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Marx, Engels and Lenin on the Irish Question
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Liam
O Ruairc •
The Starry Plough, August/September 2004
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Throughout
history, nationalism has taken (1) many different
forms (conservative, radical etc), (2) has/is supported
by many different social groups (bourgeoisie, working
class, etc), (3) has very different political effects
(reactionary, progressive). When dealing with nationalism,
it is necessary like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Connolly
to reject an abstract and timeless theory of nationalism.
It was always historical and concrete. The fundamental
point is that their analysis of nationalism was
always put in terms of (a) the strategic interests
of the working class, and thus always emphasised
(b) the relation between nationalism and democracy.
Marxists have to understand simultaneously the social
roots of national struggles and the national content
of the class struggle.
It
is a commonly held misconception that Marx and Engels
did not understand the importance of nationalism.
They are famous for writing in the Manifesto that
"the workers have no country".
Does that mean that they have no interest in the
nation? In fact, Marx and Engels understood very
well the importance for nationalism for working
class politics. In the same Manifesto, they write
that the proletariat "must rise to be the
leading class of the nation, must constitute itself
the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though
not the in the bourgeois sense of the word."
The
question of the leading class of the nation is of
extreme importance. Societies are divided into classes,
so the "national interest" must be represented
by one of them. The most progressive class in society
would be truly national in so far as it was able
to take the whole society forward, even while it
was promoting its own interest. If it is not that
of the proletariat, the nationalism will be that
of the ruling classes that conceive their own interest
as those of the entire nation. That capacity to
represent the interest of a particular social class
as those of the entire nation is very important.
Similarly, they have been accused of intending to
abolish national differences. However, what Marx
and Engels foresaw was not the complete disappearance
of all national distinctions whatever but specifically
the abolition of sharp economic and social differences,
economic isolation, invidious distinctions, political
rivalries, wars and exploitation of one nation by
another. In the case of Ireland and Britain for
example, they advocated "the transformation
of the present forced Union into an equal and free
Confederation if possible, or into complete separation
if necessary" (255). The Irish question
was decisive in the formation of the Marxist analysis
of the national question.
For
Marx and Engels, there was nothing intrinsically
progressive about Irish nationalism, the right of
a nation to self determination is not absolute.
Marx and Engels were clearly aware that the relation
between England and Ireland was one of oppression.
But, Marx's support for the Irish struggle was "not
only acted upon feelings of humanity. There is something
besides." (404) His support for Ireland’s
right to self-determination was based on a class
analysis. In the 1840s and 1850s, Marx and Engels
believed that Irish freedom would be a by-product
of a working class revolution in Great Britain.
But in 1869, he wrote:
"Deeper
study has now convinced me of the opposite. The
English working class will never accomplish anything
before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must
be applied in Ireland." (398)
Why?
Marx thought that the English aristocracy maintained
its domination at home through its domination of
Ireland. "A nation that oppresses another
forges its own chains." (255) This is why
"to accelerate the social revolution in
Europe, you must push on the catastrophe of official
England. To do so, you must attack her in Ireland.
That's her weakest point. Ireland lost, the British
Empire is gone and the class war in England till
now somnolent and chronic, will assume acute forms."
(404)
Thus,
for English workers, "the national emancipation
of Ireland is no question of abstract justice or
humanitarian sentiment, but the first condition
of their own social emancipation." (408)
Therefore the task for socialists was everywhere
to put "the conflict between England and
Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side
openly with the Irish." (408) Their position
on Ireland was analysed in terms of the European
and British revolution. The situation was assessed
in terms of its impact on the balance of forces
between classes in Europe, Britain and Ireland and
how it would increase the class struggle. Regarding
the class struggle in Ireland, they arrived at the
conclusion that the land question "is not
merely a simple economic question but at the same
time a national question, since the landlords there
..are..its mortally hated oppressor."
Marx
saw the relation between the national question and
the class struggle in the following terms: "In
Ireland the land question has hitherto been the
exclusive form of the social question, because it
is a question of existence, of life and death, for
the immense majority of the Irish people, and because
it is at the same time inseparable from the national
question." (407)
The
solution advocated by Marx was:
"What
the Irish need is
-
(1)
self-government and independence from England,
-
(2)
an agrarian revolution,
-
(3)
protective tariffs against England."
(158)
It
was in the interests of the class struggle that
the Irish should give a central importance to the
national question. In a 1882 letter to Kautsky,
Engels wrote that the Irish "have not only
the right but even the duty to be nationalistic
before they become internationalistic",
"they are most internationalistic when they
are genuinely nationalistic." (449)
To
the idea that workers of oppressed and oppressor
nations should somehow put their national differences
behind, Engels replied:
"If
members of a conquering nation called upon the nation
they had conquered and continued to hold down to
forget their specific nationality and position,
to 'sink national differences' and so forth, that
was not Internationalism, it was nothing else but
preaching to them submission to the yoke, and attempting
to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror
under the cloack of Internationalism. It was sanctioning
the belief, only too common among the English working
men, that they were superior beings compared to
the Irish." (419)
What
was true of the relationship between Britain and
Ireland, in the later part of the 19th century was
mirrored all over the world with the imperialist
stage of capitalism. Imperialism is a worldwide
system of colonial oppression and financial domination
of the overwhelming majority of the world by a small
number of capitalist countries. A handful of imperialist
countries obtain high profits of the exploitation
of oppressed people worldwide. Imperialism thus
divides the world into oppressed and oppressor nations.
Lenin, after Marx and Engels, developed the most
advanced Marxist understanding of the national question.
For Lenin, the focal point in the socialist programme
"must be that division of nations into oppressor
and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism."
(CW21, 409) If one confronts the reality of imperialism,
the first fact is that the world is now divided
between oppressor and oppressed nations, and that
national oppression has not only been extended,
it has intensified. Imperialism has also the effect
of dividing the working class. The superprofits
are able to "buy off" a layer of the working
class in the oppressor countries.
Lenin
wrote that "The policy of Marx and Engels
on the Irish question serves as a splendid example
of the attitude the proletariat of the oppressor
nation should adopt towards national movements,
an example which has lost none of its practical
importance." (CW20, 442) Socialism for
Lenin "will remain a hollow phrase if it
is not linked up with a revolutionary approach to
all questions of democracy, including the national
question." (CW21, 413) Within
their ultimate aim of socialism, communists support
"every revolutionary movement against the
present social system, they support all oppressed
nationalities, persecuted religions, dowtrodden
social estates etc. in their fight for equal rights."
(CW20, 34)
He
wrote this important statement:
"Increased
national oppression under imperialism does not mean
that Social Democracy should reject what the bourgeoisie
call the 'utopian' struggle for the freedom of nations
to secede but, on the contrary, it should make greater
use of the conflicts that arise in this sphere,
too, as ground for mass action and for revolutionary
attacks on the bourgeoisie." (CW22, 146)
Nationalism
is a potent mobilising agent and the necessary framework
for the transition to socialism in societies dominated
by imperialism. Lenin was keenly aware of nationalism
as a catalysing agent. His analysis is based on
distinctions between oppressor nations and oppressed
nations, bourgeois nationalism and revolutionary
nationalism.
In
so far as the oppressed nation fights the oppressor
"we are always, in every case, and more
strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are
the staunchest and the most consistent enemies of
oppression." (CW20, 411-412)
"The
bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has
a general democratic content that is directed against
oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally
support." (CW20, 412)
Consequently,
Marxism must take both tendencies of nationalism
into account by advocating "firstly the
equality of nations and languages and the impermissibility
of all privileges in this respect (and the right
to self-determination); secondly the principle of
internationalism and uncompromising struggle against
the contamination of the proletariat with bourgeois
nationalism, even of the most refined kind."
(CW20, 435) The task of the socialists is not simply
to tail the bourgeois nationalism. Democratic demands,
Lenin argued "must be formulated and put
through in a revolutionary and not a reformist manner,
going beyond the bounds of bourgeois legality, breaking
them down, going beyond speeches in parliament and
verbal protests, and drawing the masses into decisive
action." (CW22, 145)
Real
revolutions do not take a "pure" form,
with a "pure" working class. Responding
to Socialists who had dismissed the 1916 rising
as a nationalist revolt, Lenin replied:
"To
imagine that a social revolution is conceivable
without revolts of small nations in the colonies
and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts
of a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its
prejudices, without the movement of non-class conscious
proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against
oppression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy,
the foreign yoke, etc- to imagine that is tantamount
to repudiating social revolution. So one army lines
up in one place and says 'we are for socialism',
and another somewhere else lines up and says 'we
are for imperialism' and that will be a social revolution
! ... Who ever expects a 'pure' social revolution
will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip
service to revolution without understanding what
revolution is". ("The Discussion of
Self Determination Summed Up", CW22, 355-356)
The
role of nationalism and national question is crucial
for the socialism: "The dialectics of history
are such that small nations powerless as an independent
factor in the struggle against imperialism, play
a part as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli
which facilitate the entry into the arena of real
power against imperialism, namely the socialist
proletariat." (CW22, 357)
The
rising failed, but Lenin nevertheless defended its
validity.
"The
misfortune of the Irish is that they rose prematurely,
..., but only in revolutionary movements which are
often premature, partial, sporadic, and therefore
unsuccessful will the masses gain, experience, acquire
knowledge, gather strength, get to know their real
leaders, the socialist proletarians, and in that
way prepare for the general onslaught, in the same
way as separate strikes, demonstrations, local and
national, mutinies in the army, outbreaks among
the peasantry, etc, prepared the way for the general
onslaught in 1905." (CW, 358)
The
1916 Rising was also significant because it took
place in Europe. "The struggle of the oppressed
nations in Europe, a struggle capable of going to
the lengths of insurrection and street fighting,
breach of military discipline in the army and martial
law, sharpens the revolutionary crisis in Europe
infinitely more than a much more complete rebellion
in a single colony." (CW, 357) The stance
of Marx, Engels and Lenin on Ireland and the Irish
question are the model for the socialist understanding
of the national question.
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All
censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging
current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress
is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and
executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently
the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw
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