The Mass Relocation of Peoples

The rapid, large-scale relocation of peoples rarely turns out well. Where such a relocation is forced on a people, it has fairly obvious negative consequences for those being moved; where such a relocation is a voluntary action by a peoples themselves, it has serious consequences for any other peoples into whose midst they are relocating.

In the 19th century, following on from his success in the US Civil War, General Sherman was given the role, by the US state, operating on behalf of the railroad companies, to suppress opposition from Native Americans, to their land being stolen for the purpose of railroad construction.  Sherman is reported to have commented,

"...we are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of [the railroads].", and after the 1866 Fetterman Massacre, Sherman wrote to Grant that "we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children."

Although the Indian Wars continued until 1924, they had been taking place since the original colonisation by European settlers. Standing behind the policy of colonisation and removal of the Native American population was economic interest, but it found ideological expression in the concept of Manifest Destiny, by which it was argued that the settlers were destined to spread across America from coast to coast.

As Wikipedia states,

“From the 1830s, the United States had a policy of Indian removal east of the Mississippi River, which was a planned, large-scale removal of indigenous peoples from the areas where Europeans were settling. Particularly in the years leading up to Congressional passage of the related act, there was armed conflict between settlers and Native Americans; some removal was achieved through sale or exchange of territory through treaties.” 

The policy was undoubtedly, a policy of genocide undertaken against the Native American tribes. Not only were large numbers of Native Americans murdered, including men women and children, as part of this genocide, but even larger numbers died as a result of other causes such as disease and famine. Estimates of the Native American population prior to European colonisation range from as low as 2.1 million, up to as many as 18 million. Even today, the Native American population is only 2.9 million. Not only did large numbers of Native Americans die, but they were dispossessed of their lands, and relocated into reservations, usually on land that the settlers did not want. 

At the start of the twentieth century, millions of people died as a result of the crazy nationalist policies of Stalin in the USSR, as again huge numbers of people were forcibly relocated from their homes, often to locations thousands of miles away.

Its estimated that around 6 million people were forcibly relocated by Stalin, of which 1.5 million died in the process.

More recently, the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands had lived there for over a century. Between 1967 and 1973, the British Governments of Harold Wilson and then Edward Heath, forcibly evicted the islanders from their homes, in order to enable the US to establish a military base on Diego Garcia. Since 1971, only Diego Garcia is inhabited of all the islands in the archipelago, and those inhabitants are solely military and civilian contractors.

The islanders having been forcibly deported by Britain, have again suffered in the last forty years. Many have again died, and suffered ill-health.

In many of these cases, the forced deportation of some peoples is itself the consequence of the voluntary relocation of others. European settlers voluntary relocated, in large numbers, to their colonies in Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, as well as, for example, the British Protestant settlers into Ireland. The consequence in most cases, was not just that indigenous populations were evicted from their lands, as the settlers wanted the best, most fertile land for themselves, but was the enslavement of the indigenous population, by what were still European feudal ruling classes, operating to their mutual economic benefit with developing merchant classes, and money-lending capitalists, who sought profits from buying cheap and selling dear, and from usury.

In the case of Africa, not only were indigenous peoples evicted from their lands, but they were turned into slaves shipped to British sugar plantations in the West Indies, and to plantations in the Southern United States. Millions of Africans were enslaved over several centuries, and Marx describes the way this process was rapidly increased as capitalist production led to a sharp rise in demand for the products of the plantations. Once again, millions of these slaves died before they were even transported. The British explorer David Livingstone, declared that 80,000 slaves died each year before even reaching the slave markets of Zanzibar. 

In North America, the initial settlement by Europeans caused little difficulty because they were few in number, and the amount of available land was so great. Indeed, the celebration of Thanksgiving, in the US, goes back to a celebration that the first settlers, in danger of dying out from starvation, were saved by the assistance of Native Americans. But, it was inevitable, as the process of settlement and colonisation increased, and as small peasant farms began to be replaced by large capitalist farms, that required huge amounts of land, not to mention the development of large urban areas, of roads, railroads, and other transcontinental communication systems, that a conflict between the settlers, and the indigenous populations would occur.

Similar conflicts and problems arose everywhere that such colonisation took place. 

There is obviously a difference between a situation where a people are being forcibly deported or relocated, as where the Native Americans were rounded up on to the reservations, Soviet nationalities were being deported in their millions to Siberia and elsewhere, or the Chagos Islanders were being deported from their homeland, and where a people voluntarily seek to relocate. Yet, where such relocation occurs on a large scale, over a relatively short period of time, it is inevitable that this is likely to create problems for the indigenous population. In fact, something similar can be seen in relation to the migration of people from North Africa into Europe at the present time.

Moreover, there is clearly a difference between the proposal of Marcus Garvey, the American black nationalist, for the establishment of a homeland for black Americans, within the United States, and his support for Liberia, to which they could relocate, and proposals by racists and fascists to forcibly deport blacks to such a bantustan, as for example, the South African government sought to do with Black South Africans.

Similarly, in the 19th century assorted utopian socialists dreamed of establishing islands of socialist utopia, Little Icara, as Marx describes them in the Communist Manifesto, in the United States and elsewhere. Similarly, as unemployment soared in the late 19th century, in Britain, a number of trades unions formed emigration societies, through which members could contribute, and participate in a lottery to move to the United States.

There is also a difference between a forcible deportation of peoples, and a voluntary relocation driven by a desire to escape such economic hardship, or political oppression. The Pilgrim Fathers are portrayed as escaping religious persecution in Britain, but in reality, they were voluntarily relocating because of the growing religious tolerance towards Catholics in Britain at that time, a tolerance they opposed, due to their Puritanism.

By contrast, millions of Irish people voluntarily relocated in order to escape the famines of the 1840's, which decimated the population. In short, although there is a difference between those who are forcibly relocated, and those who voluntarily relocate, there is also a difference between those who voluntarily relocate, from a position of strength and power, i.e. essentially moving as settlers and colonisers, and those who voluntarily relocate in order to escape, i.e. from a position of weakness.

In terms of the recent furore over anti-semitism, anti-zionism and so on, Jews had been persecuted throughout Europe for centuries. They had suffered pogroms of varying ferocity in most European countries. As with the suggestion for the establishment of a black homeland in the United States by Garvey, Zionism is a nationalist solution for the problems faced by an oppressed people. But, as with all nationalist solutions in the modern world, it is ultimately reactionary. It sees the solution to oppression as being a clinging to your own nation, irrespective of class, and worse the creation of an artificial nation where none exists. It sees the cause of oppression as being national divisions rather than class society, and so sees the solution to those problems flowing from national separation, rather than class unity. It is the expression of communalism par excellence.

Opposition to such nationalistic ideas is fundamental to counterposing a socialist alternative to them.  It is what led the Communist International to warn of the dangers of Pan-Islamism, for instance.

"...the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc."

And Lenin had emphasised this earlier in his writings on the national question and self-determination stating that Marxists could only support the establishment of a new bourgeois state, in the most exceptional conditions.

“In our draft Party programme we have advanced the demand for a republic with a democratic constitution that would guarantee, among other things, 'recognition of the right to self-determination for all nations forming part of the state.' Many did not find this demand in our programme sufficiently clear, and in issue No. 33, in speaking about the Manifesto of the Armenian Social-Democrats, we explained the meaning of this point in the following way. The Social-Democrats will always combat every attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to supporting every demand for national self-determination. As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.”

The National Question in Our Programme

Ultimately, by removing class from the analysis, it leads to the kind of equating of people and state that has been seen recently in terms of the amalgamation of any criticism of the state of Israel with criticism of Jews, and so an equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. There has also been a lot of bad history, and distortion of history. For example, because of the biblical accounts of Israel, this is jumbled together with an historical account whereby the establishment of the modern state of Israel was somehow just a coming home of the Jewish people to their natural homeland, even though they had not lived there, as a nation, for more than 2000 years!

The reality is that the existence and creation of the modern state of Israel has nothing to do with the Israelites of the biblical accounts. For one thing, the establishment of nation states, in general, is a phenomena that only arose over the last two to three centuries. Germany was not created as a nation state until the latter part of the 19th century, the same for Italy, France was formed out of over two hundred different nationalities, and so on.

The Zionist movement arose as a nationalist solution to the problems that Jews had repeatedly faced across Europe. The fact, that the creation of the modern state of Israel had little to do with the biblical Israel is indicated by the fact that the Zionist movement considered a number of different locations as to where the new state could be established.  But, such a nationalist solution, demonstrates all of the objections to such an approach that Lenin and other Marxists at the time had discussed, precisely because it involves acceptance of the idea of annexationism.  Lenin, answers the question why are Marxists against annexations, by saying,

"In our view the answer is obvious: because annexation violates the self-determination of nations, or, in other words, is a form of national oppression."

The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up

On suggestion by Mordecai Manuel Noah, in 1820, was to establish a Jewish national homeland in the United States, at Grand Island on the Niagara River. In 1903, Britain offered to provide land in Uganda for the establishment of a homeland for Jews. The British government offered 5,000 square miles of land, in what is now Kenya. The proposition was discussed by the World Zionist Organisation, which voted to investigate the proposition, and sent a delegation to check out the potential. The proposal was not rejected because it was not in the biblical lands, but because the organisation felt that any such settlement would face hostility from the indigenous peoples. Even so, some members of the organisation who thought the decision to decline the offer was a mistake, formed a new organisation with the intention of trying to establish a Jewish homeland anywhere!

And, when all of the shouting at one another has died down, and the Blair-rights have stopped trying to whip up hysteria for their own sectarian ends, the fact is that Ken Livingstone, was correct that the Nazis had initially had discussions with the German Zionist organisation in order to promote the relocation of German Jews to Palestine, which the Nazis were feeling a need to do at the time, because the German economy was suffering, as a result of a growing boycott of Germany in protest at its anti-semitic policies. 

To relate that matter of historical record, is not in any sense to suggest that the Nazis were supporters of Zionism, or the same as Zionists. The Nazis from start to finish were anti-semitic, murdering bigots, and the policy was designed only to benefit the Nazi regime in dealing with a problem it was facing, both in removing German Jews, and of ending the boycott.

As the BBC website reports,

“Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu provoked widespread criticism in October when he said a Palestinian leader persuaded the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust.

Mr Netanyahu insisted Adolf Hitler had only wanted to expel Jews from Europe, but that Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini had told him: "Burn them."

If the Prime Minister of Israel is prepared to accept the historical record concerning the Nazis relation to the German Zionist movement (albeit for Netanyahu's own bigoted purposes of making Muslims appear worse than Nazis) it is rather odd that British politicians, from the Blair-rights, through to the AWL, and the Tory media do not seem able to confront confront that reality, and reconcile it with their own moral compass of how the world should be, but maybe the reason for that is also because these various British politicians have their own political axe to grind, in making use of this furore too.

And, clearly the establishment of the modern state of Israel is another example of where the voluntary relocation of a people, into the territory of some other peoples results in bad consequences for the indigenous people, in this case, the Palestinians, who were thereby themselves, forcibly removed from their land and homes, and who in the process faced their own genocidal attacks. It is again evidence that such nationalist solutions to the problems of oppression always end up bringing reactionary consequences, which in this case has led to 70 years of war, civil and communal conflict, increasing division between the Jewish and Arab working-classes, and the imposition of strong states across the region, which when they fail, as in Libya, Iraq, Syria, then collapse into reactionary failed states, providing a base for international terrorists and clerical-fascists.

But, a distinction must again be made here. The creation of the United States arose on the back of the genocide against Native Americans, and their confinement in reservations. But, no one seriously thinks that because of this violent and morally indefensible action against the indigenous population of America, that the US is not a legitimate state, that it has to be forcibly destroyed, and handed back to the Native Americans! 

The same could be said of Australia, and most other modern states, all of which were established only after violent national revolutions. In Britain, a series of wars occurred between competing kingdoms and principalities before a nation state was consolidated, for example. Even a rational bourgeois democrat would not propose trying to run history backwards several centuries to try to revert to some unachievable position prior to the offending moral outrage occurred. Still less can a Marxist, or a rational socialist or social democrat wish to do so.

We deal with the world as it is, warts and all, and attempt to move forward from it. The basis of our programme for moving forwards is to build the greatest possible unity of the working class across borders, against our common enemies. It involves a rejection of all nationalist solutions, which act to divide the working-class by lining the workers up behind their own ruling classes.

On that basis, it may not be overtly, or necessarily, anti-semitic to offer up a suggestion that a problem to the Israel-Palestine conflict might be to relocate Israel within the borders of the United States. If as has been suggested, the post from Naz Shah, which was put forward on social media, and not in some august journal of politics, or proclaimed from some political tribune, was not intended to be taken seriously then it should be treated accordingly. People really need to think about the crap they write needlessly on Twitter, but other people really need to get a life and stop treating every comment on Twitter as being some deeply thought out and serious comment. There again its obvious that the Blair-rights and Tory media having been trawling for such comments, in order to blow up this hysteria, ahead of next week's elections, so as to undermine Corbyn.

But, even if the comment were intended to be a serious proposal for discussion, it is no more anti-Semitic, in itself, than the original discussions, including amongst the World Zionist Organisation, as to where a Jewish homeland might be established. It is, however, implicitly anti-Semitic, for the simple reason that, in the real world, the existing Israeli state is not going to simply dissolve itself and relocate to some other location! The existing Israeli state could only be relocated to some other location, if the existing state were forcibly destroyed, and the Jewish inhabitants of that state forcibly moved. In reality that would mean a war, in which millions of people both Jewish and Arab would die.

It is not a solution that is designed to forge unity between workers, but to drive a deeper wedge between them. The very fact of the killing of millions of workers in such a process is not something that any rational socialist could support. Lenin dealing with a similar question about the way bourgeois democratic rights, including the right to self-determination have to be subordinated to the task of fighting for the international unity of the working-class wrote,

“Let us assume that between two great monarchies there is a little monarchy whose kinglet is “bound” by blood and other ties to the monarchs of both neighbouring countries. Let us further assume that the declaration of a republic in the little country and the expulsion of its monarch would in practice lead to a war between the two neighbouring big countries for the restoration of that or another monarch in the little country. There is no doubt that all international Social-Democracy, as well as the really internationalist section of Social-Democracy in the little country, would be against substituting a republic for the monarchy in this case. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not an absolute, but one of the democratic demands, subordinate to the interests of democracy (and still more, of course, to those of the socialist proletariat) as a whole.”

The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up

Our task is not to fight for bourgeois democratic rights, other than to the extent that they assist the struggle of the working-class for socialism. Nor is it our responsibility to act as history's moral guardians. We have enough to do in terms of the class struggle without attempting such a mammoth task. As Trotsky put it,

“Should the proletariat attempt at the expense of the clarity and irreconcilability of its fundamental policy to chase after each episodic danger separately, it will unfailingly prove itself a bankrupt. In time of war, the frontiers will be altered, military victories and defeats will alternate with each other, political regimes will shift. The workers will be able to profit to the full from this monstrous chaos only if they occupy themselves not with acting as supervisors of the historical process but by engaging in the class struggle. Only the growth of their international offensive will put an end not alone to episodic “dangers” but also to their main source: the class society.”

A Step towards Social-Patriotism

Palestine And The Theory of Non-Historic Peoples

The Civil War in Gaza, between Fatah and Hamas, showed a deep rift within the Palestinian people. It has resulted in, effectively, two Palestinian proto states, in Gaza and the West Bank. The fighting, between Israel and Lebanon, was accepted by most observers as a proxy war, already, between the US and Iran, with the US backing Israel, and Iran and Syria backing, supplying and arming Hezbollah.
Similarly,the US backed Fatah in Gaza, as did its Sunni client states, who promised arms and finance to Fatah, to be supplied with the consent of Israel. As with the promises made to Sunnis, in Iraq, by the Gulf States, large amounts of finance were offered to Fatah. Similarly, Iran, and probably Syria, are reported to have backed Hamas with similar supplies of arms if not finance.

As my old man used to tell me, when I was a nipper, sitting on his knee, the first tool of the bosses is divide and rule. It is a tactic US imperialism has used successfully for most of the post war period. Often, it has been used in conjunction with dirty tricks by the CIA whose operations thrive in conditions of chaos, to play one side against another, and, when conditions are ripe, to back some local strongman to take over and establish a regime tied to the US. But the chaos in Gaza, in particular, and the division of the Palestinian people, demonstrates an argument I have put forward now for more than 20 years, it is that the demand for a two-states solution for Palestine-Israel cannot work, if not that it is, in fact, reactionary. It cannot work because the necessary conditions for nation building do not exist in the West Bank and Gaza – in fact they exist even less today than they did 20 years ago when I first raised this argument.
The West Bank has been reduced to a series of discontinuous Bantustans separated by Israeli settlements, as I forecast would happen, and the new “Security Fence” breaks up these communities even more. In Gaza, the Palestinians have shown themselves incapable of undertaking even the most basic functions of a state in maintaining order, even allowing for the actions of the Israeli state in creating conditions which made that more difficult. But, the Israeli state has been able to justify those incursions, because of continued terrorist attacks, on Israel, by those elements, within Palestine, that would never accept the existence of Israel, whatever arrangements were made for Palestinians, again as I said was obvious would happen 20 years ago.

The Palestinians simply lack the cohesion and internal resources to create their own nation state. That is why, like all such peoples in the past, they have looked to any external forces that might lend a hand in achieving their goals, only to find, as every such peoples have, in the past, that these external allies use them for their own purposes before discarding them.
And, like such peoples in the past, these external allies are always reactionary forces of one kind or another – Saddam Hussein, now Iran’s clerical-fascists, and US imperialism. The fight for national liberation can be a liberating, progressive struggle, but, even in the programme of Lenin and the Comintern, it was only such because that struggle was undertaken by revolutionary forces, and, in particular, was led by the working class dragging a revolutionary peasantry behind it. But, no such prospect exists for Palestine. Marxists believe in progressive struggles being undertaken by the working class through its own independent class action, that is the basis of the Comintern’s policy on the National Question. But, for the working class to bring about a two states solution, in Palestine-Israel, it would require the working class, in both Israel and Palestine, to be effectively at a level of class consciousness where not just a solution to the national question was on the agenda, but a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. But, then the question of two-states would become rather subordinate anyway. Without those conditions, the only possibility of a two states solution being established is if it is imposed by imperialism, which is hardly progressive in itself, and would, almost certainly, be the conditions which would mean that the solution soon fell apart into increased fighting and bloodshed.

It is not something Marxists like to address in today’s world, because there is a feeling that some nice solution has to be found for every problem in the world. Even more, to raise the idea that a people should not be entitled to nationhood, to self-determination is one that is anathema to socialists that have imbibed the notions of petit-bourgeois democracy of the type that leads to idiot anti-imperialism. In order to understand the argument, it is necessary to reach back in time, beyond the discussions of the National Question, by the Comintern, back into the 19th century, when these issues were discussed by Marx and Engels,
in relation to Europe, and their development of the idea of “Non-historic peoples”, peoples that history had by-passed, that, like the Palestinians, lacked the internal resources for nationhood, and who, like the Palestinians, ended up on the side of all kinds of reactionary forces in the revolutionary struggles of the time. Again, these writings, of Marx and Engels, are ones that many of today’s Marxists do not like to have raised. Many Marxists want their socialism to be of the pure type, which is only found in textbooks, and want the socialist heroes to be like the cowboys in the white hats, pure as driven snow, rather than real human beings, trying to deal with difficult questions, in conditions not of their choosing. There have been many attempts, by such Marxists, to massage the odd word or phrase, of Marx and Engels, to make them sound less harsh, in order to assuage the petit-bourgeois sensibilities of the milieu in which such people often operate. The case of the “Non-historic peoples” is a case in point.

The best analysis, of Marx and Engels position, is that given by Roman Rosdolsky. Rosdolsky had been a leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party, in the 1920’s. In the 1930’s, he was one of the leaders that opposed Stalin’s invasion of the Ukraine.
He first addressed the question, in the 1920’s, when he wrote his doctoral thesis on the issue, but his best known work was written in 1948, when he had moved to the US. For obvious reasons, at the time, he had difficulty in getting a publisher for the work, and wanted to maintain a low political profile. Other, émigré, Ukrainians had managed to get a Publisher, in Germany, but, when Rosdolsky found that this Publisher was linked to the Nazis, he obviously refused. In fact, given the nature of Marx and Engels writings, on the issue, and the experience of the very peoples – the Czechs and Slavs – at the hands of both Hitler and Stalin, in the previous period, it was mainly reactionary right-wing forces that were keen to utilise Marx and Engels writings whereas left-wing and liberal elements wanted to hush them up.
In the meantime, Rosdolsky filled his time usefully. He wrote one of the best accounts of Marx’s Capital – “The Making of Marx’s Capital” – utilising Marx’s notes in The Grundrisse. He corrected many of the distortions of Marx’s work, introduced by the Stalinists. For example, he demonstrated, contrary to the claim of Stalinism – but also adopted by many Trotskyists keen to foresee the kind of social crisis needed for a political revolution – that Marx did not have a theory of immiseration for the working class. Out of several hundred references, to wages, in Marx’s work, Rosdolsky said that there was only one that could possibly be interpreted in that way.

Rosdolsky’s work “Engels and the ‘Non-historic Peoples:The National Question in the revolution of 1848”, was published by Critique Books in 1986 (Critique 18-19) in an edition translated and edited by John-Paul Himka.
To illustrate the problem, referred to above, and the attitude of modern Marxists, Himka says in his introduction,to Rosdolsky's work,

“However, this book in particular posed a problem. It concerned some embarrassing statements made by Marx, and above all, Engels with regard to east European peoples. During the revolution of 1848-49 Marx and Engels had characterised most of the Slavic peoples (the outstanding exception being the Poles) and other East European peoples (such as the Romanians and Saxons of Transylvania) as nonhistoric, counter-revolutionary by nature and doomed to extinction. The statements moreover, were saturated with insulting epithets (pig-headed, barbarian,robber) and ominous sounding threats (a bloody revenge that would annihilate these reactionary peoples).”

Himka says,

“I will not try the reader’s patience with an account of the vicissitudes involved in bringing this translation into print, except to quote from one letter I received in 1980 which has the virtue of clearly expressing an attitude that I discovere to be distressingly prevalent on the English-speaking left: ‘The work as it stands could( and certainly would) be used by the opportunists to attack Marx-Engels….In the context of today’s struggles his [Rosdolsky’s] book can serve only to create confusion in the anti-imperialist movement’”

In a note, Himka says the letter was from a member of a British left-wing group.
But Rosdolsky shows that Marxists too can be subject to social pressure. As Himka himself points out, Rosdolsky’s conclusions, in the 1948 work, are almost the direct opposite of the conclusions he arrived at in his thesis of the 1920’s. In the 1920’s, he had concluded that Marx and Engels’ position was entirely vindicated by the historical materialist method. Yet, in 1948, he concludes that they had been wrong. He argues that their position was based on a too optimistic view of the potential for socialist revolution in 1848, a view which led them to ignore the class elements of the struggles of the peasants in these countries in order to retain the support of those forces – including sections of the European nobility – with which the working class was in alliance in 1848. But it seems to me that this is to turn Marx and Engels into “idiot imperialists” as a mirror image of today’s idiot anti-imperialists.

There undoubtedly was some element of chauvinism in the works of Marx and Engels, which was inevitable in the times that they were writing. It is also true that Marx and Engels themselves concluded that they had overstated the revolutionary potential of the times. In fact, as they were later to state, in 1848, Britain was the only country where capitalism was dominant, and, as they believed that socialism was impossible without capitalism first developing and socialising the productive forces, a socialist revolution was clearly impossible in 1848.
They undoubtedly also bent the stick somewhat polemically against Bakunin who, basing himself on the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, – a potential Marx and Engels showed did not exist because of the atomised nature of the peasantry (see Marx – 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte where his class theory is most clearly set out) -argued for the revolutionary nature of these struggles, but, it seems to me, that, in fact, Rosdolsky was right in the 1920’s when he argued that Marx and Engels based themselves on historical materialism, and that he is wrong in his later appraisal. Marx and Engels theory of Historical Materialism certainly does put class at the forefront of explaining historical development. It is certainly within that context that determination of which forces are progressive can be determined. But it is Economistic to think that class is the only criterion utilised by Marx and Engels in orienting themselves in the world they were in. It is quite obvious that nationality and nationalism were and are important cleavages and ideologies running through societies, as well as class, and, as I said at the beginning, struggles, based around nationality, can only be progressive if they are viewed in the context of historical reality, of who is leading those struggles, and by what means. Indeed, nationality, as a cross cutting cleavage, is one that is usually reactionary it cuts across class lines, dividing the working class, and indeed tending to unite sections of the working class with its own bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. It is not at all surprising, to me, then, that Marx and Engels, especially at a time of heightened revolutionary activity, such as 1848, but not just at that time, should conclude that some such struggles were reactionary, that those conducting them were incapable of using their own internal resources for achieving their aims, that, in order to do so, they had to ally themselves with reactionary international forces – at that time with Tsarist Russia who Marx and Engels viewed in the same way that some Marxists today view the US i.e. a force to be opposed in all circumstances, and almost to be defeated by any means.

This is not the place, and, in any case, I do not have time, at the moment, to elaborate further on Marx and Engels theory of the “non-Historic Peoples”, but it is well worthwhile for comrades to read Rosdolsky’s work, because these writings of Marx and Engels are important works, which a lot of the modern Marxist movement has tried to sweep under the carpet. I believe that Rosdolsky’s explanation is wrong, and a reflection of the petit-bourgeois pressure that often inflicts the Marxist movement. To argue that Marx and Engels were proved wrong, because the peoples they said were non-historic eventually did achieve statehood, is facile. They dealt with reality as it was when they were writing. Neither they nor anyone else can deal with reality as it exists 100 years into the future. In the intervening period, rather important changes, which would have caused them to re-evaluate the situation, based on changed material conditions, occurred such as the break up of the old European Empires during the First World War, for one thing.

The reality is that the Palestinians are not the only people in the world that have been shown to be “non-historic” many such peoples exist without their own state. We should judge each on its merits to determine whether the struggle of any people is progressive or reactionary in the same way that Marx and Engels did e.g. in their support for the struggle of the Poles, rather than simply read off some mantra that socialists must always support the right of self-determination.
We have a duty to support all peoples against oppression. Where a people seek to argue for their own self-determination, we have a duty to support their right to put forward that case, free from intimidation and aggression from other states, but we have no absolute duty to support such a demand ourselves. On the contrary, where the interests of the working class internationally are weakened by such a struggle we should say so, and argue against it, and for workers unity across borders.

Other Documents Like This

The Politics And Programme Of The First International - Part 7

9.
Polish question

[The French subtitle reads: "Necessity of annihilating Russian influence in Europe by implementing the right of nations to self-determination and restoring Poland on a democratic and social basis." German subtitle reads similarly.]

(a) Why do the workmen of Europe take up this question? In the first instance, because the middle-class writers and agitators conspire to suppress it, although they patronise all sorts of nationalities, on the Continent, even Ireland. Whence this reticence? Because both, aristocrats and bourgeois, look upon the dark Asiatic power in the background as a last resource against the advancing tide of working class ascendancy; That power can only be effectually put down by the restoration of Poland upon a democratic basis.

(b) In the present changed state of central Europe, and especially Germany, it is more than ever necessary to have a democratic Poland. Without it, Germany will become the outwork of the Holy Alliance, with it, the co-operator with republican France. The working-class movement will continuously be interrupted, checked, and retarded, until this great European question be set at rest.

(c) It is especially the duty of the German working class to take the initiative in this matter, because Germany is one of the partitioners of Poland.

The debates over questions of Nationalism and Colonialism were really only beginning at this time. Dealing with this question requires more space and time than is available here, and my intention is to deal with this section separately along with a wider discussion on Nationalism and Colonialism. What is important here, however, is again the basic approach. The starting point is not any question of bourgeois democratic right for self-determination. The starting point is what is in the best interests of the working-class movement. The establishment of an independent, democratic Poland is not argued for, for its own sake – a movement that is internationalist, and seeks to abolish nation states, can hardly base itself on the creation of new ones! - but, because of what that means in terms of the power of Russia (the dark Asiatic power in the background), whose continual intervention into the affairs of Europe, had set back not only the workers movement, but even the development of bourgeois democracy. It is this method of starting from the interests of the working-class, rather than abstract notions about bourgeois democratic freedoms and rights – which ultimately comes down to a question of moral judgements – which much of the Left today, which bases itself on ideas of “anti-imperialism”, has abandoned. It is one of the areas where Lenin was to not only stand in Marx's footsteps, but, to mix metaphors, to stand on his shoulders, and develop Marx's ideas for use in the twentieth century.

A Reply To "Dave" On The Politics of The SWP & Fighting Fascism

This post is a reply to "Dave" following on from a discussion we have been having here


”For those of honest mind please read the following article (Daly Mail vs the Nazi’s) in the current edition of socialist worker, I think it makes my point:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19454”

What point exactly is it making??? For one thing its confused. I think there actually has to be a debate about the nature of the BNP, as the Weekly Worker suggest. On the one hand, I have myself pointed to the fact that the BNP has within it many thugs, and you do not have to look far to find thuggish behaviour from BNP members. Until recently, I too stood by the classical view of the BNP as a fascist party. However, having read some of the articles in the WW recently, I am prepared to take a more open view. I think to be saying to people that this is a classic “Nazi” party, when it has NOT been going out in an organised way to smash up Left meetings or Trade Unions as the Nazis did, when it is speaking out vehemently, against groups like the EDL, who are engaged in such activity, could simply undermine the left, in the eyes of workers, who look at those statements and compare it with the reality and find a mismatch. Certainly, we can make the point that it is doing this in order to win electoral support, but does not the fact of how such a process changed the Front National – and in a different context Provisional Sinn Fein, or in yet another the way in which electoralism changed “Socialist” parties, and changes individual “socialist” politicians – cause us to engage in a more in depth analysis of what the BNP is?

At the same time the SWP’s position is thoroughly confused. At the same time as running such stories attacking the bourgeois press and bourgeois parties, it then puts the leading representatives, like David Cameron, of that same bourgeoisie, on its platforms, or attaches their names to its campaigns. It even advises people on demonstrations, it has called, not to attack the racists of UKIP! Trotsky referred to such bankrupt politics when he said that once you start down this road you always end up giving your support to, or going into alliance with, ever more reactionary politicians, because there is always some “greater evil”, measured against which these politicians are themselves the “lesser evil”.

What is more such politics reflect the fact that the SWP does not operate on the basis of class politics, but works on the basis of a world in which politics is compartmentalised. Over here there is “industrial politics”, over here there is “Anti-racism”, over there there is “Women’s Work” or “LGBT Work”, over here there is “Anti-Imperialism”. And what it does is to say different things in each area. When its working in the “Women’s Work” area, for example, it will promote itself as the champion of women’s rights. The same when it is working in the LGBT area it will be the greatest proponent of Gay and Lesbian rights and so on. But, when it is working on anti-racism it will refuse to pursue these issues, for example as it did in Bradford a few years ago over the question of grooming, and will even accuse others of Islamophobia, for doing so themselves. When it is working in the area of anti-imperialism, for example supporting the murdering mullahs in Iran or Iraq, it will refuse to challenge the fact that these same people are murdering socialists, trade unionists, women and gays and so on. The reason it does this is quite clear. Rather than locating its politics on the basis of class politics, it bases itself on “building the party”, and in each area of work simply says whatever it thinks that particular milieu wants to hear. It acts in accordance with your policy of “diplomacy”, subordinating its politics to the need to not upset possible recruits. But, what this “diplomacy” actually amounts to is nothing more than the kind of Opportunism that the adherents of the Second International were guilty.
The piece also is politically inadequate for another reason. It attacks – quite correctly – the racism of the gutter press (which for reasons I set out in my blog I don’t think necessarily DOES reflect the interests of the Capitalist class, which requires social stability, and cheap imported labour). But, it is arrant nonsense to suggest that the support for the BNP is based solely on the ravings of the Daily Mail, or the reactionary politics of mainstream parties. The BNP have been picking up workers votes, because many of the least well-off sections of the working class feel that they have been shat upon from a great height. They believe they don’t have jobs, decent houses, school places and so on, because of immigration. They are, of course, wrong, but simply telling them they are wrong is not enough. They need someone to provide them with a solution to those problems – a political solution.

But, and this was one of the main points I have previously made, it is quite clear that neither the UAF, nor the other anti-fascist organisations that base themselves on trying to build Popular Frontist opposition to the BNP can possibly provide such a solution. The SW article certainly offers none does it? The UAF etc. cannot offer such solutions precisely because doing so means advocating CLASS politics, and if the UAF did that then the David Cameron’s, the Teddy Taylor’s, and all the Bishops, all the bourgeois Nationalists who want to oppose the BNP by pretending to be better Nationalists would disappear in an instant.

“Imagine how they feel when you present your immigration ideas! Imagine what that does to the image of socialism in their eyes but you are correct not to pander to ignorance and the SWP are correct also.”

What on Earth are you talking about? How can my position of holding to a clear class politics and arguing against Immigration Controls cause any confusion? My position is clear. I see workers as the revolutionary class. It is the job of a Marxist to stick with the workers even where they hold reactionary ideas, precisely because the task is to divest them of those ideas. I do not make acceptance of my ideas a precondition for sticking with the workers, but I do insist on the need for Marxists not to abandon their ideas. Compare that with the sectarianism of the SWP over the LOR strikes, where they recognised that those who argue for “Import Controls”, and “British Jobs 4 British Workers” are “proponents of racism”, and on that basis refused to support workers in struggle against the bosses!!!!! In fact, one reason they did that – along with many of the other sects whose natural recruiting ground is amongst the petit-bourgeois, student and intellectualist milieu where having “right-on” politics in respect of racism is paramount – was precisely fear that they would lose support and potential recruits.

“I am not sure they do anymore actually. They have evolved into banter, that is my impression. Just like the jokes against the Germans.”

I think you are deluding yourself if you do not believe that these jokes were only possible because they took as their starting point entrenched stereotypes. Its rather like the bloke who said to me down the gym the other week that he was not a racist, and then went on to tell me that he’d been reading Obama’s book, and related that “his father was like all these blacks and couldn’t keep his dick in his trousers.” I suppose that’s just banter too!

“As I said shame some do not see through this sham!!!”

I think it’s a shame you are not prepared to consider whether more analysis is required.

“Your response to my Bakunin jibe was thoroughly confused. I will try to summarise as best I can my take on this immense topic.”

I’m not confused at all, its your politics that are confused, because you start from some principal, and then completely abandon it when it comes to its application!

”I do not agree with the pro imperialist position of the AWL for a variety of reason, but I think Marxists should have opinions on international matters.”

Who would disagree with that?

“Of course those opinions must be based absolutely on the interests of the class struggle. We should also distinguish a conflict between imperialists and those wars of domination by imperialists against weaker states.”

But, the SWP does not do that. On Ireland back in the 60’s it started from a thoroughly workerist position refusing to take on the National Question and British involvement, because it was unpopular amongst British workers at a time when bombs were going off. Then it completely changed course and became cheerleaders for the Provos. Its statements about “We are all Hezbollah Now”, i.e. we are all a bunch of clerical-fascists, have nothing to do with basing yourself on the class struggle and everything to do with basing yourself on trying to win recruits in its currently chosen milieu!

Moreover, what does imperialism against weaker states mean? Was Germany a weaker state when it had been occupied and placed under domination by Britain and the US, for example? Moreover, even having made this distinction what are the political conclusions that flow from it. I’ve given the quote from Trotsky about a war between Brazil and Britain. But, his more detailed position is illustrated by his position in relation to Japanese Imperialism and China. The SWP’s position on these issues is effectively that of Stalin. That is they subordinate their own politics in order to enter a Popular Front with bourgeois nationalist forces – “we are all Hezbollah”. Compare that with Trotsky who opposed submersion of the Communist forces in the KMT, whilst at the same time arguing for support for the KMT and Chiang Kai Shek against Japan. But, what did that “support” consist of. It consisted of offering to forge a military alliance against Japanese Imperialism, whilst maintaining the clearest political and organisational demarcation from the KMT, in fact, sharpening the criticisms of the KMT, pointing out that it could not be relied upon to fight a battle to the death with Japan, that it would turn on the workers and so on.

He was, of course, absolutely correct, because having used the Communists, just as the Stalinists and Communalists used the SWP in Respect, Chiang turned round and massacred the Communists, just as the Stalinists and Communalists turned on the SWP. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

”Marx allowed himself to have an opinion on the war between Germany and France that led to the Paris Commune and at the same time he tasked the international to “put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland”.”

But, Marx’s solution was not to submerge class politics in bourgeois Nationalism. Marx was a Centralist. He was only reluctantly in favour of the separation of the Irish and British workers in order to resolve this problem. Even then he favoured a federal Ireland and Britain in order to try to maintain the unity of the class. And start to finish, even though he was writing before the much fuller discussion of the National Question by later revolutionaries like Lenin, his solution was based on the working class providing the answer. Compare that with the SWP’s kowtowing to the reactionary politics of all kinds of clerical-fascists and bourgeois Nationalists at the expense of class politics.

”On the Second World War I agree with many of your factual observations but looking back after the event we should see the differences in the warring states and recognise that for many people this was seen as a ‘just’ war against the evils of fascism. Here I am not talking about the people who fought in the war but subsequent generations who look back with hindsight. So bringing this back to the debate in question I regard the word Nazi as synonymous with ‘evil’ Fascists and not ‘evil’ Germans.”

And I have said I disagree, but apart from that disagreement, I would suggest to you that the concomitant of that is to give credibility to the very idea that this WAS such a War. It is to give credence to the idea that there WAS a common cause between British Workers and British bosses against this evil Nazism. In going along with all the crap about trying to deny the BNP Nationalist symbols like the Spitfire and Churchill, the SWP does lend credence to the idea that there was something to be proud of in such an imperialist War, and does suggest that the Spitfire and Churchill were “ours”. But, of course, the job of a Marxist is to do the exact opposite, to shatter that myth. The SWP, cannot do it, because today in its Popular Frontist organisations it IS in bed with those very same bourgeois forces!!!

“I do not think Marx would have looked at this conflict and concluded that they were all as bad as each other so it didn’t matter what the outcome was. He often voiced his preference of sides in such conflicts.”

Firstly, Marx was writing prior to the world being divided into competing imperialist powers. Secondly, he was writing prior to the fuller discussion of the National Question by socialists at the beginning of the twentieth century. And yes, in any particular conflict Marxists have to take a view based on what furthers the interests of the working class. Lenin gives the classic example of that when he speaks about subordinating the bourgeois democratic freedoms that might be fought for in a small state to the interests of the workers in two larger states who might be dragged into a war, as a consequence of a struggle for those freedoms.

”To quote Marx verbatim “You see what a caricature he [Bakunin] has made of my doctrines! As the transformation of the existing States into Associations is our last end, we must allow the governments, those great Trade-Unions of the ruling classes, to do as they like, because to occupy ourselves with them is to acknowledge them.””

This has nothing to do with the argument you are trying to make. Of course, Marxists do not simply throw up their hands, and say what Governments do in International Affairs is none of our business! Who is suggesting that??? Of course, Marxists oppose Wars and so on, but Trotsky was, of course, correct, and Marx I’m sure would not have contradicted him, when he said that such wars may not be OUR wars, but we will have them unless we are strong enough to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish our own state, because at the end of the day control over the military flows from control of that state!

”Your interpretation of my position I think shows you do not look at these events with the class struggle in mind, as your absurd implication that I would support the USA against Vietnam shows. Actually the opposite would be true.”

But, given what you said in your previous post about not being neutral between “fascist” and “democratic” regimes, and what you have repeated above there is nothing absurd in that conclusion at all. It flows logically from your position. Was not the US a bourgeois democracy of the kind you see as a lesser evil compared to fascism. Was not North Vietnam a Stalinist dictatorship, and didn’t Trotsky describe Stalinism as differing from Fascism only in its greater brutality? As you approve of the “diplomatic” alliances between workers and bourgeois to fight fascism then why should that not include an alliance with democratic bourgeois from other countries prepared to help in fighting the good fight? That is the logic of your position even if you are reluctant to accept it.

”For example, I wouldn’t support an attack on Iran but I would welcome an end to the clerical dictators by an uprising within Iran, even if the outcome was a more liberal ruling class. This would allow us to establish better links with the advanced workers in Iran. An attack by the West would set back that possibility for generations.”

That is exactly what the Stalinists proposed in their stages theory, and upon which they advocated the Popular Front. But, as I said, if this liberal bourgeoisie can be allied with in this way, then why not the liberal bourgeoisie of Britain and the US. Those who have taken your argument to its logical conclusion such as the Labour Friends of Iraq, argued precisely that, and like you pointed to the fact that we should not have been neutral between a victory for “democratic” Britain as against “Fascist” Germany in WWII. The AWL, whilst not completely taking the argument to its logical conclusion like LFIQ, at the same time, argue that this democratic imperialism was trying to establish some form of bourgeois democracy, in Iraq, as it had done in Germany and Japan. They too argue that this will allow “better links with the advanced workers in Iraq”. It is, of course, all nonsense, but it is far more consistent nonsense than the argument you are trying to make.

Palestine – Nationalism v Socialist Internationalism

The following document was written in July 1985 as part of a discussion in the Workers Socialist League on the question of Israel-Palestine. It opposed what was to become the position of the WSL, of supporting a Two State solution, as well as opposing the position of the democratic secular state. Both positions, the document argues, are founded on Nationalism rather than Proletarian Internationalism, and are, therefore, two sides of that same Nationalist coin. As such, both positions are a far cry from the positions developed by Lenin, the Bolsheviks and the early Comintern, even though many on the Left, argue for the Democratic Secular State position, as though what they were arguing was a continuation of those policies. In fact, as I have argued previously, in the documents on Imperilaism, those nationalist ideas are, in fact, just a sign of the degree to which socialist politics has been corrupted by the influence both of Stalinist National Socialism, and Third Worldist petit-bourgeois nationalism.

As it becomes clear that neither of those solutions, today 25 years on, offer any solution to either Palestinian or Israeli workers, others on the Left have begun to argue for the kind of wider socialist solution to the problem argued for in this document. The CPGB, for instance in its recent discussions frames things in a far more socialist and internationalist way than do many on the Left. Moreover, as the document demonstrates, by numerous quotes, such an approach is founded firmly on the ground of Marxism, and of Lenin’s application of it, to the National Question. It is an antidote to that cancer of Nationalism that has been gnawing away at the soul of the Marxist Left for the last 80 years. Where possible links to Lenin's writings have been given. With the widespread misrepresentation of these views that 80 years of Stalinist and nationalist influene have had on the marxist movement, I would highly recommend comrades read these documents of Lenin in full.

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Lenin on Separation and Amalgamation

“One such idea is refined nationalism, which advocates the division and splitting up of the proletariat on the most plausible and specious pretexts, as for example, that of protecting the interests of ‘national culture’, national autonomy or independence’, and so on and so forth.

The class conscious workers fight hard against every kind of nationalism, both the crude, violent Black Hundred nationalism, and that most refined nationalism, which preaches the equality of nations together with… the splitting up of the workers’ cause, the workers’ organisations, and the working class movement according to nationality. Unlike all the varieties of the nationalist bourgeoisie, the class conscious workers, carrying out the decisions of the recent (Summer 1913) conference of the Marxists, stand not only for the most complete, consistent and fully applied equality of nations and languages, but also for the amalgamation of the workers of the different nationalities in united proletarian organisations of every kind”

( Lenin – “Corrupting the Workers With Refined Nationalism” emphasis as in original)

Lenin continues,

“To the bourgeoisie, however, the demand for national equality very often amounts in practice to advocating national exclusiveness and chauvinism; they very often couple it with advocacy of the division and estrangement of nations. This is absolutely incompatible with proletarian internationalism, which advocates, not only closer relations between nations, but the amalgamation of the workers of all nationalities in a given state in united proletarian organisations.”

Lenin was writing about the national problem as it specifically affected Tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia was the greatest prison house of oppressed nations of all time. Not only did it contain within it a vast range of oppressed nationalities, but the pogroms that these nations faced at the hands of the Black Hundred gangs were far more severe than any oppressed nationality faces today. Yet, despite this oppression, despite these nations, by and large, living in defined geographical areas, we see Lenin advocating not separation, not the setting up of separate states, but advocating “amalgamation of the workers of all nationalities”. This is in stark contrast to those who advocate the setting up of a separate Palestinian state as a solution to the national question in Palestine/Israel. Lenin describes this “advocacy of the division and estrangement of nations” as “absolutely incompatible with proletarian internationalism.”

Lenin on Self-Determination and the Right of Secession

The advocates of a two-state solution, however, base their argument on another facet of Lenin’s writings on the national question i.e. the right of nations to self-determination. So, let us see what Lenin actually had to say on this score.

“We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a lesser federal unity etc. for the complete political unity of a state.”

Lenin – “The National Question in Our Programme

“Does recognition of the right of nations to self-determination really imply support of any demand of every nation for self-determination? After all, the fact that we recognise the right of all citizens to form free associations does not at all commit us, Social Democrats, to supporting the formation of any new association; nor does it prevent us from opposing and campaigning against the formation of a given association as an inexpedient and unwise step.”

(ibid)

“… is Social Democracy in duty bound to demand national independence always and unreservedly, or only under certain circumstances;”

“The bourgeois democrat (and the present day socialist opportunist who follows in his footsteps) imagines that democracy eliminates the class struggle, and that is why he presents all his political demands in an abstract way, lumped together, ‘without reservations’, from the standpoint of the ‘whole people’, or even that of an eternal and absolute moral principle. Always and everywhere the Social Democrat ruthlessly exposes this bourgeois illusion, whether it finds expression in an abstract idealist philosophy or in an absolute demand for national independence.”

(ibid)

Much of what Lenin says here is relevant to those who argue for the Two States solution. In their documents they talk about “whole people” i.e. the Palestinian nation or the Jewish nation without making any distinctions in respect of the different interests and motivations of the contending classes within these nations. At the same time the right to self-determination is turned into a kind of absolute moral principle, driving them on to the conclusion that in order to exercise this self-determination each nation must have its own territory, and its own state.

In fact, there is a confusion on their part stemming from a failure to understand the difference between “recognising the right of nations to self-determination” and supporting demands for self-determination. Socialist internationalism requires us to recognise the right of nations to self-determination, and to oppose any attempts by an oppressor state to deny that right to the oppressed nation. But, it does not require us to support the call for self-determination. On the contrary, it requires us to oppose separation except in “isolated and exceptional cases.”

“… a Social Democrat from a small nation must emphasise in his agitation the second word of our general formula: “voluntary integration of nations”.

( Lenin – The Discussion on Self Determination Summed Up )

“People who have not gone into the question thoroughly think that this is ‘contradictory’ for the Social Democrats of oppressor nations to insist on the ‘freedom to secede’, while the Social Democrats of oppressed nations insist on the ‘freedom to integrate.’ However, a little reflection will show that there is not, and cannot be any other road to internationalism and the amalgamation of nations, any other road from the given situation to this goal.”

(ibid)

In other words Marxists in “small nations” have a duty, “except in isolated and exceptional cases” to oppose calls for secession. On the contrary, they should argue for voluntary integration. On the other hand Marxists in the oppressor nation have a duty to stress the right to secede of the oppressed nation. But, even then stressing the right to secede is not the same as advocating or supporting the call for separation. On the contrary, the Marxists in the oppressor nation at the same time as stressing the right to secession would still be bound to oppose such a call, to counterpose working class unity and a fight for the equality of nations within the given state. For example, when devolution was an issue we argued that if Scotland or Wales voted to secede they had a right to do so, but at the same time we argued strongly against secession.

The next question that has to be asked, therefore, is does Israel/Palestine fall into the category of an “isolated and exceptional case”? The feature of Israel/Palestine that makes the problem difficult is that two nations lay claim not to two separate pieces of land, but to the same piece of land. Whilst there are concentrations of each nationality in different areas there is an intermingling of populations throughout the State, and no identifiable or suitable frontiers for a new state. Certainly, a new state on the West Bank and Gaza would leave national minorities trapped in both states. From this standpoint alone, Israel/Palestine does not suggest itself as a suitable candidate.

Lenin was clear on his attitude where there was an intermingling of nations.

“We Latvian Social Democrats, living in an area with a population that is very mixed nationally, we, who are in an environment consisting of representatives of the bourgeois nationalism of the Letts, Russians, Estonians, Germans etc. see with particular clarity the bourgeois falsity of the slogan ‘cultural – national autonomy’. The slogan of the unity of all and every organisation of workers of all nationalities, tested in practice in our own Social Democratic organisation, is particularly dear to us.”

Draft Platform for the Fourth Congress of Social-Democrats of the Latvian Area

So, for Lenin the intermingling of nationalities within one state, far from being one of the ‘isolated and exceptional cases’, in which to advocate the establishment of a new class state, was, in fact, the best condition for illustrating “the bourgeois falsity of the slogan of cultural national autonomy.”

An idea of what kind of “isolated and exceptional cases” Lenin had in mind is given in the following.

“There are two nations in Russia that are more civilised and more isolated by virtue of a number of historical and social conditions and that could most easily, and most ‘naturally’ put into effect their right to secession. They are the peoples of Finland and Poland.”

However,

"The experience of the Revolution of 1905 has shown that even in these two nations, the ruling classes, the landowners and the bourgeoisie, reject the revolutionary struggle for liberty and seek a rapprochement with the ruling classes of Russia and with the Tsarist Monarchy, because of their fear of the revolutionary proletariat of Finland and Poland.

Social Democracy, therefore, must give most emphatic warning to the proletariat and other working people of all nationalities against direct deception by the nationalistic slogans of ‘their own’ bourgeoisie, who with their saccharine or fiery speeches about ‘our native land’ try to divide the proletariat and divert its attention from their bourgeois intrigues while they enter into an economic and political alliance with the bourgeoisie of other nations and with the Tsarist monarchy.”

Lenin – Theses on the National Question

Lenin on “National Culture”

Martin in IB 135, places a lot of emphasis on non-economic oppression of the Palestinians.

“Rosa Luxemburg once commented that no material oppression has ever provoked such tenacious resistance as intellectual, cultural and national oppression.”

Lenin polemicised with the Polish Socialist Party over this issue, and is scathing in his attitude to those who talk of “national culture”.

“Reference is frequently made to Austria in justification of the slogan of ‘national-cultural autonomy’. As far as this reference is concerned it must be remembered that: first, the point of view of the chief Austrian theoretician on the national question, Otto Bauer, (in his book ‘The National Question and Social Democracy), has been recognised as an exaggeration of the national factor and a terrible underestimation of the international factor even by such a cautious writer as Karl Kautsky.”

Draft Platform for the Fourth Congress of Social-Democrats of the Latvian Area

Under the heading “National Culture” in Critical Remarks on the National Question , Lenin comments,

“The slogan of national culture is a bourgeois (and often also a Black Hundred and clerical) fraud. Our slogan is: the international culture of democracy and of the world working class movement.”

And,

“The elements of democratic and socialist culture are present, if only in rudimentary form, in every national culture, since in every nation there are toiling and exploited masses whose conditions of life inevitably give rise to the ideology of democracy and socialism. But, every nation also possesses a bourgeois culture (and most nations a reactionary and clerical culture as well) in the form not merely of ‘elements’ but of the dominant culture. Therefore, the general ‘national culture’ is the culture of the landlords, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. This fundamental and, for a Marxist, elementary truth was kept in the background by the Bundist, who drowned it in his jumble of words, i.e. instead of revealing and clarifying the class gulf to the reader, he in fact obscured it. In fact, the Bundist acted like a bourgeois, whose every interest requires the spreading of a belief in a non-class national culture.”

Further on, Lenin spells things out even more starkly.

“Those who seek to serve the proletariat must unite the workers of all nations, and unswervingly fight bourgeois nationalism, domestic and foreign. The place of those who advocate the slogan of national culture is among the nationalist petty bourgeois, not among the Marxists.”

And,

“Whoever, directly or indirectly, puts forward the slogan of Jewish ‘national culture’ is (whatever his good intentions may be) an enemy of the proletariat, a supporter of all that is outmoded and connected with caste among the Jewish people; he is an accomplice of the rabbis and the bourgeoisie. On the other hand those Jewish Marxists who mingle with the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and other workers in international Marxist organisations, and make their contribution (both in Russian and in Yiddish) towards creating the international culture of the working class movement – those Jews, despite the separatism of the Bund, uphold the best traditions of Jewry by fighting the slogan of ‘national culture’.

Lenin and Equal Rights for Nations Within One State

In IB135, Martin states,

“Generally, no situation of serious national oppression can be resolved by proposing to amalgamate oppressor and oppressed nations on the basis of individual equal rights.”

But again, Lenin argues the opposite. Already, many quotes have been given where Lenin argues for amalgamation rather than separatism as an answer to the national question for the terribly oppressed nations of Tsarist Russia. But, Lenin also had something to say on the question of equal rights too.

In 1914, the RSDLP group in the Duma introduced a “Bill for the Abolition of all Disabilities of the Jews and of all Restrictions on the grounds of Origin or Nationality.” The text of the Bill was printed in Pravda along with a statement. Part of the statement reads,

“It goes without saying that the jewish question can effectively be solved only together with the fundamental issues confronting Russia today. Obviously, we do not look to the nationalist – Purishkevich Fourth Duma to abolish the restrictions against the Jews and other non-Russians. But, it is the duty of the working class to make its voice heard. And the voice of the Russian workers must be particularly loud in protest against national oppression.”

Lenin, in an article in Pravda shortly after wrote,

“It is a point of honour for the Russian workers to have this Bill against national oppression backed by tens of thousands of proletarian signatures and declarations…. This will be the best means of consolidating complete unity, amalgamating all the workers of Russia, irrespective of nationality.”

Where for Martin the idea of equality for separate nations is utopian, for Lenin it was a basic demand around which to mobilise the working class, especially of the oppressing nation, and “the best means of consolidating complete unity, amalgamating all the workers… irrespective of nationality.” Where, for those who support the Two State solution, anti-Jewish sentiment amongst Palestinians on the one hand, and anti-Palestinian sentiment amongst Jews on the other, (i.e. nationalism) is something to be accommodated to by advocating separation, for Lenin it was something to be resolutely, and at all times combated. Where for the Two Statists “national culture” is something important and to be protected, for Lenin it was insignificant compared to international working class culture, and was a “bourgeois (and often Black Hundred and clerical fraud)”. For Lenin, “national culture” was to be opposed by the international working class culture of democracy and socialism.

The United States of Israel and Palestine

I have argued in favour of a United States of Israel and Palestine as a solution to the national question in Israel/Palestine. In my opinion this formula is in accordance with the positions of Lenin on the national question outlined above, and with the method of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution.

I would outline my basic argument as follows. The Palestinians are an oppressed nation. We support their struggle against oppression. Whist we recognise the right of the Palestinians, in those areas where they are a majority, to secede from Israel, and whilst we oppose any attempts by the Israeli State to deny them that right, we do not advocate or support calls for secession, or for the establishment of a separate state. Instead we call for the greatest possible unity of the Palestinian and Jewish workers in common working class organisations to work towards a working class solution to the national problem, and to the socialist transformation of the existing state.

We oppose the “outmoded”, “bourgeois” concept of “national culture” with the international culture of the working class – democracy and socialism. To the Jewish workers we give the advice of Marx, ”No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.” The Jewish working class should call for the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories, and campaign for equality for the Palestinians as “the best means of consolidating complete unity, amalgamating all the workers…irrespective of nationality.”

Opposition to national culture, as Lenin points out, does not mean, for example, that teaching in schools in mainly Palestinian areas should be conducted in Yiddish, or vice versa. It means that there should be no one official language.

“Tiny Switzerland has not lost anything, but has gained having not one single official language, but three – German, French and Italian… If Italians in Switzerland often speak French in their common Parliament they do not do so because they are menaced by some savage police law (there are none such in Switzerland), but because the civilised citizens of a democratic state themselves prefer a language that is understood by a majority”.

Critical Remarks On The National Question

In point 5 of the RSDLP Theses on the National Question (Lenin Collected Works Vol 19) or RSDLP Theses on the National Question the basis for a settlement to the question of national rights is provided.

“All areas of the state that are distinguished by social peculiarities or by the national composition of the population, must enjoy wide self-government and autonomy, with institutions organised on the basis of universal, equal and secret voting.”

Point 6 continues,

“Social-Democrats demand the promulgation of a law, operative throughout the state, protecting the rights of every national minority in no matter what part of the state. This law should declare inoperative any measure by means of which the national majority might attempt to establish privileges for itself or restrict the rights of a national minority (in the sphere of education, in the use of any specific language, in budget affairs, etc.), and forbid the implementation of any such measure by making it a punishable offence.”

I have argued for such an approach in Palestine/Israel so that whilst national majorities could exercise “wide self-government and autonomy it would at the same time “protect the rights of (either) national minority (where they were a minority) in no matter what part of the State.”

“The proletariat cannot achieve freedom other than by revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy and its replacement by a democratic republic. The tsarist monarchy precludes liberty and equal rights for nationalities, and is, furthermore, the bulwark of barbarity, brutality and reaction in both Europe and Asia. This monarchy can be overthrown only by the united proletariat of all the nations of Russia, which is giving the lead to consistently democratic elements capable of revolutionary struggle from among the working masses of all nations.”

(ibid)

Similarly, we say to Jewish and Palestinian workers – you cannot achieve freedom other than by revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the Zionist State. The Zionist state precludes liberty both for Jewish and Palestinian workers, and is, furthermore, the bulwark of US imperialism in the Middle East. This state can be overthrown only by the United struggle of Jewish and Palestinian workers.

“In civilised countries we observe a fairly full (relatively) approximation to national peace under capitalism only in conditions of the maximum implementation of democracy throughout the state system and administration (Switzerland). The slogans of consistent democracy (the re public, a militia, civil servants elected by the people, etc.) unite the proletariat and the working people, and, in general, all progressive elements in each nation in the name of the struggle for conditions that preclude even the slightest national privilege—while the slogan of “cultural-national autonomy” preaches the isolation of nations in educational affairs (or “cultural” affairs, in general), an isolation that is quite compatible with the retention of the grounds for all (including national) privileges.

The slogans of consistent democracy unite in a single whole the proletariat and the advanced democrats of all nations (elements that demand not isolation but the uniting of democratic elements of the nations in all matters, including educational affairs), while the slogan of cultural-national autonomy divides the proletariat of the different nations and links it up with the reactionary and bourgeois elements of the separate nations.

The slogans of consistent democracy are implacably hostile to the reactionaries and to the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie of all nations, while the slogan of cultural-national autonomy is quite acceptable to the reactionaries and counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie of some nations.”

(ibid)

Similarly, in Palestine/Israel. Alongside the demands for national equality, we should advocate a struggle for general democratic demands (scrap the standing army, establish a militia, election of all officials etc) “as a means to unite the proletariat unite the proletariat and the working people, and, in general, all progressive elements in each nation in the name of the struggle for conditions that preclude even the slightest national privilege”

But, more is necessary. As Trotsky argues in Permanent Revolution, the only force capable of consistently carrying out the above programme to its conclusion is the working class. Once the Jewish and Palestinian workers have been mobilised around the demands of consistent democracy, Marxists have to deepen the struggle into one for a socialist transformation. We have to link our socialist programme into the Democratic Programme. As Lenin put it,

“… when economic and political issues, and socialist and democratic activities are united into one whole, into the class struggle of the proletariat, this does not weaken but strengthens the democratic movement and the political struggle, by bringing it closer to the real interests of the mass of the people, dragging political issues out of the ‘stuffy studies of the intelligentsia’ into the street, into the midst of the workers and labouring classes, and replacing abstract ideas by real manifestations of political oppression from which the greatest sufferers are the proletariat, and on the basis of which the Social Democrats conduct their agitation.”

(Lenin – “Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats”)


The United Socialist States of the Middle East

Given the sub-imperialist nature of the Israeli State and its role as agent of US imperialism in the region, any Marxist programme must aim to break the link with the US, and unite not only Jewish and Palestinian workers, but the working class of the Middle East in a struggle for a United Socialist States of the Middle East.
At the present time because Jewish workers feel threatened by the surrounding Arab states, there is an understandable (if misguided) feeling of security from having the US as a military shield. (Just as the Falkland islanders looking to the British State for protection against Argentina was understandable if misguided.) Only by uniting the Jewish and Arab working class of the Middle East can that feeling of the need for the support of the US be undermined.

Given the size of the military budget in Israel, Transitional demands calling for a freeze on military spending and a diversion of resources to useful production would find a powerful resonance amongst the Jewish workers once they could be convinced that “their main enemy was at home”. At the same time workers in the Arab states would be strengthened in similar calls for freezing military budgets in their own states, which are themselves motivated on the basis of the threat from Zionist expansion.

The present nation state structures in the Middle East are a barrier to progress. The Palestinians have suffered not only at the hands of the Israeli State, but at the hands of the bourgeois Arab States too. Communalism is rampant in Lebanon, whilst the workers of Iran and Iraq continue to be slaughtered in a war that appears to have no foreseeable end.

Israel is wracked by economic crisis and its economy would sink were it not for the US. Even the oil producing states, despite the investment that has been undertaken, remain rent based economies whose fortunes go up and down with the price of oil. For the workers of the Middle east only a socialist transformation of society, and a socialist federation of the Middle East, offers any prospect of ending communalism and national antagonisms, and of lifting them from grinding poverty in which most of them live.

Algebraic

The slogan of the United States of Israel and Palestine is an algebraic formula. It is not an ultimatistic demand for socialist revolution. On the contrary, it is a demand aimed at the Jewish and Palestinian workers, mobilising them to fight for a consistently democratic solution to the national problem. We seek to deepen that struggle by linking to it Transitional Demands. We say to the workers, “We believe that only a socialist transformation is capable of completely resolving your problems. At present you may not agree with us, and may believe these demands can be met without the need for socialist revolution. We will fight alongside you for those demands and we believe that in the process of the struggle we will convince you that we are right.”

The formulae is algebraic, therefore, in that it mobilises the workers, but does not limit, in advance, the scope of that mobilisation simply to a democratic solution.
The formula is algebraic in another sense too. By focussing on uniting Jewish and Palestinian workers it creates the best conditions for the Palestinians in those areas where they form a majority to secede, if they so choose, and for Jewish Marxists to defend that right against attempts by the Israeli State to prevent it.
Imagine the following scenario. The Jewish and Palestinian workers (or at least a significant section) unite to fight for a United States of Israel and Palestine. However, after a serious struggle they find themselves defeated by the Israeli State. At which point the Palestinian workers say – “o.k. comrades we tried and failed. We want to exercise our democratic right to secede. You have witnessed in struggle that we have no desire to drive you into the sea, and we guarantee that our state will not be used against you. We call on you to defend our right of secession.”

It ought to be clear to anyone that under such conditions of having worked together in joint working class organisations, and taken part in a common struggle, a much better basis is laid for removing the fears of the Jewish workers, and of winning their solidarity than currently exists. Lenin outlines a similar situation vis a vis Norway and Sweden.

“Incidentally, autonomy, as a reform, differs in principle from freedom to secede, as a revolutionary measure. This is unquestionable. But, as everyone knows, in practice, a reform is often merely a step towards revolution. It is autonomy that enables a nation forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state to crystallise into a nation, to gather, assess and organise its forces, and to select the most opportune moment for a declaration….in the ‘Norwegian’ spirit. We the autonomous diet of such and such a nation, or of such and such a territory, declare that the Emperor of all the Russias has ceased to be King of Poland etc.”

This is still not to say that under such conditions we should advocate secession, but that if such a demand was raised the best conditions would have been created for defending it as a right against the attempts of the Israeli state to prevent it.

Conclusion

I believe that the United States of Israel and Palestine, and the programme outlined above is better than the Democratic Secular State and two States solutions. In my opinion both of the other two solutions are stagist. They put forward the perspective merely of finding a bourgeois democratic solution to the national problem in Palestine/Israel, and leave the question of the struggle for socialism as something to be considered only after the national problem has been resolved.
Both the democratic Secular State and the Two States solutions also accommodate to bourgeois nationalism and fail to locate the working class as the only agent capable of carrying out a consistently democratic solution. Both fail to distinguish between the interests and motivations of the contending classes within the two nations, and so doing sink into accepting the idea that there is some non-class national culture.

Because they are both bourgeois solutions neither of the two alternatives in fact offer a consistently democratic solution. The democratic Secular State would effectively just run the film of the history of Palestine in reverse, whilst the Two State solution would leave large national minorities trapped in each state, and would create the worst possible conditions for guaranteeing the rights of those that were trapped.

I believe, therefore, that we should adopt the slogan of the United States of Israel and Palestine, and the programme that I have outlined as the only solution which is consistently democratic, which counterposes internationalism to nationalism, which “reveals and clarifies the class gulf” rather than “obscuring” it in the concept of "national culture" and talk of “whole people”. It is also the only demand which, by focussing on uniting the working class, as the only force capable of solving the problem, has an inherent class struggle logic into which Marxists can key with appropriate Transitional demands. As such, it is the only solution which puts socialism on the agenda.