V. I.

Lenin

Inour draft Party programme we have advanced the demand for a republic
with a democratic constitution that would guarantee, among other things,
“recognition of the right to self-determination for all nations
forming part of the state.” Many did not find this demand in our programme
sufficiently clear, and in issue No. 33, in speaking about the Manifesto
of the Armenian Social-Democrats, we explained the meaning of this point
in the following way. The Social-Democrats will always combat every
attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence
or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle
for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to
supporting every demand for national self-determination. As the party of
the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers i to be its
positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the
proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We
must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of
the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and
exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands
conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution
of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.[ * See pp. 326-29 of this volume.— Ed . ]

Thisexplanation of our programme on the national question has evoked a
strong protest from the Polish Socialist Party (P.S.P.). [1]

In an article entitled “The Attitude of the Russian Social-Democrats Towards the
National Question” ( Przedświt ,[ Dawn.— Ed . ]

March 1903), the P.S.P. expresses indignation at this “amazing” explanation and at the “vagueness” of
this “mysterious” self-determination of ours; it accuses us
both of doctrinairism and of holding the “anarchist” view that
“the worker is concerned with nothing but the complete abolition of
capitalism, since, we learn, language, nationality, culture, and the like
are mere bourgeois inventions,” and so on. It is worth considering this
argument in detail, for it reveals almost all the misconceptions in the
national question so common and so widespread among socialists.

Whatmakes our explanation so “amazing”? Why is it considered a
departure from the “literal” meaning? Does recognition of the
right of nations to self-determination really imply support of any demand of every nation for self-determination?
After all, the fact that we recognise the right of all citizens
to form free associations does not at all commit us, Social-Democrats, to
supporting the formation of any new association; nor does it
prevent us from opposing and campaigning against the formation of a given
association as an inexpedient and unwise step. We even recognise the
right of the Jesuits to carry on agitation freely, but we fight
(not by police methods, of course) against an alliance between the Jesuits
and the proletarians. Consequently, when the Przedświt says;
“If t.his demand for the right to free self-determination is to be
taken literally [and that is how we have taken it hitherto], then it would
satisfy us”—it is quite obvious that it is precisely the P.S.P. that
is departing from the literal meaning of the programme. Its conclusion is
certainly illogical from the formal point of view.

Wedo not, however, wish to confine ourselves to a formal verification of
our explanation. We shall go straight to the root of the matter: is
Social-Democracy in duty bound to demand national independence always and
unreservedly, or only under certain circumstances; if the latter is the
case then under what circumstances? To this question the P.S.P. has always
replied in favour of unreserved recognition; we are not in the least
surprised, therefore, at the fondness it displays towards the Russian
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who demand a federal state system and speak in favour of “complete and
unreserved recognition of the right to national self-determination”
( Revolutsionnaya Rossiya , No. 18, the article entitled
“National Enslavement and Revolutionary Socialism”). Unfortunately,
this is nothing more than one of those bourgeois-democratic phrases which,
for the hundredth and thousandth time, reveal the true nature of the
so-called Party of so-called Socialist-Revolutionaries. By falling for the
bait presented by these phrases and yielding to the allurement of this
clamour, the P.S.P. in its turn proves how weak in theoretical background
and political activities is its link with the class struggle of the
proletariat. But it is to the interests of this struggle that we must
subordinate the demand for national self-determination. It is
this that makes all the difference between our approach to the national
question and the bourgeois-democratic approach. The bourgeois democrat
(and the present-day socialist opportunist who follows in his footsteps)
imagines that democracy eliminates the class struggle, and that is why he
presents all his political demands in an abstract way, lumped together,
“without reservations,” from the standpoint of the interests of the
“whole people,” or even from that of an eternal and absolute moral
principle. Always and every where the Social-Democrat ruthlessly exposes
this bourgeois illusion, whether it finds expression in an abstract
idealist philosophy or in an absolute demand for national independence.

Ifthere is still need to prove that a Marxist can recognise the demand
for national independence only conditionally, namely, on the condition
indicated above, let us quote a writer who defended from the
Marxist viewpoint the Polish proletarians’ demand for an independent
Poland. In 1896 Karl Kautsky wrote in an article entitled “Finis

Poloniae?” [ “The End of Poland?”—Ed. ]:

“Once the proletariat tackles the Polish question it cannot but take
a stand in favour of Poland’s independence, and, consequently, it cannot
but welcome each step that can be taken in this direction at the present
time, insofar as this step is at all compatible with the class interests
of the international militant proletariat ."

“Thisreservation,” Kautsky goes on to say, “should be made in
any case. National independence is not so inseparably linked with the class interests of the militant proletariat as to make it necessary to strive for it unconditionally, under any circumstances .[ Italics ours. ]

Marx and Engels took a most deter mined stand in favour of the unification
and liberation of Italy, but this did not prevent them from coming out in
1859 against an Italy allied with Napoleon.” ( Neue Zeit , XIV, 2,
5. 520.)

Asyou see, Kautsky categorically rejects the unconditional· demand for the independence of nations, and
categorically demands that the question be placed not merely on a
historical basis in general, but specifically on a class basis. And if we
examine how Marx and Engels treated the Polish question, we shall see that
this was precisely their approach to it from the very outset. Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung [2]
devoted much space to the Polish question, and emphatically demanded,not
only the independence of Poland, but also that Germany go to war with
Russia for Poland’s freedom. At the same time Marx, however, attacked
Ruge, who had spoken in favour of Poland’s freedom in the Frankfort
Parliament and had tried to settle the Polish question solely by means of
bourgeois-democratic phrases about “shameful injustice,” without
making any attempt to analyse it historically. Marx was not like those
pedants and philistines of the revolution who dread nothing more than
“polemics” at revolutionary moments in history. Marx poured
pitiless scorn on the “humane” citizen Ruge, and showed him,
from the example of the oppression of the south of France by the north of
France, that it is not every kind of national oppression that invariably
inspires a desire for independence which is justified from the viewpoint
of democracy and the proletariat. Marx referred to special social
circumstances as a result of which “Poland ... became the
revolutionary part of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.... Even the Polish
nobility, although their foundations were still partly feudal, adhered to
the democratic agrarian revolution with unparalleled selflessness. Poland
was already a seat of East-European democracy at a time when Ger many was still groping her way through the most platitudinous
constitutional and high-flown philosophical ideology...

So long as we [Germans] ... help to oppress Poland, so long as we keep
part of Poland fettered to Germany, we shall remain fettered to Russia and
Russian policy, we shall be unable completely to smash patriarchal feudal
absolutism at home. The creation of a democratic Poland is the primary
prerequisite of the creation of a democratic

Germany.” [3]

Wehave quoted these statements in such detail because they graphically
show the historical background at a time when the attitude of
international Social-Democracy to the Polish problem took shape in a way
which held good almost throughout the second half of the nineteenth
century. To ignore the changes which have taken place in that back ground
and to continue advocating the old solutions given by Marxism, would mean
being true to the letter but not to the spirit of the teaching, would mean
repeating the old conclusions by rote, without being able to use the
Marxist method of research to analyse the new political situation. Those
times and today—the age of the last bourgeois revolutionary
movements, and the age of desperate reaction, extreme tension of all
forces on the eve of the proletarian revolution— differ in the most
obvious way. In those times Poland as a whole, not only the
peasantry, but even the bulk of the nobility, was revolutionary. The
traditions of the struggle for national liberation were so strong and
deep-rooted that, after their defeat at home, Poland’s best sons went
wherever they could find a revolutionary class to support; the memory of
Dąbrowski and of

Wróblewski [4] is inseparably associated with the greatest movement of the proletariat in
the nineteenth century, with the last—and let us hope the last
unsuccessful—insurrection of the Paris workers. In those times complete victory for democracy in Europe was indeed impossible
without the restoration of Poland. In those times Poland was
indeed the bulwark of civilisation against tsarism, and the vanguard of
democracy. To day the Polish ruling classes, the gentry in
Germany and in Austria, and the industrial and financial magnates in
Russia are supporting the ruling classes of the countries that oppress
Poland, while the German and the Russian proletariat are fighting for
freedom side by side with the Polish proletariat, which has heroically taken over the great traditions of the
old revolutionary Poland. Today the advanced representatives of
Marxism in the neighbouring country, while attentively watching the
political evolution of Europe and fully sympathising with the heroic
struggle of the Poles, nevertheless frankly admit that “at present
St. Petersburg has become a much more important revolutionary centre than
Warsaw, and the Russian revolutionary movement is already of greater
international significance than the Polish movement.” This is what Kautsky
wrote as early as 1896, in defending the inclusion in the Polish
Social-Democrats’ programme of the demand for Poland’s restoration. And in
1902 Mehring, who has been studying the evolution of the Polish question
since 1848, arrived at the following conclusion: “Had the Polish
proletariat desired to inscribe on its banner the restoration of a Polish
class state, which the ruling classes themselves do not want to hear of,
it would be playing a historical farce; this may well happen to the
propertied classes (as, for instance, the Polish nobility in 1791), but it
should never happen to the working class. If, on the other hand, this
reactionary Utopia comes out to win over to proletarian agitation those
sections of the intelligentsia and of the petty bourgeoisie which still
respond in some measure to national agitation, then that Utopia is doubly
untenable as an outgrowth of that unworthy opportunism which sacrifices
the long-term interests of the working class to the cheap and paltry
successes of the moment.

“Thoseinterests dictate categorically that, in all three states that
have partitioned Poland, the Polish workers should fight unreservedly side
by side with their class comrades. The times are past when a bourgeois
revolution could create a free Poland: today the renascence of Poland is
possible only through a social revolution, in the course of which the
modern proletariat will break its chains.” [5]

Wefully subscribe to Mehring’s conclusion. We shall only remark that this
conclusion remains unassailable even if we do not go as far as Mehring in
our arguments. With out any doubt the present state of the Polish question
differs radically from that which obtained fifty years ago. However, the
present situation cannot be regarded as permanent. Class antagonism has
now undoubtedly relegated national questions far into the background, but, without the risk of lapsing into
doctrinairism, it cannot be categorically asserted that some particular
national question cannot appear temporarily in the foreground of the
political drama. No doubt, the restoration of Poland prior to the fall of
capitalism is highly improbable, but it cannot be asserted that it is
absolutely impossible, or that circumstances may not arise under which the
Polish bourgeoisie will take the side of independence, etc. And Russian
Social-Democracy does not in the least intend to tie its own hands. In
including in its programme recognition of the right of nations to selfdetermination, it takes into account all possible, and even all
conceivable , combinations. That programme in no way precludes the
adoption by the Polish proletariat of the slogan of a free and independent
Polish republic, even though the probability of its becoming a reality
before socialism is introduced is infinitesimal. The programme merely
demands that a genuinely socialist party shall not corrupt proletarian
class-consciousness, or slur over the class struggle, or lure working
class with bourgeois-democratic phrases, or break the unity of the
proletariat’s present-day political struggle. This reservation is the crux
of the matter, for only with this reservation do we recognise
self-determination. It is useless for the P.S.P. to pretend that it
differs from the German or Russian Social-Democrats in their rejection of
the right to self-determination, the right to strive for a free and
independent republic. It is not this, but the fact that it loses. sight of
the class point of view, obscures it by chauvinism and disrupts the unity
of the present-day political struggle, that prevents us from regarding the
P.S.P. as a genuine Social-Democratic workers’ party. This, for instance,
is how the P.S.P. usually presents the question: “...We can only
weaken tsarism by wresting Poland from it; it is the task of the Russian
comrades to overthrow it.” Or again: “... After the over throw of
tsarism we would simply decide our fate by seceding from Russia.” See to
what monstrous conclusions this monstrous logic leads, even from the
viewpoint of the programme demand for Poland’s restoration. Because the restoration of Poland is one of the
possible (but, whilst the bourgeoisie rules, by no means absolutely
certain) consequences of democratic evolution, therefore the
Polish

proletariat must not fight together with the Russian proletariat to
overthrow tsarism, but “only” to weaken it by wresting Poland
from it. Because Russian tsarism is concluding a closer and
closer alliance with the bourgeoisie and the governments of Germany,
Austria, etc., therefore the Polish proletariat must weaken its
alliance with the proletariat of Russia, Germany, etc., together with whom
it is now fighting against one and the same yoke. This is nothing
more than sacrificing the most vital interests of the proletariat to the
bourgeois-democratic conception of national independence. The
disintegration of Russia which the P.S.P. desires, as distinct from our aim of overthrowing tsarism, is and will remain an empty
phrase, as long as economic development continues to bring the different
parts of a political whole more and more closely together, and as long as
the bourgeoisie of all countries unite more and more closely against their
common enemy, the proletariat, and in support of their common ally, the
tsar. But the division of the forces of the proletariat , which is
now suffering under the yoke of this autocracy, is the sad reality, the
direct consequence of the error of the P.S.P., the direct outcome of its
worship of bourgeois-democratic formulas. To turn a blind eye to this
division of the proletariat, the P.S.P. has to stoop to chauvinism and
present the views of the Russian Social-Democrats as follows: “We
[the Poles] must wait for the social revolution, and until then we must
patiently endure national oppression.” This is an utter falsehood. The
Russian Social-Democrats have never advised anything of the sort; on the
contrary, they themselves fight, and call upon the whole Russian
proletariat to fight, against all manifestations of national oppression in
Russia; they include in their programme not only complete
equality of status for all languages, nationalities, etc., but also
recognition of every nation’s right to determine its own
destiny. Recognising this right, we subordinate to the interests
of the proletarian struggle our support of the demand for national
independence, and only a chauvinist can interpret our position as an
expression of a Russian s mistrust of a non-Russian, for in reality this
position necessarily follows from the class-conscious proletarian’s
distrust of the bourgeoisie. The P.S.P. takes the view that the national
question is exhausted by the contrast—“we” (Poles)
and “they” (Germans, Russians, etc.). The Social-Democrat, however, gives first place
to the contrast— “we,” the proletarians, and “they,” the
bourgeoisie. “We,” the proletarians, have seen dozens of times how
the bourgeoisie betrays the interests of freedom, motherland,
language, and nation, when it is con fronted with the revolutionary
proletariat. We witnessed the French bourgeoisie’s surrender to the
Prussians at the moment of the greatest humiliation and suppression of the
French nation, the Government of National Defence becoming a Government of
National Defection, the bourgeoisie of an oppressed nation calling to its
aid the troops of the oppressing nation so as to crush its proletarian
fellow countrymen, who had dared to assume power. And that is why,
undeterred by chauvinist and opportunist heckling, we shall always say to
the Polish workers: only the most complete and intimate alliance with the
Russian proletariat can meet the requirements of the present political
struggle against the autocracy; only such an alliance can guarantee
complete political and economic emancipation.

Whatwe have said on the Polish question is wholly applicable to every
other national question. The accursed history of autocracy has left us a
legacy of tremendous estrangement between the working classes of
the various nationalities oppressed by that autocracy. This estrangement
is a very great evil, a very great obstacle in the struggle against the
autocracy, and we must not legitimise this evil or sanctify this
outrageous state of affairs by establishing any such “principles” as separate parties or a “federation”
of parties. It is, of course, simpler and easier to follow the line of
least resistance, and for everyone to make himself comfortable in his own
corner following the rule, “it’s none of my business,” as the Bund
now wants to do. The more we realise the need for unity and the more
firmly we are convinced that a concerted offensive against the autocracy
is impossible without complete unity, the more obvious becomes the
necessity for a centralised organisation of the struggle in the conditions
of our political system—the less inclined are we to be satisfied
with a “simple,” but specious and, at bottom, profoundly false
solution of the problem. So long as the injuriousness of estrangement is
not realised, and so long as there is no desire to put an end radically
and at all costs to this estrangement in the camp of the proletarian party, there is no need for
the fig-leaf of “federation,” and no use in under taking to solve a
problem which one of the “sides” concerned has no real desire
to solve. That being the case, it is better to let the lessons of
experience and of the actual movement prove that centralism is essential
for success in the struggle waged by the proletarians of all nationalities
oppressed by autocracy against that autocracy and against the
international bourgeoisie, which is becoming more and more united.

---
Notes:
[1]
The Polish Socialist Party (P.S.P.) —a petty-bourgeois nationalist party, founded in 1892.

[2]
Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Gazette ) appeared in
Cologne from June 1, 1848, until May 19, 1849. Marx and Engels were
managers of this newspaper, Marx being editor-in-chief. As Lenin put it,
the newspaper was “the best, the unsurpassed organ of the
revolutionary proletariat” (see present edition, Vol. 21,
“Karl Marx”). It educated the masses, roused them to fight the
counter-revolution, and made its influence felt throughout
Germany. Because of its resolute and irreconcilable position and its
militant internationalism, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was from
the first months of its existence persecuted by the feudal-monarchist and
liberal-bourgeois press, and also by the government. Marx’s deportation by
the Prussian Government and the repressive measures against its other
editors led to the paper ceasing publication, About the Neue Rheinische Zeitung see the article by Engels, “Marx and the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-49)” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 328-37).

[3]
Lenin is quoting from the series of articles printed under the general
title of “Debates on the Polish Question in Frankfort” in the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung in August-September 1848. See
MEGA , Erste Abteilung, Band 7, S. 287-317. Engels was the author
of these articles.

[4]
Dąbrowski, Jaroslaw and Wróblewski, Walery —prominent leaders of the Polish revolutionary movement
in 1863-64 , who emigrated to France after the suppression of the
Polish uprising. In 1871 they were generals of the Paris Commune.

[5]
Lenin is quoting Franz Mehring’s introduction to the third volume of the