Subject: Imperialism and the Self-Determination of Nations.

[ not the “national question” ]

Down with about 2/3 of the national programme (only self-determination).

+ Democratic reforms under imperialism?

+ Norway 1905. An “exception”?

+ Ireland 1869. A “utopia”?

+ National movements in Asia and the colonies…

and Africa (Egypt)…

+ Why division by nations when imperialism is the epoch of the joining together of nations?

“Why” national movements in Ukraine, China, Persia, India, Egypt, etc., “if” (when) the advanced countries have reached the stage of imperialism, which joins nations together? if capitalism (= imperialism) in the advanced countries has outgrown the framework of national states? Proudhonists and Marx in the 1860s. (“Other nations must sit on their arse and wait until France accomplishes the social revolution”).

Marx 1848 in the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*{160}. Engels 1866 and Marx 1869: precisely in the interests of the working class of the oppressing nations must the freedom of separation of the oppressed be demanded.

* Obviously a reference to pages of some manuscript by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

** Against “the most hackneyed” slogan of Parvus. Ed.

Only a bourgeois-democratic principle? And the BROTHERHOOD of workers?

No, also a socialist principle.

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When we put forward the slogan: freedom of self-determination, i.e. freedom of separation, we by all our agitation demand of the oppressors: try to hold them by advantages, by culture, and not by violence. When we do not recognise and do not bring to the fore the freedom of separation, we practically leave the door open for the lackeys of violence.

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Only in this way do we hit the nail on the head[192] – educate the workers: drive away all who do not recognise the democratic and socialist principle sincerely and honestly.