Quiz: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

12 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What is Lenin’s answer to whether a nation can be free if it oppresses other nations? It can, once socialism is established It cannot It can, if its own institutions are democratic It depends on the size of the oppressed nation
2. Why, according to Lenin, had Marx’s view on Polish independence ceased to be correct by the twentieth century? Russia had granted Poland autonomy, so its national movement had been satisfied by reform Marx himself had withdrawn his support for Poland after the failure of the 1863 rising Democratic and proletarian movements had arisen among the Slavs; Poland was capitalist Poland had already won a large measure of independence, so the slogan had lost its object
3. What did Trotsky claim in Borba about the Polish Marxists, which Lenin denies? That they supported Polish independence and wanted that demand placed first in the programme That they had accepted Clause 9 without reservation and defended it against the Bund That they supported national-cultural autonomy, in alliance with the Bund and the Caucasians That they held the right of self-determination empty of content and fit to be deleted
4. What, according to Lenin, did Semkovsky fail to understand about the right to secession? That only the organised workers of the seceding nation may ever vote on separation, and not its parliament That it is decided by the parliament or referendum of the seceding region, not the central parliament That the right applies only to Poland and Finland, which already had their own institutions That secession requires the consent of all the nations of the state, given through the central parliament alone
5. Which Asian country does Lenin cite as the only place in Asia with the best conditions for capitalist development? Japan China Turkey Persia
6. What did the Polish delegates propose instead of self-determination in 1903? Institutions guaranteeing full freedom of cultural development to all nations A federation of all the nations of the Russian empire, with equal rights for each Independence for Poland only Regional self-government for the borderlands
7. Who were the “Fraki”? The Revolutionary Faction of the Polish Socialist Party Polish landowners and their deputies in the Duma The Polish Social-Democrats of Rosa Luxemburg A Swedish nationalist party opposed to Norwegian independence
8. According to Lenin, whose arguments do Semkovsky, Liebman and Yurkevich merely repeat? Otto Bauer’s Karl Kautsky’s Luxemburg’s Georgy Plekhanov’s
9. Which two periods of capitalism does Lenin distinguish? The collapse of feudalism and rise of bourgeois society, and that of formed capitalist states The period of colonial conquest by the European powers, and the period of colonial revolts The period of free competition among small producers, and the later period of state-run capitalism The period of mercantile capitalism and world trade, and the period of large-scale industrial capitalism
10. When, according to Lenin, did the period of bourgeois-democratic revolutions occur in Western continental Europe? From 1871 to 1914 Roughly from 1640 to 1789 Roughly from 1789 to 1871 From 1848 to 1905
11. Why, according to Marx in December 1869, was it in the interest of the English workers to break the connection with Ireland? The Irish were more revolutionary, and would lead them Ireland was a drain on the English treasury English reaction was rooted in the subjugation of Ireland Irish immigrants were taking English jobs
12. What is the “two-sided” task of proletarian parties in national policy? Rejection of all national demands and the unity of the workers in a single centralised state Support for national independence everywhere and the formation of separate national workers’ parties National-cultural autonomy for every nation, and federation of the workers’ parties by nation Self-determination for all nations and the closest union of their workers

0 of 12 answered