[Marxism] Marx, Engels and the National Question

[Philip Ferguson <philip.ferguson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

  
Lueko:
>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.



I think Ed is right and Lueko is mistaken.  

Marx and Engels originally believed that a revolution in Britain would
solve the question of Ireland, sort of "in passing".  They subsequently
came to believe that the struggle for Irish revolution would push
forward a revolution in Britain and that until British workers came to
support the Irish freedom struggle they would never make a revolution in
Britain itself.

I think this is quite a significant change.

It showed that Marx and Engels had begun to appreciate the role of what
we would now call national liberation struggles not only in terms of
their importance in freeing the oppressed nations but also in their
importance in freeing the working class in the oppressor nations.

It also had substantial significance for how Marx and Engels conducted
their political work in Britain itself.  They began to emphasise the
political question of Ireland within Britain, familiarise themselves
with Irish history, write a great deal about it, and agitate around
Ireland.  

Their chief focus was the importance of Ireland in raising the political
level of the British working class.  Indeed they argued that until the
British working class broke free of the apron-strings of the British
bourgeoisie on the question of Ireland they'd never achieve much in
terms of their own advancement as a class within Britain itself.  

I think history has vindicated this analysis.  Economism continues to
blight the British left and the British working class.

The failure of *most* of the British left to champion Irish freedom in
the 1970s was a major factor in allowing the British ruling class to
escape a socio-political crisis in that decade.  All the British ruling
class had to contend with was an economic crisis and they managed to get
on top of that by breaking the working class, in no small part because
the politics of the British working class were woefully inadequate for
any serious challenge to the system as a whole.

Philip Ferguson










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