view it is highly intolerable, flippant and non-Party to proclaim for a whole year the new Bolshevism and leave things at that. Is it not time to think matters out and give the comrades an articulate and integrated expose of “Bolshevism on a West-European scale”?

The author has not proved and will not prove the difference between colonies and oppressed nations in Europe (as applied to the question under discussion).

The Dutch and the P.S.D.[7] rejection of self-determination is not only, and even not so much, the result of confusion, for Gorter factually accepts it, and so does the Zimmerwald statement of the Poles,[23] but rather the result of the special position of their nations (small nations with centuries-old traditions and pretentions to Great-Power status).

It is extremely thoughtless and naive to take over and mechanically and uncritically repeat what in others has developed over decades of struggle against the nationalist bourgeoisie and its deception of the people. Here we have a case of people taking over precisely what should not be taken over.

Notes

[1] [PLACEHOLDER FOOTNOTE.] —Lenin

[2] Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.—Ed.

[3] [PLACEHOLDER FOOTNOTE.] —Lenin

[4] “We are not afraid of disintegration,” the author writes, “we do not defend national boundaries.” Now, just try to give that a precise political formulation!! You simply cannot do it and that’s where the trouble lies: you are hampered by Economist blindness on questions of political democracy. —Lenin

[5] [PLACEHOLDER FOOTNOTE.] —Lenin

[6] [PLACEHOLDER FOOTNOTE.] —Lenin

[7] Polish Social-Democratic Party.—Ed.

[8] This article and the two that follow it were directed against the un-Marxist and anti-Bolshevik attitude of the Bukharin-Pyatakov-Bosh group which began to take shape in the spring of 1915, when preparations were being made for publication of the magazine Kommunist. It was to be put out in co-operation with Sotsial-Demokrat. Y. L. Pyatakov (P. Kievsky) and Y. B. Bosh undertook to finance tile magazine and N. I. Bukharin was made one of its editors. Lenin’s differences with the group were accentuated after the appearance of No. 1–2 of Kommunist in September 1915. In their theses “On the Self-Determination Slogan”, which they sent to Sotsial-Demokrat, Bukharin, Pyatakov and Bosh opposed Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution, rejected the struggle for democracy in the imperialist era and insisted on the Party withdrawing its demand for national self-determination.

The group did not confine itself to theoretical differences and openly attacked the Party’s policy and slogans. It sought to use Kommunist in furtherance of its factional aims and tried to dictate terms to the editors of Sotsial-Demokrat. Pyatakov and Bosh insisted on the Central Committee Bureau Abroad recognising them as a separate group not accountable to it and authorised to maintain independent connections with Central Committee members in Russia and publish leaflets and other literature. Though this demand was turned down, the group attempted to establish contact with the Central Committee Bureau in Russia.

Lenin was sharply opposed to the Pyatakov-Bosh-Bukharin theses, saying that “we can take no responsibility for them, either direct or indirect—even for harbouring them in the Party, let alone granting them equality”. In letters to N. I. Bukharin, Y. L. Pyatakov, G. Y. Zinoviev and A. G. Shlyapnikov, Lenin trenchantly criticised tile group’s views and anti-Party, factional actions and condemned the conciliatory attitude of Zinoviev and Shlyapnikov. On his proposal, joint publication of Kommunist by tile Sotsial Demokrat editors and the group was discontinued.

The “Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism” was written when the Sotsial-Demokrat editors had received Bukharin’s comments on the theses “The Socialist Revolution and tile Right of Nations to Self-Determination”. The article was not published at the time.

[9] Economism was an opportunist trend in Russian Social-Democracy at the turn of the century, a Russian variety of international   opportunism. The Economists limited the tasks of the working-class movement to the economic struggle for higher wages, better working conditions, etc., maintaining that the political struggle should be left to the liberal bourgeoisie. They denied the leading role of the working-class party. Making a fetish of the spontaneity of the working-class movement, they belittled the importance of revolutionary theory and, by denying the need for a Marxist party to bring socialist consciousness into the working-class movement, cleared the way for bourgeois ideology. They championed the existing disunity, confusion and parochial amateurish approach in the Social-Democratic ranks, and opposed the creation of a centralised working-class party.

Comprehensive criticism by Lenin of the Economist standpoint will be found in his “A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats”, “A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy”, “Apropos of the Profession de Foi” and “A Talk with Defenders of Economism” (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 167–82, 255–85, 286–96, and Vol. 5, pp. 313–20). Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? brought about the ideological rout of Economism (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp.347–529). A major part in the struggle against the Economists was also played by the newspaper Iskra.

[10] Narodniks—followers of a petty-bourgeois trend, Narodism, in the Russian revolutionary movement, which arose in the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century. The Narodniks stood for the abolition of the autocracy and the transfer of the landed estates to the peasantry. At the same time, they believed capitalism in Russia to be a temporary phenomenon with no prospect of development and they therefore considered the peasantry, not the proletariat, to be the main revolutionary force in Russia. They regarded the village commune as the embryo of socialism. With the object of rousing the peasantry to struggle against the autocracy, the Narodniks “went among the people”, to the villages, but found no support there.

In the eighties and nineties the Narodniks adopted a policy of conciliation to tsarism, expressed the interests of the kulak class, and waged a bitter fight against Marxism.

[11] Reference is to the article “Who Will Perform the Political Revolution?” in the symposium Proletarian Struggle No. 1, published by the Urals Social-Democratic Group in 1899. The article was re published as a pamphlet by the Kiev Committee. The author, A. A. Sanin, an Economist, was opposed to an independent working-class political party and political revolution, believing that Russia’s socialist transformation, which he considered an immediate task, could be accomplished through a general strike.

[12] Reference is to the Conference of R.S.D.L.P. groups abroad, held in Berne between February 14 and 19 (February 27–March 4), 1915. Convened on Lenin’s initiative, it assumed the character of a   general Party conference, since neither a Party congress nor an all-Russia conference could be convened during the war.

The Conference was attended by representatives of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, the R.S.D.L.P. Central Organ, Sotsial-Demokrat, the Social-Democrat Women’s Organisation and delegates from R.S.D.L.P. groups in Paris, Zurich, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, London and Baugy. All members of the Berne group and several members of the Lausanne and Baugy groups attended as guests. Lenin was delegated by the Central Committee and Central Organ and directed the work of the Conference.

The main item on the agenda, the war and the tasks of the Party, was introduced by Lenin, who amplified the propositions set out in the Central Committee Manifesto, “The War and Russian Social Democracy”. The resolutions tabled by the Montpellier, and especially the Baugy groups and adopted by the Conference revealed that some Party members had failed to grasp the implications of Lenin’s proposition on civil war. They objected to the slogan of the defeat of one’s “own” government and advanced their own slogan of peace, and failed to appreciate the need and importance of combating Centrism. All these questions were thrashed out in the debate, and Lenin’s theses were unanimously approved. Only Bukharin persistently supported the erroneous views of the Baugy resolution and objected to the slogans Lenin had formulated for the Party and the international Social-Democratic movement. Bukharin opposed the right of nations to self-determination and the mini mum-programme demands in general, contending that they were “contrary” to socialist revolution. However,no one supported Bukharin at the conference.

[13] Reference is to Bukharin’s theses “On the Self-Determination Slogan”, written in November 1915 and submitted to the editors of Sotsial-Demokrat over the signatures of Bukharin, Pyatakov and Bosh.

[14] This refers to the “Programm-Entwurf der R.S.V. und der S.D.A.P. Hollands” (“Draft Programme of the Revolutionary-Socialist League and the Social-Democratic Labour Party of Holland”) compiled by Henriette Roland-Holst and published on February 29, 1916 in No. 3 of the Bulletin of the international Socialist Committee over the signatures of Henriette Roland-Holst, J. Visscher, D. Wijnkoop and J. Ceton.

The International Socialist Committee—the executive body of the Zimmerwald group elected at time first International Socialist Conference in Zimmerwald, September 5–8, 1915, and composed of Robert Grimm, Oddino Morgan, Charles Name and A. Balabanova. Its headquarters were in Berne. Shortly after the Zimmerwald Conference, on Grimm’s suggestion, a larger International Socialist Committee was formed, composed of representatives of all the parties subscribing to the Zimmerwald decisions. The R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee was represented on it by Lenin, Inessa Armand and Zinoviev. It published the Internationale Sozialistische   Kommission zu Bern. Bulletin (Bulletin of the international Socialist Committee in Berne) in German, French and English language editions. Six issues appeared between September 1915 and January 1917.

[15] Vorbote (The Herald)—theoretical organ of the Zimmerwald Left, published in German in Borne. Two issues appeared, in January and April 1916. The official publishers were Roland-Holst and Pannekoek.

Lenin had an active share in founding the magazine and, after the appearance of its first issue, in organising a French edition to reach a wider readership. A keen discussion was conducted on its pages by Left Zimmerwaldists on the right of nations to self-determination and the “disarmament” slogan.

[16] Sotsial-Demokrat—illegal Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P. published from February 1908 to January 1917. After unsuccessful at tempts to issue the first number of the paper in Russia, publication was arranged abroad. Nos. 2–32 (February 1909–December 1913) were put out in Paris and Nos. 33–58 (November 1914–January 1917) in Geneva. Altogether, 58 issues appeared, five of which had supplements. From December 1911, Sotsial-Demokrat was edited by Lenin and carried more than 80 of his articles and shorter items.

Lenin directed all the affairs of the paper, decided on the con tents of the current issue, edited the various contributions and looked after the production side.

During the First World War, Sotsial-Demokrat played an outstanding part in combating international opportunism, nationalism and chauvinism, in popularising the Bolshevik slogans and in awakening the working class and the working people generally for struggle against the imperialist war and its instigators, against the tsarist autocracy and capitalism. Sotsial-Demokrat also played a major part in uniting the internationalist forces in the Social-Democratic movement.

[17] The Zimmerwald Left was formed on Lenin’s initiative at the International Socialist Conference in Zimmerwald in September 1915. The group consisted of eight of the Conference delegates, representing the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, Left Social-Democrats in Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Germany, the Polish Social-Democratic opposition and the Latvian Social-Democrats. Led by Lenin, it combated the Centrist conference majority. Its draft resolutions and draft Manifesto condemning the war, exposing the treachery of the social-chauvinists and emphasising the need for active struggle against the war were rejected by the Centrist majority. However, the Zimmerwald Left did succeed in including in the adopted Manifesto a number of important points from its draft resolution. Regarding the Manifesto as a first step in the struggle against the imperialist war, the Zimmerwald Left voted for-it, but in a special statement pointed out its inadequacy and inconsistency. At the same time, the group stated that while it would remain part   of the Zimmerwald movement, it would continue to disseminate its views and conduct independent work internationally. It elected a Bureau, which included Lenin, Zinoviev and Radek, and published its own organ, Vorbote (see Note No. 8).

The Bolsheviks, the only ones to take a correct and consistently internationalist position, were the leading force in the Zimmerwald Left. Lenin corn bated Radek’s opportunist vacillations and criticised the mistakes of other members of the group.

The Zimmerwald Left became the rallying point for internationalist elements in the world Social-Democratic movement (see also Note No. 36).

[18] This meeting, held in Berne, February 5–9, 1916, was attended by 22 representatives of internationalist socialists in Germany, Russia, Italy, Norway, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Rumania and several more countries. The composition of the meeting was indicative of the changed alignment of forces in favour of the Left, though most of the delegates, as at the original Zimmerwald Conference, were Centrists.

The meeting adopted an appeal to all affiliated parties and groups (Rundschreiben an alle angeschlossen Parteien und Gruppen), in which were included, as a result of pressure from the Bolsheviks and other Left forces, amendments in line with the Zimmerwald Left policy. The appeal condemned socialist participation in bourgeois governments, denounced the slogan of “fatherland defence” in an imperialist war and approval of war credits. It stressed the need to support the labour movement and prepare for mass revolutionary actions against the imperialist war. However, the appeal was inconsistent, since it did not call for a break with social-chauvinism and opportunism. Not all of Lenin’s amendments were adopted. The Zimmerwald Lefts declared that though they did not consider the appeal satisfactory in all its points, they would vote for it as a step forward compared with the decisions of the first Zimmerwald Conference.

[19] Rabochaya Mysl (Workers’ Thought)—a newspaper published by a group of Economists in Russia from October 1897 to December 1902. A critique of the paper as representative of the Russian variety of international opportunism will be found in Lenin’s What Is To Be Done?

[20] Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment)—a monthly theoretical, legal Bolshevik magazine, published in St. Petersburg from December 1911 to June 1914. Its circulation reached 5,000 copies. While in Paris, and later in Cracow and Poronin, Lenin directed the magazine, edited articles published in it and regularly corresponded with the members of the editorial hoard. Among his own articles published in Prosveshcheniye are the following: “Fundamental Problems of the Election Campaign”, “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism”, “Critical Remarks on the National Question”, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination”, “Disruption   of Unity Concealed by Shouts for Unity” and “The Methods of Struggle of the Bourgeois Intellectuals Against the Workers”.

[21] Lenin is here referring to the programme of the French Workers’ Party adopted in 1580, and to the programmes of the German Social-Democratic Party adopted in Gotha in 1875 and in Erfurt in 1891.

[22] Reference is to the pamphlet Socialism and War (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 295–338).

[23] Reference is to the Declaration of the Polish Social-Democrats at the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference. The Declaration protested against the oppressive policy of the tsarist and German and Austrian governments which “deprive the Polish people of the opportunity to shape their own destiny,regard the Polish lands as a pawn in future bargaining over compensation....” “And this,” the Declaration said, “brings out with especial crudity the very essence of the policy of the capitalist governments which, in sending the masses to the slaughter, are at the same time arbitrarily shaping the destinies of nations for generations to come.” The Polish Social-Democrats, the Declaration said, are convinced that only participation in the impending struggle of the international revolutionary proletariat for socialism—“in the struggle that will tear the fetters of national oppression and destroy alien domination in whatever form or shape—will assure the Polish people, too, the opportunity for all-round development as an equal member of the alliance of the nations”.

Against Left Economist Imperialism on National Question - Remembering Lenin

Lenin’s classic “What Is to Be Done” was written in opposition to economism.

Economism is a tendency in the workers movement that only focuses on economic struggle – struggle for wages, welfare and rights in the workplace – and that limits itself to union work.

As a resistance to this, Lenin puts forward at versatile political struggle with a much wider spectrum of resistance against the bourgeois state.

Lenin's in an October 1916 Article " A caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" illustrates how the blinkered economist viewpoint had been extended to national struggles by Kievsky  -  one cannot read this 1916 article without being struck by how many of Kievsky'Lefts mistaken ideas on the national question are present on the so called "revolutionary" left particularly in UK and USA today.

We reminded the "British" Left of their mistakes on the National Question many years ago in our article the Cosmopolitan Left and the National Question.

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-cosmopolitan-left-and-national.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/la-izquierda-cosmopolita-y-la-cuestion.html


Our recent articles addressing Imperialist Economism in relation to Catalonia

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-national-question-once-again.html

https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/mlm-and-national-question-national.html


LENIN ON IMPERIALIST ECONOMISM BY DOUG LORIMER


During the first imperialist world war, a trend began to emerge among the Russian revolutionary Marxists that argued that since national oppression could not be abolished without an economic revolution against imperialism and capitalism, Marxists did not need to concern themselves with the problems of a political revolution to achieve democracy.

Instead, the "nascent trend of imperialist Economism" (as Lenin characterised it) argued that all that was needed to abolish national oppression was the anti-capitalist economic revolution, i.e., the socialist revolution.

The imperialist Economists ignored the fact, as Lenin explained in his October 1916 article "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism", that in "all the colonies and the semi-colonies … there still exist oppressed and capitalistically underdeveloped nations" and, therefore, "Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression" in the political sphere.

Furthermore, the imperialist Economists displayed "just as complete a misinterpretation of the relationship between socialism and democracy" as the "late and unlamented Economism of 1894-1902". Explaining what he meant by this, Lenin wrote:

All "democracy" consists in the proclamation and realisation of "rights" which under capitalism are realisable only to a very small degree and only relatively. But without the proclamation of these rights, without a struggle to introduce them now, immediately, without training the masses in the spirit of this struggle, socialism is impossible.

Having failed to understand this, Kievsky bypasses the central question, that belongs to his special subject, namely, how will we Social-Democrats abolish national oppression? He shunts the question aside with phrases about the world being "drenched in blood", etc. (though this has no bearing on the matter under discussion). This leaves only one single argument: the socialist revolution will solve everything!

Or, the argument is sometimes advanced by people who share his views: self-determination is impossible under capitalism and superfluous under socialism.

From the theoretical standpoint that view is nonsensical, from the practical political standpoint it is chauvinistic.

It fails to appreciate the significance of democracy. For socialism is impossible without democracy because: (1) the proletariat cannot perform the socialist revolution unless it prepares for it by the struggle for democracy; (2) victorious socialism cannot consolidate its victory and bring humanity to the withering away of the state without implementing full democracy.

Source:

http://links.org.au/node/132


IMPERIALIST ECONOMISM BY DESMOND GREAVES


Connolly had no great difficulty in convincing his comrades in Ireland of the need to combine their proletarian demands with the all-important democratic demand of national liberation.

He found it less easy to convert English Socialists, who confused the growing fraternity of the peoples in the struggle against imperialism with the abolition of the state boundaries established by imperialism for the purpose of exploitation.

To this day there survive sincere Socialists of the old school who are confused enough to believe that the Irish should withdraw their demand for independence in the interests of internationalism.

There are some who fondly imagine that the international unity of the workers of Europe will be strengthened as a result of the Common Market.

It is as much as to say we will be united provided we are all put in the one prison.

The classical centre of this argument was Poland. Lenin called it “imperialist economism”. Economism, as you will remember, was the doctrine that it was sufficient for a workers’ party to prefer proletarian demands, and that democratic demands were not their business.

Lenin re-plied that this was to leave the stuff of politics to the bourgeoisie. In the same way, to refuse to challenge the frontiers established for and on be-half of landlords and capitalists, where they conflicted with the wishes of the people, was to leave vital questions affecting the lives of the millions to be decided by imperialism.

It is remarkable that such splendid characters as Rosa Luxemburg should have been associated with this recrudescence of Proudhonism.

The controversy continued over nearly twenty years, and it was against this background that Joseph Stalin drew up his celebrated theses on the National and Colonial Question, and Lenin conducted some of his most profound and thought challenging polemics, which continued until that stage of the First World War when theories could be tested in practice.

The theses of Stalin on Marxism and the National Question were concerned not so much to refute imperialist economism or the new Proudhonism, as to answer the Austro-Marxists who were trying to divorce nationality from territory of residence.

These had made the fantastic proposal that members of the various nationalities inhabiting the Austro-Hungarian Empire should register the nationality they belonged to, and have the right to elect a national council, irrespective of their place of residence, which could then conduct “the cultural affairs of the nation”. Stalin showed that the main concern of these opportunists was to frame a national policy which would not upset the political integrity of the Empire, and could so leave the essence of national oppression untouched.

In the course of his refutation of National Cultural autonomy, Stalin was obliged to attempt a definition of a nation, which he described as:

“…a historically evolved, stable community of people formed on the basis of a common language, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.”

Stalin emphasised that it was sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be absent to disqualify a community from the title of nation. The national policy of Bolshevism was based on the right of self-determination of nations, which was meaningless without the right of territorial secession. At the same time the exercise or non-exercise of that right was a matter for the nation to decide in the light of circumstances, the paramount consideration being of course the question of class interests.

The work of Stalin on the national question was a powerful contribution to Marxist thought and stood the test of practice in the revolutionary period that followed to a remarkable degree.

Less than a year after the Easter Rising came the collapse of Czarism in Russia. The general principles of Bolshevik national policy were enshrined in the slogan for a peace “without annexations or indemnities “. Lenin explained carefully that this meant the undoing of old as well as new annexations; it meant England’s evacuating Ireland as well as Germany’s getting out of Belgium.

And it is interesting to note the difference be-tween Lenin’s approach and that of President Wilson’s, whose embellishment of the imperialist war was typified in his notorious fourteen points. At the peace conference it was agreed that no nation seeking in-dependence should be heard unless Britain, France and the USA unanimously agreed to listen. On this basis both Irish and Egyptian claims were vetoed.

A glance at Stalin’s strict conditions will show that it could be a subject for considerable debate as to whether this people or that possessed all the qualifications of nationality.

Was a people to be denied the coveted prize of independence because it could not convince an international jury that it was a nation in the full sense of the word?

Who was to decide? Lenin’s reply was that in case of difficulty the people themselves decided if they were a nation or not. He put it this way:

“The theoretical definition of annexation involves the conception of an ‘alien’ people. ie a people that has preserved its peculiarities and its will for independent existence.”

He adds that the slogan must be “taken as inseparably connected with the proletarian revolution. Only in connection with the revolution is it true and useful.”

This was in May 1917, and the Bolsheviks were pointing out that an imperialist peace could only be an exchange of annexations. Of course, one should note that this presumes other things equal. As Lenin frequently pointed out, every democratic principle is open to abuse.

I doubt whether English Socialists would accept the secession of Cornwall from a Socialist England after the United States had occupied it and secured a separatist majority while its troops were still there. Certainly the Irish will not accept an English-concocted nationality for Ulster. But the refusal to accept the abuse of a principle does not vitiate the principle. And on that principle the Bolsheviks acted and permitted secessions which involved future military risks.

Perhaps I should add one thing about the Stalin theses. It is a criticism which he made himself.

In 1925, criticising Semich for underestimating the importance of the right of secession, he notes that Semich quotes from Stalin’s theses the passage “The national question is a struggle of the bourgeois classes among themselves.” He comments:

“Stalin’s pamphlet was written before the imperialist war, at the time when the national question had not yet assumed world-wide significance in the eyes of Marxists, and when the basic demands concerning the right to self-determination were considered to be, not a part of the proletarian revolution, but a part of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It would be absurd to ig-nore the fact that since then a fundamental change has taken place in the international situation, that the war on the one hand and the October revolu-tion in Russia on the other has converted the national question from being a particle of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a particle of the proletar-ian-socialist revolution.”

Would we be wrong in saying that in respect of this question, Connolly anticipated the Bolsheviks, noting the beginnings of the change in 1894 and showing his grasp of it the moment the imperialist war broke out?

And may we not think that the Easter Rising in Ireland, which Lenin used as a test of the validity of his theses on national self-determination written earlier in 1916, was an important contributory factor in rendering Bolshevik thought more precise, just as the Fenian Rising had stimulated Marx?

One of Lenin’s main points of emphasis was that imperialism had divided the world thanks to the corruption of a small section of the proletariat into two opposing camps, workers in the imperialist countries, a corruption which might of course ideologically affect the majority. We discern it in the two world trade union movements of to-day.

It is still true that a people which oppresses another forges its own chains.

This is the great significance of the national liberation struggle for the British working class.

Source:
http://www.connollyassociation.org.uk/desmond-greaves/the-national-question/