Marxism, Zionism and the National Question
The Struggle For Political Rights As Integral To The Class Struggle (1/2)
Lenin and the RSDLP argued that the independence of Poland would probably only arise after the socialist revolution. In the meantime, the best means of bringing about that revolution, but also of fighting against the national oppression of the Poles, was a unified struggle against Tsarism by the Polish and Russian workers, including, therefore, a struggle for political rights and freedoms for the Poles – and indeed all the other oppressed nationalities within the Tsarist Empire.
“The P.S.P. takes the view that the national question is exhausted by the contrast—“we” (Poles) and “they” (Germans, Russians, etc.). The Social-Democrat, however, gives first place to the contrast— “we,” the proletarians, and “they,” the bourgeoisie.”
(The
National Question In Our Programme)
The same distinction of approach can be seen in all such situations. In Northern Ireland, the nationalist talks in terms of “we the Catholics” and “they the Protestants”; in Scotland “we the Scots” and “they the English”; in Britain, “we the British” and “they the EU”; in Israel, “we the Jews” and “they the Palestinians”, and so on. In each of these cases, as with Poland, even if the solution to the problem of national oppression is seen to come from the establishment of an independent nation state, as occurred with the separation of Norway and Sweden, the road to such a solution, inevitably, must pass through a stage of struggle for reforms within the existing state, to guarantee political rights and freedoms for the oppressed nation. The political struggle for such reforms is one that the workers of all nationalities within the given state should be drawn into.
A parallel, here, can be drawn with my argument that, given the near impossibility of creating a truly independent and viable Palestinian state, whilst the Palestinians inside Israel or the occupied territories are, de facto, if not de jure, within the remit of the Israeli state, the way forward is a unified struggle by Palestinian and Jewish socialists for political rights and freedoms for all Palestinians, whether living in Israel, or the West Bank and Gaza, because they are effectively living under the jurisdiction of Israel as vassals. Their de jure status should be reconciled with their de facto status, in that regard. The framework for that would be a democratic and secular federal state of Israel and Palestine. Its true that, as part of any such political solution, the Palestinians might wish to assert a right to establish their own separate state, but that would put them in no different position than, say, Scotland after the Act of Union.
“And that is why, undeterred by chauvinist and opportunist heckling, we shall always say to the Polish workers: only the most complete and intimate alliance with the Russian proletariat can meet the requirements of the present political struggle against the autocracy; only such an alliance can guarantee complete political and economic emancipation.”
(ibid)
Those principles, Lenin says, outlined in relation to Poland, are wholly applicable to every other national question. In general, we oppose federation as an alternative to a unified state, but, in conditions where national oppression may lead to suspicion, it is a compromise that can lead forward to the creation of such a unified state, or which creates the conditions in which an amicable separation might occur. But, this compromise, in relation to the state, is one which should not be countenanced, in terms of the workers organisations themselves. This is part of the debate that Lenin had with the Bundists and the Austro-Marxists over cultural national autonomy.
“The accursed history of autocracy has left us a legacy of tremendous estrangement between the working classes of the various nationalities oppressed by that autocracy. This estrangement is a very great evil, a very great obstacle in the struggle against the autocracy, and we must not legitimise this evil or sanctify this outrageous state of affairs by establishing any such “principles” as separate parties or a “federation” of parties.”
(ibid)
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