Nationalism,
internationalism and
the revolutionary
workers' party
THE PRINCIPLE of organization — on a national or multi-national basis? — is one of the most complex problems traditionally confronted in building a revolutionary workers party in any centralized state containing more than one nationality within its borders and within a single territorial entity.! These conditions are to exclude the case where a metropolitan country rules geographically separate territories, as France ruled Algeria, or Britain still rules the North of Ireland. In such cases, there is almost no one today, within the revolutionary movement, who would contest the need to build a separate revolutionary organization in the dominated country. An organization linked to the sister organization in the metropolitan country through the links of internationalist solidarity and close cooperation, but nevertheless separate because its priority strategic objective, national independence, can be obtained without it necessarily coinciding with that of the metropolitan party, which is the overthrow of the bourgeois government in its country. In return, in the cases considered in this article, those where there is a single territorial entity and one repressive apparatus — such as the case of the Basque country within the Spanish state — and of course those where there is total territorial intermingling — such as, among others, the case of Blacks and the white majority in the United States — the problems arise precisely because this territorial
124 International Marxist Review integrity or intermingling imposes on the oppressed national minorities a necessary stage in their national emancipation: the combination of their struggle with that of the victims of social oppression within the national majority (as well as with that of other oppressed national minorities if they exist) for the overthrow of the government of dual oppression: national and social.
These latter cases interest me particularly because they exist in the Arab region: this is the case of Kurdistan where two Arab states, Iraq and Syria, as well as Turkey and Iran, share the territory and the population; it is also the case of the non-Arabized minorities of southern Sudan, of Mauritania, of Morocco and of Algeria (with obvious differences in the nature and acuteness of the problem in each case); it is also the case of the Arabs subject to the direct rule of the Zionist state, both within the pre-1967 frontiers and in the territories occupied since; a comparable problem, although not of a national nature, is also posed for the Palestinian refugees dispersed throughout Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
The purpose of this article is not however to examine the precise cases posed in the Arab region but to expose the major elements of the revolutionary Marxist tradition in relation to similar problems.? It so happens that building the revolutionary workers' party ("social-democratic" in the definition of the term before 1917) in the Russian empire — the main classical reference on the question of revolutionary organization and an essential component of "Leninism" — came up against many similar problems to those mentioned here. The two best-known cases are those of Poland, where Russia ruled the majority of the country (the rest being shared between Germany and AustroHungary) and the Jews who were dispersed in different regions of the Western section of the Tsarist empire.? 1. Multinational party or federation of national parties? The Russian experience The lively discussion on the conception of workers' organization which took place at the beginning of the century in the ranks of the socialist movement of the Russian empire (Russia for brevity's sake) led to several splits within this movement. The discussion focused around two main dividing lines which did not coincide. The first set the "federalists", supporters of a Tederation of national organizations against the "centralists" , supporters of a centralist multi-national party. The second set the Bolsheviks, defending the
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' party 125 notion of a strictly-disciplined "elitist" party, against the Mensheviks and other supporters of a party of loose limits and structures. The completely qualitative difference between these two lines of divide is demonstrated by the fact that the protagonists on the different sides of the discussion about the degree of centralism and the conditions for joining the organization — Lenin, Martov, Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky — were all completely agreed on the principle of a centralist multi-national party, the party of a class and not the party of a nationality. Even the most vehement adversaries of the nationalist conception of the party were not Lenin, theoretician of rigourous centralism, but his three opponents, supporters of the traditional conception (at the time) of a broad party.
As Rosa Luxemburg herself wrote in her famous critique of Lenin's ideas on the subject in "The organizational question of social democracy" in 1904:
Generally speaking it is undeniable that a strong tendency towards centralization is inherent in the social-democratic movement. This tendency springs from the economic makeup of capitalism which is essentially a centralizing factor. The social-democratic movement carries on its activity inside the large bourgeois city. Its mission is to represent, within the boundaries of the national state, the class interests of the proletariai, and to oppose those common interests to all local and group interests.
Therefore, the social democracy is, as a rule, hostile to any manifestations of localism or federalism. It strives to unite all workers and all workers' organizations in a single party, no matter what national, religious or occupational differences may exist among them. The social democracy abandons this principle and gives way to federalism only under exceptional conditions, as in the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.*
It is clear that the Russian social democracy should not organize itself as a federative conglomerate of many national groups. It must rather become a single party for the entire empire. What we are considering is the degree of centralization necessary inside the unified, single Russian party in view of the peculiar conditions under which it is has to function.
[Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1970, pp 116-117] The question of the Polish organization before 1903
At the beginning of her politically active life, Rosa herself had contributed to founding an organization established on a national basis, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), formed in 1892 as a single party for the three historical regions of Poland, struggling for their independence and unification. She rapidly split from this party, shocked by the nationalist tendencies that she saw in the PPS leaders. In 1894, Rosa founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland which was active only within that region of historical Poland ruled by the Russian empire, and which saw itself as a regional stage towards the formation of a socialist workers' party for the whole of Russia, which it would join at its creation. In the same spirit, Rosa invited the Polish socialists
126 International Marxist Review in the regions ruled by Germany and Austria to join the social democracy in cach empire. The difference between the 1892 party and Rosa's organization was already obvious in their names: while the first considered itself as a party and one of a national character because it was "Polish", the second avoided calling itself a "party" with the intention of later integrating into a broader party, and limited its action by geo-political and not national boundaries, those of the kingdom of Poland, without considering the nationality of the inhabitants of this province and refusing to extend into the other two regions of historical Poland which were contained within the borders of two other states.
Some could see in this attitude a sort of "sanctification" of the existing state boundaries, particularly as there are often exaggerations in this direction in Rosa's writings. She was however too subtle to make the building of the workers' party within the existing state boundaries an absolute principle. The real basis of her views in relation to Poland was her deep conviction that it was strategically impossible for it, in the conditions of the time, to free itself from the national yoke without a general upheaval in the three empires, or at least in Russia. Rosa's appeal to the Polish workers to join the social-democratic parties in Russia, Germany and Austria had nothing to do with "international law" but derived from a class conception of revolutionary strategy that she explained in an article on "The Polish Question" written in 1896 just before the London Congress of the Second International:
Faced with the three governments which dominate Poland, faced with the bourgeoisie of the kingdom of Poland which flatters the throne of St Petersburg and considers all thought of re- establishing Poland as a crime and an attack on its own pocket, faced also with the big landed proprietors of Glicia [the part of Poland ruled by Austria - S.J.] represented in the person of Badeni, head of the govemment which intends to preserve the unity of the Austrian monarchy, that is to say the division of Poland, faced finally with the Prusso-Polish junkers who vote for the military budget, that is the multiplication of bayonets which guarantee the annexation of Poland, what can the proletariat do in such circumstances? If it revolts it will be bloodily repressed. But if it does not revolt then nothing at all can be done. Because obviously Polish independence cannot be won without an armed insurrection. None of these states will agree to separate voluntarily from a province that it has already ruled for one hundred years. In the present circumstances, the only outcome of an insurrection would be the crushing of the proletariat.
This was the reason for Rosa's insistence on the need to fuse the struggle of the Polish proletariat with that of the proletariat of other nationalities, within each of the three empires. And also for her insistence on the need for the Polish Marxists, or their organizations, to join up with the socialist parties of Russia, Germany and Austria, rather than to form a "Polish party" going beyond the borders of the three empires. As for Rosa's mistake in her under-
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers party 127 standing of the national question — as it was manifested in the course of the debate she had later with Lenin — its source lay in a "mechanistic" deduction: from the impossibility of a victory of the Polish proletariat through its own strength, a perfectly correct idea in the circumstances of the time (note that the existing circumstances are twice mentioned in the quotation above), she deduced that national emancipation depended on the general triumph of the socialist revolution and not simply on a convulsion in the strategic situation. This is why, she thought, that the fundamental national demand, that of self-determination including the right to separation, could only be a weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie against the future proletarian revolution.
Rosa thus put herself in contradiction with the considerations outlined above, which spoke of the the possessing classes in Poland rejecting Polish independence. She did not see that, in these circumstances and by using it advisedly, the Polish proletariat could make this idea a sharp weapon in its hands against these classes and against their Russian, German and Austrian collcagues, thus preventing it from being used against the revolution. But, in any case, this is a question beyond the scope of this article and separate from that of the internationalist conception of the revolutionary workers' party, on which Lenin and Rosa were never in disagreement. The question of the Jewish organization (the Bund) before 1903
The question of the organization of Jewish workers within the Russian empire was qualitatively different from that of the Polish organization because of the qualitative difference in "residence" conditions of the two nationalities. The Jewish population within the Russian state, as in all others, did not have its own territory on which it was concentrated. The Jews were spread in different regions of the western part of the empire, living in the regions of the different nationalities (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, etc). It followed that while there was a purpose in discussing revolutionary strategy for Poland and the possibility of national freedom being achieved by the Poles themselves, such a discussion was impossible in relation to Jews except in one single case: in adhering to the Zionist doctrine aiming to regroup all Jews and concentrate them in one place, in Palestine for example. But still it should be remembered that the Zionist movement is very far from having achieved its objective with its own forces!
The General Union of Jewish Workers of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, founded in 1897 and known as the Bund, was implacably opposed to Zion-
128 International Marxist Review ism which it denounced as a dangerous reactionary utopia. The Bund demanded that Jews be granted, wherever they were, a "national-cultural autonomy" ", that is to say autonomy in the fields of teaching and culture. This clumsy formula provoked a vast polemic in Russia and was combatted by Lenin, Trotsky, Martov and many others. However, it went without saying for whoever supported this programmatic objective that it was impossible i0 achieve it simply through the force of the Jewish population. Thus links had to be made with the strategic allies whose support, indeed whose active contribution, was indispensable for liberating the Jews from the yoke of national oppression. In the circumstances of Tsarist Russia these allies were represented in the first place by the workers' movement of different nationalities and notably that of the dominant nationality. In other words, the Bund absolutely had to make links with the all-Russia workers' movement, an alliance without which the national democratic struggle to which it was committed — not to mention the class struggle, the Bund being a socialist workers' union - seemed impossible and without perspective.
A real workers' understanding of these considerations would imply that the Jewish socialists were directly active within a party for all the nationalities in Russia, which would certainly take on the task of defending the national and democratic rights of all the oppressed peoples of the Empire. In fact, an important number of eminent leaders and activists of Russian social democracy, in both the factions formed in 1903, were of Jewish origin. This is to say that action in the framework of the Bund as a separate organization of Jewish socialists was not at all the only choice available. The very creation of the Bund was in itself a choice of a nationalist and not internationalist nature: its name which specified the nationality of its members in an even clearer way than the PPS was already an indication of this. Moreover, if the Bund had wished to form itself on a territorial and not national basis it would simply not have existed because it would have been largely confused with the pan-Russian workers' party.
In fact, from its foundation to its dissolution after the Bolshevik revolution, the Bund sought to reconcile the nationalism of its origins with the specific conditions of the struggle it had taken on, as well as with the workers' orientation which also figured in its name. In 1898 it thus participated in the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). (The name of the party in Russian referred to the Russian empire and not to the Russian nation.) This congress only had a symbolic value without anything else, the nine delegates who had participated being arrested immediately afterwards, with the result that the new "party" remained without central bodies until its
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers parly 124 Second Congress five years later. The 1898 congress nevertheless recorded the Bund's entry into the party, on the basis of an ambiguous resolution according to which the Jewish organization joined "as an autonomous organization, independent only on questions concerning particularly the Jewish proletariat" . This resolution posed more questions than it resolved! It was however not put to the test, the "parly" remaining without structures until 1903.
Nevertheless, the formulation of the resolution was ambiguous enough to provoke a broad discussion within the Bund and outside it on the type of organizational relations which should rule the workers' party of Russia. The Bund leadership was in its majority of the opinion thai, while it was "content" with "cultural" autonomy as a programmatic demand, it could not simply content itself with organizational autonomy simply in the questions specific 10 Jewish workers, within the framework of a multi-national centralist party. The Bund therefore rejected the 1898 resolution and demanded from 1901 that the RSDLP be transformed into a "federative association of social-democratic parties of all the nations within the Russian state"
This attitude by the Bund expressed the confirmation of its nationalist course, which was to lead to the defection of many of its members. The best-known was Martov who, having contributed to the foundation of the Bund, abandoned the idea of a separate organization for Jewish workers and collaborated with Lenin, Plekhanov etc in the Iskra group which took the initiative to refound the RSDLP by convoking the Second Congress in 1903. Centralism and autonomy vs federalism: the 1903 congress
The 1898 formula was contradictory insofar as it recognized the Bund as a distinct and "autonomous" organization while confining this autonomy to questions specific to Jewish workers — which meant logically that it was subject to the centralism of the party in all other fields. The Bund came to the Second Congress of the RSDLP to ask that the contradiction be resolved by transforming the party into a federation of national parties, of which it would then be a member as a national party.
The Iskra group resolved the contradiction in the opposite direction: that of a multi-national centralist party whose members would organize in each region, independently of their national or other affiliations. In this way the Bund would disappear as a distinct organization with its own centralization, that is to say in fact as an organization parallel to the RDLP because present
130 International Marxist Review in several regions of Russia. The Iskra group also reasserted their support for the principle of autonomy which meant, for them, that the Jewish socialists would have local autonomy, and those of other nationalities a regional autonomy, in the application of the same central party policy.
The Bund categorically rejected the Iskra proposals. In doing so it was not, as could be thought, trying to protect some political particularity. However, if the Bundists had accepted to dissolve themselves into the RSDLP they would have certainly constituted its majority because they were more numerous than all the other organizations represented at the 1903 congress taken together. The Bund's refusal to fuse in fact came from a purely nationalist preoccupation of not "dissolving" the organization of Jewish workers in the crucible of a multi-national party which would inevitably sooner or later have a majority of non-Jews! Lenin replied to this "fear" when he wrote (February 15, 1903):
"Autonomy" under the Rules adopted in 1898 provides the Jewish working-class movement with all it needs: propaganda and agitiation in Yiddish, its own literature and congresses, the right to advance spearate demands to supplement a single general Social-Democratic programme and to satisfy local needs and requirements arising out of the special features of
Jewish life. In everything else there must be complete fusion with the Russian proletariat, in the interests of the struggle waged by the entire proletariat of Russia. As for the fear of being steam-rollered in the event of such fusion, the very nature of the case makes it groundless, since it is autonomy that is a guarantee against all "steam-rollering" in matters pertaining specifically to the Jewish movement, while in matters pertaining to the struggle against the autocracy, the struggle against the bourgeoisie of Russia as a whole, we must act as a single and centralized militant organization, have behind us the whole of the proletariat, without distinction of language or nationality, a proletariat whose unity is cemented by the continual joint solution of problems of theory and practice, of tactics and organization; and we must not set up organizations that would march separately each along its own track; we must not weaken the force of our offensive by breaking up into numerous independent political parties....
[Lenin, Collected Works, Lawrence and Wishart, London, Volume 6, page 333.]
The Bund's participation in the 1903 congress ended in their withdrawing before the end, as a split from the RSDLP after the other participants unanimously rejected their proposal to recognize the Bund as the only representative of the Jewish proletariat and thus the only organization authorized to do social-democratic work among the Jewish workers. This proposal basically resumed the nationalist and federalist conceptions of the Bund. The logic was not only that the RSDLP did not represent all the workers of Russia but also that the non-Bund Jewish members of the party only represented themselves.
The delegates from the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and of Lithuania (SDKPiL) were also present at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, in keeping with the line of their organization which ardently defend-
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' ed the principle of the multi-national workers' party for the whole of the Russian empire.? They also withdrew from the congress, but for reasons diametrically opposed to those which provoked the depart of the Bundists. There was very little room for divergence between the delegates of the SDKPiL and those of the RSDLP on the organizational questions. There was total agreement between them on the principle of building the party. It is true that this did not exclude the possibility of disagreement on application: there was some bargaining between the two sides on this question. However, the differences could only be limited and secondary once the principle of regional autonomy approved by the RSDLP was sufficient to satisfy the SDKPiL organization, unlike the Bund, which allowed it to retain its organizational structure, despite its adherence to the pan-Russian party, and to exercise broad "autonomy" in its role as the single party branch in the provinces of
However, what did provoke the anger of the SDKPiL and the withdrawal of its delegates from the 1903 congress was an article by Lenin in Iskra (July
15, 1903), where he affirmed that the programme of Russian social in no way precludes the adoption by the Polish proletariat of the slogan of a free and independent Polish republic, even though the probability of its becoming a reality before social-
[Lenin, Collecied Works, Lawrence and Wishart, London, Volume 6, page 458.]
The SDKPiL leadership was very irritated by this article, although most of it was devoted to a criticism of its adversary, the PPS. Following its publication, the SDKPiL leadership demanded that the RSDLP programme be amended in such a way as to eliminate the idea of the right of oppressed nations to a separate state. This demand was of course rejected, as a result of which the SDKPiL leadership decided not to join the party. Thus, while the
Bund split because of its nationalism, the SDKPiL withdrew because of its
The 1905 revolution had a strongly centralizing effect on the revolutionary workers' movement in Russia, an effect which pushed most of the national organizations of this movement towards unifying their forces. Thus, with the exception of some more nationalist than socialist groups, including one
Ukrainian and one Armenian organization, different workers' organizations fused in the RSDLP. This fusion was ratified at the Fourth Congress in 1906, leadership and relieve it of all "fears"
Poland and Lithuania.® democracy:
ism is introduced is infinitesimal.
extreme aversion for nationalism.
The "unification congress" of 1906 party 131
'. The SDKPil was in fact a regional
132 International Marxist Review known as the Unification Congress.
The participants in this congress, aside from the representatives of the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions of the RSDLP, included the SDKPiL, the Social-Democratic Party of Latvia, and even the Bund whse leadership had been under strong pressure from its base to participate in the unification. To understand the importance of this event, the size of the organizations should be noted. According to the figures given by Lenin, the RSDLP had 31,000 members, the Latvian party 14,000, the SDKPiL 26,000, and the Bund 33,000! The unification resolution adopted by the 1906 congress was based on a platform proposed by the Bolshevik faction and written by Lenin. On the question of the "attitude to national social-democratic parties" this proposed:
1. That the most energetic measures must be taken to achieve the speedy amalgamation of al the national Social-Democratic parties in Russia into a united Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party;
2. That the basis of this amalgamation must be the complete merging of all the Social-
Democratic organizations in each locality;
3. That the Party must really ensure the satisfaction of all the Party interests and requirements of the Social-Democratic proletariat of each nationality, giving due consideration also
1o the specific features of its culture and way of life; and that this may be ensured by holding special conferences of Social-Democrats of the particular nationality, giving representation to the national minorities on the local, regional and central bodies of the party, forming special groups of authors, publishers, agitators, etc.
(Lenin, Collecied Works, Lawrence and Wishart, London, Volume 10, pp 159-160 ]
This basis of unification included a sort of exchange: total fusion of the base organizations on a territorial basis (for example, the regroupment of the Polish, Jewish and Russian militants living in the same town into one single local organization), with guarantees granted in exchange to the national minorities allowing for their representation on the leading bodies of the party at all levels — from the local leaderships to the central leadership. To this end, it was decided to reserve two seats for the Bund, two others for the SDKPiL and one seat for the Latvian party in the central committee of the RSDLP (in addition to the three seats for the Bolsheviks and the seven for the Mensheviks). This arrangement did not pose any problem for the PolishLithuanian and Latvian organizations, although their real submission to the centralism of the RSDLP was very uneven during the years to come. For the Bund on the other hand, the problem was considerable as the application of the principle of the fusion of the base organizations signified in its case its self-dissolution as an organization structured on a pan-Russian scale. In fact, the Bund was not slow to openly renounce the principle of the fusion,
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' party 133 of which it had never been convinced. '° It maintained the essential of its structures (some opted for fusion locally) as an independent organization, parallel to the RSDLP, which did not prevent it from participating in certain factional manoeuvres alongside the Mensheviks in the following years.
II. The revolutionary internationalist conception of the
In the light of the historical elements given above and of some complementary considerations, I will try to sum up the principles of the revolutionary internationalist conception of building a proletarian party. I deliberately say
"revolutionary internationalist" rather than "Leninist" because, as was already explained, this conception was not specific to the Bolsheviks but they shared it with the Mensheviks, Rosa and her comrades, and other non-
Marxism is the theoretical arm of the proletariat in its struggle as a class against capitalism and for socialism. This elementary postulate implies that the national struggle, even if the Marxists take it on where they judge it progressive, can only be a transitional struggle for them, always subordinate to their supreme consideration: the interest of the class struggle of the proletariat. It follows that Marxism is in total contradiction with the nationalist principle of the organization of the workers, which divides them according to their national origins. It is thus in contradiction with the principle of national fed-
Organizing workers on the basıs of authentic Marxism can be national only in its form, that is to say in organizing them all, whatever their nationality, at the level of the nation-state as the natural framework of their immediate struggle. The formally national organizations thus created should at the same time be in an international association embodying the struggle of the world proletariat. As the founding document of Marxism, the Communist Manifes-
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proeltariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle
[Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Pathfinder Press, New York 1970, p. 26.]
The first characteristic which distinguishes the communists from other
"Leninists"
1. The party of the working class eralism in the building of the workers' party.
to, says:
matters with its own bourgeoisie.
proletarian party workers' parties is, still according to the Manifesto:
In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all
The organization of workers on the basis of their different nationalities in the same region contravenes one of the fundamental tasks of Marxists, which is to develop and radicalize proletarian class consciousness. Stalin the
Bolshevik (and not what he became later), who was confronted with the national question in all its complexity during his militant activity in his own
When the workers are organized according to nationality they isolate themselves within their nauonal shells, fenced off from each other by organizational barriers. The stress is laid not on what is common to the workers but what distinguishes them from each other. In this type of organization the worker is primarily a member of his nation: a Jew, a Pole and so on. It is not surprising that national federalism in organizations inculcates in workers a spirit of
[J. Stalin, Marxism and ihe National Question (1913), International, New York, 1942]
The fundamental objective of every Marxist party is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the institution of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The force of this latter resides in its unity when confronted with the bourgeoisie whose strength is embodied in its centralized state. It thus follows that the organization of the proletariat in a single party "within the boundaries of the [national] state" and "whatever the national, religious or professional differences between these members of the same class", as Rosa Luxemburg said in the
1904 text quoted at the beginning of this article, is a "natural tendency" of
The bourgeoisie of a state is the class enemy of all the workers in this state, but most often it is not the "national enemy" of these workers. In the same way, the bourgeoisie of a state often includes members of the oppressed nationality alongside those of the dominant nationality. This is why the organization of the workers on the basis of nationality not only divides the ranks of the proletariat and thus weakens it but also contains a "natural tendency" for these workers to see in each bourgeois the member of a nation which can be the same as their own, rather than seeing the member of a class which is never the same as their own. As Rosa said in the 1896 article on the
Instead of political programmes based on class interests, national programmes would be drawn up. A series of stenle national struggles would sanctify the principle of sabolaging the nationality.
(Ibid, p. 27)
national seclusion.
Marxism.
Polish question:
134 International Marxist Review region, was able to verify this evident truth:
2. The party of the proletarian revolution unitive political fight waged by the proletariat in each state.
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers party 135 As for the Marxists, they see centralizing the proletariat's strength at state level and refusing any vertical division of its ranks as the most efficient weapon to fight against and overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie incarnated by its centralized state apparatus. 3. The party of permanent revolution Is not what precedes in contradiction with Trotsky's formulation of the theory of permanent revolution, which stipulates that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the underdeveloped countries resolves "at first" the democratic and national liberation tasks and for this goal "takes the leadership of the oppressed nation"? Is this not a confirmation of Rosa Luxemburg's point of view, who rejected the idea that the party of the proletariat should take up national aspirations on the basis that the socialist revolution would abolish the reasons for their existence? In other words, is not what was said above in contradiction with Lenin's defence of nations' right to self-determination? How is it possible to favour the federation of nations and at the same time reject the principle of national federalism in the organization of workers? These are questions and arguments which are still expressed and which we have to deal with.
The first thing to refute in this regard is the false logic which says that the organization-instrument should be the image of the society-objective for which it is fighting. This is the same logic which led the anarchists to reject centralism in the revolutionary organization on the basis that communists are fighting for a society without state, that is to say without a central authority. This reasoning is based on an obvious sophism: it supposes that the revolutionary organization is the embryo of the communist society which grows within capitalist society until it hatches out. The organization, according to this logic, is the materialization of the project and not simply the instrument for bringing it about.
Opposed to this idealistic conception, Marxism considers that the organization is nothing more than an instrument for leading the revolution and the transition from capitalism to socialism, the instrument for the transformation and not the prototype of the final goal. The validity and the efficacity of the instrument are measured above all by its capacity to transform; that means, for the revolutionary organization, its capacity to lead the working class towards the destruction of the bourgeois state. There is no need for a doctorate in dialectics to know that this requires the centralization of the proletariat's forces, in the same way as the transition to socialism requires the
As Trotsky wrote in the chapter on the national question in his great work
A revolutionary organization is not the prototype of the future state, but merely the instrument for its creation. An instrument ought to be adapted to fashioning the product; it ought not to include the produci. Thus a centralized organization can guarantee the success of revolutionary struggle - even where the task is to destroy the centralized oppression of
[Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, Volume 3, Sphere, London, 1967, p. 141]
Is this to say, like Rosa on the question of Poland, that national oppression cannot be abolished without a socialist revolution? Should we demagogically conclude, as did the nationalists of the PPS, that the oppressed nation must wait patiently for the socialist revolution to lake place in the oppressing
It is Lenin who made the best answer to the latter — in his article already cited, which provoked the anger of the SDKPiL and the withdrawal of its delegates from the Second Congress of the RSDLP, in 1903. He replied in essence: we do not exclude absolutely (as Rosa did the possibility that
Poland will detach itself from the Russian empire before the socialist revolution triumphs, although we think this is very unlikely. But in any case, the question is not that the Polish proletariat gives up the struggle against the national yoke that it suffers to struggle alongside the Russian proletariat against the social yoke. It is that the proletariat of all nationalities unites in a vast and powerful struggle against all forms of oppression, including of course national oppression. Even if the national objective was limited to the
"fragmentation of Russia" the road to achieving it would not be "the fragand their centralization. Because only the united forces of the proletariat can paralyze the government of the Czarist state, the minimal condition without which the the independence of Poland would remain a dream or raving.
We should note that Lenin, in this answer, did not engage in denouncing separatism in which he never saw "absolute evi!" -- unlike the chauvinists point of view of the concrete analysis of the concrete conditions of struggle, establishing that the higher interest of the Polish proletariat, even if it espoused the cause of separatism, demanded that it fused its strength with that of the proletariat of the other nationalities in Russia. That is to say that
Lenin, like Rosa (see above) but a lot more clearly, did not defend the idea of a multi-national centralist party at the level of the state as a whole as a
130 International Marxist Review transitional dictatorship of the proletariat.
History of the Russian Revolution:
nationalities.
nation?
mentation of the proletariat's forces"
who usurp the characterization of "Leninist"
i but on the contrary their unification
. He answered the PPS from the
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers party 137 "sacred principle" but on the basis of considerations relating to revolutionary strategy for which the revolutionary party is by definition the instrument.
Taking up the problem in this way, from the standpoint of revolutionary strategy, means that exceptions may be considered to this rule of one party for one state (remember here that we are only talking about situations where there is territorial continuity). Thus, in the case where the relationship of forces belween the oppressor state and the oppressed nationality is permanently or even conjuncturally such that the oppressed nationality can objeclively win its independence by its own efforts - then the constitution of a separate party in its region becomes legitimate and possible from a proletarian point of view. This party is then the instrument of a distinct revolutionary strategy, specific to its region, but in any case will recruit its members on a territorial and not national basis. We only say that this becomes possible and legitimate, not that it becomes necessary and inevitable, because the decisive criteria remains, in the last analysis, the concrete analysis of the real course of the struggle from the point of view of the general interest of the proletariat, all nationalities taken together.
There are two typical cases in which this possibility becomes the most appropriate: 1) The case where the toiling masses of the oppressing nationalily are in a deep lethargy, or politically backward and in chauvinist solidarity with their bourgeoisie, while the circumstances are favourable for the mobilization of the masses of the oppressed nationality for the conquest of their national emancipation — in the framework of a relationship of forces which makes it objectively possible to achieve this goal through their own efforts (this was the starting point); 2) the case where circumstances arise such as a war or insurrection which bring about a prolonged paralysis of the oppressor state, meaning that the masses of the oppressed nationality can wrest their national emancipation on their territory, while the subjective conditions of the proletariat of the state as a whole are not such that it takes central power. In the two cases the formation of a separate proletarian party on the basis of the separatist struggle can become an indispensable condition for cutting the ground from under the feet of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nationality, which will not hesitate to try to exploit the circumstances to its own profit. 4. Autonomy in the framework of centralism In addition, the fact of conferring a class, socialist, character on the separatist struggle of the masses of the oppressed nationality is a necessary condition for winning the sympathy of the proletariat of the oppressing nation and
138 International Marxist Review bringing its movement to maturity, rather than allowing its bourgeoisie to mobilize it on a chauvinist basis against the "separatists". To say that only particular or exceptional circumstances can justify the formation of a separate proletarian party in the region of the oppressed nationality within the borders of a broader state, does not in the least mean that, as a general rule, that is in the case of the multi-national centralist party, the particularities in the struggles of the different nationalities should be ignored. It was Lenin himself, centralizer par excellence, the legendary "Jacobin" , who most insisted on the need for the regional and even local organizations of the party to have autonomy in the application of the central policy of the party. He made clear, in answer to a Bundist published in Iskra on October 22, 1903, that autonom y could not be reduced to a simple "technical" question, such as the linguistic question, but includes basically the task of adapting party policy to different sorts of local and regional particularities.
One and the same point in the programme will be applied differently depending on differences in conditions of life, differences of culture, differences in the relation of social forces in different parts of the country and so forth. Agitation on behalf of one and the same demand in the programme will be carried on in different ways and in different languages taking into account all these differences. Consequently, autonomy in questions specifically concerning the proletariat of a given race, nation or district implies that it is left to the discretion of the organization concerned to determine the specific demands to be advanced in pursuance of the common programme, and the methods of agitation to be employed. The party as a whole, its central institutions, lay down the common fundamental principles of programme and tactics; as to the different methods of carrying out these principles in practice and agitating for ther, they are laid down by the various party organizations subordinate to the centre, depending on local, racial, national, cultural and other differences.
[Lenin, Collecled Works, Lawrence and Wishan, London, Volume 7, pp. 192-102.]
Lenin made sure that all the nationalities obtained the maximum of guarantees within the party itself: this historical truth has been hidden because of its contradiction with the myth of the "military" centralism in the Bolshevik party before 1917, a myth which was sanctified by Stalinism because it suited its dictatorial organizational methods, but which nevertheless was born before Stalinism. Lenin himself contributed to creating it, when he was forced to insist exclusively on centralism during the first few years of the Russian revolution, years of war and siege. I have already quoted the guarantees proposed as examples and not an exhaustive list by the founder of Bolshevism to the 1906 congress:
holding special conferences of Social-Democrats of the particular nationality, giving representation to the national minorities on the local, regional and central bodies of the party lin a report written the same year Lenin said proportional representation], forming special groups of authors, publishers, agitators, etc.
[Lenin, Collecled Works, Lawrence and Wishart, London, Volume 10, p. 160.]
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' party 139
Which are the "socialist" or "communist" multi-national parties of today in which members of national minorities enjoy such guarantees?
Certainly, in return for these guarantees, there is a condition which makes the qualitative difference between national federalism and multi-national centralism, that is the categorical rejection of the national principle in the formation of the base organizations and the adoption of (local and regional) territorial unity as the exclusive foundation for the organization of the party. The criterion for establishing party units, such as cells, in the same locality could never be the nationality of party members (of course, if all the members in one locality belong to the same nationality then the problem is not posed), but only considerations relative to the socio-professional activity or district of residence. This is the organizational principle which was the criteria for the "unification" in 1906 and the reason for the failure of the fusion with the Bund. Lenin reconfirmed in his "Theses on the National Question" written in June 1913 after the RSDLP split became definitive in 1912 and the Bolshevik faction formed a separate party.
The sum-total of economic and political conditions in Russia therefore demands that social democracy should unite unconditionally workers of all nationalities in all proletarian organizations without exception (political, trade union, cooperative, educational etc., etc.). The
Party should not be federative in structure and should not form national social-democratic groups but should unite the proletarians of all nationalities in the given locality, conduct propaganda and agitation in all the languages of the local proletariat, promote the common struggle of the workers of all nations against every kind of national privilege and should recognize the autonomy of local and regional Party organizations.
[Lenin, Collecied Works, Lawrence and Wishan, London, Volume 19, pp 243-251]
Does this mean that the national minorities dispersed within a majority throughout its national territory — which are in general immigrant minorities whether their immigration is longstanding or recent (for example the North African immigrants in Western Europe today) — will not find any specific organizational channel for their specific problems, unlike the nationalities concentrated in a region which enjoys regional autonomy? This is a legitimate question, given the principle outlined above. The answer can already be found in the fact that Lenin always included the Jewish (Yiddish) nationality in his proposal of organizational guarantees, whether in 1903, 1906 or later, which did not have a particular territory of residential concentration. It was in fact precisely to the Bund that Lenin made these guarantees, in the framework of the discussion with this organization which was at that time the biggest socialist organization in Russia." How then can it be possible to conciliate the refusal to constitute party units or cells on a national basis with granting to members belonging to a national minority the possibility of
adapting to its particularities, carrying out agitation in their own language and other guarantees, when the minority concerned is dispersed within the
The solution is the "special groups of authors, publishers, agitators, etc."
addressing the national minority which figure among the guarantees proposed by Lenin and mentioned twice above. These "special groups" are not separate structures with the same status as the organizations which constitute the armour of the party, but committees constituted within base organizations whose members, while participating in the latter, also have a specialized
The same organizational formula was adopted by the Third International at its Third Congress in 1921, on the question of women (an oppressed sex intermingled with men). It is laid out in detail in the resolution "Methods and
Forms of Work among Women" which it is useful to quote in order to clarify
The Third Congress of the Communist International is firmly opposed to any kind of separate women's association in the Parties... but it accepts that special methods of work among women are necessary and that every Communist Party should set up a special apparatus for this work.... This apparatus must consist of departments or commissions for work among women, attached to every Party committee at all levels, from the CC of the party right down to the urban, district or local Party committee.... Work amongst women must be informed by an understanding of the unity of the Party movement and organization, but at the same time show independent initiative and, proceeding independently from other Party commissions or sections, work towards the rapid and full emancipation of women. The goal should be not to duplicate work but to enable working wormen to help the Party and its activities.
(Theses, Resolution and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International,
This is the organizational formula which makes it possible to put into practice the guarantees proposed by Lenin (including the special conferences)
when a national minority is intermingled from a territorial point of view with the majority, without encroaching on the principle of the multi-national cen-
5. The "Negro organization", the exception and not the
We should now look at the question of the "Negro organization" that the
Socialist Workers Party called for in the United States in 1939. 2 This project was supported by Leon Trotsky in discussions that he had in April of the same year with leaders of the SWP, which was one of the pillars in the foundation of the Fourth International. At first sight, the idea of a "Negro organization" seems to be in total contradiction with the principle of a multi-
140 International Marxist Review what is meant:
Ink Links, London, 1980] tralist workers' party.
rule minority and their places of residence are intermingled?
activity addressed to the national minority.
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' purty 141 national party that the same Trotsky had ardently defended during the years of struggle against Tsarism in Russia and which he had never renounced.
In fact, Trotsky considered — as did his American comrades — that the 1939 project was an exceptional break of the multi-national principle justified by exceptional circumstances and aiming in the end to strengthen it. The "Negro organization" in the eyes of Trotsky and the American Trotskyists was to be a mass organization and not a revolutionary party and member of the International, like the SWP which had members of all races and nationalities.' It was the particular situation of Blacks in the United States which made such an organization necessary, as a passage towards building a multinational and multi-racial revolutionary workers' party, this remaining the fundamental strategic objective.
Thus Trotsky, during the discussion of April 1939, called this project a "pre-political school" and asked what were the reasons which "determine the necessity" answering himself:
Two fundamental facts: that the large masses of the Negroes are backward and oppressed and this oppression is so strong that they must feel it every moment; that they feel it as
Negroes. [George Breitman ed., Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self-Determination, Merit
Publishers, New York, 1967.]
This conception of the project is explained precisely in the resolution on "Negro work" adopted by the SWP in July 1939:
For reasons which can be easily understood, the American Negro is profoundly suspicious of all whites and recent events have deepened that suspicion. ... Furthermore, the growing political consciousness of the Negroes not unnaturally takes the form of a desire for independent action uncontrolled by whites. ... The SWP therefore proposes that its Negro members, aided and supported by the party, lake the initiative and collaborate with other militant Negroes in the formation of a Negro mass organization devoted to the struggle for Negro nights. This organization will NOT be either openly or secretly a periphery organization of the Fourth International. It will be an organization in which the masses of Negroes will be invited to participate on a working-class programme corresponding to the day-to-day strug-
Negro organization in which Negro members of the Fourth International will participate zation by the SWP does not in any way limit the party's drive among Negroes for membership, neither does it invalidate the necessary struggle for the unity of both black and white workers. But that road is not likely to be a broad highway. Such an organization as it is proposed is the most likely means of bringing the masses of Negroes into political action, which though programmatically devoted to their own interests, must inevitably merge with the broader struggle of the American working-class movement taken as a whole. [Breitman ed. idem] It is not as a historical model to imitate that this project of a "Negro organization" as conceived by the SWP and supported by Trotsky in 1939 is
described here. Moreover, historical experience has not proved the efficacity of the project as it was envisaged. The presentation of it here is to confirm, that in any case, for Trotsky and his American comrades it was only an exceptional formula made necessary by exceptional conditions, determined by the depth of racist oppression in the United States in this historical period
(1939!). It was in fact an exceptional road towards the creation of conditions which would have made it possible for the Black toiling masses to support the "classic" Marxist formula of the multi-national revolutionary workers'
It was the exception which confirms the rule explained throughout this article. This rule should be applied according to the specificities of each case, the supreme criterion remaining the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the
1. This article first appeared in Arabic in the revolutionary communist review for the Arab
2. Apart from Lenin's Collected Works, the main sources for this article are the anthology
Les Marxistes et la question nalionale (Miaspero, Paris, 1974), Peter Netti, Rosa Luxem burg (Oxford University Press, 1969), and Isaac. Deutscher's 3-volume biography of
Leon Trotsky (The Prophet Armed, Unarmed, Outcast, Oxford University Press, Lon-
Sohan Weinstock, this ashid by s Wecou Verd no Paris in 1i34. This work mass e by the history of the Jewish workers' movement in Europe and the first volume contains
3. The Jewish masses in Russia did not constitute simple a "religious" minority, but had ious and cultural. Marxists rejection of the, eminently reactionary it is true, idea of the
"Jewish nation" was aimed at the Zionist idea that the Jews of the whole world form the same nation on the basis of religious and racial criteria (Zionism and anti-semitism are two sides of the same coin!) despite all the national differences existing between Jews of different countries — as is the case for any religion widely spread over the planet. But the Jews of Eastern Europe, particularly those who lived within the frontiers of the the
Russian Empire, had truly national characteristics which explain Lenin's use several times of the expression "the Jewish nation" and the fact that he cited the Jews among the oppressed nationalities of the empire (although Lenin sometimes quoted an article by
Kautsky that characterized the Jews in Russia as a "caste" and denied them the status of party.
proletariat.
Notes a nation).
142 International Marxist Review region Al Miraga No. 3.
Nathan Weinstock
Nationalism, internationalism and the revolutionary workers' parly 143 4. The failure of this exceptional choice later became a further argument for the detractors of national federalism. Lenin, in June 1913, wrote:
Circumstances occasionally compel Social-Democrats to submit for a time to some sort of compromise decisions; but from other countries we must borrow not compromise decisions, but consistently Social-Democratic decisions. It would be particularly unwise to adopt the unhappy Austrian compromise decision today, when it has been a complete failure in Austria and has led to the separatism and secession of the Czech Social-Democrats. [Lenin, Collecled Works, Lawrence and Wishan, London, Volume 19, pp. 243-251] 5. The Marxists opposed to the Bund, in Russia, refused "cultural national autonomy", arguing that this led to isolating the Jewish masses from the non-Jewish masses, by allowing for an educational system and programme specific to Jews. They counterposed to this idea the demand of equal righis for nationalities, particularly through teaching the same curriculum in the different languages without discrimination. 6. Martov and Trotsky, both of Jewish origin, played a leading role in refuting the theses of the Bund, particularly at the 1903 congress which consecrated the rupture of this latter with the other components of Russian social-democracy. 7. A Lithuanian organization had fused with the organization of the Kingdom of Poland in
1899. 8. This essential difference escaped Peter Nettl when he wrote that an agreement between the
SDKPiL and the RSDLP on the organizational formula was nor very likely, in the light of the Bund's experience. 9. The Latvian party, founded in 1904, decided the following year to join the RSDLP. 10. This is the reply to the question put by Nathan Weinstock (op. cit. pp. 192-3), that is, whether — given the similarity of the conditions accepted in 1906 to those proposed three years previously — the rupture that occurred in 1903 was not due to the numerical imbalance between the Bund and the other components of the RSDLP more than to the nationalist federalism of the Jewish organization. Weinstock, moved by a wish for con- Vent hey reples in the af ympathy he has ciliation probably due to the sympathy he has both for the Bund and Russian social democracy, replies in the affirmative and "wants no better proof than the ease with which the lasting reinsertion of the Bundists took place once the growth of the Russian social democrats removed the initial disparity."
But this last assertion is quite mistaken: it was the 1903 rupture which was the lasting fact in comparison to which the 1906 reunification was simply a brief detour, the
Bund never obeying the congress resolution for the reasons which we have explained and which express the radical incompatibility between the organizational nationalism of the Bund and the international of Russian social-democracy. Lenin, making the balance sheet of unification in 1913, wrote:
The [1906] Congress furthermore did not accept the principle of federation and demanded unity of Social-Democrats of all nationalities in each locality. This principle has been in operation in the Caucasus for many years, it is in opcration in Warsaw
(Polish workers and Russian soldiers), in Vilna (Polish, Lettish, Jewish and Lithuanian workers) and in Riga, and in the three last-named places it has been implemented against the separatist Bund. In December 1908, the RSDLP through its conference, adopted a special resolution confirming the demand for the unity of workers of all nationalities, on a principle other than federation. The splitting activities of the Bund separatists, not fulfilling the Party decision led to the collapse of the "federation of the worst type...
144 International Marxist Review
[Lenin, Collected Works, Lawrence and Wishar, London, Volume 19,pp. 243-251] I1. It is true that local autonomy also concerned the Jews, insofar as they were partly concentrated in "residence zones", obligatory ghettos in certain towns and regions. Bul regional autonomy (al the level of an entire province) did not concer them. 12. I have left the term "Negro" which was then currently used, only later acquiring a pejorative character. 13. The obvious care to speak of a "Negro organization" and not a "Negro party" in 1935 should be noted
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• Environment: Our common future? - François Moreau
• Central America today - IEC of Fourth International
• Cuba: decisive stage - IEC of Fourth International
• Survival of Irish national question - D.R. O'Connor Lysaght
• National question in Spanish state - Document
• Nationalism, internationalism, revolutionary party - Salah Jaber
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