THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION
The period from the end of the First International to the founding Conference of the Third (Communist) International was a decisive one for the working class movement worldwide. In this period a fundamental change in the nature of the capitalist system took place. Capitalism entered its imperialist phase.
IMPERIALISM AND THE WORKING CLASS
What was true of the relationship of Britain and Ireland in the later part of the nineteenth century was mirrored all over the world with the development of imperialism as a world system. By the turn of the century capitalism, in its relentless drive for profits, had entered its imperialist phase – a world-wide system of colonial oppression and financial domination of the overwhelming majority of the world by a small number of imperialist countries. Imperialism divides the world into oppressed and oppressor nations. It also divides the working class. A handful of imperialist countries obtain high monopoly profits out of the brutal exploitation of oppressed peoples world-wide. Out of these ‘super-profits’ imperialism is able to create and sustain a small privileged and influential layer of the working class in the imperialist countries whose conditions of life isolate it from the suffering, poverty and temper of the mass of the working class. Such workers, a labour aristocracy, constitute the social base of opportunism in the working class movement. So critical was this development for the working class movement and so great the damage done to the interests of the working class as a result of the activities of these opportunist layers that Lenin, at the Second Congress of the Communist International (1920), said that:
‘Opportunism is our principal enemy. Opportunism in the upper ranks of the working-class movement is not proletarian socialism but bourgeois socialism. Practice has shown that the active people in the working class movement who adhere to the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself. Without their leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power.’ 1
These developments in the working class movement occurred in the major imperialist countries at the turn of the century. However, in Britain they took place a lot earlier. In the nineteenth century the British bourgeoisie managed to split the British working class movement.
In the middle of the nineteenth century Britain already revealed at least two major distinguishing features of imperialism, vast colonies and monopoly profits. Because of its monopoly in the world market the profits of British capital were very high. These ‘super-profits, allowed a relatively privileged standard of life for an aristocracy of labour – for a minority of skilled well-paid workers. These workers were organised in narrow, self-interested craft unions and they isolated themselves from the mass of the working class. They looked down on the unskilled worker. Politically this labour aristocracy supported the Liberals, who they looked to for the political and economic reforms thought necessary to guarantee their continued advancement and to secure their privileged existence. They were contemptuous of socialism, regarding it as ‘utopian’. It is indicative of the political influence of this layer that Lenin could remark, with justification even in 1913, that ‘nowhere in the world are there so many liberals among the advanced workers as in Britain’.2
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century things began to change. – Britain’s monopoly power was being challenged by American, German and French capitalism. The economic basis of the narrow petit bourgeois trade unionism and liberalism among the British workers was being undermined. The previously tolerable conditions of life gave way to extreme want as the cost of living rose and real wages fell. The class struggle intensified and this period saw the emergence and development of socialist organisations. The unskilled workers, encouraged and aided by the socialists, were organised in the wave of the New Unionism which swept Britain at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1889 the Gas Workers Union and the Dockers Union were founded under the leadership of Will Thorne, Tom Mann and Ben Tillett. The next 25 years saw the inevitable conflict between the mass of the working class and the Liberal-Labour leadership which dominated the political and trade-union organisations of the labour movement.
IMPERIALISM AND COLONIAL POLICY
As Britain’s economic superiority was being challenged, the opportunism of the leaders of the British labour movement necessarily took on the form of national chauvinism – a defence of the ‘nation’. To retain their privileged position they needed to maintain their alliance with the bourgeoisie. This opportunist leadership of the labour movement therefore supported, in one form or another, the colonial policy of their ‘nation’. Lenin pointed out the importance of this development in 1907, in an article on the Congress of the Second International held at Stuttgart that year.
‘The British bourgeoisie…derives more profit from the many millions of the population of India and other colonies than from the British workers. In certain countries this provides the material and economic basis for infecting the proletariat with colonial chauvinism. Of course, this may be only a temporary phenomenon, but the evil must nonetheless be clearly realised and its causes understood in order to be able to rally the proletariat of all countries for the struggle against such opportunism.’3
At Stuttgart a major difference emerged in the Second International on the question of colonial policy. While all parties to the dispute, of course, rejected the present methods of capitalist colonial policy, a resolution was placed before the Congress which departed significantly from previous positions. It stated in its opening paragraph that:
‘The Congress notes that the benefits and necessity of the colonies are grossly exaggerated, especially for the working class. However, the Congress does not, in principle and for all times, reject all colonial policy, which, under a socialist regime, may have a civilising effect.’4
The dispute centred around this part of the resolution and the Congress almost split on the issue. 128 rejected this part of the resolution and with it the possibility of any so-called ‘socialist’ colonial policy. 107 voted for it and there were 10 abstentions. The English delegation split, 14 votes being given in favour of ‘socialist’ colonial policy including that of Ramsay MacDonald (Independent Labour Party), who spoke in favour, and 6 were against including the Social Democratic Federation – an indication of the division in the British movement yet to come. All the Russian delegation voted against, a pointer to the revolutionary stand to be made by the Russian movement in the future.
At this Congress what was later to be called the Social-Democratic (evolutionary-socialist) trend in the international movement – a trend which encompassed the Fabians, the British Labour Party and most of the ILP – emerged as a significant force. Bernstein, a member of the German Social Democratic Party, expressed their opportunist stand with its clear racist overtones when he said:
‘There can be no question of defending the capitalist colonial policy. All of us are its opponents, the question is merely how we give expression to this opposition. …
‘We must not assume a purely negative standpoint…on the question of colonial policy, but instead must pursue a positive socialist colonial policy. (Bravo!) We must get away from the utopian idea that aims at simply leaving the colonies. The final consequence of that view would be to return the United States to the Red Indians. (disturbance in meeting) The colonies are there. We must put up with this fact. A certain guardianship of cultured peoples over non-cultured peoples is a necessity, which should also be recognised by socialists…
‘…A great part of our economic system is based on the exploitation of resources from the colonies which the natives would not know what to do with. For this reason, we must adopt the majority resolution (on socialist colonial policy).’5
While the Congress narrowly defeated Bernstein’s position there was a fundamental split in the international movement. This split was finally consolidated when the main parties of the Second International: supported the First Imperialist War. The revolutionary trend in the working class movement was to carry through its consistent opposition to all colonial policy and its support for the right of nations to self-determination, to an opposition to imperialist war. This trend eventually founded the Third (Communist) International in 1919.
Given this dispute and the later developments, we need to understand why the attitude of socialists to the national question is such a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the socialist revolution. And why the revolutionary struggle for socialism has to be linked up with a revolutionary programme on the national question.
SOCIALISTS AND THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Many socialists argue against all nationalism on the grounds that they are ‘internationalists’. But this is to turn internationalism into a lifeless and reactionary abstraction. This avoids confronting the reality of imperialism: the fact that the world has been divided into oppressor and oppressed nations and that national oppression has been extended and intensified. It also ignores the split in the working class movement. One section, the labour aristocracy, has been corrupted by the ‘crumbs that fall from the table’ of the imperialist bourgeoisie, obtained from the super-exploitation and brutal oppression of the people from oppressed nations. The other, the mass of the working class, cannot liberate itself without uniting with the movement of oppressed peoples against imperialist domination. Only such an alliance will make it possible to wage a united fight against the imperialist powers, the imperialist bourgeoisie, and their bought-off agents in the working class movement. This means the working class fighting in alliance with national liberation movements to destroy imperialism for the purpose of the socialist revolution.
The unity of all forces against imperialism can only be achieved on the basis of the internationalist principle ‘No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations’. This is expressed through the demand of the right of nations to self-determination. Far from being counterposed to the socialist revolution, it is precisely to promote it that communists are so insistent on this demand. This demand recognises that class solidarity of workers is strengthened by the substitution of voluntary ties between nations for compulsory, militaristic ones. The demand for complete equality between nations, by removing distrust between the workers of the oppressor and oppressed nations, lays the foundation for a united international struggle for the socialist revolution. That is, for the only regime under which complete national equality can be achieved.
‘To insist upon, to advocate, and to recognise this right (of self-determination) is to insist on the equality of nations, to refuse to recognise compulsory ties, to oppose all state privileges for any nation whatsoever, and to cultivate a spirit of complete class solidarity in the workers of the different nations.’6
Our ‘internationalists’, when confronted with these arguments, are forced to adopt yet another line of approach. Of course, they say, we support the right of nations to self determination, but as ‘socialists’ we are opposed to bourgeois and/ or petit bourgeois nationalism. Once again they avoid the reality of national oppression. They ignore the fact that, as Lenin pointed out, the actual conditions of the workers in the oppressed and in the oppressor nations are not .the same from the standpoint of national oppression. The struggle of the working class against national oppression has a twofold character:
‘(a) first, it is the “action” of the nationally oppressed proletariat and peasantry jointly with the nationally oppressed bourgeoisie against the oppressor nation; (b) second, it is the “action” of the proletariat, or of its class-conscious section, in the oppressor nation against the bourgeoisie of that nation and all the elements that follow it.’7
Let us examine these two points in turn. In general, all national movements are an alliance of different class forces which unite together for the purpose of achieving national freedom. The bourgeoisie in the oppressed nation supports the struggle for national freedom only in so far as it promotes its own class interests. For this class, national freedom means the freedom to exploit its own working class, to accumulate wealth for itself, to establish itself as a national capitalist class. If, at any point, the struggle for national freedom threatens the conditions of capitalist exploitation itself, the bourgeoisie will abandon the national struggle for an alliance with imperialism. The working class supports the struggle for national freedom as part of its struggle to abolish all privilege, all oppression and all exploitation- this being the precondition of its own emancipation. The working class policy in the national movement is to support the bourgeoisie only in a certain direction, but it never coincides with the bourgeoisie’s policy. For this reason, the working class only gives the bourgeoisie conditional support. Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, the working class strongly supports its struggle. As Lenin so clearly argued in 1914: ‘The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support.’8 Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, for privileges for itself, the working class opposes it. The important thing for the working class is to ensure the development of its class. The bourgeoisie is concerned to hamper this development by pushing forward its own class interests at the expense of the working class. The outcome of this clash of interests in the national struggle cannot be determined in advance. It depends on the concrete context in which the struggle for national freedom takes place.
The guiding light for the working-class movement is clear. The working class rejects all privileges for its ‘own’ national bourgeoisie, and its ‘own’ nation. It is opposed to compulsory ties between nations standing firmly for the equality of nations. In the oppressor nation, the working class can only express this position by insisting on the right of nations to self-determination. And it does this in the interest of international working class solidarity. A refusal to support the right of nations to self-determination must mean in practice support for the privileges of its own ruling class and its bought-off agents in the working class movement. Therefore, support for the right of nations to self-determination is the only basis for a united struggle against national oppression and imperialism, and for the socialist revolution. Whether the exercise of this right takes the form of complete separation or not hinges on the conduct of the working class and the socialist movement in the oppressor nation. The history of the Irish struggle for self-determination underlines this.
Marx and Engels had at first expected that the English working class, having overthrown capitalism in England, would then go on to free Ireland. After 1848, however, the English proletariat lost its revolutionary drive and fell under the influence of the Liberals while the national liberation movement in Ireland developed and assumed revolutionary forms. Marx and Engels, therefore, called upon the English working class ‘to make common cause with the Irish’ and support the dissolution of the forced Union of Ireland and England in the interest of their own emancipation. As Marx wrote in January 1870:
‘The transformation of the present forced Union (that is to say, the slavery of Ireland) into an equal and free Confederation, if possible, or into complete Separation, if necessary, is a preliminary condition of the emancipation of the English working class.’9
Whether the dissolution of the forced Union would take the form of complete separation or a free federal relationship would depend on the manner in which it was carried out. A ‘free confederation’ was a possibility if the emancipation of Ireland was achieved in a revolutionary manner and was fully supported by the English working class. Such a solution to the historical problem of Ireland, as Lenin pointed out, would have been in the best interest of 1he working class and ‘most conducive to rapid social progress’.10 Such close links between the proletariat in Ireland and England would have played a decisive role in a united international struggle for the socialist revolution in Europe. However, this was not to be. The failure of the British working class movement to support the Dublin workers in 1913 made it clear that the interests of the Irish working class could only be advanced through Ireland’s complete separation from Britain. The long held view of that great revolutionary socialist, James Connolly, was to be confirmed. As he argued in 1916 a few weeks before the Easter Rising:
‘…is it not well and fitting that we of the working class should fight for the freedom of the nation from foreign rule, as the first requisite for the free development of the national powers needed for our class? It is so fitting.’11
Socialists in Britain would soon be put to the test. The right of the Irish people to self-determination could only mean for socialists complete separation and, as Lenin argued, socialists could not, without ceasing to be socialists, reject such a struggle in whatever form, right down to an uprising or war. The years to the partition of Ireland were to show how the working-class movement in Britain failed to support the national struggle in Ireland. Imperialism and war not only split the working-class movement but also divided the national movement in Ireland into a revolutionary and a reactionary wing. The British working class movement did not support the revolutionary wing of the national movement in Ireland and in failing to do so betrayed both its own interests and those of the Irish working class.
In the period from the defeat of the Fenian rising in 1867 to the partition of Ireland and the Irish civil war, Ireland again took on a decisive importance for the British working class. For the ability of the working class to break from its own opportunist leadership and so move in a revolutionary direction was to be measured by its support for the Irish revolution.
