Nationalism in socialist theory
Posted on Tuesday 26 December, 2006
Filed Under Theory
Nationalism is easily the most influential political ideology on the planet right now, and only getting stronger. But just how well does the left understand what is going on?
Bear in mind that many countries exist in permanent ongoing crisis, with national tensions now hidden, now flaring up with sometimes bloody results, now hidden again.
Nationalism can cause the sudden fragmentation of seemingly stable states. Think about what happened to the USSR, still a superpower just 20 years ago. Consider too the cases of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia. Yet it can also provide a dynamic towards national reunification, as seen in Germany and Yemen, and one day hopefully in Korea.
For socialists to have intelligent things to say about such developments – and even build political organisations that actually have an impact in such situations – we first need an accurate assessment of what the phenomenon represents.
This is all the more so because some of nationalism’s many, many tanks are parked pretty much on our lawn. In much of the developing world, the last two decades have seen nationalism displace various forms of bastardised socialism as the chief organised political challenge to ruling elites.
And in the advanced industrial countries, the issue of national self-determination crops up time and time again. Should socialists support an independent Scotland? An independent Catalonia or Corsica?
Do we particularly care if Wallonia and Flanders call their marriage a day, or if Quebec wants out of Canada? Does Israel have the right to national self-determination? If not, why not? If so, does that imply the right to exercise it on Palestinian territory?
Yet given the range and extent of what is involved, Marxism has usually taken a surprisingly pick ‘n’ mix approach on these matters, often looking no deeper than immediate realpolitik expediency. If a spot of local revolt destabilises the prevailing imperialism, Lenin reasoned, what’s not to like?
On the other hand, a respectable tranche of famous Marxists – most notably Luxemburg – abhorred nationalism as either bourgeois or petit bourgeois, and therefore reactionary in almost all circumstances.
Things are so bad for the left that Stalin – yes, that Stalin – is considered to have produced major insights into this field. His work on the national question – and I confess to not having read it – is held up as the only halfway decent Marxist theoretical work he ever produced.
There seems no small consistency in all this. And of course, this topic is not going to be resolved by a single Boxing Day blog post. I’ll certainly be reading the comments box with interest. But let me offer a few of my own observations.
The first point to make is that nationalism is an ideology. And like all ideologies – most notably religion – it is infinitely protean. It has many variants and therefore one-line definition. There is no one founding theorist or one classical text.
Some of the key concepts are rooted in major Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and in the French revolution, and can broadly be depicted as progressive. But other ideas in the corpus – more influenced by nineteenth century German romanticism – give it the potential to provide the ideological underpinnings of radical rightist mass mobilisation, in the last analysis in the form of fascism.
Ultimately, insofar as nationalism demands loyalty to the necessarily cross-class construct of ‘the nation’, it cannot form the basis of any viable socialist project. Rosa was right on that score, at least.
And again, there is more than one variant of the concept of national self-determination, which comes in both 1917 Bolshevik and 1918 Woodrow Wilson trims. But the idea is accepted by just about everybody except the nation that oppresses another, and supposedly forms the basis of the current international order.
In general, the left needs to remember that the right of a country to self-determination has nothing to do with whether or not one approves of the regime that will run the show. It is a democratic demand, even if the movement that makes it is itself undemocratic.
But even here, there are problems. If we use distinct languages as a key determinant of which populations can be considered nations, then bear in mind that some 10,000 languages exist. And no-one thinks a world of 10,000 nation-states would be a good idea.
Ultimately we arrive back at taking things on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps there really is no clearer methodology available.
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7 Responses to “Nationalism in socialist theory”
Just a short post in response to a v big question.
You name some Marxists and others who have written on Nationalism. To try to understand where socialist republicans are coming from I think the left would do well to read two of the leading Marxists the “British” Isles produced in the past 100 years: James Connolly and John MacLean.
MacLean was rooted in Red Clydeside and the anti-war movement in Scotland while Connolly was a peripatetic revolutionary of the best kind… an internationalist who understood the importance of national liberation for workers.
Connolly was shot for his part in leading the Irish Citizens’ Army in the Easter Rising of 1916 (sorry if this is obvious to a lot of people but some may not know) and never lost sight of the need for a workers’ republic rather than a bourgeois republic.
[Nationalism can cause the sudden fragmentation of seemingly stable states. Think about what happened to the USSR, still a superpower just 20 years ago. Consider too the cases of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia]
Causation is backward here in a number of instances. In the cases of USSR and Yugoslavia, the state collapsed first and they then later discovered their “historic ethnic identities” (and a bunch of “ancient ethnic hatreds” to go with them; I swear that if law and order failed in the UK, the Wars of the Roses would be refought, complete with Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times that England was always an artificial state). Eritrea and Ethiopia is a bit different as there was a religious issue there, but even then, Eritrean nationalism was a reaction to weakness in AdAb rather than anything else. The only unambiguous example of a functional state splitting for purely nationalistic reasons seems to me to be Czechoslovakia, and if all partitions were like that, then 10,000 nation states might not at all be a bad idea.
(also NB that almost half of those 10,000 languages are Native American if I recall correctly, and a fair few of the remainder are languages of nomadic people who wouldn’t necessarily want states in the Westphalian sense).
Serens comments are naive and stupid but such is the inevitable fate of those who pretend to be socialists when pimping a bourgeois ideology such as nationalism.
The fact is that Connolly and McLean were Second International Marxists tied to a machanical interpretation that body of thought. And that when they ttried to apply that economic determinist mode of thought to Ireland and Scotland respectively, the latter under the influence of the former, they failed to base their ideas on fact and lapsed into romanticism.
In addition to which McLean only turned to nationalism as the tide of workers struggles was receding and under the impact of the collapse of much of the revolutionary left and the rightist nature of the newly formed CPGB.
There is no coherent body of thought other than the rather dated and faiulty writings of these two brave men thaqt can be considered to constitute a distinct ‘socialist republican’ thoeetical tendency.
neprimerimye has just given another example of the knee jerk Brit-left.
It is helpful to distinguish between the demand for national independence on the one hand and “nationalism”, which in contrast is a political ideology that puts national differences to the fore.
supporting demands for national independecne is part of both a practical and ideological struggle. An independenat Scotland immediatly raises the question of what sort of Scotland, and perhaps as importnatly what sort of England. Much of the English left, and especially those in london, is thaere is no recognition of the degree to whcih devolution has shifted the debate, and has also created small but real gains in Wales and Scotland, whisch have opted out of New labour policies.
To argue that Connolly was “tied to a machanical interpretation that body of thought” could only be written by someone who has never read ” Labour in Irish History” – a profound and far from mechanical work.
BTW, well worth reading this on the subjest:
http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/eleven/11nq.html
The National Question in Western Europe
by Murray Smith
Ernest Gellner’s ‘Nations and Nationalism’ is definitely worth a gander. Gellner was a liberal rather than a Marxist but he subscribed to something akin to the materialist theory of history, so I would have thought that a thoughtful Marxist could make selective use of his work.
A Newman wrote: “supporting demands for national independecne is part of both a practical and ideological struggle.”
Which point is abstract and false as it evades the point that neither Scotland or Wales are oppressed as nations and that in neither country is there a majority opinion in favour of independence. For socialists to advocate an independent state in such circumstances is then to pander to reactionary nationalist ideologies in both countries to the detriment of class unity.
Newman blathered on “Much of the English left … is thaere is no recognition of the degree to whcih devolution has shifted the debate, and has also created small but real gains in Wales and Scotland..”
Well I’m not English and advocate the Assembly here in Wales declare itself to be a sovereign body or at least demand parity of powers with the Edinburgh parliament. But the idea that in Wales we have made real gains due to devolution is nonsense. Hospital waiting lists for example are longer than in England.
Newman again “To argue that Connolly was “tied to a machanical interpretation that body of thought” could only be written by someone who has never read ” Labour in Irish History” – a profound and far from mechanical work.”
On the contrary Labour in Irish History is tied to exactly the linear model of national development characteristic of the 2nd International. That it collapses into voluntarism in its conclusions, as well as being plain wrong in some important respects, reflects on his being wedded to that model and needing an escape from it in order to bolster his politics.