Critical Remarks on the National Question¶
Core Argument¶
The national question has erupted onto the Russian political scene through three developments: the aggressive nationalism of reactionary forces, the shift of counter-revolutionary bourgeois liberalism toward nationalist positions, and troubling nationalist vacillations among non-Great-Russian social-democrats that violate the party programme. This chapter subjects these programme vacillations to Marxist critique.
Capitalism develops two contradictory tendencies: the awakening of national life and creation of national states, and the breakdown of national barriers through international intercourse. The Marxist programme must account for both, advocating equality of nations and languages alongside consistent internationalism. The Bundist outcry against "assimilation" represents reactionary nationalist philistinism, ignoring capitalism's world-historical tendency to break down national distinctions—a progressive force transforming capitalism into socialism.
Working-class democracy must reject the bourgeois slogan of "national culture" in favour of international culture of democracy and the world working-class movement. Every nation contains both democratic elements from the exploited masses and dominant bourgeois culture. Marxists take only democratic and socialist elements from each national culture, opposing bourgeois nationalism as a fraud.
Regarding the Jewish question, Kautsky and Bauer correctly argue that Jews in the civilised world are not a nation, having become assimilated, while those in Galicia and Russia remain a caste only through reactionary oppression. The process of assimilation under advanced capitalism is progressive, as demonstrated by US immigration statistics: 3.7 million Europeans arrived 1891-1900, 7.2 million 1901-1909. New York City grinds down national distinctions, a process repeated in every major city.
On the Ukrainian question, weakening ties between the Ukrainian and Great-Russian proletariat within a single state betrays socialism. Lev Yurkevich's argument that Marxists must lead Ukrainian workers to their national aims is wholly bourgeois-nationalistic. Given united action by Great-Russian and Ukrainian proletarians, a free Ukraine is possible; without such unity, it is out of the question.
The proposed territorialist programme allowing nationally united associations managing "national affairs" is wrong—it would permit German colonists in Saratov, a German working-class suburb of Riga, and a German housing estate near St Petersburg to form a single German-national association. Social-democrats cannot demand such state segregation by nationality. Switzerland provides the model: three official languages, bills printed in five languages including Romansh dialects spoken by just over one per cent of the population, and full equality for dialects in cantons like Graubünden and Wallis. The principle is no national privileges and no inequality.
Marxists oppose federation but support democratic centralism with local self-government and autonomy for regions with special economic conditions or distinct national composition. Autonomous Diets should handle purely local questions while major economic and political questions remain with the central parliament. National areas with populations as small as 50,000 should enjoy autonomy and unite with neighbouring areas for economic intercourse. However, national composition is not the sole or most important economic factor; towns have mixed populations and play a crucial economic role. Cutting towns off from their economic hinterlands for the sake of the national factor would be absurd. The Russian Marxists' conference proposed wide regional autonomy, with boundaries determined by local inhabitants based on economic conditions, social conditions, and national make-up.