V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v54;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

..."The right of nations to self-determination" seems to Comrade Parabellum a return to a bygone past, to the petty-bourgeois utopia of "separatism" and peaceful competition between independent national states.

In fighting this enemy (the petty-bourgeois utopians), who in essence died and was buried long ago, Comrade Parabellum unwittingly plays into the hands of the social-chauvinists who dominate in England, France, Germany, and partly in Russia.

We cannot counterpose the revolutionary mass struggle for socialism to a revolutionary-consistent program on the national question. We must
2 quotes
from "En
Garde"

combine the first with the second. It is impossible to conceive of the socialist revolution as a single battle on a single front: imperialism versus socialism. This revolution will be an entire epoch of intensified class struggle and all sorts of social upheavals, a whole series of battles on the most diverse fronts, over the most varied economic and political transformations that have matured and demand a radical demolition of old relations. Among these democratic transformations, which are part of the concept of social revolution, a prominent place cannot but be occupied by transformations of national relations. The revolutionary proletariat will not fulfill its task if it does not now defend a consistent program on this question as well*...
... a revolutionary program on the national question. Comrade Parabellum presents it as if the socialist revolution is a single battle on a single economic front: socialism versus imperialism. This is not true. The revolution of the proletariat will be an epoch of a whole series of battles on all fronts, i.e., on all economic and political questions, including national ones. The resolution of the sum of conflicts arising from all these unresolved questions will constitute the social revolution. The sum of battles over all these transformations will bring about the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the establishment of full democracy, and the organization of socialist society. It is absurd to counterpose the revolutionary struggle against capitalism to one of the questions of democracy, the national question. The proletariat cannot conquer except through democracy, except by fully implementing democracy. Therefore, all democratic demands—the militia, election of officials by the people, equality of nations, self-determination of nations, etc.—must be completed and united by the demand for revolutionary struggle against capitalism. Not to counterpose this struggle to individual democratic

demands, but in each area of democratic questions to give a definition of our tasks that is as revolutionary as it is linked to the general revolutionary struggle for socialism—that is the only Social-Democratic formulation of the question.

Comrade Parabellum, instead of defining the revolutionary line of the proletariat on the national question, gives us the assurance that "we are against annexations, against violence over nations." There are plenty of such assurances from the social-chauvinists and from Kautsky & Co. All these people will reject Parabellum's formula of "revolutionary mass struggle against capitalism," but will gladly...
... self-determination of nations hypocritically, without extending this recognition precisely to those nations that are oppressed by their own nation—this includes not only Plekhanov and Hyndman, but also Kautsky, who, seeking "unity" with the social-chauvinists, wrote that demanding "state independence" (staatliche Selbständigkeit) for every nation means demanding "too much," "zu viel" ("Neue Zeit" 33, II, 77, 16. IV. 1915). 790 Either they completely deny the right to self-determination with arguments like Parabellum's (Cunow, Parvus, the Russian opportunists and liquidators). Kautsky's position is the most harmful and dangerous for the working class, for he verbally recognizes the self-determination of nations, verbally recognizes that the Social-Democratic party "die Selbständigkeit der Nationen allseitig (!) und rückhaltlos (?) achtet und fordert"* (p. 241 ibidem, 21. V. 1915), but in practice reduces this right to a meaningless formula, precisely curtails it, without singling out the socialists of the oppressed**...
... after 1848, fighting not at all against petty-bourgeois democrats (they were already killed and buried then), but against the chauvinism of English workers, against the anarchism of Proudhon, who "denied" the national

question almost as decisively as Radek denies it today.

Marx in 1868 demanded the separation of Ireland from England! Marx did not at the same time harbor any illusions about the possibility of the separate existence of a small Irish people alongside mighty England, which was already then the greatest world empire—no, Marx directly and immediately foresaw the necessity of federation with England immediately after separation. 791 Marx never for a moment...
... of imperialism, urgent and timely in relation to all the great powers and all the nations oppressed by them. The "great-power" nations—the English, Germans, French, Great Russians—oppress directly and indirectly, mediately and immediately, more than half the world's population, now waging the first—and probably not the last—imperialist war for the expansion, consolidation of this oppression, for a more "just" redistribution of great-power rights, advantages, and privileges, more in line with the given strength of capital in different countries.

It is precisely the point of view of the struggle against the chauvinism of the ruling, advanced, great-power nations that hold the destinies of the world in their hands—and not at all the point of view of "small peoples" and various "corners of Europe"—that must now be decisive.

It is precisely the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against capitalism, and not at all the interests of small peoples, that demand the defense by socialists of the great powers of the right to secession (= the right to self-determination) of oppressed nations. The struggle for socialism is the struggle of the international revolutionary proletariat. Precisely because capitalism has bound the whole world into one economic organism, this struggle cannot but be international. And for it to be so in practice, not just in words, it is necessary that the proletariat fight against the oppression of nations not in a bourgeois way, not...
... bourgeois democrats. Unlike them, unlike the Scheidemanns, who from the Vorstand "assure" that they

are against annexations, unlike Kautsky, who reduces the demand for self-determination to a demand harmless to the bourgeoisie, acceptable to the bourgeoisie, and non-binding—a demand for cultural (not political) self-determination—we must, precisely from the point of view of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of the advanced countries, put forward a demand that fundamentally exposes the bourgeoisie, fundamentally undermines its sophisms, and formulates the basic and main thing in the matter of freedom of nations, namely, the demand for freedom of secession. The unacceptability of this demand for the bourgeoisie—in the vast majority of cases and in the full scope of its realization, this demand is, of course, unacceptable—does not mean it is "utopian" (only the Cunows and similar lackeys of the imperialist bourgeoisie understand "utopian" in this way!). No, unacceptability for the bourgeoisie means that we, representatives of the revolutionary proletariat, do not dream of any peaceful development of capitalism, do not sow illusions on this score, but expect precisely the intensification of struggle and revolution from explaining to the masses, from insisting before the masses on our consistently democratic demands.

It is self-evident—and the example of Marx's demand for the separation of Ireland from England in 1868 particularly clearly confirms this—that freedom of secession does not at all mean propaganda for the formation of small national states in general. It means only, on the one hand, a consistently, with proletarian revolutionary spirit, and not with bourgeois half-heartedness, carried-out demand for democracy to the end—not stopping before the fact that consistent democracy leads to social revolution, but on the contrary drawing from this the strength and firmness for a decisive struggle for democracy. It means, on the other...
... will constitute the socialist revolution and unfold all its content, will also include national conflicts over the oppression of nations. Incidents like the Zabern affair*

will become not less frequent, but more frequent, and the task of the proletariat will be not to ignore all such "incidents," but, on the contrary, to intensify them, expand them, and turn them into the beginning of the socialist revolution. Only a consistently democratic program on the question of self-determination, such as we propose, meets this purpose.

The petty-bourgeois democrats and routine socialists, who do not see the depth of the collapse of the Second International, are content with the old formula of "self-determination...
...(4) Against annexations (this is also acceptable to bourgeois pacifist-democrats).

(5) The distinction between an oppressing and an oppressed nation is insignificant from the standpoint of the utopia of the "brotherhood of peoples" under capitalism. It is significant from the standpoint of the revolutionary struggle against p a c i f i s m.

(6) The bourgeoisie is ready to promise any kind of "equality," any kind of "national autonomy," as long as the proletariat peacefully, in a Scheidemannite or Kautskyite manner, submits to it on the question of state borders.