The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

6. NORWAY’S SECESSION FROM SWEDEN

Rosa Luxemburg cites precisely this example, and discusses it as
follows:

“The latest event in the history of federative relations, the secession of Norway from Sweden—which at the time was
hastily seized upon by the social-patriotic Polish press (see the Cracow
Naprzod [2] ) as a gratifying sign of the strength and progressive nature of the tendency towards state secession—at once
provided striking proof that federalism and its concomitant, separation,
are in no way an expression of progress or democracy. After the so-called
Norwegian ‘revolution’, which meant that the Swedish king was deposed and
compelled to leave Norway, the Norwegians coolly proceeded to choose
another king, formally rejecting, by a national referendum, the proposal to
establish a republic. That which superficial admirers of all national
movements and of all semblance of independence proclaimed to be a
‘revolution’ was simply a manifestation of peasant and petty-bourgeois
particularism, the desire to have a king ‘of their own’ for their money
instead of one imposed upon them by the Swedish aristocracy, and was,
consequently, a movement that had absolutely nothing in common with
revolution. At the same time, the dissolution of the union between Sweden
and Norway showed once more to what extent, in this case also, the
federation which had existed until then was only an expression of purely
dynastic interests and, therefore, merely a form of monarchism and
reaction.” ( Przeglad .)

That is literally all that Rosa Luxemburg has to say on this score!
Admittedly, it would have been difficult for her to have revealed the
hopelessness of her position more saliently than she has done in this
particular instance.

The question was, and is: do the Social-Democrats in a mixed national
state need a programme that recognises the right to self-determination or
secession?

What does the example of Norway, cited by Rosa Luxemburg, tell us on
this point?

Our author twists and turns, exercises her wit and rails at
Naprzod , but she does not answer the question! Rosa

Luxemburg speaks about everything under the sun so as to avoid saying a single word about the actual point at issue!

Undoubtedly, in wishing to have a king of their own for their money,
and in rejecting, in a national referendum, the proposal to establish a
republic, the Norwegian petty bourgeoisie displayed exceedingly bad
philistine qualities. Undoubtedly, Naprzod displayed equally bad and equally philistine qualities in failing to notice this.

But what has all this to do with the case?

The question under discussion was the right of nations to
self-determination and the attitude to be adopted by the socialist
proletariat towards this right! Why, then, does not Rosa Luxemburg answer
this question instead of beating about the bush?

To a mouse there is no stronger beast than the cat, it is said. To Rosa
Luxemburg there is evidently no stronger beast than the
“Fracy”. “Fracy” is the popular term for the “Polish Socialist
Party”, its so-called revolutionary section, and the Cracow newspaper
Naprzod shares the views of that “section”. Rosa
Luxemburg is so blinded by her fight against the nationalism of that
“section” that she loses sight of everything except
Naprzod .

If Naprzod says “yes”, Rosa Luxemburg considers it her sacred duty to say an immediate “no”, without stopping to think that
by so doing she does not reveal independence of Naprzod ,
but, on the contrary, her ludicrous dependence on the “Fracy” and her
inability to see things from a view point any deeper and broader than that
of the Cracow ant hill. Naprzod , of course, is a wretched
and by no means Marxist organ; but that should not prevent us from properly
analysing the example of Norway, once we have chosen it.

To analyse this example in Marxist fashion, we must deal, not with the
vices of the awfully terrible “Fracy”, but, first, with the concrete
historical features of the secession of Norway from Sweden, and secondly,
with the tasks which confronted the proletariat of both countries
in connection with this secession.

The geographic, economic and language ties between Norway and Sweden
are as intimate as those between the Great Russians and many other Slav
nations. But the union between Norway and Sweden was not a voluntary one,
and

in dragging in the question of “federation” Rosa Luxemburg was talking at
random, simply because she did not know what to say. Norway was
ceded to Sweden by the monarchs during the Napoleonic wars,
against the will of the Norwegians; and the Swedes had to bring troops into
Norway to subdue her.

Despite the very extensive autonomy which Norway enjoyed (she had her
own parliament, etc.), there was constant friction between Norway and
Sweden for many decades after the union, and the Norwegians strove hard to
throw off the yoke of the Swedish aristocracy. At last, in August 1905,
they succeeded: the Norwegian parliament resolved that the Swedish king was
no longer king of Norway, and in the referendum held later among the
Norwegian people, the overwhelming majority (about 200,000 as against a few
hundred) voted for complete separation from Sweden. After a short period of
indecision, the Swedes resigned themselves to the fact of secession.

This example shows us on what grounds cases of the secession of nations
are practicable, and actually occur, under modern economic and political
relationships, and the form secession sometimes assumes under
conditions of political freedom and democracy.

No Social-Democrat will deny—unless he would profess indifference to
questions of political freedom and democracy (in which case he is naturally
no longer a Social-Democrat)—that this example virtually proves
that it is the bounden duty of class-conscious workers to conduct
systematic propaganda and prepare the ground for the settlement of
conflicts that may arise over the secession of nations, not in the
“Russian way”, but only in the way they were settled in 1905
between Norway and Sweden. This is exactly what is meant by the demand in
the programme for the recognition of the right of nations to
self-determination. But Rosa Luxemburg tried to get around a fact that was
repugnant to her theory by violently attacking the philistinism of the
Norwegian philistines and the Cracow Naprzod ; for she understood perfectly well that this historical fact completely refutes her phrases about the right of nations to self-determination
being a “utopia”, or like the right “to eat off gold plates”, etc. Such
phrases only express a smug and opportunist belief in the immutability of the present alignment of forces among the nationalities of
Eastern Europe.

To proceed. In the question of the self-determination of nations, as in
every other question, we are interested, first and foremost, in the
self-determination of the proletariat within a given nation. Rosa Luxemburg
modestly evaded this question too, for she realised that an analysis of it
on the basis of the example of Norway, which she herself had chosen, would
be disastrous to her “theory”.

What position did the Norwegian and Swedish proletariat take, and
indeed had to take, in the conflict over secession? After Norway
seceded, the class-conscious workers of Norway would naturally have voted
for a republic, [1] and if some socialists voted otherwise it only goes to show how much dense,
philistine opportunism there sometimes is in the European socialist
movement. There can be no two opinions about that, and we mention the point
only because Rosa Luxemburg is trying to obscure the issue by speaking
off the mark . We do not know whether the Norwegian socialist
programme made it obligatory for Norwegian Social-Democrats to hold
particular views on the question of secession. We will assume that it did
not, and that the Norwegian socialists left it an open question as to what
extent the autonomy of Norway gave sufficient scope to wage the class
struggle freely, or to what extent the eternal friction and conflicts with
the Swedish aristocracy hindered freedom of economic life. But it cannot be
disputed that the Norwegian proletariat had to oppose this aristocracy and
support Norwegian peasant democracy (with all its philistine limitations).

And the Swedish proletariat? It is common knowledge that the Swedish
landed proprietors, abetted by the Swedish clergy, advocated war against
Norway. Inasmuch as Norway was much weaker than Sweden, had already
experienced a Swedish invasion, and the Swedish aristocracy carries
enormous weight in its own country, this advocacy of war presented a grave
danger. We may be sure that the Swedish Kokoshkins spent much time and
energy in trying to corrupt the minds of the Swedish people by appeals to
“handle” the “elastic formulas of political self-determination of
nations carefully”, by painting horrific pictures of the danger of the
“disintegration of the state” and by assuring them that “people’s
freedom” was compatible with the traditions of the Swedish
aristocracy. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Swedish
Social-Democrats would have betrayed the cause of socialism and democracy
if they had not fought with all their might to combat both the landlord and
the “Kokoshkin” ideology and policy, and if they had failed to demand,
not only equality of nations in general (to which the Kokoshkins
also subscribe), but also the right of nations to self-determination,
Norway’s freedom to secede.

The close alliance between the Norwegian and Swedish workers, their
complete fraternal class solidarity, gained from the Swedish
workers’ recognition of the right of the Norwegians to secede. This
convinced the Norwegian workers that the Swedish workers were not infected
with Swedish nationalism, and that they placed fraternity with the
Norwegian proletarians above the privileges of the Swedish bourgeoisie and
aristocracy. The dissolution of the ties imposed upon Norway by the
monarchs of Europe and the Swedish aristocracy strengthened the ties
between the Norwegian and Swedish workers. The Swedish workers have proved
that in spite of all the vicissitudes of bourgeois policy—bourgeois relations may quite possibly bring about a repetition of
the forcible subjection of the Norwegians to the Swedes!—they will be
able to preserve and defend the complete equality and class solidarity of
the workers of both nations in the struggle against both the Swedish and
the Norwegian bourgeoisie.

Incidentally, this reveals how groundless and even frivolous are the
attempts sometimes made by the “Fracy” to “use” our disagreements with
Rosa Luxemburg against Polish Social-Democracy. The “Fracy” are not a
proletarian or a socialist party, but a petty-bourgeois nationalist party,
something like Polish Social-Revolutionaries. There never has been, nor
could there be, any question of unity between the Russian Social-Democrats and this party. On the other hand, no Russian
Social-Democrat has ever “repented” of the close relations and unity that
have been established with the Polish Social-Democrats. The Polish
Social-Democrats have rendered a great historical service by creating the
first really Marxist, proletarian party in Poland, a country imbued with
nationalist aspirations and passions. Yet the service the Polish
Social-Democrats have rendered is a great one, not because Rosa Luxemburg
has talked a lot of nonsense about §9 of the Russian Marxists’
Programme, but despite that sad circumstance.

The question of the “right to self-determination” is of course not so
important to the Polish Social-Democrats as it is to the Russian. It is
quite understandable that in their zeal (sometimes a little excessive,
perhaps) to combat the nationalistically blinded petty bourgeoisie of
Poland the Polish Social-Democrats should overdo things. No Russian Marxist
has ever thought of blaming the Polish Social-Democrats for being opposed
to the secession of Poland. These Social-Democrats err only when, like
Rosa Luxemburg, they try to deny the necessity of including the recognition
of the right to self-determination in the Programme of the Russian
Marxists.

Virtually, this is like attempting to apply relationships,
understandable by Cracow standards, to all the peoples and nations
inhabiting Russia, including the Great Russians. It means being “Polish
nationalists the wrong way round”, not Russian, not international
Social-Democrats.

For international Social-Democracy stands for the recognition of the
right of nations to self-determination. This is what we shall now proceed
to discuss.

---
Notes:
[1]

Since the majority of the Norwegian nation was in favour of a monarchy
while the proletariat wanted a republic, the Norwegian proletariat was,
generally speaking, confronted with the alternative: either revolution, if
conditions were ripe for it, or submission to the will of the majority and
prolonged propaganda and agitation work. — Lenin

[2]
Naprzod (Forward)—central organ of the
Social-Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia, published in Cracow
beginning with 1892. The newspaper, which was a vehicle of petty-bourgeois
nationalist ideas, was described by Lenin as “a very bad, and not at all
Marxist organ”.