[Marxism] Re: Marx and Engels and the National Question

[l.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx (Lueko Willms)]

.    Am  22.09.04
schrieb  edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ed George)
    auf  /ALIST/MARXMAIL
     in  41516C56.EAC93707@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  ueber  [Marxism] Marx and Engels and the National Question

EG> Marx's writings on Ireland from this period thus mark a real turning
EG> point in the outlook of both he and Engels in relation to the
EG> political significance of nationalism, even if they do not form as
EG> yet a clear and distinctive theory of nationalism.

  Objection, your honor.

  The first part of his statement is absolutely wrong. The only  
element which changed is the concrete knowledge of Ireland and the  
anglo-Irisch relations, of which Marx and Engels didn't know very much  
before, although Engels' companions, the sisters Burns, were workers  
from Ireland.

  Unfortunately, the French workers prevented Engels from completing  
his planned book on Ireland by rising up as the Paris Commune...

  The second part is correct, since Marx and Engels had never  
attempted to form a "clear and distinctive theory of nationalism".  
They even have even never tried to formulate a general theory of what  
a nation might be in the first place.

  The only general rule they had, and repeated again and again, is  
that "a nation which oppresses another nation forges its own chains",  
and they proclaimed that loud and clear in 1848 against the Prusso- 
German oppression of Poland, of Autrian-German oppression of Italy,  
and they also sided, as quoted in my previous contribution, with the  
Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia against the Habsburg monarchy. The also  
said it e.g. in Meetings in solidarity with Poland, and they put it in  
resolutions of the International Workingmens Association, especially  
in relationship to Ireland.

  I am also bored by all those attempts to read a General Theory of  
what have you in each and every sentence that the two friends ever put  
in writing. No, Marx and Engels did not have a General Theory of Human  
Developement with a scheme of stages which every nation would have to  
follow, or else. And no, they had not a general world formula, and  
didn't search for it.

  When Engels' was approached by Russian students to intervene in  
their disputes, he flatly refused to give any general advice, besides  
that these Russian radicals had to sort out their problems themselves.

  We should think that advice as being directed to us.


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

  "Nach meiner Ansicht besitzt die Presse _das_ _Recht_,
Schriftsteller, Politiker, Komödianten und andere öffentliche
Charaktere zu _beleidigen_. Achtete ich [so einen Angriff gegen mich]
einer Notiz wert, so galt mir in solchen Fällen der Wahlspruch: à
corsaire, corsaire et demi [auf einen Schelmen anderthalben]."
                  - Karl Marx   17.11.1860  (Herr Vogt, Kapitel XI)

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