What was Lenin’s attitude to the national question?
Marxists will fight against even the smallest manifestation of inequality and discrimination. For example, we are against any privileged status for a particular language. There is no particular reason why there should be an ‘official’ language with a monopoly over other languages. That was Lenin’s position. But it did not mean that he allied himself with the reactionary exclusiveness of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of the oppressed nationalities with their demand for ‘national-cultural autonomy’, the glorification of their ‘own’ language and culture, which conceals their striving to oppress other peoples. “The slogan of workers’ democracy is not ‘national culture’ but the international culture of democracy and the working-class movement.”
Behind the appeals to ‘national culture’ lie the class interest of the exploiters of every nation – the landlords and capitalists. The ruling ideas of every nation are the ideas of the ruling class. That is an elementary proposition for Marxists. Here too, Lenin maintained a class position:
The elements of democratic and socialist culture are present, if only in rudimentary form, in every national culture, since in every nation there are toiling and exploited masses, whose conditions of life inevitably give rise to the ideology of democracy and socialism. But every nation also possesses a bourgeois culture (and most nations a reactionary and clerical culture as well) in the form, not merely of ‘elements’, but of the dominant culture. Therefore, the general ‘national culture’ is the culture of the landlords, the clergy, and the bourgeoisie. This fundamental and, for a Marxist, elementary truth, was kept in the background by the Bundist, who ‘drowned’ it in his jumble of words, i.e., instead of revealing and clarifying the class gulf to the reader, he in fact obscured it. In fact, the Bundist acted like a bourgeois, whose every interest requires the spreading of a belief in a non-class national culture.
He explains that:
The national culture of the bourgeoisie is a fact (and, I repeat, the bourgeoisie everywhere enters into deals with the landed proprietors and the clergy). Bellicose bourgeois nationalism which stultifies, fools, and disunites the workers in order that the bourgeoisie may lead them by the halter – such is the fundamental fact of the present day. Those who seek to serve the proletariat must unite the workers of all nations, and unswervingly fight bourgeois nationalism, domestic, and foreign. (LCW, Critical Remarks on the National Question, vol. 20, p. 22, p. 24 and p. 25, my emphasis.)
Lenin was opposed to the setting up of separate schools on national lines which have the effect of dividing the population and reinforcing racial and national prejudices. Lenin exposed the reactionary nature of this and other demands flowing from the so-called policy of ‘Cultural Autonomy’ advocated by the Austrian Social Democracy:
‘Cultural-national autonomy’ implies precisely the most refined and, therefore, the most harmful nationalism, it implies the corruption of the workers by means of the slogan of national culture and the propaganda of the profoundly harmful and even anti-democratic segregating of schools according to nationality. In short, this programme undoubtedly contradicts the internationalism of the proletariat and is in accordance only with the ideals of the nationalist petty bourgeoisie.
Instead of the demand for ‘national cultural autonomy’, Lenin advanced the demand for the right to self-determination. This is a democratic demand which sets out from the assumption that no nation should be obliged to remain within the frontiers of another nation, contrary to its will. The right of every people to determine its own affairs, free from the coercion of a more powerful people, is an elementary right which must be defended. But this does not mean that Marxists are under an obligation to defend separatism. As a matter of fact, Lenin pointed out that “For a Marxist, of course, all other conditions being equal, big states are always preferable to small ones.” (LCW, The National Programme of the RSDLP, vol. 19, p. 541 and p. 545.) The nation state, like private property, is an obsolete and reactionary institution that hampers the free development of the productive forces. The domination of the world market, long ago predicted by Marx and Engels, is now a fact. No country, no matter how big and powerful, can escape from the irresistible pull of the world market. That is why the so-called independence of those countries which succeeded in throwing off the yoke of direct foreign oppression since 1945 has turned into a mere fiction. They are more exploited and oppressed than before – except that the exploitation takes place indirectly, through the mechanism of world trade.
The proletariat, far from undertaking to uphold the national development of every nation, on the contrary, warns the masses against such illusions, stands for the fullest freedom of capitalist intercourse, and welcomes every kind of assimilation of nations, except that which is founded on force or privilege. (LCW, Critical Remarks on the National Question, vol. 20, p. 35.)
Marxists do not stand for the erection of new frontiers, but for the elimination of all frontiers, in the socialist united states of the world. But this statement does not exhaust the question. Yes, we are in favour of large units, all other things being equal. But all other things are not equal. Marx once said that there was no greater calamity for a people than to oppress another people. Where this occurs, it is the duty of Marxists to defend the oppressed minority. We are opposed to all forms of discrimination, oppression, and the denial of national rights, and will fight against it. But that is insufficient. The working class must have its own, independent position on the national question, as on any other question. And as on any other question, this must serve the general cause of the struggle for the socialist transformation of society. There is no question of setting aside the struggle for socialism or the fight between wage labour and capital in the interests of some kind of ‘national unity’. In the fight against national oppression too, the revolutionary class struggle must be put to the fore.
Lenin explained a thousand times that the Russian Marxists, as members of an oppressor nation (the Great Russians), had to fight against the oppressive policies and conduct of its own bourgeoisie, and defend the rights of those nations oppressed by the Great Russians. This was necessary to show to the workers and peasants of the other, non-Russian nations that the Russian workers had no interest in oppressing them, but were the most consistent defenders of their rights. As final proof of this, Lenin insisted that the Russian party inscribe on its banner the right of nations to self-determination. In effect, the Russian workers were saying to the Poles, the Finns, the Georgians, Ukrainians, and the rest: ‘We have no interest in keeping you in chains. Let us combine to overthrow the exploiters, and then we will give you the freedom to decide what your relations will be with us. We hope to show you that you will be treated with absolute equality, and that you will choose to remain with us. But if you decide something else, that is your own affair, and we will fight to defend your right, even if it means setting up your own state.’
Lenin never made the slightest concession to nationalism, including to the nationalism of the oppressed. His whole line of argument on the national question was motivated by a burning belief in internationalism and the revolutionary mission of the proletariat.
If a Ukrainian Marxist allows himself to be swayed by his quite legitimate and natural hatred of the Great-Russian oppressors to such a degree that he transfers even a particle of this hatred, even if it be only estrangement, to the proletarian culture and proletarian cause of the Great-Russian workers, then such a Marxist will get bogged down in bourgeois nationalism. Similarly, the Great-Russian Marxist will be bogged down, not only in bourgeois, but also in Black-Hundred nationalism, if he loses sight, even for a moment, of the demand for complete equality for the Ukrainians, or of their right to form an independent state. (Ibid., p. 33.)
The main purpose of the slogan of the right to self-determination was precisely to guarantee the unity of the working class. The other side of the coin was that the Marxists of the oppressed nationalities should concentrate on fighting their own bourgeoisie, on combating the nationalist poison of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of the oppressed nationality, of waging a remorseless struggle to combat the influence of nationalism in the working class. Moreover, Lenin was always implacably opposed to setting up separate organisations for the workers of oppressed nationalities. The Russian Marxists stood for the unity of the working class and its organisations, not just the party, but the trade unions also:
Working-class democracy counterposes to the nationalist wrangling of the various bourgeois parties over questions of language, etc., the demand for the unconditional unity and complete amalgamation of the workers of all nationalities in all working class organisations – trade-union, cooperative, consumers’, educational, and all others – in contradistinction to any kind of bourgeois nationalism. Only this type of unity and amalgamation can uphold democracy and defend the interests of the workers against capital – which is already international and is becoming more so – and promote the development of mankind towards a new way of life that is alien to all privileges and all exploitation. (Ibid., p. 22.)
Self-determination was thus only one part of a programme aimed at securing the unity of the workers of both oppressed and oppressor nations. It did not at all signify support for nationalism and separatism, as Lenin explains, when he says that:
The recognition of the right [to self-determination] does not exclude either propaganda and agitation against separation or the exposure of bourgeois nationalism. (LCW, The National Programme of the RSDLP, vol. 19, p. 544.)