Scotland - Socialism or Nationalism - A Marxist Analysis

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the formation of Scottish Militant Labour (SML) — and its later incarnation as the Scottish Socialist Party — represents a fundamental capitulation to petit-bourgeois nationalism, not a strategic advance for Marxism. Ted Grant argues that the decision to establish a separate Scottish organisation, to stand candidates against Labour, and to adopt a nationalist coloration in propaganda constitutes an opportunistic break with the Marxist method on the national question. The article claims that this turn will not win youth away from the SNP but will instead push them toward it, repeating the fatal errors of John Maclean's Scottish Workers' Republican Party. The core claim is that nationalism, however radical its rhetoric, cannot be fought by pandering to it; only an implacable defence of working-class unity across Britain can provide a genuine alternative.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist tradition on the national question as developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Grant draws on several key theoretical propositions:

First, the national question is a bourgeois-democratic task left over from earlier historical epochs, which can only be resolved through socialist transformation. The nation state has become a reactionary barrier to the development of the productive forces in the epoch of monopoly capitalism and multinational corporations.

Second, Lenin's insistence that the right to self-determination must never be treated as an absolute principle, but always subordinated to the general interests of the proletariat and the world revolutionary struggle. Grant quotes Lenin's 1918 formulation that Marxists of oppressed nations must fight against "small nation narrow-mindedness, seclusion and isolation" and subordinate the particular to the general interest.

Third, Trotsky's warning against any division of working-class organisations along national lines, captured in the principle that "above all organisational forms stands the necessity of the unity of class organisation."

Fourth, the critique of Otto Bauer's "cultural national autonomy" as a deviation from proletarian internationalism — a framework Grant explicitly uses to characterise the SML's celebration of Scottish culture, rock groups, and football as a nationalist rather than Marxist orientation.

The article situates itself within the tradition of British Marxism associated with Socialist Appeal, which had maintained a consistent position on the national question in Scotland and Wales since at least 1973. It positions itself against both reformism (the Labour right) and what it calls "ultra-leftism" — the sectarian abandonment of work within the mass organisations. The SML's error is presented as combining both: ultra-left in its break from Labour, opportunist in its adaptation to nationalism.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in March 1992, at a specific conjuncture that Grant analyses in detail:

Economic context: The crisis of British capitalism had devastated Scottish manufacturing. Unemployment stood at over 300,000; forced emigration had reached 150,000 over the preceding decade; the closure of Ravenscraig steelworks threatened economic devastation in Lanarkshire; a further 54,000 manufacturing jobs were expected to disappear by the turn of the century. Rickets and dysentery had reappeared in inner-city areas.

Political context: The Tories had been reduced to nine Scottish MPs from being the largest party in the 1950s. The poll tax — imposed first in Scotland as a "test case" — had made the Tories appear as representatives of a colonial power. Labour held 48 of 72 Scottish seats but offered no real alternative, creating a vacuum that the SNP sought to fill.

Electoral dynamics: The SNP had risen from 14% in 1987 to around 25-28% in opinion polls, but this support came primarily from former Liberal Democrat and Tory voters, not from Labour's urban strongholds. Grant predicted that a Labour victory would initially undermine nationalism but that disillusionment with a Kinnock government would later fuel a surge toward the SNP — a pattern he identified from the late 1960s and 1970s.

Geopolitical dimension: The collapse of Stalinism had unleashed national antagonisms across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, creating a general climate in which nationalism appeared progressive. Grant insists on distinguishing progressive national liberation movements from the reactionary nationalism of developed capitalist states.

Trade union context: The formation of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee (OILC) as a breakaway union is analysed as a symptom of the same opportunist deviation — abandoning the patient work of transforming existing unions for the illusion of building "pure" organisations.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is a foundational text for understanding the RCI's position on the national question in Britain, but it opens several lines of argument that are developed elsewhere:

The fate of the SSP: The 2006 editorial note appended to the text points to the SSP's later crisis and split as confirmation of Grant's predictions. Subsequent IDOM articles — "Sheridan Wins But SSP Ends Up Splitting" (July 2006), "Scottish Socialists on the verge of a split" (June 2006), "Scotland: SSP at the Crossroads" (February 2006), and "Scottish Socialist Party in deep crisis" (November 2004) — trace the organisational consequences of the nationalist deviation.

The broader "open turn": The article is part of a wider polemic within the Militant tendency about the strategic orientation toward the Labour Party. The Walton by-election experience (where a "Real Labour" candidate polled 2,600 votes) is cited as a foretaste of the disaster awaiting the Scottish turn. The argument continues in internal tendency documents and in the Socialist Appeal analysis of Labour Party dynamics.

The national question in Wales: The 1973 document "The National Question in Scotland and Wales" is referenced as the earlier principled position from which the SML comrades departed. The Welsh dimension — with Plaid Cymru and the devastation of coal and steel — provides a parallel case study.

The critique of Mandelism: Grant explicitly links the SML's errors to the broader tradition of Pabloite/Mandelite opportunism, citing examples from the Basque Country and Italy where similar nationalist adaptations led to organisational collapse. This connects to the RCI's long-standing polemic against the United Secretariat tradition.

Connections

Primary texts: - Lenin, "The Rights of Nations to Self-Determination" and "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up" - Trotsky, "The National Struggle and the Unity of the Proletariat" and History of the Russian Revolution (the Lettish regiments passage) - Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (on the world market and cosmopolitan production) - Ted Grant, "The National Question in Scotland and Wales" (May 1973)

Historical parallels: - John Maclean's Scottish Workers' Republican Party (early 1920s) — the key cautionary example - The United Mineworkers of Scotland split (1930s) — Stalinist "red union" adventure - The Pilkington Glassworkers' Union (1970s) — sectarian split that ended in disaster - The "Blue Union" stevedores split (1956) — produced non-unionism - The EPIU electricians' split — stillborn organisation

Contemporary polemical targets: - The SNP, characterised as a bourgeois nationalist party despite its "radical" rhetoric - The Labour right (Kinnock) for failing to offer any alternative - The SML leadership (Alan McCombes, Tommy Sheridan) for abandoning Marxist principles - The broader ultra-left milieu (SWP, Healeyites, Stalinist CP) for repeating the same errors

Key Quotes

1. "The idea that Scotland would be able to enjoy a genuine independence under conditions of modern monopoly capitalism is false to the core. Big capital would continue to dominate, as before. Of the two remaining Clyde shipyards, Govan is owned by a Norwegian company and Yarrows has been taken over by the multinational GEC combine. At the present time, nearly 40% of the top 100 companies in Scotland are foreign owned."

2. "Lenin never considered the right of self-determination as an absolute principle, regardless of time and place. It was always subordinated to the general interests of the proletariat and the struggle for world socialist revolution. 'We are not obliged to support either "any" struggle for independence or "any" republican or anti-clerical movement,' he wrote in 1918."

3. "The idea that a tiny organisation like the SML could somehow cut across this development is utterly utopian. If there is a strong surge towards nationalism, the only force capable of stopping it is the Labour Movement."

4. "Their nationalism was only the outer shell of an immature Bolshevism. In any case it is a complete exaggeration to compare, as the leaders of the SML are attempting to do, the national oppression of the Scots with that of the nationalities in Tsarist Russia, 'the prison house of nations'. In reality, this is an attempt to use Trotsky as a cloak of respectability to disguise their succumbing to nationalism."

5. "The whole thrust of the argument of Alan McCombes and the SML follows the spirit of Otto Bauer, not Lenin, in his approach to 'national culture'. This pandering to petit-bourgeois nationalism reflects precisely the kind of 'small nation Philistine mentality' which Trotsky dismissed with disdain."

6. "Theory is the generalised experience of the working class. Theory always takes its revenge on those who take it lightly. Abandoning theory on the national question has its own consequences."