The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

4. “PRACTICALITY” IN THE NATIONAL QUESTION

Rosa Luxemburg’s argument that §9 of our Programme contains
nothing “practical” has been seized upon by the opportunists. Rosa
Luxemburg is so delighted with this argument that in some parts of her
article this “slogan” is repeated eight times on a single page.

She writes: §9 “gives no practical lead on the day-by-day policy
of the proletariat, no practical solution of national problems”.

Let us examine this argument, which elsewhere is formulated in such a
way that it makes §9 look quite meaningless, or else commits us to
support all national aspirations.

What does the demand for “practicality” in the national question
mean?

It means one of three things: support for all national aspirations; the
answer “yes” or “no” to the question of secession by any nation; or
that national demands are in general immediately “practicable”.

Let us examine all three possible meanings of the demand for
“practicality”.

The bourgeoisie, which naturally assumes the leadership at the start of
every national movement, says that support for all national aspirations is
practical. However, the proletariat’s policy in the national question (as
in all others) supports the bourgeoisie only in a certain direction, but it
never coincides with the bourgeoisie’s policy. The working class supports
the bourgeoisie only in order to secure national peace (which the
bourgeoisie cannot bring about completely and which can be achieved only
with complete democracy), in order to secure equal rights and to
create the best conditions for the class struggle. Therefore, it is in opposition to the practicality of the bourgeoisie that the
proletarians advance their principles in the national question;
they always give the bourgeoisie only conditional support. What
every bourgeoisie is out for in the national question is either privileges for its own nation, or exceptional
advantages for it; this is called being “practical”. The proletariat is
opposed to all privileges, to all exclusiveness. To demand that it should
be “practical” means following the lead of the bourgeoisie, falling into
opportunism.

The demand for a “yes” or “no” reply to the question of secession
in the case of every nation may seem a very “practical” one. In reality
it is absurd; it is metaphysical in theory, while in practice it leads to
subordinating the proletariat to the bourgeoisie’s policy. The bourgeoisie
always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in
categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are
subordinated to the interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, you
cannot say in advance whether the bourgeois-democratic revolution will end
in a given nation seceding from another nation, or in its equality with the
latter; in either case , the important thing for the proletariat is
to ensure the development of its class. For the bourgeoisie it is important
to hamper this development by pushing the aims of its “own” nation before
those of the proletariat. That is why the proletariat confines itself, so
to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to
self-determination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without
undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation.

This may not be “practical”, but it is in effect the best guarantee
for the achievement of the most democratic of all possible solutions. The
proletariat needs only such guarantees, whereas the bourgeoisie of
every nation requires guarantees for its own interest, regardless
of the position of (or the possible disadvantages to) other nations.

The bourgeoisie is most of all interested in the “feasibility” of a
given demand—hence the invariable policy of coming to terms with the
bourgeoisie of other nations, to the detriment of the proletariat. For the
proletariat, however, the important thing is to strengthen its class
against the bourgeoisie and to educate the masses in the spirit of
consistent democracy and socialism.

This may not be “practical” as far as the opportunists are concerned,
but it is the only real guarantee, the guarantee of the greater national equality and peace, despite the feudal landlords
and the nationalist bourgeoisie.

The whole task of the proletarians in the national question is
“unpractical” from the standpoint of the nationalist bourgeoisie
of every nation, because the proletarians, opposed as they are to
nationalism of every kind, demand “abstract” equality; they demand, as a
matter of principle, that there should be no privileges, however
slight. Failing to grasp this, Rosa Luxemburg, by her misguided eulogy of
practicality, has opened the door wide for the opportunists, and especially
for opportunist concessions to Great-Russian nationalism.

Why Great-Russian? Because the Great Russians in Russia are an
oppressor nation, and opportunism in the national question will of course
find expression among oppressed nations otherwise than among oppressor
nations.

On the plea that its demands are “practical”, the bourgeoisie of the
oppressed nations will call upon the proletariat to support its aspirations
unconditionally. The most practical procedure is to say a plain “yes” in
favour of the secession of a particular nation rather than in
favour of all nations having the right to secede!

The proletariat is opposed to such practicality. While recognising
equality and equal rights to a national state, it values above all and
places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and
assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers’ class struggle. This call for practicality is in
fact merely a call for uncritical acceptance of bourgeois aspirations.

By supporting the right to secession, we are told, you are supporting
the bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed nations. This is what Rosa
Luxemburg says, and she is echoed by Semkovsky, the opportunist, who
incidentally is the only representative of liquidationist ideas on this
question, in the liquidationist newspaper!

Our reply to this is: No, it is to the bourgeoisie that a “practical”
solution of this question is important. To the workers the important thing
is to distinguish the principles of the two trends. Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, we
are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour , for we are the
staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as
the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own
bourgeois nationalism, we stand against. We fight against the privileges
and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone
strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.

If, in our political agitation, we fail to advance and advocate the
slogan of the right to secession, we shall play into the hands,
not only of the bourgeoisie, but also of the feudal landlords and the
absolutism of the oppressor nation. Kautsky long ago used this
argument against Rosa Luxemburg, and the argument is indisputable. When, in
her anxiety not to “assist” the nationalist bourgeoisie of Poland, Rosa
Luxemburg rejects the right to secession in the programme of the
Marxists in Russia , she is in fact assisting the
Great-Russian Black Hundreds. She is in fact assisting opportunist
tolerance of the privileges (and worse than privileges) of the Great
Russians.

Carried away by the struggle against nationalism in Poland, Rosa
Luxemburg has forgotten the nationalism of the Great Russians, although it
is this nationalism that is the most formidable at the present
time. It is a nationalism that is mere feudal than bourgeois, and is the
principal obstacle to democracy and to the proletarian struggle. The
bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general
democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is
this content that we unconditionally support, At the same time we
strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness;
we fight against the tendency of the Polish bourgeois to oppress the Jews,
etc., etc.

This is “unpractical” from the standpoint of the bourgeois and the
philistine, but it is the only policy in the national question that is
practical, based on principles, and really promotes democracy, liberty and
proletarian unity.

The recognition of the right to secession for all; the appraisal of
each concrete question of secession from the point of view of removing all
inequality, all privileges, and all exclusiveness.

Let us consider the position of an oppressor nation. Can a nation be
free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot. The interests of the freedom
of the Great-Russian population [1] require a struggle against such oppression. The long, centuries-old history
of the suppression of the movements of the oppressed nations, and the
systematic propaganda in favour of such suppression coming from the
“upper” classes have created enormous obstacles to the cause of freedom
of the Great-Russian people itself, in the form of prejudices, etc.

The Great-Russian Black Hundreds deliberately foster these prejudices
and encourage them. The Great-Russian bourgeoisie tolerates or condones
them. The Great-Russian proletariat cannot achieve its own aims or
clear the road to its freedom without systematically countering these
prejudices.

In Russia, the creation of an independent national state remains, for
the time being, the privilege of the Great-Russian nation alone. We, the
Great-Russian proletarians, who defend no privileges whatever, do not
defend this privilege either. We are fighting on the ground of a definite
state; we unite the workers of all nations living in this state; we cannot
vouch for any particular path of national development, for we are marching
to our class goal along all possible paths.

However, we cannot move towards that goal unless we combat all
nationalism, and uphold the equality of the various nations. Whether the
Ukraine, for example, is destined to form an independent state is a matter
that will be determined by a thousand unpredictable factors. Without
attempting idle “ guesses ”, we firmly uphold something that is
beyond doubt: the right of the Ukraine to form such a state. We respect
this right; we do not uphold the privileges of Great Russians with regard
to Ukrainians; we educate the masses in the spirit of recognition
of that right, in the spirit of rejecting state privileges for any
nation.

In the leaps which all nations have made in the period of bourgeois
revolutions, clashes and struggles over the right to a national state are
possible and probable. We proletarians declare in advance that we are
opposed to Great-Russian privileges, and this is what guides our
entire propaganda and agitation.

In her quest for “practicality” Rosa Luxemburg has lost sight of the
principal practical task both of the Great-Russian proletariat and
of the proletariat of other nationalities:
that of day-by-day agitation and propaganda against all state and national
privileges, and for the right, the equal right of all nations, to their
national state. This (at present) is cut principal task in the national
question, for only in this way can we defend the interests of democracy and
the alliance of all proletarians of all nations on an equal footing.

This propaganda may be “unpractical” from the point of view of the
Great-Russian oppressors, as well as from the point of view of the
bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations (both demand a definite
“yes” or “no”, and accuse the Social-Democrats of being “vague”). In
reality it is this propaganda, and this propaganda alone, that ensures the
genuinely democratic, the genuinely socialist education of the masses. This
is the only propaganda to ensure the greatest chances of national peace in
Russia, should she remain a multi-national state, and the most peaceful
(and for the proletarian class struggle, harmless) division into separate
national states, should the question of such a division arise.

To explain this policy—the only proletarian policy—in the national
question more concretely, we shall examine the attitude of Great-Russian
liberalism towards the “self-determination of nations”, and the example
of Norway’s secession from Sweden.

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Notes:
[1]

A certain
L.Vl. [2] in Paris considers this word un-Marxist. This L.Vl. is
amusingly “ superklug ” (too clever by half). And “this
too-clever-by-half” L.Vl. apparently intends to write an essay on the
deletion of the words “population”, “nation”, etc., from our minimum
programme (having in mind the class struggle!). — Lenin

[2]
L. Vl. —L. Vladimirov (pseudonym of M. K. Sheinfinkel)—a
Social-Democrat.