National liberation (Marxism)

National liberation has been a theme within Marxism, and especially after the influence of Vladimir Lenin's advocacy of anti-imperialism and self-determination of all peoples became prevalent in communist movements, especially in advocating freedom from colonial rule in the Third World. National liberation has been promoted by Marxists out of an international-socialist perspective rather than a bourgeois-nationalist perspective.

Upon rising to power, Lenin and the Bolshevik government in Russia declared that all peoples had the right to self-determination. While Lenin was critical of nationalism, he claimed that the cause of national liberation was not a matter of chauvinism, but a matter of radical democracy.

See also

• Left-wing nationalism
• National delimitation in the Soviet Union
• National Question
• Marxism–Leninism
• Socialist patriotism