PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM
THE BASIS FOR STRONGER COHESION OF THE WORLD REVOLUTIONARY WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT
Proletarian internationalism, which is an expression of the common condition and interests of the working people of all countries, has been and remains the governing principle of the Marxists-Leninists’ theoretical and practical activity. It is a reliable guide for a correct solution of the problem of the relation between national and international tasks in the working-class movement. Any departure from it results in a weakening of the international revolutionary movement and the emergence of nationalistic and particularist tendencies. Summing up the early steps of the European workingclass movement, Marx wrote in the Inaugural Address of the Working Men’s International Association: "Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries and incite them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggle for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts.” 1
The principles and ideas of the international solidarity of the working people, theoretically substantiated by Marx and Engels, were creatively developed and enriched by Lenin, who took a firm stand for the unity of the world’s proletariat in the new historical epoch. Lenin insisted that the international solidarity of the working class was a 470 condition of its victory, and gave a clear formulation of what it meant: "There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is—working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception.” [2
The problem of striking the right balance between the national and the international can be fully understood only in the broad prospect of society’s historic development, because its origins lie deep in the world-wide socio-economic and political processes. That is how the problem was formulated and solved by the founders of scientific communism in their doctrine of social development. They proceeded from the category of the universal—the social—which bears in general on a given historical type of society, or social formation, and the particular—the national—which bears only on the individual society or country.
As they studied bourgeois society in the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels assumed that under capitalism the contradiction between the socially universal and the nationally particular was fully resolved, if not in essence, through the elimination of national distinctions, then at any rate in form, through the establishment of a level of social development common to all the advanced countries. From this they logically deduced the hypothesis that socialist revolution would simultaneously destroy capitalism in all or in most advanced capitalist countries.
This proposition, historically justified during the rise of capitalism, has lost its theoretical and practical meaning in the epoch of imperialism, with its pronounced and extremely uneven development of the world capitalist system.
At the very start of his inquiry, Lenin put the finishing touches to the ideas of Marx and Engels on the nature of national development under capitalism, when he said that "the creation of these nationalities was nothing else than the creation of bourgeois ties”. [2** This idea of the unity of social and national development under capitalism subsequently had an important part to play. The social-class 471 factor determines the substance and the content of this process, whereas the national factor gives form to and individualises it in accordance with the conditions in each given country. Lenin invariably regarded the social-class factor as the leading and definitive one, and the national factor as the subordinate and secondary one.
Inquiring into the development of national relations in the capitalist epoch, Lenin established two interconnected historical tendencies in this development: the first is expressed in the national consolidation of society, and the second, the leading one, by contrast in the internationalisation of the social life of the people. He added: "Both tendencies are a universal law of capitalism.” [3 Viewed in the light of this law, the relation between the social and the national under capitalism is found to reveal that the contradiction within it is manifested in the development of both tendencies, but is in both instances resolved only relatively and partially.
The objective development of capitalism is polycentric, as determined by earlier historical development. The capital of this or that country, however strong and mature, is in advance deprived of any monopoly to a dominant role in the development of the world capitalist system. Its claims to such a monopoly clash with the claims of other national capitals. The striving of the capital of this or that country for hegemony is, consequently, expressed through sharpening economic and political contradictions, which are manifested with varying force at different concrete historical periods.
Under the domination of capitalism, the second tendency indicated by Lenin—internationalisation—also proceeds in contradictory forms. The imperialist “integration” of nations is based on the master-and-servant relationship, and is designed to consolidate the system of exploitation. It runs in the form of associations of capitals-framed-within-states into supra-national monopoly-oligarchic coalitions of the Common Market type, which betray the peoples’ national interests and promote their own selfish ends. In virtue of the antagonisms inherent in capitalism, such imperialist associations take the form of closed groups ranged against each other. A struggle for hegemony is going on both within the integrated complexes and between them.
Lenin’s analysis of the social and national antagonisms at the imperialist stage of capitalism showed that the contradiction between the socially universal and the nationally particular was insoluble on a bourgeois basis either in substance or in form, and this suggested the conclusion that socialism could initially win out in a few countries or even in one individual country.
This brilliant conclusion embodies the dialectical unity of the social content, national form and international character of the objective process of world historical development. It has become one of the main starting points for the strategic orientation of the anti-capitalist struggle of the working people of all countries. It continues to be meaningful for practice throughout the whole epoch of socialist revolutions.
* * *
In the epoch of bourgeois revolutions and in the immediate period that followed the objective factors of historical development themselves determined the resolution of the contradiction between the socially universal and the nationally particular in accordance with the interests of capital, that is, through an identification of the bourgeois and the national. Of course, even then this identification was highly relative, because the contradictions between the interests of the bourgeoisie and the aspirations of the nonpropertied sections had come to the surface long before capitalism won out. But on the whole, the bourgeoisie’s class interests coincided with the national interest.
As capitalism developed, as social antagonisms sharpened and as the proletariat’s class consciousness grew, the idea that the bourgeoisie and the nation had identical interests lost its objective content, with the relative identity of the national and the bourgeois being in reality transformed into an absolute contradiction between a handful of capitalists and the labouring masses of the nation. The idea of the identity of interests persists, however, but is merely transformed from a reality into an illusion and is now preserved no longer in virtue of historically-rooted factors, but in virtue of the fetishist character of the capitalist mode of production. As a result, private property relations and the exploitation of wage-labour by capital based on them are seen as natural and necessary foundations for the nation’s 473 existence, and the nation itself as a union of equal holders of commodities.
Lenin exposed the class character of this phenomenon and showed that in reality every bourgeois nation consisted of "two nations”, a nation of proprietors and a nation of working people, whose interests are poles apart. Analysing this contradiction between the social and the national from inside, from the standpoint of the class antagonisms constituting it, Lenin proved that it could be overcome only through a resolution of the basic contradiction of capitalism, that between the social character of labour and the private capitalist form of appropriation, that is, only through socialist revolution.
In its efforts to back up the illusion of "national unity”, capital resorts, especially in present-day conditions, to social manoeuvring. By identifying the national interest with that of the imperialist state, the bourgeoisie seeks to provide the myth of "national unity" with a political and ideological basis, if not a social one. The main dogma of bourgeois nationalism is that "the whole nation is a single class”, an idea borrowed from one of its apostles, Oswald Spengler, the ideological forerunner of nazism. Bourgeois and pettybourgeois ideologists exaggerate the influence of national relations on social development and regard world politics as a spontaneous interplay of nationalistic forces which will most probably plunge mankind into a "war of everyone against all”.
While rejecting the bourgeois ideologists’ view of nationalism, together with their assessment of the importance of national relations in the modern world, Marxists do not deny either that nationalism is a functionally independent and highly active sphere of social consciousness or that it exerts a great, and in some conditions, decisive influence on the ideological and political orientation of various, including large, social groups and parties, or even that the use of nationalism by the reactionary forces may well have disastrous consequences for mankind’s future.
At the same time, Marxism-Leninism rejects the abstract approach to nationalism. Lenin said that in defining the essence of nationalism and assessing its importance it was necessary to proceed from an analysis of the socio-economic and political conditions producing this or that concrete expression of it, and that "to talk of national sentiment as 474 an independent factor is only to obscure the essence of the matter”. [474•* Emphasising the fundamental distinction between the bourgeoisie’s and the proletariat’s view of the national factor, he wrote: "The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle.” [474•** This fundamental class standpoint of Lenin’s has been adopted by the Communists as the starting point in assessing the political role of nationalism in the modern world.
The twentieth century has seen many instances of the fatal influence of bourgeois nationalism on the social development of peoples and on the international situation as a whole, but one example—nazism—will suffice to show the real threat latent in any resurgence of reactionary nationalism. This example is the more horrible that millions of Germans, intoxicated with great-power chauvinism, took part in the effort to realise it. Mankind was able to crush nazism, but the idea of the "Thousand-Year Reich" has not disappeared with its inventor. It continues to live in West German neo-nazism, which is once again seeking to turn it into the central pivot of a "great German national consciousness”.
Since the war, fascist-type nationalistic ideas have spread throughout the imperialist world, invariably as companions of bellicose anti-Sovietism and anti-communism.
It remains a constant task of the Marxist-Leninist Parties to combat such ideas.
Lenin’s ideas of the class struggle and proletarian internationalism provide the key to the social content of bourgeois nationalism, in particular of its forms, which are very widespread today and which arise under the impact of modern integration processes in the capitalist world. These are denial by imperialist ideologists of the principles of national sovereignty, the extensive spread of conceptions of national nihilism, the propaganda of the supra-national ideals of “Europeanism”, “Atlanticism”, and so on.
However, behind these invariably lurk the chauvinistic claims of national groups of capitalists seeking to impose their hegemonistic aims on other nations. There is no doubt, for instance, that the "Europe for the Europeans" slogan, which is being put forward to counter US expansionism, has no other meaning for the West German revanchists than "Europe for the West Germans”.
The current integration process, while increasing capital’s potential for defence, opens up, in view of the internationalisation of the labour market and as a consequence of growing ideological and political intercourse between the national contingents of the proletariat, fresh possibilities for developing international co-operation of the working class in the fight against imperialism.
* * *
The conditions for resolving the contradiction between the social and the national appear within the framework of bourgeois development, being revealed as a tendency in the course of the socio-political and ideological proletarianisation of the "nation of working people" that is, the nonbourgeois mass of the nation. This proletarianisation means the establishment of an international community of socioeconomic conditions and ideological-political aspirations of all working people, regardless of their national-ethnic or 476 racial origin. It is this community that is the objective basis for the formation of the working people’s class outlook— proletarian internationalism.
Consequently, in virtue of its social nature proletarian internationalism gives ideological and political expression to the class unity of the national and the international in the world working-class movement. The authors of the Manifesto of the Communist Party proceeded from this idea when they wrote: "The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.” [476•*
The opportunists tend to break the connection between the two propositions contained therein, giving each a nationalistic twist. The Leftist tub-thumpers absolutise the former (“the working men have no country”), convert it into a ringing romantic but politically absurd proclamation of national nihilism, which, however, does not prevent them from issuing chauvinistic calls so characteristic of petty-bourgeois extremists. The Rightist opportunists see any significance only in the second proposition (“the proletariat . . . must constitute itself the nation”), which they see as substantiating their doctrine of "national communism”, that is, as being incompatible with the principles of proletarian internationalism.
Lenin repeatedly returned to an analysis of this passage in the Manifesto, stressing that it was "exceptionally incorrect" [476•** to separate the two propositions. Their true meaning is that the proletariat, rejecting the bourgeois– nationalistic idea, has to carry the working people with it in the anti-capitalist struggle, and to rise to the position of leading class within the nation so as to lead it on to socialism. Only in that sense is it “national” and only within those limits do its class interests coincide with those of the nation.
Lenin proved that the working class was to play a leadingrole not only in preparing and carrying out the socialist revolution, but also in the general-democratic and national liberation anti-imperialist movements. Therein lies the 477 tactical-strategic resolution of the problem of the " proletariat-nation’ , which is modified in each given country by the character ol the social system, the level of socio– economic development, the balance of political forces and other concrete historical conditions.
In the conditions of the present epoch, even greater importance attaches to Lenin’s propositions on the proletariat’s attitude to the ideology of the national liberation movement. Lenin regarded nationalism, which constitutes the main content oi this ideology, as a complex and contradictory phenomenon to which there is no uniform approach. Where bourgeois nationalism is on an upgrade, and opposes colonialism, national oppression and feudal survivals, "it is the Marxist’s boimdcn duty" to support it. "But this is the limit the proletariat can go to in supporting nationalism, for beyond that begins the ‘positive’ activity of the bourgeoisie striving to forlijy nationalism.” [477•*
At the same time, Lenin repeatedly pointed out that the Communists must tirelessly and painstakingly work to help the masses of people to free their minds of nationalism and to accept the ideas of proletarian ideology. Neglect of this demand could lead to nationalist degeneration, and a switch to the positions of petty-bourgeois pseudo-revolutionarism.
History shows that the victory of the revolution does not in itself automatically resolve the contradiction between the social and the national in the sphere of ideology and politics, and that the principles of internationalism are established in the life of the nations only as a result of long and painstaking effort by society’s political vanguard.
Without leadership from the revolutionary vanguard of the working class it is also impossible to have an international resolution of the problem of the social-national relationship. Lenin saw this resolution in converting "the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole)”. [477•**
The best confirmation of Lenin’s idea of the revolutionary 478 unity of the national and the international has come from its successful implementation during the October Revolution and in the subsequent activity of the CFSLJ. The joint struggle of the peoples of the USSR for social emancipation helped to overcome nationalistic preconceptions and mutual mistrust, producing new relations based on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. Elimination of the exploiting classes and establishment of social ownership of the means of production constituted the socio-economic basis for forming the Soviet people, an international entity shaped in history for the first time, which united in one state dozens of big and small nations and nationalities on the principles of complete equality, voluntary federation, and unity ol purpose and interest.
Following the formation of the world socialist system, these principles were adopted as the basis of relations between the socialist countries. While the two tendencies discovered by Lenin in the development of national relations continue to operate under socialism, which has triumphed on an international scale, they lose the antagonistic character they have under capitalism and merge into a twofold process of national self-assertion and international cohesion of socialist societies. Socialist patriotism is fused with proletarian internationalism into a single whole, so that there is a fundamental change in the content of the national awareness of the peoples in the socialist countries, an awareness from which nationalist preconceptions are eliminated as the new society is built.
Socialist internationalism could have had even greater achievements but for the splitting activity of the nationalopportunists, who seek to promote their sellish aims by substituting petty-bourgeois nationalism for proletarian internationalism in relations between the socialist countries, and to divide the socialist community, fn view of the danger presented by such nationalistic tendencies, the MarxistLeninist Parties loyal to the principles of proletarian internationalism have engaged in day-to-day painstaking effort to improve and develop fraternal relations between the socialist countries.
The consolidation of the international unity oi the socialist countries is a protracted and intricate process. The different levels of economic and socio-political development, the different historical traditions and other distinctions may 479 produce different interests—and this means different views— as the socialist states tackle the various concrete issues.
Consequently, there is no complete resolution of the contradiction between the socially universal and the nationally particular even under socialism, because nations continue to be divided into classes, and social property retains its nationally separate form. Such a resolution is possible only on a classless basis, that is, only under communism, when all classes disappear, when nations wither away, and mankind is organised in a world-wide communist community.
* * *
In working on the theoretical substantiation of the tactics and strategy of the socialist revolution, and implementing them in practice, Lenin warned against giving a sectarianclass and nationalistic twist to the unity of the socially universal and the nationally particular in the political line of the proletariat’s revolutionary organisations. The former tendency may (ultimately) lead to a definite isolation of the working-class party, which is fraught with the risk of selfalienation from the nation’s socio-political life. An equal danger is presented by the latter tendency when the proletariat’s class interests are subordinated to falsely interpreted national interests, and this creates the danger of the party’s nationalistic degeneration. Lenin wrote: "As long as national and state distinctions exist among peoples and countries—and these will continue to exist for a very long time to come, even after the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established on a world-wide scale—the unity of the international tactics of the communist working-class movement in all countries demands not the elimination of variety or the suppression of national distinctions (which is a pipedream at present), but the application of fundamental principles of communism (Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat), which will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-state distinctions.” [479•*
Any concession to bourgeois nationalism by the workingclass party, any abandonment of the class view of the national problem inevitably lead to a slide down to 480 nationalistic positions. There is the instructive example of the leaders of West European Social-Democracy, who adopted the " cooperation of nations" idea instead of the principles of proletarian internationalism. Very close to bourgeois-democratic ideology are also the Right-opportunist ideas of "national communism”, which the imperialist ideologists regard as the most favourable medium for their notorious "strategy of building bridges" between capitalism and socialism.
Bourgeois ideologists likewise encourage idealistic distortions by “Left” opportunists and petty-bourgeois extremists, who, for all practical purposes, substitute a so-called national communism for proletarian internationalism.
The ideology which is hostile to the proletariat is prepared to make any “concessions”—-to induce the proletariat, whether by persuasion or intimidation, to switch from its class attitudes to nationalistic ones, even if they are “ ultrarevolutionary”; to cultivate in it a national egoism, even it it takes the form of "national communism”; to sow national dissent and mistrust within the international working-class movement, even in the form of revisionist ideas of " ideological pluralism”, “polycentrism”, and so on—if only communism could be transformed on nationalistic lines and “detached” from internationalism.
In the early 20th century, imperialism, with the help of the opportunist leaders of the Second International, managed to divert the Social-Democratic movement of Western Europe into a nationalistic channel and subsequently to “integrate” it with the socio-political system of bourgeois nations. Present-day imperialism seems to be trying to repeat the manoeuvre on an even larger scale, making use today of both the Right and the “Left” opportunist trends in the revolutionary movement. This appears to be pretty close to the truth, judging from the stubbornness displayed by bourgeois ideology in challenging socialism to a contest in nationalism. History shows that the Socialist who has succumbed to the nationalistic temptation does not terrify the bourgeoisie, because it is sure to win out in this contest, whether this kind of Socialist finds himself behind bars, as the German Social-Democrats did when Hitler took over, or whether, like the Labour leaders in Britain, he heads a national-reformist government.
The Marxist-Leninist Parties counter the nationalistic subversions of the imperialists and the splitting activity of 481 the Right and the "Left opportunists with their internationalist line of struggle based on the ideas of scientific communism, a line that has stood the test of history in the grand revolutionary battles of the 20th century. L. I. Brezhnev says: "In their fight for unity the Communists have a tested weapon. One that has brought victory in glorious battles for the cause of the working class, for socialism. That weapon is proletarian internationalism.” [481•*
The world revolutionary movement, united at basis—the common socio-economic condition of the forces participating in it—and in purpose—abolition of imperialist rule and establishment of a just social system—is at the same time highly diverse in form of concrete historical development, which in each country is determined by the unique combination of social conditions and national specifics.
Every Marxist-Leninist Party works out and implements its own policy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle in accordance with its country’s national features and historical traditions. However, the sovereignty and independence of the fraternal Parties constitute only the initial principles of the international struggle of the working class, whose common aims require co-ordination and unity of action by all the national contingents of the communist movement. Any distortion of this dialectical interconnection between the national and the international factors results in a distortion of the principles of proletarian internationalism, in national isolation, and conversion of casual differences of view into fundamental differences. Wladislaw Gomulka said at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in June 1969 that attitude to the principles of internationalism was the main criterion of correctness of each Communist Party’s political line.
The epoch-making revolutions over the last half century have carried proletarian internationalism into a new phase of development. In the modern epoch, which is marked by a steady growth of the forces of socialism and democracy, a weakening of world imperialism, and a tempestuous development of the national liberation movement, the social basis of internationalism has been immensely extended, its content has been considerably deepened, new forms of its expression have emerged, and its influence on world socio-political processes has increased. At the same time, the Marxists– Leninists emphasise that consistent struggle to consolidate and develop the socialist community—the main achievement of the international working-class movement—remains central to the theory and practice of proletarian internationalism. It is of fundamental importance for all the revolutionaries of the world, Rodney Arismendi, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uruguay, said at the 1969 International Meeting, to consolidate the unity of the socialist countries and to enhance the prestige of the socialist system, the Soviet Union in particular. That is an internationalist duty of the Communists, which first arose with the Great October Revolution, and which has continued to exist as the world socialist revolution continues its further advance.
This epoch makes imperative t/ie unity of all the revolutionary forces. It is necessary both for a solution of the great tasks facing mankind, and for a solution of the tasks lacing each national contingent of the revolutionary movement. The international solidarity of the working class, and stronger unity of all the revolutionary forces of our day are dictated by the need to safeguard mankind from thermonuclear war, to bring about the complete liberation of the peoples from all colonial dependence, and to carry forward 484 the struggle for the victory of socialism throughout the world.
The CPSU, implementing the Leninist general line, has consistently worked and continues to work to strengthen the world socialist system, and to bring about the cohesion of all the anti-imperialist forces of our day. In supporting the just struggle of the masses for national liberation and social emancipation in all continents, the Leninist Party believes that these goals can be achieved only through consistent struggle against imperialism, in close alliance with the socialist countries and the international working-class movement.
The experience of the world revolutionary movement has repeatedly borne out Lenin’s ideas about the need for a close alliance and pooling of efforts by all the contingents of the international proletariat and all the streams of the worldwide revolutionary-liberation movement, which undermines and erodes the pillars of capitalism, history’s last exploiting system.
Leninism has been and remains the theoretical basis for a correct combination of the national and the international tasks of the revolutionary working-class movement. This was once again unanimously reaffirmed by the 1969 world communist forum in its special address ”Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, which said: "Today we have every justification for saying about Lenin’s teaching what he himself said about Marxism: it is omnipotent, because it is true. Marxist-Leninist theory and its creative application in specific conditions permit scientific answers to be found to the questions facing all contingents of the world revolutionary movement, wherever they are active.
“Loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, to this great international teaching, holds the promise of further successes of the communist movement.”
[1] Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1969, p. 17.
[2] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works V24 , p. 75.
[2] Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 155.
[471•*] Ibid., Vol. 20. p. 27.
[474•*] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 155.
[474•**] Ibid., Vol. 20, p. 410.
[474•****] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 36.
[476•*] Marx and Engcls, Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 124.
[476•**] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 251.
[477•*] Ibid., Vol. 20, pp. 34–35.
[477•**] Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 148.
[479•*] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 92.
.jpg)
