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Marxism and the national question in Scotland

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis of this article is that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum represented a profound, if contradictory, radicalisation of the Scottish working class — a "revolutionary implication" expressed through the outer shell of nationalism. Alan Woods argues that the Yes vote was not primarily an expression of national chauvinism but a class vote: a vote against the Westminster establishment, against austerity, and against the betrayals of the Labour Party. The task of Marxists is neither to tail-end the SNP nor to dismiss the national question as irrelevant, but to defend the democratic right to self-determination while relentlessly exposing the class limitations of bourgeois nationalism and building the forces for a socialist solution.

The article insists that Scottish independence on a capitalist basis would solve nothing — it would merely exchange one set of exploiters for another, leaving the working class subject to the same laws of capitalist accumulation, the same bankers, and the same imperialist pressures. The only genuine solution is the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a Socialist Federation of these islands as part of a wider internationalist project.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is firmly rooted in the classical Marxist tradition on the national question, drawing principally on Lenin's Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913) and The National Programme of the RSDLP (1918). Woods deploys Lenin's crucial distinction between defending the right of nations to self-determination and advocating for separation itself — a negative, democratic right analogous to the right to divorce or abortion. Marxists are obliged to oppose the forcible retention of any nation within a state against its will, but they are under no obligation to vote for secession, and must conduct propaganda against bourgeois nationalism even as they defend democratic rights.

The article also draws on Trotsky's observation that nationalism can be "the outer shell of an immature Bolshevism" — a formulation that allows Woods to recognise the progressive, anti-establishment content of the Yes vote while refusing to concede ground to nationalist politics. James Connolly's warning to Irish workers — that removing the English army without establishing a socialist republic would leave capitalist rule intact — provides a historical parallel and a cautionary reference point.

Woods situates himself against two errors: the abstract internationalism of Rosa Luxemburg (who denied Poland's right to self-determination) and the tail-ending of bourgeois nationalism by sections of the Scottish left. He also explicitly rejects the Stalinist theory of stages — the notion that the working class must first achieve national independence and only then pose the question of socialism. Lenin's insistence that the proletarian cause must come first is presented as the correct position.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in April 2015, in the immediate aftermath of the September 2014 referendum and ahead of the May 2015 general election. It captures a moment of extraordinary political flux: the Yes campaign had mobilised 1.6 million votes (45%), turnout reached 85%, and SNP membership had tripled to over 100,000 — making it, proportionally, the largest political party in Britain. The Labour Party in Scotland was in freefall, with polls showing support dropping from 41 seats to potentially just four.

Woods identifies several conjunctural features:

  • The referendum exposed a deep crisis of legitimacy for the Westminster establishment. The Better Together campaign — an "unholy alliance" of Labour, Tories, and Liberal Democrats — offered only the status quo of austerity, cuts, and falling living standards.
  • The SNP leadership, particularly Alex Salmond, adopted a "left" face to win working-class support while maintaining close ties to business. The episode of Jim Sillars threatening nationalisation of banks — immediately repudiated by the SNP leadership — is used to expose the class fault lines within the nationalist movement.
  • David Cameron's reckless gamble in offering a binary Yes/No choice, followed by his immediate manoeuvring on "English votes for English laws," is presented as playing with fire — threatening to re-ignite the national question for short-term party advantage.
  • The collapse in oil prices is cited as evidence that the SNP's economic strategy — relying on North Sea revenue to fund a welfare state — was an illusion.

The article also notes the rise of UKIP and the danger of a chauvinist English backlash, situating the Scottish question within a broader crisis of the British state and the decline of its ruling class.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is a relatively early treatment of the Scottish question from the IDOM/RCI tradition, written before the 2015 general election delivered a landslide SNP victory (56 of 59 Scottish seats). The argument continues in several directions:

  • Later IDOM articles on the SNP's record in government, the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, and the 2017 and 2019 general elections, which test the thesis that class contradictions within the SNP would come to the fore.
  • Against the Stream episodes covering the 2014 referendum anniversary, the Brexit referendum (where Scotland voted Remain while England voted Leave), and the renewed push for a second independence referendum.
  • Broader Marxist texts: Lenin's Critical Remarks on the National Question and The Right of Nations to Self-Determination; Trotsky's writings on nationalism and the national question; James Connolly's Selected Writings; and the RCI's own programmatic documents on the national question and the British state.

The article leaves open several questions that subsequent events have tested: whether the SNP would hold the balance of power at Westminster; how it would handle the contradiction between its left rhetoric and pro-business orientation; and whether the radicalised layer of workers and youth drawn into politics by the referendum would move leftwards or be absorbed into nationalist politics.

Connections

  • Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913) — The foundational text for the Marxist approach to national self-determination, from which the article's opening epigraph is drawn.
  • Lenin, The National Programme of the RSDLP (1918) — Clarifies the distinction between defending the right to secession and advocating for it.
  • Trotsky, writings on the national question — Particularly the concept of nationalism as the "outer shell of an immature Bolshevism."
  • James Connolly, Selected Writings — The warning to Irish workers about the limits of formal independence under capitalism.
  • Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question and Autonomy — The article engages critically with Luxemburg's position on Poland, treating it as a case study in abstract internationalism.
  • The RCI's programmatic documents on the national question, the British state, and the strategy for a socialist federation of these islands.

Key Quotes

  1. "Trotsky explained that a revolution is a situation when the masses begin to participate actively in politics and begin to take their destiny into their own hands. And there were revolutionary implications in the situation in Scotland. Trotsky also pointed out that nationalism can be the outer shell of an immature Bolshevism."

  2. "As a matter of fact, the Yes vote, albeit in a confused way, represented a class vote, a vote against the Tories in Westminster, a vote against the rich and powerful, a vote against the effete and degenerate English ruling class and the rotten political Establishment that are only their marionettes and hired prostitutes."

  3. "The recognition of the right to self-determination is, Mr. Semkovsky assures us, 'playing into the hands of the most thorough-paced bourgeois nationalism'. This is childish nonsense since the recognition of the right does not exclude either propaganda and agitation against separation or the exposure of bourgeois nationalism."

  4. "We might add that the national question in Russia was solved as a by-product of socialist revolution, and could never have been solved without it."

  5. "The national cause comes first and the proletarian cause second, the bourgeois nationalists say, with the Yurkeviches, Dontsovs and similar would-be Marxists repeating it after them. The proletarian cause must come first, we say, because it not only protects the lasting and fundamental interests of labour and of humanity, but also those of democracy; and without democracy neither an autonomous nor an independent Ukraine is conceivable."

  6. "The task of the proletariat is not to erect new frontiers but to sweep away all the frontiers that separate humankind and create a new world system in which competition, rivalry, national hatreds and destructive wars will be replaced by voluntary union, co-operation, and solidarity."