[Marxism] Re: Marx and Engels on "peripheral" nations

[l.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx (Lueko Willms)]

.    Am  21.09.04
schrieb  lnp3@xxxxxxxxx (Louis Proyect)
    auf  /ALIST/MARXMAIL
     in  4150330D.30503@xxxxxxxxx
  ueber  [Marxism] Marx and Engels on "peripheral" nations

LP> The French revolution was a model for this form of national
LP> development. Just as the Russian revolution was a model for 20th
LP> century revolutions, so was the revolution of 1789 a model for
LP> bourgeois democrats in places like Italy, Germany and Ireland that
LP> had remnants of the old order.
LP>
LP> The Jacobins believed that the only way to consolidate a modern,
LP> bourgeois state was to follow a path of tight centralization and
LP> *linguistic standardization*.

   The centralisation of France dates back to the absolute monarchy  
and is by for not just a product of the revolution.

LP> [Marx and Engels] pinned their hopes above all on the national
LP> unification of the German peoples, who they contrasted as a "more
LP> energetic race" to the smaller national communities on the eastern
LP> outskirts of the German national territory, who could only be an
LP> obstacle to unification:

   Being Germans, Marx and Engels and the daily newspaper they edited  
in the revolutio of 1848/49 surely concentrated on Germany as outlined  
by the territories included in the "Deutscher Bund" (German League,  
established by the Vienna Congress).

   But the resurrection of Poland as "the most necessary nation in  
Europe" was another central plank of their program, also the support  
for national unification of Italy and, as mentioned, the revolution in  
Hungary, establishing Hungary as an independent nation _outside_ of  
the Hungaro-Austrian empire.

   The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" (New Rhenian Gazette) bashed the  
National Assembly in Frankfurt not only for cowardice before the  
crowned heads of Prussia and all those little fiefdoms, but also, and  
very harshly, for supporting Germano-Prussian rule over Poland, and  
for their political support for Austrian occupation of Northern Italy.  
On the latter, Engels wrote an article about a resolution of the  
Frankfurt assembly which gave lip service to the Italian independence,  
but vowed to defend Austria, in case the Italians would dare to attack  
the Austrian fortresses in Italy. We are familiar with that kind of  
discussion today in relationship to Vietnam, Algeria, Iraq, and any  
other colonial war.

   On July 12, 1848, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" wrote that they had  
been "from the very first moment on, in Posnan for the Poles, in Italy  
for the Italians, and in Bohemia for the Czechs", in another article  
that the restoration of a free and united Poland would be the  
precondition for freedom in Germany, and called for the  
_revolutionary_ _war_ _against_ _Russia,_ i.e. the Russian Czarism  
which since the defeat of Napoleon and the Vienna congress had been  
the main force of reaction in Europe.

   Bohemia and Moravia, let that be noted, was part of the German  
League, and had been part of the "Roman Empire of German Nation" for  
centuries; even some German emperors had been Czechs.

   As to the Southern Slaves (i.e. Yugoslav in their serbo-croat  
language), it is a fact that they had not managed to form a national  
unity; very early they were divided between Byzanz (Serbs) and Rome  
(Croats). Only the socialist revolution had managed to create a  
national unity of the South Slavs.

   It seems also that the Croats were not really touched by the  
revolution, and on the contrary, served as the main batallions for the  
counter revolution both in Italy as well as in Germano-Austria,  
smashing the democrats in Vienna, where the Croat troops were under  
the command of the infamous general Jellacic.

   So keep that in mind when reading news analysis articles by Engels  
written in 1848 and even later like this:

LP> "Bohemia and Croatia (another disjected member of the Slavonic
LP> family, acted upon by the Hungarian, as Bohemia by the German) were
LP> the homes of what is now called on the European continent
LP> 'Panslavism'. Neither Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist
LP> as a nation by herself. Their respective nationalities, gradually
LP> undermined by the action of historical causes that inevitably absorbs
LP> into a more energetic stock, could only hope to be restored to
LP> anything like independence by an alliance with other Slavonic
LP> nations."  (Panslavism--the Schleswig Holstein War)
LP>
LP> Who would be the leader of such a federation of Slavonic nations? The
LP> only such leader waiting in the wings is the Russian czar, according
LP> to Marx.

   ... to the extent that they try to find a common ground for  
"Panslavism" in opposition to participating in the democratic  
revolutions of the respective nations they happen to be dependent on.

LP> Here is the clearest theoretical statement on the attitude of Marx
LP> and Engels on the national question:

   Louis cites here an article by F. Engels on the struggle in  
Hungary. I spare comrades to quote again full or in part.

   I have read this article only some months ago in this year.

   As far the article deals with the concrete struggles at that time,  
it is great, but then Engels makes some sweeping generalizations about  
the fate of the small slavonic peoples in Eastern Europe, which can  
only rise astonishmend looking back on the history of the past 150  
years after that article had been written.

   Well, my main conclusion from that is: avoid sweeping  
generalizations, and refrain from making long term predictions,  
especially not any predictions for eternity.

   But think about it, Engels was 28 years old, still felt the heat of  
the revolution and the bitterness about the defeats due to the  
vacillations and cowardice of the petty bourgeois democrats. I'm glad  
that I am not confronted again and again with the articles which I  
wrote in my twenties.

  It is true that F. Engels was always attracted by energetic people,  
both individuals as well as nations, e.g. when he greeted California  
falling to the US, which he thought to be much more vigorous to  
develop that land; he also was scandalized by a book defending  
homosexuality which Marx had lent him.

  As to antijewish prejudices, there seems to exist a collection of  
quotes which is exploited by professional antisemites, which fall in  
three categories:
  a) the articles by the Vienna correspondent in the "Neue Rheinische  
Zeitung" who expressed quite often anti-jewish resentments (Marx broke  
with im when they met in person in the London exile in 1850 or 1851),  
and which were not repudiated by the NRZ editors;
  b) derogatory remarks on Polish Jews by Engels in his article on the  
debate in the Frankfurt assembly, but these remarks were directed at  
the efforts by the Prussian burocracy and German nationalists to  
portray those Jews as Germans, with the purpose to embellish the  
German part of the population in those parts of Poland ruled by  
Prussia; and
  c) some sneering remarks about Jews, mainly from the private  
correspondence of Marx and Engels.

   But to the credit of those lads, when confronted with what we know  
today as antisemitism, Engels clearly took position against any play  
with antisemitism; his letter to Vienna repudiating any idea of  
exploiting antisemitism for anticapitalist agitation has already been  
quoted on this list.

  Well, as I say in the introductory remarks on my website, http:// 
www.mlwerke.de, the texts assembled there are not holy scriptures, but  
scientific works or documents of struggle. And these documents have to  
be judged in the context of the struggles they have been produced, and  
not as eternal truths.


Yours,
Lüko Willms                                     http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@xxxxxxxxxxx -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

"Regierung aus dem Volke, durch das Volk und für das Volk"
   - Abraham Lincoln, Ansprache in Gettysburg, 19.11.1863
"... was in die revolutionäre Sprache von heute übersetzt heißt:
eine Regierung von Arbeitern, durch Arbeiter und für Arbeiter"
                                  - Fidel Castro, November 1994

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