SOURCE: An introduction to The National Question: Selected Writings by Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Horace B. Davis, Monthly Review Press, 1976, pp. 9-45.

[Davis is an American author and professor of economics. In the following essay, he discusses how Luxemburg and Lenin differed on the issue of what qualified as nationalism, and how Luxemburg contrasted individual self-determination for the working-class with ethnic group identity.]

It is perhaps little known that despite Lenin's attacks on her, the philosophical position so ably expounded by Rosa Luxemburg in her articles of 1908-1909 was never refuted; that it was, on the contrary, adopted by a substantial section of the Bolshevik Party, which fought Lenin on the issue, using Rosa Luxemburg's arguments—and eventually, in 1919, defeated him, so that the slogan of the right of self-determination was removed from the platform of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Later, when the issue was no longer so acute, the slogan was revived and today represents part of the CPSU's stock in trade. But the basic arguments in its favor are precisely those which were successfully opposed by Rosa Luxemburg and her partisans. The Soviet leadership is working with a blunted tool.

Julius K. Nyerere, President of Tanzania and one of the more subtle theorists of the new nationalism in Africa, has suggested that overemphasis on the slogan of "self-determination" in the campaign for decolonization may make the eventual attainment of socialism more difficult. He says:

Everyone wants to be free, and the task of the nationalist is simply to rouse the people to a confidence in their own power of protest. But to build the real freedom which socialism represents is a very different thing. It demands a positive understanding and positive actions, not simply a rejection of colonialism and a willingness to cooperate in noncooperation.

It might come as a surprise to Nyerere to learn that just this difficulty with the slogan was pointed out by Rosa Luxemburg sixty years earlier. Surely Marxism has been remiss in neglecting the theory of nationalism for so long.

Western scholars who are aware of this situation have been hampered in their efforts to evaluate the "Great Debate" by the fact that only one side—Lenin's—has been available to them. Lenin, as is known, was an ardent polemicist, and he was not one to present fully an argument of his opponent's which he was unable to answer to his own satisfaction. Thus, some of Luxemburg's most telling points have been neglected or received secondhand, often from the very person engaged in "refuting" them.

We do not intend to imply that either of the antagonists "won" the debate. Certainly Rosa Luxemburg did not. Her estimates of the tendencies of the time were on the whole less accurate than Lenin's, which is one reason for the neglect her views have suffered. She underestimated the force of the nationalist drive (while perfectly appreciating the reasons for it), and her theory was thus unable to cope with the centrifugal tendencies in the modern multinational state. Like Lenin, she wrote for a European audience, so that her presentation lacks generality. But her statement of the case against the theory of national self-determination is as relevant today as when it was written in 1908. Indeed, it has never been surpassed in Marxist theory, if at all. The name of Marx is always likely to be drawn into a debate between Marxists, and the present case is no exception. Although Marx was not interested in the principle of self-determination as such, he was still prepared to employ the slogan on occasion.

In 1867 an "Instruction to Delegates" (to the General Council of the First International) included a passage on the "necessity to annihilate the Russian influence on Europe by the application of the right of peoples to dispose of themselves and to reconstruct a Poland on a democratic and social basis." This passage was adopted by the General Council and became part of the policy of the First International. Marx probably did not write it but was willing to accept it, although a pamphlet edited by him containing the resolutions of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) Congresses of 1866 and 1868 does not include the passage in question.

The differences between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin may be summarized under several headings as follows:

1. Lenin strongly emphasized the right of self-determination of nations. Rosa Luxemburg said that there was no such right, and putting forward this slogan when the terms were not defined carefully could mean not a contribution to solving the problem but a means of avoiding it.

   Luxemburg's point was sound then and it is sound today, but she overstated it. There is a moral right of self-determination, when the terms are defined; and she should have so indicated. Her opposition to national oppression shows that she recognized the principle.

2. Lenin emphasized the role of the bourgeoisie in building modern nations. Luxemburg said that there were circumstances when the role of the bourgeoisie in nation-building was minimal, and she was correct, not only with regard to Poland but in relation to precapitalist economic formations, colonies, and so on.
3. Luxemburg allowed a place for federation and autonomy. Lenin's position on federalism was ambiguous. He at first opposed it, then later adopted it for the Soviet Union, at least nominally. Luxemburg's thinking was more flexible on this point, and her criticism of Lenin is receiving renewed attention today. But autonomy may mean little in an undemocratic state.
4. Rosa Luxemburg and her followers interpreted self-determination as meaning the self-determination of the working class. Lenin correctly opposed this formulation, but his statement of the case against it failed to carry conviction and he was overridden by the 1919 CPSU Congress, as we shall see.
5. Rosa Luxemburg opposed nationalism as leading to fragmentation. Lenin stressed the advantages of large national units, but at the same time appreciated the strength of the tendency to fragmentation, to which he was not entirely unsympathetic. Lenin was correct, as anyone today would have to concede.

Our main concern is with the first point above, the question of whether there is a right to self-determination of nations. In discussing this and the other points, we shall attempt to show that nationality theory, which heretofore has been treated as lying outside Marxist theory or only distantly related to it, is in fact a central part of Marxist theory; indeed, without a correct nationality theory Marxism cannot solve the most pressing problems of the world today. Hence the importance of a restudy of the whole debate, and especially of Rosa Luxemburg's contributions to it, which have been neglected for so many years.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING

Rosa Luxemburg was born and went to school in what was then Russian Poland. She came of middle-class Jewish parents. She early showed an interest in the revolutionary movement and attracted so much attention from the authorities that she found it advisable to leave Russia. She went first to Switzerland and then to Germany, where she completed her studies while continuing active in the social-democratic movement. She studied Polish history, and was later able to correct Lenin in his exclusive emphasis on the bourgeoisie as the creator of nationalism; for in Poland the nationalist movement was led for many years by the landed nobility (schlachta). She always retained her interest in Poland; she worked among the Poles in East Prussia and was the German Social Democratic Party's expert on Poland. At the same time she participated—at a distance most of the time—in the social-democratic movement in Russia, where she usually sympathized with the Bolshevik position. Lenin, although he disagreed with her on a number of points, always had the highest opinion of her ability and sincerity.

The whole 1893-1914 period was characterized by a debate between two parties in Poland on the subject of national self-determination. The Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socialistyczma—PPS) favored the reconstitution of Poland, and its branch parties in each of the partition states (Germany, Austria, and Russia) campaigned among the workers, the peasants, and the middle class on this strictly nationalist basis, hardly mentioning socialism. The Social Democratic Party of Poland—later, after the inclusion of Lithuania in 1899, known as the SDKPiL—was founded by Rosa Luxemburg and others in 1893, and continued an earlier Marxist tradition in opposing self-determination for Poland.

First one and then the other of the parties seemed to have the ear of the workers. The International Socialist Congress at London (1896) heard both sides present their cases and decided, in effect, not to interfere. The SDKPiL seemed to have only a small following in 1903, but when the First Russian Revolution broke out in 1905 the workers in Russian Poland flocked into the SDKPiL and made common cause with the Russian workers. Barricades were erected and there was street fighting in several Polish cities. The PPS split: one faction gravitated toward the position of the SDKPiL and eventually (in December 1918) merged with it; a smaller group, led by Pilsudski, survived and eventually, after the war, took over the leadership in the newly reconstituted country of Poland.

Rosa Luxemburg's position on nationalism was that it was a movement in which the working class had only an indirect interest. She always maintained that the best and quickest way for workers to get rid of the bane of national domination was to bring about the international socialist revolution. In 1903, partisans of Rosa Luxemburg's point of view appeared at the Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) and urged that the Congress make no endorsement of self-determination. The RSDLP did come out for self-determination of nations, whereupon the Polish delegates left. Both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks favored self-determination.

The Poles again appeared at the 1906 Congress of the Russian Party, and this time did not press their opposition to self-determination, though they still held the same position as in 1903. They cooperated with Lenin at this Congress, thus indicating the extent of the similarity between their views and his. But the basic philosophical question remained unresolved.

Rosa Luxemburg set forth her position in detail in a series of articles, "The National Question and Autonomy," which were published in 1908-1909 in her Cracow magazine, Przeglad Sozialdemokratyczny. Other Marxists also contributed to the discussion, and Lenin commissioned Stalin to write a pamphlet on the subject of nationalism. This appeared early in 1913, and was devoted chiefly to a refutation of the views of Karl Renner and Otto Bauer on national-cultural autonomy.

However, no one had really answered Rosa Luxemburg, and Lenin himself undertook this task. "On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination," written at the beginning of 1914, was directed specifically against her.

THE "RIGHT" OF SELF-DETERMINATION

It is non-Marxist, said Rosa Luxemburg, to talk in terms of absolute rights, or indeed of rights at all, since the dialectic does not recognize the existence of rights in general; the "rights" and "wrongs" of a given situation must be arrived at by an analysis of the given historical circumstances.

Lenin as a Marxist had absolutely no answer to this contention, since he had often expounded this very point. He said both before and after 1908 that the interests of the proletarian revolution were paramount, and he was prepared to sacrifice the right of self-determination to the cause of the revolution at any time. He was also not in favor of self-determination in the abstract, for this might lead to unacceptable conclusions.

Luxemburg denied that there was any "right" to freedom from oppression. Such questions, she maintained, are questions of power and are settled as such. She said that telling the workers that they had the "right" to self-determination was like telling them that they had the right to eat off gold plates.

In a class society, to speak of self-determination for the "people" would ordinarily mean the self-determination of the ruling class; the workers would be left in a subordinate position as before. This was why in her discussions, with Poland very much in mind, she gravitated toward the position that self-determination was the self-determination of the working class. This, as we shall see, was a slogan that was used in the Russian Revolution.

Since Luxemburg was specifically opposed to the right of self-determination, it might be supposed that she would also have objected to any special consideration being shown to the minor nationalities as such. But that would not be correct at all. She had a strong feeling for the autonomy of Poland, the smaller nationality in which she was most interested. It is only necessary to read the sixth and last article of the 1908-1909 series in order fully to appreciate how hard she was prepared to work to come up with a plan which, while not based on any general principle of self-determination, still would guarantee the requisite degree of self-government and cultural autonomy to her people. Lenin complained that she limited her demands for autonomy to Poland alone, but that did not necessarily follow. In the dialectical method Lenin himself advocated, each case has to be considered on its merits, and it is necessary to start somewhere.

Luxemburg took occasion to state why she thought Lithuania and Georgia would not be suitable territories in which to apply the principle of autonomy. The reason was quite simply that they were too small—even Georgia with its 1.2 million people was not in her estimation a viable unit. Lenin, by contrast, mentioned a figure as small as 50,000, and indeed some of the nationalities in the Soviet Union are not much larger than that. Since Lenin was prepared to go in for mini-nations, he was also prepared to carve up the administrative units of the old Russian empire where these included more than one nationality.

But did Lenin not realize that a nation with only 50,000 people would not be capable of defending itself, or of developing an internal market large enough to bring the advantages of large-scale production? How could such microscopic nations survive at all? Luxemburg, following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels, emphasized the tendency to form larger and larger national units. Her solution to the problem of popular control was in the Marxist tradition: to have the proletariat of the advanced nations, making common cause with the minor nationalities, overthrow capitalism and bring freedom to the smaller nationalities and to the colonies from the center, under a socialist government. Pending such a solution, it was Luxemburg's view that the smaller nationalities would do better within the larger (imperialist) country. She even criticized Marx for having advocated the independence of Poland. She contended that such a move would have the effect of solidifying the control of the gentry (and, later, the bourgeoisie), and would be of little value to the peasants and workers, who should make common cause with the workers and peasants of the larger country in which they found themselves.

This was indeed a major difference between Lenin and Luxemburg, but it was a difference more of judgment on the practical application of the theory than of theory or method as such. Lenin's attempts to label Luxemburg's theory "abstract" and "metaphysical" come down largely to matters of definition. Lenin asked Luxemburg, rhetorically, why she did not define the nation in accordance with Kautsky's historical-economic analysis and take specific exception to Otto Bauer's psychological definition. Here Lenin was on dangerous ground. In the first place, Stalin, with Lenin's apparent blessing, had just published an article containing a definition of the nation which was based partly on Bauer's "psychological" one. And in the second place, Kautsky, writing incessantly on the nation, had come to define nationality in terms of language, a definition so defective that Lenin himself was presently obliged to attack it. Lenin saved himself the trouble of defining a nation, but that did not give him the license to impose definitions arbitrarily on others. (Incidentally, Kautsky, who had been criticized by Luxemburg for emphasizing the fissiparous tendencies of contemporary capitalism, after the First World War came to the belief that peace could be best assured by a cartel of the leading capitalist nations!)

In calling for the "right of self-determination of nations" Lenin was endorsing the idea that nations have rights. Luxemburg denied this absolutely; if she was prepared to talk about rights at all, it would be exclusively in terms of the rights of the working class.

Since Lenin was fully aware of the economic advantages of large states—he intended to make a single economic unit of the socialist society of the future, which would be not only as large as the empire of the Tsar but much larger—and since he looked on the "right of self-determination of nations" as a qualified right, subordinate to the aims of the socialist revolution, was he then not seeking to deceive the smaller nationalities about the nature of this "self-determination"? Luxemburg maintained, in effect, that he was, and she proceeded to argue that in a contest involving nationality, the ruling class held all the trump cards. At any given time—short of socialism—any "democratic" determination of the wishes of the "people," even of the proletariat, might be expected to show a majority for the bourgeoisie.

This was a fundamental criticism of Lenin's position. Since Lenin advocated self-determination only up to a point, those who wished for self-determination beyond that point—those who were not interested in social revolution (except to combat it)—would of course charge Lenin with hypocrisy; and this was done, both at the time and later. Luxemburg's position was not any more palatable to the conservatives, but she did escape from the charge of hypocrisy.

By way of defining his position on the separation of small nations from larger, Lenin wrote:

Never in favor of petty states, or the splitting up of states in general, or the principle of federation, Marx considered the separation of an oppressed nation to be a step towards federation, and consequently, not towards a split, but towards concentration, both political and economic, but concentration on the basis of democracy.

The differences between Luxemburg and Lenin were partly due to a difference in the set of "facts" with which they were operating. This difference emerges most clearly in the discussion of Norway's secession from Sweden in 1905. It is indeed difficult to believe, after reading the two accounts, that the authors are referring to the same incident. Luxemburg's proposition that Sweden was prepared to let Norway go was one that Lenin could not refute. Lenin is less than forthright when he asks Luxemburg: Does the recognition of the equality of nations include the recognition of the right of secession? In the first place, there was no agreed definition of a nation, as already noted. But in the second place, the "right" of secession was a term Luxemburg would have immediately rejected, for the same reason that she rejected the "right" of self-determination.

Lenin did not really anticipate that the "right" of secession would be exercised, but he was prepared to have a small nation secede from Russia (the Soviet Union) because he fully expected that the economic advantages of belonging to a larger economic unit, plus, for the workers, the advantage of belonging to a workers' state, would bring any such seceding nation back again.

Luxemburg was opposed on principle to the creation of new, small, and as she saw it, nonviable states, even when it could be shown that all classes, including the workers, were in favor. Lenin saw as clearly as she the economic forces that were driving toward creation of larger and larger states. But he saw what she did not see (or chose to overlook), that the contrary forces, making for smaller states, were powerful too and in the short run perhaps determining. Further—and this was the crucial point—Lenin opposed overruling the nationalists even when he did not agree with them. They should be brought to see the error of their ways, while at the same time being allowed full cultural freedom for their respective nationalities.

Luxemburg was confronted with a particular situation in Poland (which was not necessarily typical, as Lenin pointed out). The Poles in Austria already enjoyed de facto autonomy and considerable democratic rights, and the Polish workers there had little to gain and possibly much to lose from being put into a reconstituted Poland dominated by bourgeoisie and landowners. Much the same could be said of the Poles in East Prussia with whom Rosa Luxemburg worked, and in Russia it was plain that the days of tsarist absolutism were numbered, so that the Poles in "Kingdom Poland" could reasonably hope for autonomy and/or democracy within the foreseeable future.

It was the analysis of the concrete situation that divided Luxemburg and Lenin, not the method of analysis or the starting point, both of which were nearly identical. Lenin, as a Russian internationalist, was fighting against Great Russian chauvinism. Luxemburg, as a Polish (German) internationalist, was fighting against Polish social patriotism (chauvinism). Paradoxically, they arrived at exactly contrary positions on self-determination. But Lowy finds that Lenin's position was superior in that it applied elsewhere too; it recognized the constructive aspects of nationalist movements in a way that Luxemburg's did not.

Is "freedom from national oppression" (a freedom which Luxemburg favored) the same as "self-determination of nations"? Her strong and continuing objections to the latter phrase make it seem as if she thought there was a difference. But if so, what? Or was she merely opposed to the idea that self-determination was a right?

Phrases like "national liberation" and "freedom from national oppression" are, to be sure, vague and general, but less so than "national self-determination." In either case, we have to define what the nation is supposed to include—that is, its territorial boundaries. There is also the question of who is to do the determining, or, alternatively, just what the nation is supposed to be liberated from. But the phrase self-determination is hopelessly vague on the question whether what is meant is independence or some status short of independence. The anticolonial movements of recent years have been in favor of independence, and when they called themselves "national liberation" movements no one has doubted what was meant.

FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION AS A MORAL RIGHT

Perhaps Social Democrats do not have the duty to protest against national oppression. Rosa Luxemburg said that on the contrary, Social Democrats have the duty to raise such a protest, not because it is national oppression but simply because it is oppression. Luxemburg insisted that to be a socialist one had to protest against all kinds of oppression, and to this point Lenin had no real answer either.

When Luxemburg spoke of the duty of Marxists to protest against oppression, was she reintroducing, by the back door, the concept of morality and ethics which she had just thrown out the front door? Some have been misled by Marx's repeated attacks on "bourgeois" morality into thinking that Marxism recognizes no morality at all, that it is a philosophy of power pure and simple, one in which the "workers are always right." But the larger morality, for which Marx was contending, does not dispense with rights and duties; it redefines them, gives them a new content. So it is not a contradiction to speak in terms of socialist morality, and that is the concept that Luxemburg had in mind.

Did Lenin believe in the idea of (socialist) morality? Definitely. To the Young Communist League, in October 1920, he said: "Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course there is." Lenin continued, arguing that "our morality is subordinated to the class struggle of the proletariat.… Communist morality is the morality… which unites the working people against all exploitation."

Let us pause a moment at the phrase "all exploitation." Against exploitation of women? Clearly. Against national oppression? Obviously. Lenin showed by his actions all through his life that he was prepared to fight against exploitation wherever it was found. What is the difference between him and Luxemburg? None at all on this point, unless it might be in the manner of phrasing and the priority given to economic (class) exploitation in Lenin's writings. Lenin thought that the class question was of overshadowing importance. But he was broad-minded enough to admit that under certain circumstances the national question might assume prior emphasis. Thus, the national question takes its proper place in the hierarchy of social values, and a rounded socialist ethic becomes possible.

We find then that for Marxists to use phrases like the "right of self-determination" invites misunderstanding. Luxemburg's "freedom from national oppression" is superior on all counts.

In her basic theoretical articles, Luxemburg especially stressed the economic aspects of nationalism and understated the importance of the political aspects. Her theory of nationalism thus lacks generality, and Lenin was right in criticizing her on this ground; further, the political aspects are of the greatest importance in the wars for national liberation which have dominated the scene since World War II. She also underestimated the importance, for the revolutionary struggle, of the allies of the proletariat, including both the minor nationalities and the peasants. However, we cannot accept a point that is sometimes made, namely that she overlooked the effect of national oppression on the working class. We interpret her eloquent denunciation of national oppression as such, and her insistence that resistance to such oppression has more emotional content than mere economic exploitation could evoke, as indicating a realization on her part that national movements affect the working classes profoundly. We cite here in proof a passage from a work heretofore not translated from the Polish, a preface to a compendium on the national question which she edited in 1905:

To the credit of mankind, history has universally established that even the most inhumane material oppression is not able to provoke such wrathful, fanatical rebellion and rage as the suppression of intellectual life in general, or as religious or national oppression.

The debate on self-determination continued up to and during World War I. When Luxemburg was in and out of prison in Germany, her point of view was argued in Bolshevik circles by Piatakov ("Kievsky") and Bukharin.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

In the Junius pamphlet, written anonymously from her prison cell in 1916, Rosa Luxemburg again discussed the question of self-determination. The phrasing is more moderate, but the point of view has not changed. "Socialism," she then said, "recognizes for every people the right of independence and the freedom of independent control of its own destinies." But at the same time she argued that self-determination was impossible to attain under capitalism, and added: "Today the nation is but a cloak that covers imperialistic desires, a battle cry for imperialistic rivalries." National wars, said Junius, are no longer possible. Lenin pointed out in the friendliest spirit (he did not at first know who had written the pamphlet) that, on the contrary, national wars of liberation were quite possible in the imperialist epoch and indeed were the order of the day. He also did not altogether accept Luxemburg's contention that self-determination was impossible under capitalism.

Poles holding Luxemburg's point of view submitted theses on the national question to the Zimmerwald Conference; these were published in 1916. They opposed the independence of Poland. Lenin drafted theses in opposition, and wrote a special article to answer the Polish theses ("The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up").

In this "answer," Lenin conceded Luxemburg's main point, namely that Poland would not be a viable state under existing conditions. He therefore advised the Polish Social Democrats not to press for Polish independence. At the same time, he tried to stick to his former advice to the Social Democrats of Germany, Austria, and Russia that they should recognize the right of Poland to secede. The result was a hybrid policy which cleared up nothing. According to Lenin:

People who have not thought out the question find it "contradictory" that Social Democrats of oppressing nations should insist on "freedom to secede" and Social Democrats of oppressed nations on "freedom to unite." But a little reflection shows that there is not and cannot be any other road to internationalization and to the fusion of nations, any other road from the present position to that goal.

Professor Carr calls this a "somewhat nebulous" foundation for Bolshevik nationality policy, a restrained judgment indeed. Lenin's position had become very difficult to grasp.

However, Lenin's platform on the national question had other planks, and it was for these quite as much as for the rather meaningless demand for "self-determination" that Lenin was fighting in his battles on the nationality question. The principles which he succeeded in impressing on his followers were primarily two: (1) equality of nations; and (2) the right of nationalities to a cultural existence of their own. There were also other aspects. It was Lenin who led the fight for the legal protection of national minorities against discrimination, for the right to schools and court proceedings in the vernacular, for writing down languages that had never been written down before, and for directing new investment precisely into backward areas with the avowed aim of bringing their standards up to those of the most advanced areas.

Lenin did not invent these principles, which were in general circulation at the time. They had been developed in struggle, on the initiative of the minority peoples themselves. It was to Lenin's lasting credit that he perceived that a general principle was involved, the right—which Marxists could not deny—for the working class to be free of national as well as class oppression. Lenin believed in this principle and acted on it; Luxemburg made it the cornerstone of her position.

Lenin's "Theses on the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (March 1916) emphasized the "politically conditional nature and the class content of all demands of political democracy, including this demand." He specifically denied that the right of self-determination was in a separate category from the other democratic demands. He also emphasized a point that was to be of increasing importance: "The necessity of drawing a distinction between the concrete tasks of the Social Democrats [then including the Communists] in the oppressing nations and those in the oppressed nations." These qualifications differentiated his theory of self-determination from certain unqualified statements then current in liberal political theory.

SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Seventh Conference of the Bolshevik Party was held in April 1917. A major discussion on the national question resulted in the adoption of the Lenin-Stalin proposals. The Conference called for "broad regional autonomy" but not national cultural autonomy, for protection of national minorities, and for annulling all privileges enjoyed by any nationality whatever.

The year 1918 found the Bolshevik Revolution victorious but beset on all sides. The attitude that the border nationalities would take became of crucial importance to its survival. Luxemburg was at this time in prison in Germany. She was full of misgivings. In a pamphlet written in 1918 and published after her death the next year ("The Russian Revolution"), she found that the slogan of national self-determination was a liability, indeed the source of the revolution's severest headaches. It was of course true that the border republics had become separated from the central government in the early stages of the October Revolution, and that they were brought back only with some difficulty. But was their separation due to the slogan of self-determination? Rosa Luxemburg was in no position to prove that it was; she merely stated that she believed this to be the fact.

To illustrate the difficulty of applying the principle of self-determination, she noted that the bourgeoisie in the border republics (meaning, no doubt, the Mensheviks in Georgia) had preferred the violent rule of Germany to making common cause with the Bolsheviks. But was this government really representative of the people, the workers? She emphasized that there was no machinery available to test the sentiment of the masses of the population, where this was different from that of their (unrepresentative) government.

This rather legalistic approach was inconsistent with two points in Luxemburg's other writings. In the first place, as a revolutionary socialist she never thought that the revolution could be made peacefully; the sentiment of the workers would be expressed on the barricades and not in the ballot box. The question of self-determination would be settled as a matter of force, not of right. In the second place, she fully endorsed Lenin's effort to bring back into the new socialist state as many as possible of the peoples who had been subject to the rule of the tsar of Russia.

With this parting shot, the debate between Luxemburg and Lenin may be said to have concluded. But the issues she had raised were debated for some time after 1918.

A group around Bukharin and Piatakov had campaigned against the idea of self-determination during the war. In November 1915 they spelled out their position in a set of "Theses on Self-Determination and a Fifteen-Point Program" which they submitted to the Central Committee of the Party. They argued as follows:

In the epoch of imperialism, the tendency is for large capitalist states to become larger. This tendency is in the nature of the case and cannot be fought piecemeal; the only solution is to abolish capitalism. The Bolsheviks should not advise the proletariat to spend its forces campaigning for national "self-determination" within the capitalist orbit; this would be utopian, and would create illusions. It is no different from calling for "arbitration" or "disarmament" as a means of combating militarism. The task of the workers is to mobilize the proletariat of both the oppressing nation and the oppressed, under the slogan of a civil, class war for socialism. In colonial countries we can support the uprising of the popular masses as an event which weakens the imperialist countries; in such areas we can work with the national bourgeoisie. The question has to be reached not by stressing abstract rights, which have no meaning in this connection, but by an analysis of the situation of the given nation at a particular time.

In 1919, at the Eighth Party Congress of the Bolsheviks, Bukharin took the point of view that the interests of the international revolution were paramount, and in this matter he was strongly seconded by Piatakov, then in actual charge of the Ukraine, who urged centralized control of all proletarian movements by the newly established Communist International. Piatakov condemned the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination as reactionary. The slogan of the hour was self-determination for the working class of each nationality, but this did not satisfy Piatakov, who said that Soviet Russia must keep control of the Ukraine, even against the wishes of the Ukrainian proletariat. He thus pushed Luxemburg's point of view to its logical conclusion (Lenin called Piatakov a Great Russian chauvinist).

The slogan of "self-determination for the working class" seems at first blush to incorporate the bourgeois ideal of self-determination for a nation into the revolutionary theory of the Bolsheviks, which is based on the working class. Lenin had used the slogan himself in 1903. The Armenian Social Democrats had taken a position in favor of self-determination for Armenia. Lenin wrote then: "We on our part concern ourselves with the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than with the self-determination of peoples or nations." He was to repeat the same idea in "The National Question in Our Program" (July 1903). He objected to the emphasis on the right of self-determination because it obscured the class point of view.

By 1919 Lenin had come to realize that "self-determination of the working class" was an unacceptable formulation. A close analysis will show that the slogan is not realistic. The working class that won independence for a national unit and set up a state would thereby have constituted a nation, actual or potential. If that state was free of class oppression, there would still remain the question of abolishing or guarding against other kinds of oppression. A social class may control a state, or (in Marxist theory at least) it may constitute a state, but it cannot exist independent of and outside of a state. The classless state, which has existed so far only as a theoretical concept, does not by its existence solve all problems of nationality. The Bolsheviks conducted a victorious revolution under the slogans of internationalism and the ending of class domination; but if they had not been guided, to the extent they were, by Lenin's principles of the freedom of nationalities, the "classless" state would hardly have survived. And Russian nationalism was not held in abeyance for long. "Self-determination for the working class," taken in context, meant "all power to the working class," to the Bolsheviks, and down with the bourgeois nationalists, the bourgeoisie. The utilization of a slogan from the field of nationalism in what was essentially a class struggle may have been legitimate as a revolutionary tactic, but it made no sense as a logical proposition; it was no contribution to the argument on self-determination.

The Congress actually did remove the phrase "self-determination" from the Bolshevik program. However, it left in the right of secession, so that Stalin was later able to describe the change as having made no difference.

Those who took Lenin's theory of self-determination seriously and attempted to apply it to concrete situations were faced with insuperable difficulties. In the Ukraine, for example, people were unable to find out just how self-determination was supposed to be applied. This problem was discussed at the time (1919) by two writers who professed to be loyal Communists but who were also interested in the freedom of the Ukraine. They said: Show us how self-determination should be applied, and we will. "openly and publicly renounce the independence of the Ukraine and become the sincerest supporters of unification." We do not have any means of checking up on these authors, but the point is that the dilemma they cite could have occurred. So Lenin laid himself open to an attack that was not long in coming. His "self-determination" was later called a "tactical propaganda trick to deceive [the non-Russians] and to bring about the 'speedy extinction of their national feelings.' "

The situation in the Ukraine was not as bad for the Bolsheviks as Piatakov made it sound. The masses of the workers and peasants were, by and large, for the Bolsheviks, even if there was no possibility of testing the point by a plebiscite. The witness whose testimony has usually been accepted on this point is V. Vinnichenko, who headed the (bourgeois) Central Rada General Secretariat and the Directorate, and who was among those forced out of power when the Rada collapsed. He freely admitted that by the time of the Brest negotiations the Rada, whose representatives were admitted to the conference, had ceased to command the support of the people. By that time, he said, the "vast majority of the Ukrainian population was against us." And again: "If our own peasants and working class had not risen, the Russian Soviet government would have been unable to do anything against us.… We were driven out of the Ukraine not by the Russian government but by our own people."

LENIN'S TWO-PRONGED POLICY

The "official" Bolshevik version of this phase of Russian history is that Lenin's policy of self-determination for the border republics was a major reason for the success of the revolution. This contention calls for some discussion.

Lenin's policy toward the border peoples was two--pronged. On the one hand, the central Bolshevik government went to great lengths to recognize the desire of these peoples for freedom if they desired it. One of the first acts of the new government was to grant independence to Finland, and this was confirmed in an elaborate ceremony in which Stalin represented the Bolshevik government. The Baltic republics were also recognized.

The Georgian Mensheviks called themselves Georgian nationalists. They had never demanded secession from the tsar's empire, and did not seek to secede from the Kerensky government. When the Bolsheviks seized power, the Menshevik leaders proclaimed the independence of Georgia and organized a federation of Transcaucasian governments. Within a mouth, the Georgian authorities had invited the Germans to come in, and 3,000 German troops landed.

With the defeat of the Germans in 1918, the Transcaucasian federation broke down. The British replaced the Germans in Georgia, at the invitation of the Menshevik government. In Azerbaijan, however, a Soviet republic was set up. On May 7, 1920, the Bolshevik government signed a treaty with the Georgian Menshevik government. According to this treaty, Georgia was required to break all contacts with the Russian counter-revolution, to have all foreign military forces withdrawn from Georgia, to grant legality to Bolshevik organizations, and to recognize the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.

Nationalist Armenia was given a kind of de facto recognition. Turkey was fighting the Greeks in Asia Minor, and the Bolsheviks wished to assist the Turks: "The Armenian delegates in Moscow in May 1920 were offered assistance if Armenia allowed transport of Russian troops over the Kars Railway to go to the rescue of the Turks." The American government rejected the Russian offer.

Later Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were all brought into the USSR on a basis of formal equality with the RSFSR.

The Far Eastern Republic, which had been set up in eastern Siberia, faded out after the Bolsheviks established military control over the area. As a French newspaper headline put it at the time, the Far Eastern Republic "committed suicide for the beautiful eyes of Moscow."

The other prong of Lenin's policy toward the border peoples was to mobilize in each territory the friends of the revolution, to have them set up a revolutionary government, and to insure the accession of this government to power, with the aid of Red Army troops if necessary (as it was). This policy is defended as not inconsistent with self-determination, since any other policy would have endangered the revolution without benefiting the masses.

Eventually most of the former tsarist colonies were reincorporated into the USSR. But where the Western powers had established their military occupation, as in Finland and the Baltic republics, or where the Red Army was defeated, as in Poland, it was the self-determination of the bourgeoisie that won out.

The case of Finland is instructive in this connection. The newly recognized government of Finland asked to have the Red Army units then stationed in Finland withdrawn. Lenin did not do this. The intention had been to stage an uprising of the Finnish Communists, who would be aided by the Red Army in setting up a new government sympathetic to reunion with the Russians. But an expeditionary force of Germans under von der Goltz arrived in Finland in time to upset this plan.

In Poland it was the Luxemburgists, known as the "internationalists," who would have set up a government if the Red Army had won the war with the Polish army. The failure of the Polish workers and peasants to support the Russians was of course a major disappointment to Lenin. With regard to the peasants, the nationality question furnished part of the explanation. In the Ukraine the peasants supported the Bolsheviks, but in Poland they did not. Carr points out that the landlords in the western Ukraine were mostly of Polish extraction, so that there was an element of national antagonism between them and the Ukrainian peasants: "The national problem became acute when it acquired a social and economic content." But in Poland, both peasants and landlords were by and large Poles. Also, the Polish Communist Party's land policy did not have sufficient appeal to attract many peasants.

The issue was settled finally, in the way that Rosa Luxemburg had predicted, by force of arms, although the outcome was as unpalatable to her as to Lenin. The idea that the theory of self-determination was responsible for the breakup of the Russian empire was just as badly overdrawn as the opposite proposition, that the adherence of the border republics to the Bolsheviks was due to the same theory. Concrete evidence is lacking that the theory of self-determination had much to do with the outcome one way or the other.

The other points in Lenin's nationality program—equality of nations, freedom for national cultures to develop—were of very great importance. These were not issues between Lenin and Luxemburg. But they almost became an issue between Lenin and Stalin.

With the victory of the Russian Revolution, Lenin perceived that national oppression had not been abolished "as it were automatically," and he rose passionately to the defense of the minority peoples. In the summer of 1922, when his health was failing, Lenin learned of a proposal made by Stalin to limit the rights of the several republics in a plan that went by the name of "autonomization." Stalin's "autonomization" project would have had the national republics accede to the Soviet Union on a basis that would have led to a considerable paring of their rights. Lenin insisted that all of the nationalities should be equal: "We consider ourselves, the Ukrainian SSR and others, equal, and enter with them, on an equal basis, into a new union, a new federation." The debate between Lenin and Stalin ended, as such debates always did, with the victory of Lenin, whose ideas were made the basis of the draft that was adopted.

LATER HISTORY OF SELF-DETERMINATION

What has been the practice of Lenin's disciples, inside and outside the Soviet Union, with regard to the according of self-determination?

The Soviet Union will not countenance secessionist movements in its constituent republics. A recent article states specifically: "While giving every encouragement to the development of all genuinely national values, the Communist Party does not tolerate manifestations of nationalism and chauvinism, or anything that fosters national discord and isolation." Plain enough, it would seem.

But perhaps some other socialist nation, confronted with the same problem, takes a more lenient line? It seemed for a while that Yugoslavia, with its excellent record on the national question, might fail to crack down on secession movements even as developed as that in Croatia in 1972. But the central party and the central government, with Tito acting as spokesman, did eventually clamp down on secessionist talk. The Croatian party officials who had sponsored secession were asked to resign, and while they were not purged like the Ukrainian nationalists in the 1930s, it was made quite clear that nationalism would not be tolerated if it meant splitting the Yugoslav state. The socialist governments have continued to give lip-service to the general principle of self-determination of nations while deciding each question in practice in a way that accorded with their own national interests. This generalization is just as true of China and Cuba as of the older socialist nations. It was of course not to be expected that China would accede to the demand for self-determination for Tibet, but its opposition to self-determination for Bangladesh (East Bengal) is more difficult to explain. Fidel Castro's defense of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was hardly a principled stand.

A Communist Party which is not in the government may be swept up in a nationalist psychology to the point where it forgets about self-determination. Thus it is hard to understand the position of the Communist Party of India on the Kashmiris, the Mizos, the Nagas, and other minor nationalities. On the other hand, the position of the party in the 1940s favoring the independence of Pakistan has been attacked as "totally opportunist." The Communists of India have been slow in working out a consistent revolutionary strategy. Lenin does not offer specific guidance in cases like this; each one has to be considered on its merits.

The proposition advanced by Lowy and others, that denial of the right to form an independent state constitutes national oppression, is now generally accepted as far as colonies are concerned, but there are still arguments about what constitutes a colony. When the Algerians became insistent in their demand for independence, the stock answer of the French establishment was that Algeria was a constituent part of the French nation. The response failed to carry conviction, but that did not prevent the prerevolutionary government in Portugal from using it with regard to Portugal's African colonies. Spokesmen for the U.S. government deny that Puerto Rico is a colony.

Article 17 of the Soviet Union's constitution specifies that the national republics have the right of self-determination (secession), but that of the People's Republic of China does not. This provision has been in the Yugoslav constitution at times. But no state, capitalist or socialist, has spelled out in its basic law the modalities for bringing about such separation; nor can any be expected to do so. As Abraham Lincoln remarked, no state makes provision for its own dissolution.

The degree of freedom allowed to national dissidents in campaigning for independence has varied greatly among countries, and within particular countries at different periods. It may still be possible, even under capitalism, and presumably therefore under socialism, for an amicable separation arrangement to be worked out—Lenin never ceased to refer to the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905. It may also be true that in the "last stage" of communism national rivalries will disappear, as contemplated by Marx and Lenin. But for the moment, socialist states are just as conscious of their national interests as capitalist states, and not any more likely to permit separatist propaganda—perhaps even less so. So, the multinational socialist states that include disaffected national groups are oppressing them, in Lowy's view. This was also the point of view of a substantial section of the Croatian Communist Party in 1971, as we noted above.

Before accepting this proposition, we need answers to certain questions. We need to know whether the demand for separation genuinely represents the sentiment of the proletarians, and is not the idea of some clique. We need information on whether the grievances complained of are demonstrably traceable to nationality discrimination, or whether they arise from other causes, or from the conjuncture as a whole. (This was the weak spot in the Croatians' argument.) Lenin always insisted on an analysis of the whole situation, "and then, perhaps, we shall not regard the rebellion of the Southern States of America in 1863 [sic] as a 'national rebellion.' "

If we ask who is to make such an assessment, the answer of course is that the separationists and the central governments make their respective assessments, and there is no impartial arbiter to reconcile the conflicting claims. But Marxists have a duty to make their own judgments on such matters, and the "opinion of mankind" is not always devoid of influence, as we have noted above.

The traditional Marxist remedy for national grievances is more democracy in the country in question. This was the remedy offered by the French revolutionaries to the dissident national minorities in 1789, a solution retrospectively approved by Engels. The same solution was advanced before World War I by Lenin, and very strongly by Stalin in his 1913 essay. The bloodbath that accompanied the formation of Pakistan in 1947 was blamed, with some justice, on the traditional suppression of free speech by the British in colonial India. The Soviet Union cannot claim to be following a Leninist nationality policy when it suppresses nationalist agitation in the national republics as consistently and ferociously as has been customary.

But it is also true that in a condition of economic crisis, such as that which gripped Yugoslavia in 1971, the inflammation of national hatreds might cause a repetition of the bloodbaths of the period of World War I, when Croats slaughtered Serbs and vice-versa. For the central government to continue to follow a hands-off policy in such a situation would have been to risk disaster. National hatreds, like race hatreds, are sometimes more easily aroused than curbed.

Rosa Luxemburg's solution to the Polish problem was for "Kingdom Poland" to be reorganized as an autonomous province within a democratized Russia. Recent history has shown the limitations to this type of solution.

Eritrea is located between Ethiopia and the Red Sea, and has a certain strategic importance because it controls the entrance to the sea. It came under Italian colonial rule in 1890; in World War II it passed into the hands of the British. After the war it was proposed that Eritrea be annexed by Ethiopia, but an independence movement objected to this. In 1952 the United Nations sponsored an arrangement whereby Eritrea was to be a federative state under the Ethiopian crown, with full local autonomy, for a ten--year period, after which it was to exercise its right of self-determination. From the time the Ethiopian army marched in, Eritrean autonomy was a mirage. In 1962 Eritrea was formally annexed by Ethiopia. The Eritrean national liberation movement began guerrilla warfare, which was still continuing when the rule of Haile Selassie was ended in 1974.

Or take the case of the Kurds, who campaigned all through the 1960s for freedom from the arbitrary rule of Iraq. The more extreme Kurdish nationalists favored an independent Kurdistan, to include parts of neighboring Iran and Turkey. The fighting ended in a stalemate, and in 1970 the Kurds were granted autonomy within Iraq and laid down their arms. The Communist Party of Iraq favored this arrangement, provided that all of Iraq was democratized. Five years later, as part of a general settlement of differences between Iraq and Iran, the latter agreed to withdraw support from the Kurds in Iraq. The Iraqi army promptly marched into "autonomous" Kurdistan, and the Kurd national leader Mustapha al-Barzani took refuge abroad.

No movement for national liberation should campaign for autonomy within the larger unit. Autonomy is like religious toleration; it can be terminated at any time, as the French Protestants learned when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

It is not enough to dump this whole issue in the lap of the United Nations, for this body is not constituted to deal with the problem. At most it can pass a resolution, and it does not do even that with any consistency. The United Nations is not set up to enforce any standard of behavior on the large states, which are the worst offenders against the principle of self-determination. But even if it had the power, it would not know how to proceed. The principles that would be applicable have not been developed. The General Assembly's "Declaration on Strengthening Internal Security," adopted in 1970 on Soviet initiative, envisages an end to repression and to the use of force against nations fighting for liberation from colonial rule, and urges aid for their legitimate struggle. Much more important than this, however, was the furnishing of arms to Guinea-Bissau during its struggle with the Portuguese, and to the other Portuguese colonies since. (The Soviet Union, to its credit, did furnish arms to the liberation movements in Guinea-Bissau and Angola.)

"RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION"RECEIVES ONLY LIP-SERVICE

Soviet international lawyers have never accepted the idea that national self-determination is a principle that is valid regardless of the interests of the socialist revolution—nor, we should say, the interests of the Soviet Union. Since other nations cannot be expected to accept the principle of self-determination in cases where it contravenes principles—or interests—that they consider important, the operation of the general principle of self-determination would appear to be limited to cases not considered vital by any party, and this is indeed what we observe.

Amilcar Cabral, the late leader of the national liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau, raised the question of whether the slogan of self-determination was not after all one invented by the imperialists as a means of covering their retreat. He pointed out that it was precisely the imperialist powers that had introduced national liberation as an objective:

I would even go so far as to ask whether, given the advance of socialism in the world, the national liberation movement is not an imperialist initiative. Is the judicial institution which serves as a reference for the right of all peoples who are trying to liberate themselves a product of the peoples who are trying to liberate themselves? Was it created by the socialist countries who are our historical associates? It is signed by the imperialist countries, it is the imperialist countries who have recognized the right of all peoples to national independence, so I ask myself whether we may not be considering as an initiative of our people what is in fact an initiative of the enemy? Even Portugal, which is using napalm bombs against our people in Guine, signed the declaration of the right of all peoples to independence.… The objective of the imperialist countries was to prevent the enlargement of the socialist camp, to liberate the reactionary forces in our countries which were being stifled by colonialism and to enable these forces to ally themselves with the international bourgeoisie. The fundamental objective was to create a bourgeoisie where one did not exist, in order specifically to strengthen the imperialist and the capitalist camp.

A good example of the way the shibboleth of "self-determination" is used to gloss over differences without really settling anything is furnished by the recent experience of Portugal. When the Armed Forces Movement took power in 1974, the question of the future of the colonies was of key importance, but full agreement had not been reached within the government itself on the form that their liberation should take. If we are to believe an American who was on the spot, the first statements said that the colonies would have self-determination, this being intended as a kind of compromise. Later, the pro-independence element gained the upper hand and "self-determination" was forgotten.

It is still true, as it was before World War I, that a consistent Marxist puts the interests of the international socialist revolution ahead of the interests of any one country. So any head of state, be it socialist or neutral, any spokesperson for a state, socialist or other, cannot be a consistent Marxist. He or she is obligated in the nature of the case to consider the interests of his or her country ahead of any other interests. This is just as true now as it was when Molotov signed the pact with von Ribbentrop in 1939.

Yet the truth of this proposition is challenged on every side. Is it not true (people say) that the interests of the international socialist revolution are best served by having strong socialist states, to help the weaker ones toward socialism? Would the long-run interests of socialism be served if China (or, the Soviet Union, or Vietnam) were to become a prey to capitalist imperialism?

A moment's thought will dispel any illusions on this head. All the successful socialist revolutions from 1917 to 1960 were made not only without the active assistance of the Soviet Union, but actually against its advice. Powerful socialist states may lead weaker ones toward socialism or away from it.

Those who look to the socialist chiefs of state for guidance on particular problems as they come up may find themselves failing to condemn Yahya Khan in his attempt to liquidate the intelligentsia of East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Or they may justify the invasion of a peaceful smaller state. The truth is that neither Mao, nor Tito, nor Castro, nor any spokesperson for any of the socialist countries, can afford to take positions that conflict with the national diplomatic policies.

Marxism is not a philosophy of power, of the strong and mighty; it is a philosophy of the poor, the downtrodden, the proletarians and the outcasts. Marxism is a philosophy of equality, of communism. And this philosophy can be advocated by anyone, at any time; only not when his or her point of view is warped and predetermined by considerations of national power.

The device of the plebiscite, in which high hopes were once placed, is still occasionally used, as in setting the boundaries of the Cameroons in 1961. One assumes that the areas in question in that case were not well enough endowed with natural resources to be of special concern to any major economic interest. There cannot have been much oil in the Cameroons. The use of the plebiscite requires the cooperation of both disputing parties, together with their willingness to accept the results; and where such agreement cannot be secured, as in Kashmir, no plebiscite can be held.

The ascendance of the doctrine of the right of self-determination at the time of World War I, and especially its implementation with regard to certain East European states (succession states), is seen by the historian Cobban as a happy accident—happy, that is, for the Polish, Czech, and other nationalists. The moral doctrine happened to coincide to a degree with the perceived interest of the Great Powers who made the Versailles treaty. The moral doctrine is even more widespread now than it was then, but the adoption of machinery to implement it has lagged.

As used today, the "right of self-determination" means that the political unit concerned—and we have to assume that it has been defined—may choose any status within its purview as far as the people according that right are concerned. Thus when the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) signs a treaty with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), in which each accords the other the "right of self-determination," that means that each recognizes the existence of the other and is prepared to do business with it. When North Vietnam, the DRV, recognized that South Vietnam had the right of self-determination, it was saying that South Vietnam was independent as far as it, North Vietnam, was concerned. Of course, later events caused this declaration to be reconsidered.

Rosa Luxemburg was after all correct in one of her main points about self-determination. When the term is not defined with exactitude, adoption of the slogan may not be a solution of the problem but a means of avoiding it. The world is still waiting for Marxists to live up to the implications of this discovery.