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==Marxist nationalism==
==Marxist nationalism==
Certain interpretations of the works of [[Karl Marx]] have claimed that although Marx rejected nationalism as a final outcome of international class struggle, he tacitly supported proletarian nationalism as a stage to achieve proletarian rule over a nation, then allowing succeeding stages of international proletarian revolution.<ref>van Ree, Erik. ''The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.</ref> [[Joseph Stalin]] supported such an interpretation of Marx.<ref>van Ree, Erik. ''The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.</ref>
Certain interpretations of the works of [[Karl Marx]] have claimed that although Marx rejected nationalism as a final outcome of international class struggle, he tacitly supported proletarian nationalism as a stage to achieve proletarian rule over a nation, then allowing succeeding stages of international proletarian revolution.<ref>van Ree, Erik. ''The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.</ref>


On the issue of nations and the proletariat, the ''[[Communist Manifesto]]'' says:
On the issue of nations and the proletariat, the ''[[Communist Manifesto]]'' says:

Revision as of 14:07, 1 March 2010

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Left-wing nationalism describes a form of nationalism officially based upon egalitarianism, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination.[1] Left-wing nationalism has its origins in Jacobinism of the French Revolution.[2] Left-wing nationalism typically expouses anti-imperialism.[3] Left-wing nationalism stands in contrast to right-wing nationalism, and has often rejected racist nationalism and fascism.[4] However forms of left-wing nationalism have included intolerance and racial prejudice.[5]

Notable libertarian left-wing nationalist movements in history have included the Indian National Congress that under Mohandas Gandhi promoted independence of India from the British Empire and the African National Congress of South Africa under Nelson Mandela that challenged apartheid.

Marxist nationalism

Certain interpretations of the works of Karl Marx have claimed that although Marx rejected nationalism as a final outcome of international class struggle, he tacitly supported proletarian nationalism as a stage to achieve proletarian rule over a nation, then allowing succeeding stages of international proletarian revolution.[6]

On the issue of nations and the proletariat, the Communist Manifesto says:

In the sense that the proletariat must first conquer political rule for itself, raise itself to the status of a national class, constitute itself as [the] nation, it is itself still national, although not at all in the sense of the bourgeoisie. Already with the development of the bourgeoisie the national boundaries and conflicts among the peoples vanish more and more… The rule of the proletariat will make them vanish even more.[7]

Marx's co-author of the Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels expressed a number of highly racist and genocidal statements against peoples deemed to be unfit for revolution.[8] Engels denounced Slavs in response to attempts by Croats and Czechs to gain independence from Austria-Hungary by attempting to gain support from the Tsar of Russia, whom Engels counted as an enemy of communism.[9] Engels called Slavs along with Gaels, Bretons and Basques "national refuse" and claimed that they deserved "to perish in the universal revolutionary storm".[10] In response to these events, Marx and Engels joined in calling for Germany to wage war on Russia to force basic civilization upon Russia.[11] Engels perceived most Slavic nations as being backward and uncivilized, but he along with Marx believed that certain Slavs were more civilized than others, such as Poles over Russians, and Russians over Bashikirs and Tartars.[12] Both Marx and Engels perceived Germany to be a nation of greater civilization than other nations, and was further in progress towards communism than other nations.[13]

While racist traits have been identified in the works of Marx and Engels, both Marx and Engels opposed the exploitative racism, such as in the case of slavery in the United States.[14] Marx and Engels claimed that slavery of blacks in the United States was detrimental to the workers' rights of whites, saying:

In the United States of America every independent movement of the workers was paralysed as long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.[15]

Similarly, though Marx and Engels criticized Irish unrest for delaying a worker's revolution in England, both Marx and Engels believed that Ireland was oppressed by Great Britain but believed that the Irish people would better serve their own interests by joining proponents of class struggle in Europe, as Marx and Engels claimed that the socialist workers of Europe were the natural allies of Ireland.[16] Also, Marx and Engels believed that it was in England's best interest to let Ireland go, as the Ireland issue was being used by elites to unite the English working class with the elites against the Irish.[17]

Europe

In Europe, a number of left-wing nationalist movements exist, and have a long tradition.[18] Nationalism itself was placed on the left during the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars. The original left-wing nationalists endorsed civic nationalism[19] which defined the nation as a "daily plebiscite" and as formed by the subjective "will to live together." Related to "revanchism," the belligerent will to take revenge against Germany and retake control of Alsace-Lorraine, nationalism could then be sometimes opposed to imperialism. Left-wing nationalists have historically led the separatist movements in the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Northern Ireland, for example.

Australia

During the 1940s and 1950s radical intellectuals, most of whom joined the Communist Party of Australia, combined their philosophical internationalism with a "radical nationalist" commitment to Australian national culture. This type of cultural nationalism was possible among radicals in Australia at the time, in part because of the CPA's patriotic turn in line with Comintern policy from 1941, and in part because the most common understanding of what it meant to be "patriotic" at the time was a kind of pro-Empire Anglo-Australian "race patriotism". To promote an anti-British nationalism was, until the late 1960s, a "radical" activity. At the same time, this "radical nationalism" dovetailed with a growing respect for Australian cultural output among intellectuals, which was itself a product of the break in cultural supply chains - lead actors and scripts had always come from Britain and the United States - occasioned by the war.[20]

The post-war radical nationalists promoted a type of national culture which had been canonised during the 1890s by writers including Henry Lawson, Joseph Furphy and Banjo Paterson. This culture was informed by the "bushman" myth, which held that Australians were naturally egalitarian and "practical" and anti-authoritarian. All this was represented in the "outback" working-class tradition of "mateship". The post-war radical nationalists interpreted this myth, or tradition, as having implicitly or inherently radical qualities: they believed it meant that working-class Australians were "naturally" democratic or even socialist. The apotheosis of this line of thought was in Russel Ward's book The Australian Legend (Melbourne, 1958), which sought to trace the development of this ethos from its convict origins, through bushranging, the Victorian gold rush, the spread of agriculture, the industrial strife of the early 1890s and its literary canonisation. Other significant radical nationalists included the historians Ian Turner, Lloyd Churchward, Bob Gollan, Geoffrey Serle and Brian Fitzpatrick, whom Ward described as the "spiritual father of all the radical nationalist historians in Australia",[21] and the writers Stephen Murray-Smith, Judah Waten, Dorothy Hewett and Frank Hardy.

The radical-nationalist tradition did not survive the 1960s, as the New Left came to interpret much of Australian history - particularly labour history - as fundamentally racist, sexist, homophobic and militarist.[22] The bushman myth, however, has survived the modernisation of Australian culture and its economy. Having informed a significant amount of cultural output during the period of the new nationalism, the "Australian Legend" was "raided" by the third-time Liberal Party leader John Howard for the conservative political Right during the 1990s.[23]

Canada

See also: Quebec nationalism and Canadian nationalism

In Canada the term used by S. H. Milner and H. Milner in order to describe political developments in 1960s and 1970s Quebec which they saw as unique in North America. While the liberals of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec had opposed Quebec nationalism which had been right-wing and reactionary, nationalists in Quebec now found that they could only maintain their cultural identity by ridding themselves of foreign elites, which was achieved by adopting radicalism and socialism. Similar movements were seen to have occurred in the "Third World": China, Algeria, Cuba and Viet Nam, although ethnicity and class consciousness were seen as having been combined in parts of the United States, where blacks and other ethnic groups had experienced greater oppression under capitalism. This ideology was seen in contrast to historic socialism, which was internationalist and considered the working class to have no homeland.[24][25]

The 1960s in Canada saw the rise of a movement in favour of the independence of Quebec. Among the proponents of this constitutional option for Quebec were militants of an independent and socialist Quebec[26]. Prior to the 1960s, nationalism in Quebec had taken various forms. First, a radical liberal nationalism emerged and was a dominant voice in the political discourse of Lower Canada from the early 1800s to the 1830s. The 1830s saw the more vocal expression of a liberal and republican nationalism which was abruptly silenced with the rebellions of 1837 and 1838[27]. In the 1840s, in a forcibly annexed Lower Canada, a moderately liberal expression of nationalism succeeded the old one, which subsisted but was confined to political marginality afterwards. In parallel to this, a new catholic and ultramontane nationalism emerged. Antagonism between the two incompatible expressions of nationalism lasted until the 1950s.

According to political scientist Henry Milner, the manifestation of a third kind of nationalism became significant when intellectuals raised the issue of the economic colonization of Quebec, something the established nationalists elites had neglected to do[28]. Milner identifies three distinct clusters of factors in the evolution of Quebec toward left-wing nationalism: the first cluster relates to the national consciousness of Quebecers (Québécois), the second to changes in technology, industrial organization, and patterns of communication and education, the third related to "the part played by the intellectuals in the face of changes in the first two factors"[29].

Footnotes

  1. ^ Sa'adah, Anne. Contemporary France: a democratic education. Lanham, Maryland, USA: Rowman Littlefield & Publishers, Inc, 2003. Pp. 17-20.
  2. ^ Sa'adah, Anne. Contemporary France: a democratic education. Lanham, Maryland, USA: Rowman Littlefield & Publishers, Inc, 2003. Pp. 17-20.
  3. ^ Smith, Angel; Berger, Stefan. Nationalism, labour and ethnicity 1870-1939. Manchester, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. 30.
  4. ^ Smith, Angel; Berger, Stefan. Nationalism, labour and ethnicity 1870-1939. Manchester, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. 30.
  5. ^ Smith, Angel; Berger, Stefan. Nationalism, labour and ethnicity 1870-1939. Manchester, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. 30.
  6. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.
  7. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.
  8. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 51.
  9. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 51.
  10. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 49.
  11. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 51.
  12. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 52.
  13. ^ van Ree, Erik. The political thought of Joseph Stalin: a study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Pp. 52.
  14. ^ Schmitt, Richard. "Introduction to Marx and Engels: a critical reconstruction", Dimensions of Philosophy Series. Boulder, Colorado, USA; Oxford, England, UK: Westview Press: 1987, 1997. Pp. 169.
  15. ^ Schmitt, Richard. "Introduction to Marx and Engels: a critical reconstruction", Dimensions of Philosophy Series. Boulder, Colorado, USA; Oxford, England, UK: Westview Press: 1987, 1997. Pp. 169.
  16. ^ Schmitt, Richard. "Introduction to Marx and Engels: a critical reconstruction", Dimensions of Philosophy Series. Boulder, Colorado, USA; Oxford, England, UK: Westview Press: 1987, 1997. Pp. 169.
  17. ^ Schmitt, Richard. "Introduction to Marx and Engels: a critical reconstruction", Dimensions of Philosophy Series. Boulder, Colorado, USA; Oxford, England, UK: Westview Press: 1987, 1997. Pp. 169.
  18. ^ Frankel, Jonathan. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917. (Cambridge, 1984)
  19. ^ Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright (2006). The Government and Politics of France. Routledge.
  20. ^ Stephen Alomes, A Nation at Last? (Sydney, 1988).
  21. ^ Russel Ward, A Radical Life (South Melbourne, 1988), p.222.
  22. ^ Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia (Melbourne, 1970).
  23. ^ Judith Brett, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class (Cambridge, 2003), pp.203-206.
  24. ^ The decolonization of Quebec (1973), S. H, Milner, H. Milner
  25. ^ Sweden: social democracy in practice (1989), Henry Milner, p. vii
  26. ^ Henry Milner (1973). The Decolonization of Quebec: An Analysis of Left-Wing Nationalism, p. 9
  27. ^ Kevin Pask, "Late Nationalism: The Case of Quebec", New Left Review, 11, September-October 2001
  28. ^ Henry Milner (1973). The Decolonization of Quebec: An Analysis of Left-Wing Nationalism, p. 188
  29. ^ Henry Milner (1973). The Decolonization of Quebec: An Analysis of Left-Wing Nationalism, p. 191

References

  • Milner, Henry and Sheilagh Hodgins (1973). The Decolonization of Quebec: An Analysis of Left-Wing Nationalism, Toronto : McClelland and Stewart, 257 p. (online)
  • Kevin Pask, "Late Nationalism: The Case of Quebec", New Left Review, 11, September-October 2001 (preview)
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