Re: Self-determination of imperialist nations too?

[Ed George <edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think it is 'shameful that a comrade from a semicolonial country
[...] has to remind us in the imperialist countries' of things like
these.  In my experience that's the normal run of things: people from
semicolonial countries people in imperialist countries, women to men,
black people to white, lesbians and gays to straight.  None so fit to
break the chains as those who wear them; none so well-equipped to know
what is a fetter: this is a profound truth that we forget at our peril. 
So when I find myself in disagreement with Néstor, which is thankfully
not often, I listen hard, question myself hard, and rethink hard.  I
also do the same with you, José: I know you and your circumstances less
well than Néstor's, but I remember your name from when I used to read
the US SWP's press in the early 80s, and a like a great deal what you
write on this list.  So again I question myself.  And I still find that
I disagree with you both, which pains me, but there it is. I'm sorry,
but I have to say what I think, and I'm going to try to explain why I
think it.

******

This disagreement arose on my insistence on two things: that the right
to self-determination means the right to form a politically independent
state, i.e. the right to secede; and that national oppression is a
desire to form an independent state that is unable to be realised.  The
fact that this right to self-determination applies to nations in general
is a logical corollary of these two statements, as I will explain.

That self-determination means simply the right to form an independent
state, the right to secede, is counterposed to the view that invests
self-determination with a content that it does not warrant.  This latter
view is common on the left, and amounts to saying that
self-determination means the right of a state to do more or less what it
wants (which is where I see Néstor and José coming from).  The problem
with this interpretation of self-determination is that it leads you to
strange (and reactionary) conclusions in concrete cases.  Two examples
off the top of my head.  I have heard many times over the years the
argument that socialists should have opposed the invasion of the
Malvinas by Argentina in 1982 because this infringed the right of
self-determination of the islands' inhabitants.  If self-determination
is interpreted as the right of a 'nation' to do whatever it wants then
the argument is logical.  If however self-determination is understood as
no more than the right to form an independent state - as I am arguing is
essential, and as I am arguing that Lenin did - then of course the
argument is nonsense.  Even if the inhabitants of the Malvinas (aside
from the fact of how they arrived to be British, i.e. through expulsions
of the original inhabitants) formed a distinct national group (which
they do not) their right to self-determination would only amount to the
right to secede, not the right to decide which state they were to belong
to.  Another example.  The Weekly Worker recently ran long article that
argued that socialists should oppose Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar
on the grounds that this would infringe the inhabitants' right to
self-determination because they did not agree with it.  Again,
self-determination understood as the right to secede means that this
argument is nonsense.  Self-determination does not mean the right to
decide which state you want to be a part of but only the right to leave
the state to which you already belong.  In both of these cases investing
self-determination with a greater content than it merits leads to
bizarre - and wholly reactionary - positions.

But there is a more important objection to this conception of
self-determination.  For once you begin to say that self-determination
means the right to do whatever you want then naturally you do have to
limit the nations to which it applies (to avoid the very scenario that
worries Néstor and José).  You have to invoke a concept of 'national
oppression', based on something other than the desire to form an
independent state which is unable to be realised.  (And this is
precisely the kind of formulation that Richard came out with that
started all this; viz. 'Marxists have traditionally (at least since
Lenin) upheld the right of self-determination of nations only for
nations or nationalities that are oppressed in some way: for example
through specific measures that discriminate against nationals through
suppression of their language and culture, or that withhold certain
rights for nationals that are accorded to non-nationals such as the
citizens of the dominant nation(s)'.)  But this kind of approach leads
you into all sorts of difficulties.  Do, for example, socialists support
the right of self-determination for the Welsh people?  Yes, obviously, I
would argue.  But if you invoke this concept of national oppression as
wider than the simple inability to realise the right to secede, and then
limit the right of self-determination to those nations who fulfil the
necessary requirements of oppression, then you will have a hard time
justifying your support for self-determination for the Welsh people:
using this broader definition of national oppression, in what way
specifically is Wales oppressed?  Linguistically, culturally,
sociologically, economically?  It is exceedingly difficult to make a
case along these lines (if anyone fancies having a go I'd be interested
in hearing it).  And this argument is precisely the one used by the
English-dominated left in the British state to deny that
self-determination applies to Wales.  (Or, more accurately, to say that
self-determination only applies once Wales is defined but 'objective'
criteria a 'nation', by 'objective' criteria 'oppressed', and by
'objective' criteria desirous of secession.  Sectarian shibboleths - in
the sense of the Communist Manifesto - all.)  The list of
English-dominated left groups who argue this kind of thing is as long as
your arm: CPGB, SWP, the old Militant (CWI), Grant-Woods, Socialist
Organiser-AWL, Workers' Power, etc., etc., etc.  The nationalist left in
Wales - and for outsiders it is surprisingly big and surprisingly
radical - wouldn't touch the English-dominated British left with a ten
foot pole for this reason and won't either for at least another
generation because of their chauvinism, a state of affairs which has
done incalculable damage to the prospects of building a revolutionary
movement not only in Wales but in the broader British state.

The same scenario is repeated in, for example, Scotland and Euskadi.  Do
socialists support self-determination for Euskadi?  Clearly.  Why?  Is
Euskadi linguistically and/or culturally oppressed?  It is difficult to
argue that it is for both language and culture are actively promoted. 
Economically oppressed?  Or socially?  But Euskadi is relatively
speaking better off than many other parts of the Spanish state.  In
fact, so difficult is it to argue that the Basque country is oppressed
in these ways that the abertzale left have developed a position that
they live under a fascist dictatorship in order to justify their
struggle for independence, not openly a completely unnecessary political
device but also a completely false one, for Spain is a bog-standard
bourgeois democracy - more enlightened than some and less than others -
with all that goes with that.  So again, an incorrect interpretation of
self-determination and national oppression leads you into all kinds of
difficulties in concrete conditions.


******

Now, turning to Lenin, and his position on the national question, we
have to remember that, being no dogmatist, he developed his positions in
this area (as in general) in relation to the concrete situation.  We can
thus see shifts in his position and in focus.  Nevertheless, and despite
this, I am going to insist on the identification of self-determination
with the right to secede in Lenin's work, and I am going to insist on
there being no developed conception of 'national oppression' other than
an inability to realise this right.  (And below I am appending a good
deal of textual evidence to support my contention.)

How did Lenin's position evolve?  The first fundamental shift in his
view dates from his view, prompted by the experience of the First World
War, that the world had to be understood as a unified whole in which the
imperialist system predominated.  The political consequence of this
shift was the switch in strategic line for the revolution in Russia from
the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry conception to the line
of the April Theses, which postulated the historical imminence of the
assumption of power by the proletariat: a shift that brought him
effectively to Trotsky's position.

Capitalism, in short, had ceased being progressive, and the tasks that
had normally been assigned to the bourgeois democratic revolution -
national independence, political democracy, agrarian reform - were now
logically objectively anti-imperialist, and therefore anti-capitalist,
in form: the property not of the bourgeois but of the socialist
revolution: a socialist revolution that would, of necessity, be
international in scope.  (I should point out here parenthetically that
when I am talking about 'socialist revolution' I am not talking in the
vein of the impossibilist socialism now version of permanent revolution
that a good part of the Trotskyist left abide by, but simply that the
tasks of the bourgeois revolution will need to be carried out by the
working class and its allies, rather than the bourgeoisie.  The
revolution in Russia became for Lenin after April 1917 a proletarian
revolution not necessarily for its social content, which both he and
Trotsky maintained after the event remained almost wholly bourgeois for
a considerable time but by virtue of the necessity of proletarian
leadership.)

Along these same lines, Lenin's views on the national question also
underwent significant modification.  After 1915-16 you see less in Lenin
along the lines of 'equality of nations', and much more emphasis on the
distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations.  In short, Lenin's
position becomes much more concrete.  Along with this, Lenin moved to
the conception (consolidated in April 1917) that the road to
self-determination lay through the gate of the proletarian dictatorship
exercised through soviets, i.e. he came to his conception that the tasks
of the 'bourgeois-democratic' revolution will be solved by the
proletarian one.

The second important shift in focus comes with the experience of soviet
power itself.  Before the revolution Lenin had been a centralist: for
him the choice for the nations of the Russian Empire was territorial
self-determination or nothing.  Secede or no, and, if no, there was no
room in his view for a degree of autonomy within the Soviet state. 
After 1917, and especially by the civil war, this position softens and
becomes more nuanced, more sensitive, and more concrete: in short, Lenin
begins to entertain the notion of degrees of national autonomy that fall
short of secession pure and simple.  This is the context in which Lenin
begins to put the phrase 'up to and including' in the formula: what he
means, of course, is up to and including separation, secession, the
formation of an independent state.  But Lenin doesn't go beyond this. 
We can say that before the experience of soviet power, for Lenin the
right to self-determination and the right to secede were synonyms; after
it, the right to secede was the limit of self-determination, since he
came to the position that forms of autonomy that fell short of secession
were now appropriate.  But Lenin never, never, never held a view that
self-determination was equivalent to equal pay, language rights and all
the rest of it (although Lenin was extremely sensitive to language
rights and other instances of national inequality).

But despite these shifts in Lenin's approach, there are constants in his
thought: his defence of the right of self-determination, his insistence
in posing questions concretely rather than abstractly, and a remarkable
sensitivity towards national demands in total.

And fundamental in the continuity of Lenin's approach was his view that
the national question was a political question.  For Lenin, and he
repeated this many times, the national question was precisely not
reducible to questions of language, territory, economics or culture, but
pertained 'wholly and solely to the sphere of political democracy.' 
Indeed, in his polemics with the current he dubbed 'Imperialist
Economism' - who raised the objection that self-determination was a
utopia within the imperialist system (precisely because of the its
global nature) - Lenin had to insist on the political, not social,
nature of the question:

'It would be a radical mistake to think that the struggle for democracy
was capable of diverting the proletariat from the socialist revolution
or of hiding, overshadowing it, etc.  On the contrary, in the same way
as there can be no victorious socialism that does not practise full
democracy, so the proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the
bourgeoisie without an all-round, consistent and revolutionary struggle
for democracy.  It would be no less a mistake to remove one of the
points of the democratic programme, for example, the point on the
self-determination of nations, on the grounds of it being
"impracticable" or "illusory" under imperialism.  [...]  The domination
of finance capital and of capital in general is not to be abolished by
any reforms in the sphere of political democracy; and self-determination
belongs wholly and exclusively to this sphere.' [The Socialist
Revolution and the Right of Nations to self-determination
(January-February 1916), Collected Works, vol. 22, 144-5]

So, for me, this is self-determination: the democratic right to form an
independent state (we can rephrase it in the light of Lenin's modified
psoition - a posititon that was never made fully clear since the
development of his thought and was cut short by his final illnes and
death, and the soviet experience by the rise of the stalinist
bureaucracy - the right to autonomy up to and including - but not
beyond! - the right to form an independent state).  To whom does this
right apply?  I have to say to all nations; all nations, obviously, that
do not at present enjoy national existence in state form.  This is not
tantamount to arguing for greater power to imperialist states; but
should, hypothetically, an imperialist state come under the occupation
of another then we would, like Lenin (in the case of Belgium - see
below) support that state's right to political independence.  (This was
a real question in both the First and Second World Wars; with regard to
the latter Ernest Mandel raised something of a hue and cry when he
argued in his book The Making of the Second World War that the struggle
against Nazi occupation in western Europe was a national struggle, a
struggle for self-determination.  I, for the record, agree with him.) 
To argue otherwise would be to raise sectarian barriers to oppressed
nations in the present, by putting a false and arbitrary list of
'oppressions' which would have to be fulfilled before the right was to
come into force.  And who would say who would be admitted to the club of
the oppressed and who not?

But simply to say this in the present conjuncture is not in itself
sufficient: we have to pose the question concretely, relating to
concrete conditions.  In my original post I raised the demand of
'self-government', concretely in relation to Wales, Scotland and Euskadi
(but by extension in general to the national minorities of western
Europe, which to my mind constitute a special case of national existence
and oppression), in the context of the demand for a Unites States of
Europe.  I won't repeat those arguments here, but refer people to the
post itself
(<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2002w25/msg00127.htm>).

In fact, the question of Euskadi precisely indicates the difficulties
with José's interpretation of the question.  He suggests that an
'ahistorical' right for all nations to self-determination would inhibit
the self-determination of others, pointing out that 'It is for the
Basques to decide just what territories form part of the Basque country'
(and we'll forget the tautology at the heart of this final clause for
the moment).  But this doesn't follow.  Self-determination for Spain
(the people rather than the state) simply means the right of the Spanish
people to form a politically independent state.  It says nothing about
what this Spanish state will or can say about the Basque one - it is for
precisely this reason that self-determination means the right to
secession but not more than this.  The present Spanish state does not
allow this right to the Basques.  Is this a function of its
'self-determination'?  No: it is a function of the fact that it is run
by a centralist and centralising bourgeoisie.  Is the solution to this
the denial of Spanish self-determination?  No: its solution is,
ultimately, the Iberian and European socialist revolution (in the heart
of which will be writ large the demand for the right to
self-determination for the European nations and the respect of national,
linguistic and cultural rights).


******

Appendix: What Lenin Really Said

I know that Marxism is not a religion, and it has no canonical texts in
this sense, but, as I argued in my first post, the example of Lenin and
Trotsky is - by virtue of their experiences - a powerful one for us.  In
addition, José states quite clearly that my position is not faithful to
Lenin's; I think it is useful then to look at what Lenin did in fact say
on the matter.  So I include the following representative (if far from
exhasutive) selsction.

Writing as early as 1903, Lenin could comment: 'In our 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." ['The National Question in Our Programme', Collected Works, vol.
6, 454]  I would flag up the word 'all' here.  Later in the same
article, he defined self-determination like this: '[...] the right to
self-determination, the right to strive for a free and independent
republic [...]' [ibid., 460]

Ten years later he could write: 'There is one case in which the Marxists
are duty bound, if they do not want to betray democracy and the
proletariat, to defend one special demand in the national question; that
is, the right of nations to self-determination (paragraph 9 of the RSDLP
Programme), i.e., the right to political secession. ['The National
Programme of the RSDLP', Collected Works, vol. 19, 541-2]

At the end of that year, Lenin wrote: 'The national programme of
working-class democracy is: absolutely no privileges for any one nation
or any one language; the solution of the problem of the political
self-determination of nations, that is, their separation as states by
completely free, democratic methods [...].' ['Critical Remarks on the
National Question', Collected Works, vol. 20, 22]. 

And right at the beginning of his key 1914 text 'The Right of Nations to
Self-Determination', Lenin says:

'Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of
nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or "inventing" abstract
definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the
national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the
self-determination of nations means the political separation of these
nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent
national state.

'Later on we shall see still other reasons why it would be wrong to
interpret the right to self-determination as meaning anything but the
right to existence as a separate state.' [Collected Works, vol. 20, 397]

Later in the same section Lenin clarifies the matter:

'[...] "self-determination of nations" in the Marxists' Programme
cannot, from a historico-economic point of view, have any other meaning
than political self-determination, state independence, and the formation
of a national state.' [Ibid., 400.]

Discussing the means by which the RSDLP's programme had been adopted in
1903 (and it is of course the clause of this programme relating to
self-determination that Lenin is defending in this article (in principal
against Rosa Luxemburg), Lenin comments that

'[...] however meagre the Russian Social-Democratic literature on the
"right of nations to self-determination" may be, it nevertheless shows
clearly that this right has always been understood to mean the right to
secession.' [Ibid., 442]

And in the article's concluding section Lenin sums up like this:

'As far as the theory of Marxism in general is concerned, the question
of the right to self-determination presents no difficulty. No one can
seriously question the London resolution of 1896, or the fact that
self-determination implies only the right to secede. [...]. [Ibid., 451]

Writing in January of 1916, Lenin was able to note the following:

'Victorious socialism must necessarily establish a full democracy and,
consequently, not only introduce full equality of nations but also
realise the right of the oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e.,
the right to free political separation.' ['The Socialist Revolution and
the Right Of Nations to self-determination', Collected Works, vol. 22,
143] 

Later in the same article, Lenin comments that: 

'The right of nations to self-determination implies exclusively the
right to independence in the political sense, the right to free
political separation from the oppressor nation.' [Ibid., 146]

Writing in July of this same year, in the article 'The Discussion On
Self-Determination Summed Up', Lenin makes the following pertinent
remarks relating the question of annexations, that sheds light on the
way that he did not limit the right of self-determination to 'oppressed'
nations understood in any other way than nations unable to realise
self-determination:

'In paragraph 3 of Part One of their theses the Polish comrades declare
very definitely that they are against any kind of annexation. 
Unfortunately, in paragraph 4 of the same part we find an assertion that
must he considered annexationist. [...]

'It opens with the following ... how can it be put more delicately?...
the following strange phrase:

'"The starting-point of Social-Democracy's struggle against annexations,
against the forcible retention of oppressed nations within the frontiers
of the annexing state is renunciation of any defence of the fatherland
[...], which, in the era of imperialism, is defence of the rights of
one's own bourgeoisie to oppress and plunder foreign peoples...." 

'[...] 

'The authors of the theses motivate their ... strange assertion by
saying that "in the era of imperialism" defence of the fatherland
amounts to defence of the right of one's own bourgeoisie to oppress
foreign peoples.  This, however, is true only in respect of all
imperialist war, i.e., in respect of a war between imperialist powers or
groups of powers, when both belligerents not only oppress "foreign
peoples" but are fighting a war to decide who shall have a greater share
in oppressing foreign peoples! [...]

'Consequently, the given war or revolt is not assessed on the strength
of its real social content (the struggle of an oppressed nation for its
liberation from the oppressor nation) but the possible exercise of the
"right to oppress" by a bourgeoisie which is at present itself
oppressed.  If Belgium, let us say, is annexed by Germany in 1917, and
in 1918 revolts to secure her liberation, the Polish comrades will be
against her revolt on the grounds that the Belgian bourgeoisie possess
"the right to oppress foreign peoples"!' [Ibid., 331-32]

And at the year's close: 'National self-determination means political
independence. Imperialism seeks to violate such independence because
political annexation often makes economic annexation easier, cheaper
(easier to bribe officials, secure concessions, put through advantageous
legislation, etc.), more convenient, less troublesome - just as
imperialism seeks to replace democracy generally by oligarchy.' ['A
Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism', Collected Works, vol.
23, 44

And when, in 1917, it was proposed to revise the party's 1903 programme,
Lenin commented on the clause on self-determination like this:

'Finally, I must answer one question raised by a few comrades, but as
far as I know, not yet discussed in the press.  This is the question of
Clause 9 of our political programme on the right of nations to
self-determination.  This clause consists of two parts: the first part
is a new statement on the right to self-determination; the second
contains not a demand but a declaration.  I am asked whether a
declaration is in place here.  Generally speaking, there is no place for
declarations in a programme, but I think an exception to the rule is
necessary here.  Instead of the word self-determination, which has given
rise to numerous misinterpretations, I propose the perfectly precise
concept: "the right to free secession".  After six months' experience of
the 1917 Revolution, it is hardly possible to dispute that the party of
the revolutionary proletariat of Russia, the party which uses the Great
Russian language, is obliged to recognise the right to secede.'
['Revision of the Party Programme', Collected Works, vol. 26, 1972, 175]

The proposed change would replace the old clause 9, which read: 'The
right of self-determination for all member nations of the state' with
this new version:

'The right of all member nations of the state to freely secede and form
independent states. The republic of the Russian nation must attract
other nations or nationalities not by force, but exclusively by
voluntary agreement on the question of forming a common state. The unity
and fraternal alliance of the workers, of all countries are incompatible
with the use of force, direct or indirect, against other nationalities.'
['Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme', Collected
Works, vol. 24, 471-3]

I would say that Lenin's comments, and the proposed change, indicate
clearly that he regarded 'right of self-determination' and 'the right to
secede' as synonyms.

Finally, an example of Lenin's use of the clause 'up to an including' in
the self-determination demand (the only time he ever used it that I know
of).  Significantly, the text dates from after the revolution (it was
written in December 1917), and deals with the Ukraine.

'Proceeding from the interests of the unity and fraternal alliance of
factory workers and the working and exploited masses in the struggle for
socialism, and also from the recognition of these principles by numerous
decisions of the organs of revolutionary democracy, the Soviets, and
especially the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, the Council of
People's Commissars - the Socialist government of Russia - reaffirms
that the right to self-determination belongs to all nations oppressed by
tsarism and the Great Russian bourgeoisie, up to and including the right
of these nations to secede from Russia.' [Manifesto to the Ukrainian
People', Collected Works, vol. 26, 361]

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