5. The Liberal Bourgeoisie and the Socialist Opportunists in the National Question

We have seen that Rosa Luxemburg regards the following argument as one of her main “trump cards” in her struggle against the programme of the Russian Marxists: recognition of the right to self-determination is tantamount to supporting the bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed nations. On the other hand, she says, if we take this right to mean no more than combating all violence against nations, there is no need for a special clause in the programme, for Social-Democrats are in general opposed to all national oppression and inequality.

The first argument, as Kautsky irrefutably proved nearly twenty years ago, lays the blame for nationalism at the wrong door, for, in her fear of the nationalism of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations, Rosa Luxemburg is actually playing into the hands of the Black-Hundred nationalism of the Great Russians! Her second argument is in fact a timid evasion of the question: does recognition of national equality include recognition of the right to secession, or does it not? If it does, then Rosa Luxemburg admits that, in principle, Clause 9 of our programme is correct. If it does not, then she does not recognise national equality. Shuffling and evasions will not help here!

However, the best test of the above and all similar arguments is to study the attitude of the various classes of society towards the question. For the Marxist this test is obligatory. We must proceed from what is objective; we must examine the relations between the classes on this point. In failing to do so, Rosa Luxemburg is guilty of precisely those sins of metaphysics, abstraction, platitude and sweeping generalisation of which she vainly tries to accuse her opponents.

We are discussing the programme of the Russian Marxists, that is, of the Marxists of all the nationalities of Russia. Should we not examine the position of the ruling classes of Russia?

The position of the “bureaucracy” (we beg pardon for this inaccurate term) and of the feudal landlords of the United Nobility type is well known. They flatly reject both the equality of nationalities and the right to self-determination. Theirs is the old slogan taken from the days of serfdom: autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality, the last term meaning only the Great Russian nationality. Even the Ukrainians are declared to be “aliens”, and even their native language is persecuted.

Let us glance at the Russian bourgeoisie, which is “called upon” to take part, a very modest part, it is true, but a part all the same, in the power, in the legislative and administrative system of the “Third of June”. It need not be said at length that the Octobrists are actually following the Rights in this question. Unfortunately, some Marxists pay much less attention to the position of the Great Russian liberal bourgeoisie, the Progressists and the Cadets. Yet whoever fails to study that position and give it careful thought will inevitably fall into the sin of abstraction and groundless assertion when discussing the right of nations to self-determination.

Last year Pravda’s controversy with Rech compelled this chief organ of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, which is so skilled at diplomatically evading direct answers to “unpleasant” questions, to make some valuable admissions all the same. The trouble started over the All-Ukraine Students’ Congress held in Lvov in the summer of 1913. Mr. Mogilyansky, the sworn “Ukrainian expert” or Ukrainian contributor of Rech, published an article in which he poured the vilest abuse (“ravings”, “adventurism” and so on) on the idea of the separation of Ukraine, an idea advocated by the National-Socialist Dontsov and endorsed by that congress.

Rabochaya Pravda, while in no way identifying itself with Mr. Dontsov, and stating plainly that he was a National-Socialist and that many Ukrainian Marxists did not agree with him, declared that the tone of Rech, or, rather, its formulation of the question in principle, was altogether improper and inadmissible for a Great Russian democrat or for anyone wishing to pass as a democrat. Let Rech refute the Dontsovs directly, but it is inadmissible in principle for a Great Russian organ of supposed democracy to forget about freedom of secession, the right to secession.

A few months later, Mr. Mogilyansky published an “explanation” in Rech, No. 331, having learned from the Lvov Ukrainian newspaper Shlyakhi of Mr. Dontsov’s reply, in which, incidentally, Dontsov stated that “the chauvinist attack of Rech was properly sullied (branded?) only by the Russian Social-Democratic press”. Mr. Mogilyansky’s “explanation” consisted of the thrice-repeated statement that “criticism of Mr. Dontsov’s recipes” “has nothing in common with the denial of the right of nations to self-determination”.

“It must be said,” wrote Mr. Mogilyansky, “that even ‘the right of nations to self-determination’ is not some fetish (listen to this!!) beyond criticism: unhealthy conditions in the life of a nation may give rise to unhealthy tendencies in national self-determination, and to expose these does not mean to deny the right of nations to self-determination.”

As you see, this liberal’s talk of a “fetish” was quite in keeping with Rosa Luxemburg’s. It was obvious that Mr. Mogilyansky was trying to evade a direct reply to the question: does he or does he not recognise the right to political self-determination, that is, to secession?

And Proletarskaya Pravda (No. 4, December 11, 1913) put this question point-blank both to Mr. Mogilyansky and to the Constitutional-Democratic Party.

Rech thereupon published (in No. 340) an unsigned, that is, official editorial, statement replying to this question. The reply boils down to the following three points:

Let us first draw attention to the second point of the Rech statement. How clearly it shows the Semkovskys, Liebmans, Yurkeviches and other opportunists that their hue and cry about the supposed “vagueness” or “indefiniteness” of the meaning of “self-determination” is in fact, that is, from the standpoint of the objective relations between the classes and of the class struggle in Russia, simply a rehash of the speeches of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie!

When Proletarskaya Pravda put three questions to the enlightened “Constitutional-Democratic” gentlemen of Rech, namely: (1) do they deny that throughout the history of international democracy, especially since the middle of the nineteenth century, self-determination of nations has been understood to mean precisely political self-determination, the right to form an independent national state? (2) do they deny that the well-known resolution of the London International Socialist Congress of 1896 has the same meaning? and (3) do they deny that Plekhanov, writing about self-determination as far back as 1902, meant precisely political self-determination? When Proletarskaya Pravda put these three questions, the Cadet gentlemen fell silent!!

They did not utter a word in reply, for they had nothing to say. They had tacitly to admit that Proletarskaya Pravda was absolutely right.

The liberals’ outcries about the vagueness of the concept of “self-determination” and about the Social-Democrats “hopelessly confusing” it with separatism are nothing more than an attempt to confuse the issue and evade recognition of a principle universally established by democracy. If the Semkovskys, Liebmans and Yurkeviches were not so ignorant, they would be ashamed to address the workers in a liberal spirit.

But let us proceed. Proletarskaya Pravda compelled Rech to admit that, in the programme of the Constitutional-Democrats, the word “cultural” self-determination means in effect the repudiation of political self-determination.

“In actual fact, the Cadets have never pledged themselves to advocate the right of ‘nations to secede’ from the Russian state”: it was not without reason that Proletarskaya Pravda recommended these words from Rech to Novoye Vremya and Zemshchina as an example of our Cadets’ “loyalty”. In its issue No. 13563, Novoye Vremya, which never misses an opportunity of mentioning the “Yids” and making all kinds of digs at the Cadets, nevertheless stated:

By declaring that they “have never pledged themselves to advocate the right of nations to secede from the Russian state”, the Cadets have, in principle, taken exactly the same stand as Novoye Vremya. This is precisely one of the fundamentals of Cadet National-Liberalism, of their kinship with the Purishkeviches, and of their political dependence, ideological and practical, on the latter. “The Cadet gentlemen have studied history,” wrote Proletarskaya Pravda, “and know only too well what, to put it mildly, pogrom-like actions the practice of the ancient right of the Purishkeviches to ‘grab ’em and hold ’em’ has often led to.” Although they are perfectly aware of the feudalist source and nature of the Purishkeviches’ unlimited power, the Cadets are, nevertheless, taking their stand entirely on the ground of the relations and frontiers created by that very class. Knowing full well that there is much in the relations and frontiers created or fixed by this class that is un-European and anti-European (we would say Asiatic if this did not sound undeservedly disparaging to the Japanese and Chinese), the Cadet gentlemen nevertheless accept them as the utmost limit, beyond which one may not pass.

This is precisely adaptation to the Purishkeviches, servility to them, fear of jeopardising their position, protection of them from the people’s movement, from democracy. “In effect it means,” wrote Proletarskaya Pravda, “adapting oneself to the interests of the feudal landlords and to the worst nationalist prejudices of the dominant nation, instead of systematically combating those prejudices.”

Being men who are familiar with history and claim to be democrats, the Cadets do not even attempt to assert that the democratic movement, which today characterises both Eastern Europe and Asia and is striving to change both after the model of the civilised capitalist countries, must inevitably leave intact the boundaries fixed by the feudal epoch, the epoch of the omnipotence of the Purishkeviches and the disfranchisement of wide strata of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

That the question raised in the controversy between Proletarskaya Pravda and Rech was not merely a literary question, but one involving a real political issue of the day, was proved, among other things, by the last conference of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, held on March 23–25, 1914. In the official report of this conference in Rech (No. 83, March 26, 1914) we read:

This most remarkable line of reasoning at the Cadet conference deserves serious attention from all Marxists and all democrats. (Let us note in parentheses that Kievskaya Mysl, which is evidently very well informed and no doubt conveys Mr. Kokoshkin’s ideas correctly, added that, as a warning to his opponents, of course, he laid special stress on the danger of the “disintegration” of the state.)

The official report in Rech is composed with consummate diplomacy so as to lift the curtain as little as possible and to conceal as much as possible. Yet in the main what took place at the Cadet conference is clear. The delegates, liberal bourgeois familiar with the state of affairs in Ukraine, and the “Left” Cadets raised the question precisely of the political self-determination of nations. Otherwise there would have been no need for Mr. Kokoshkin to urge that this “formula” should be “handled cautiously”.

The Cadet programme, which was of course known to the delegates at the Cadet conference, speaks precisely of “cultural”, and not of political, self-determination. Hence Mr. Kokoshkin was defending the programme against the Ukrainian delegates and against the Left Cadets; he was defending “cultural” self-determination against “political” self-determination. It is perfectly clear that in opposing “political” self-determination, in playing up the danger of the “disintegration of the state”, and in calling the formula of “political self-determination” an “elastic” one (quite in keeping with Rosa Luxemburg!), Mr. Kokoshkin was defending Great Russian National-Liberalism against the more “Left” or more democratic elements of the Constitutional-Democratic Party and also against the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.

Mr. Kokoshkin won the day at the Cadet conference, as is evident from the treacherous little word “however” in the Rech report. Great Russian National-Liberalism has triumphed among the Cadets. Will not this victory help to clear the minds of those misguided individuals among the Marxists in Russia who, like the Cadets, have also begun to fear the “elastic formulas of political self-determination of nationalities”?

Let us, “however”, examine the substance of Mr. Kokoshkin’s line of thought. By referring to “previous political experience” (that is, evidently, the experience of 1905, when the Great Russian bourgeoisie took fright for its national privileges and scared the Cadet Party with its fears), and by playing up the danger of the “disintegration of the state”, Mr. Kokoshkin showed that he understood perfectly well that political self-determination can mean nothing else but the right to secede and form an independent national state. The question is: how should Mr. Kokoshkin’s fears be appraised from the standpoint of democracy in general, and from the standpoint of the proletarian class struggle in particular?

Mr. Kokoshkin would have us believe that recognition of the right to secession increases the danger of the “disintegration of the state”. This is the viewpoint of Constable Mymretsov, whose motto was “grab ’em and hold ’em”. From the viewpoint of democracy in general, the very opposite is the case: recognition of the right to secession reduces the danger of the “disintegration of the state”.

Mr. Kokoshkin argues exactly like the nationalists do. At their last congress they attacked the Ukrainian “Mazepists”. The Ukrainian movement, Mr. Savenko and Co. exclaimed, threatens to weaken the ties between Ukraine and Russia, since Austria, by her Ukrainophile policy, is strengthening the ties between the Ukrainians and Austria!! It remained unexplained why Russia could not try to “strengthen” her ties with the Ukrainians through the same method that the Savenkos blame Austria for using, that is, by granting the Ukrainians freedom to use their own language, self-government and an autonomous Diet.

The arguments of the Savenkos and the Kokoshkins are exactly alike, and from the purely logical point of view they are equally ridiculous and absurd. Is it not clear that the more liberty the Ukrainian nationality enjoys in any particular country, the stronger its ties with that country will be? One would think that this truism could not be disputed without totally abandoning all the premises of democracy. And can there be greater freedom of nationality, as such, than the freedom to secede, the freedom to form an independent national state?

To clarify this question, which has been so confused by the liberals (and by those who are so misguided as to echo them), let us take a very simple example. Let us take the question of divorce. In her article Rosa Luxemburg writes that the centralised democratic state, while fully reconciling itself to autonomy for its constituent parts, should retain the most important branches of legislation within the competence of the central parliament, divorce legislation among them. The concern that the central authority of the democratic state should ensure the freedom of divorce is perfectly understandable. The reactionaries are opposed to freedom of divorce; they urge that it should be “handled cautiously”, and loudly declare that it means the “disintegration of the family”. Democracy, however, believes that the reactionaries are hypocrites, who are actually defending the omnipotence of the police and the bureaucracy, the privileges of one of the sexes, and the worst kind of oppression of women; that in actual fact freedom of divorce means not the “disintegration” of family ties but, on the contrary, their strengthening on the only democratic foundations that are possible and durable in a civilised society.

To accuse those who support freedom of self-determination, that is, freedom to secede, of encouraging separatism is as foolish and hypocritical as accusing those who advocate freedom of divorce of encouraging the destruction of family ties. Just as in bourgeois society the defenders of privilege and corruption, on which bourgeois marriage rests, oppose freedom of divorce, so, in the capitalist state, repudiation of the freedom of self-determination, that is, of the secession of nations, means nothing more than defence of the privileges of the dominant nation and of police methods of administration, to the detriment of democratic methods.

No doubt the political chicanery generated by all the relations of capitalist society sometimes produces extremely frivolous and even simply silly talk by parliamentarians and journalists about the secession of one nation or another. But only reactionaries can allow themselves to be frightened (or pretend to be frightened) by such talk. Those who stand by democratic principles, that is, who insist that questions of state be decided by the mass of the population, know very well that there is a “tremendous distance” between what the politicians prate about and what the masses decide. From their daily experience the masses know perfectly well the value of geographical and economic ties and the advantages of a big market and a big state. They will, therefore, resort to secession only when national oppression and national friction make joint life absolutely intolerable and hinder every kind of economic intercourse. In that case, the interests of capitalist development and of the freedom of the class struggle will be best served by secession.

Thus, from whatever angle we approach Mr. Kokoshkin’s arguments, they prove to be the height of absurdity and a mockery of the principles of democracy. But there is a certain logic in these arguments: the logic of the class interests of the Great Russian bourgeoisie. Like most members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, Mr. Kokoshkin is a lackey of the moneybags of that bourgeoisie. He defends its privileges in general, and its state privileges in particular. He defends them hand in hand with Purishkevich, shoulder to shoulder with him, the only difference being that Purishkevich puts more faith in the feudal cudgel, while Kokoshkin and Co. realise that this cudgel was badly damaged in 1905, and rely more on bourgeois methods of fooling the masses, such as frightening the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants with the spectre of the “disintegration of the state”, and deceiving them with phrases about blending “people’s freedom” with historical tradition, and so on.

The real class significance of the liberals’ hostility to the principle of political self-determination of nations is one, and only one: National-Liberalism, defence of the state privileges of the Great Russian bourgeoisie. And the opportunists among the Marxists in Russia, who today, under the Third of June regime, are against the right of nations to self-determination, the Liquidator Semkovsky, the Bundist Liebman, the Ukrainian petty bourgeois Yurkevich, are actually following in the wake of the National-Liberals and corrupting the working class with National-Liberal ideas.

The interests of the working class and of its struggle against capitalism demand complete solidarity and the closest unity of the workers of all nations; they demand resistance to the nationalist policy of the bourgeoisie of every nationality. Hence Social-Democrats would be deviating from proletarian policy and subordinating the workers to the policy of the bourgeoisie if they were to repudiate the right of nations to self-determination, that is, the right of an oppressed nation to secede, or if they were to support all the national demands of the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations. It makes no difference to the hired worker whether he is exploited chiefly by the Great Russian bourgeoisie rather than the non-Russian bourgeoisie, or by the Polish bourgeoisie rather than the Jewish bourgeoisie, and so on. The hired worker who has come to understand his class interests is equally indifferent to the state privileges of the Great Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish or Ukrainian capitalists to set up an earthly paradise when they obtain state privileges. Capitalism is developing and will continue to develop, in one way or another, both in a unitary state of mixed nationalities and in separate national states.

In any case the hired worker will remain an object of exploitation, and the successful struggle against it requires that the proletariat be independent of nationalism, that the proletarians be completely neutral, so to speak, in the bourgeoisie’s struggle of the various nations for supremacy. If the proletariat of any one nation gives the slightest support to the privileges of “its own” national bourgeoisie, that will inevitably rouse distrust among the proletariat of another nation; it will weaken the international class solidarity of the workers and divide them, to the delight of the bourgeoisie. Repudiation of the right to self-determination or to secession inevitably means, in practice, support for the privileges of the dominant nation.

We shall get even more striking confirmation of this if we take the concrete case of Norway’s secession from Sweden.