The concept of "Socialism In One Country", which was the real basis of the ideas of the Lexiters, is a reactionary delusion, and was shown to be so, more than a century ago. But, in those same debates, more than a century ago, what Lenin and Trotsky showed was that, in the age of imperialism, even the idea of "national self-determination", for individual capitalist states, was also a reactionary delusion. As Trotsky put it,
"Capitalism has transferred into the field of international relations the same methods applied by it in “regulating” the internal economic life of the nations. The path of competition is the path of systematically annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises and of achieving the supremacy of big capital. World competition of the capitalist forces means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and greatest capitalist powers. The more developed the technique of capitalism, the greater the role played by finance capital and the higher the demands of militarism, all the more grows the dependency of the small states on the great powers. This process, forming as it does an integral element of imperialist mechanics, flourishes undisturbed also in times of peace by means of state loans, railway and other concessions, military-diplomatic agreements, etc. The war uncovered and accelerated this process by introducing the factor of open violence. The war destroys the last shreds of the “independence” of small states, quite apart from the military outcome, of the conflict between the two basic enemy camps."
But, of course, Marxists do not oppose this progressive development of capital. We do not oppose the development of monopolies, in place of the old less developed forms of capital. Quite the contrary, we welcome and embrace them, because they represent the fact that capitalism itself is maturing, and moving closer to the evolution of Socialism. Part of that development is imperialism itself, as Lenin and Trotsky describe, in that it means the sweeping away of the old reactionary national borders and limitations, the creation of a global economy, and ever larger single markets, and multinational states, which are the minimum conditions required for Socialism.
As Lenin put it,
“To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany. Here we have “the last word” in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organisation, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place of the militarist, Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state, but of a different social type, of a different class content—a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism.Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation, which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution. We Marxists have always spoken of this, and it is not worth while wasting two seconds talking to people who do not understand even this (anarchists and a good half of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries).”
And, Trotsky also makes this clear, in relation to that other aspect of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, the breaking down of the old national borders. Our aim is not national self-determination, or “defence of the fatherland”, but proletarian self-determination, and the greatest unity of workers across existing borders, as part of the process of dismantling them. If imperialism breaks them down, by however a brutal manner, its no part of our programme to demand they be resurrected, any more than it is part of our programme to demand that monopolies be broken apart to restore the less mature forms of capital. We seek to move forward not backwards. National self-determination is a bourgeois-democratic demand, subordinate to the struggle for socialism, and is only ever progressive in the context of being an integral element of the socialist revolution, as part of a process of permanent revolution.
“Let us for a moment grant that German militarism succeeds in actually carrying out the compulsory half-union of Europe, just as Prussian militarism once achieved the half-union of Germany, what would then be the central slogan of the European proletariat? Would it be the dissolution of the forced European coalition and the return of all peoples under the roof of isolated national states? Or the restoration of “autonomous” tariffs, “national” currencies, “national” social legislation, and so forth? Certainly not. The programme of the European revolutionary movement would then be: The destruction of the compulsory anti-democratic form of the coalition, with the preservation and furtherance of its foundations, in the form of complete annihilation of tariff barriers, the unification of legislation, above all of labour laws, etc. In other words, the slogan of the United States of Europe – without monarchies and standing armies – would under the indicated circumstances become the unifying and guiding slogan of the European revolution.”(The Programme of Peace)
The war in Ukraine, is also a manifestation of this basic truth, with Ukraine playing exactly the same role that Belgium played in WWI.
"The war began with a devastating invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg by the German armies. In the echo created by the violation of the small country, beside the false and egotistic anger of the ruling classes of the enemy, there reverberated also the genuine indignation of the popular masses whose sympathy was attracted by the fate of a small people, crushed only because they happened to lie between two warring giants.At that first stage of the war the fate of Belgium attracted attention and sympathy owing to its extraordinary tragic nature. But thirty-four months of military operations have proved that the Belgian episode constituted only the first step towards the solution of the fundamental problem of the imperialist war, namely, the subjection of the weak by the strong.(ibid)
The reality is that, in the century that has transpired, those same processes and realities described by Lenin and Trotsky have matured. Even more is the notion of "national self-determination" a reactionary delusion, whether in relation to Ukraine or Britain. Indeed, Trotsky pointed out, in relation to Ukraine, nearly a century ago, its fate, in that regard, destined to be torn apart by contending imperialisms.
"This program is in irreconcilable contradiction first of all with the interests of the three imperialist powers, Poland, Rumania, and Hungary. Only hopeless pacifist blockheads are capable of thinking that the emancipation and unification of the Ukraine can be achieved by peaceful diplomatic means, by referendums, by decisions of the League of Nations, etc. In no way superior to them of course are those “nationalists” who propose to solve the Ukrainian question by entering the service of one imperialism against another. Hitler gave an invaluable lesson to those adventurers by tossing (for how long?) Carpatho-Ukraine to the Hungarians who immediately slaughtered not a few trusting Ukrainians. Insofar as the issue depends upon the military strength of the imperialist states, the victory of one grouping or another can signify only a new dismemberment and a still more brutal subjugation of the Ukrainian people, The program of independence for the Ukraine in the epoch of imperialism is directly and indissolubly bound up with the program of the proletarian revolution. It would be criminal to entertain any illusions on this score."(Problem of The Ukraine)
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