--It must hold a population large enough to allow for an internal division of labor which characterises a capitalist system with its competing classes; and
--occupy a cohesive and sufficiently large territorial space to provide for the existence of a viable state.
The French revolution was a model for this form of national development. Just as the Russian revolution was a model for 20th century revolutions, so was the revolution of 1789 a model for bourgeois democrats in places like Italy, Germany and Ireland that had remnants of the old order. (The question of whether the French revolution was really a "bourgeois revolution" is a topic for another discussion obviously. I am accepting M&E's statement of the paradigm on its own terms.)
The Jacobins believed that the only way to consolidate a modern, bourgeois state was to follow a path of tight centralization and *linguistic standardization*. We should not neglect the importance of the second task. Before the revolution, France had a patchwork of linguistic communities that spoke either Romance languages (Langue d'Oc, Langue d'Oil, Catalan), other Celtic languages (Breton), and other ancient pre-Latin languages (Euzkera). In the period before the revolution, only 3 million inhabitants of Paris and the surrounding areas spoke "French" as their mother tongue and a smaller number could read and write in this language.
The reason it became an urgent political task for the Jacobins to enforce French as a national language was that feudal counter-revolution tended to be strongest in areas where the language was not spoken, such as Brittainy where Breton was the native tongue.
In the context of the bourgeois revolution, the *crushing* of culture and language of the non-Parisian French national communities was progressive. Marx and Engels agreed completely that such action was necessary not only for 18th century France, but contemporary Europe as well. State centralization and national unification, with the consequent *assimilation* of small national communities was the only viable path to social progress.
However, what role do stateless or numerically small national communities such as the Bretons play? Are they all grist for the mill of bourgeois revolution? The answer from Marx and Engels is not encouraging. If the number one priority is to create strong national states, how else can they view cultural and ethnic obstructionists. If doctrinaire Marxism of the twentieth century puts forward the slogan that nationalism divides the working-class, there is some antecedent for this since Marx and Engels put forward slogans 150 years ago that the nationalism of the lesser nationalities divides the bourgeoisie.
They pinned their hopes above all on the national unification of the German peoples, who they contrasted as a "more energetic race" to the smaller national communities on the eastern outskirts of the German national territory, who could only be an obstacle to unification:
"Bohemia and Croatia (another disjected member of the Slavonic family, acted upon by the Hungarian, as Bohemia by the German) were the homes of what is now called on the European continent 'Panslavism'. Neither Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself. Their respective nationalities, gradually undermined by the action of historical causes that inevitably absorbs into a more energetic stock, could only hope to be restored to anything like independence by an alliance with other Slavonic nations." ("Panslavism--the Schleswig Holstein War").
Who would be the leader of such a federation of Slavonic nations? The only such leader waiting in the wings is the Russian czar, according to Marx. There is one consolation. The democratic movement in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy will assimilate these "relics of people", transforming their culture and national identity into the 'superior' German and Magyar culture.
Here is the clearest theoretical statement on the attitude of Marx and Engels on the national question:
"There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or another one or several fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation of which later became the main vehicle for historical development. These relics of a nation, mercilessly trampled under the course of history, as Hegel says 'these residual fragments of peoples' always become standard bearers of counter revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
"Such in Scotland are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.
"Such in France are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1742 to 1800.
"Such in Spain are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
"Such in Austria are the panslavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but residual fragments of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years development. This residual fragment, which is likewise extremely confused sees its salvation only in the reversal of the whole European movement, which in its view ought not to go from west to east, but from east to west." ("The Magyar Struggle")
The Second International accepted Marx and Engels understanding of the national question without reservation. Kautsky was the outstanding leader of Second International orthodoxy and his views are typical.
His views on history and socialism bordered on Social Darwinism. History would weed out those social forms which could not satisfy their roles in the various stages of the evolution toward socialism. Communities, small nationalities, are mere cogs in the great machinery of history. "All communities have economic functions to fulfill! This must, self evidently have been the case with the original communist societies which we encounter at the threshold of history." ("The Class Struggle")
One of the key aspects of the national struggle, in Kautsky's view, is the need for a common language. In this he is in complete agreement with the bourgeois revolutionaries of France. For Kautsky, this is only secondarily related to the need to stamp out feudal reaction which dwells in the backwaters of great nations where all sorts of odd dialects are spoken. It also has to do with the need to unite the nation commercially. Languages are the basic medium of social intercourse, including that of the marketplace. For capitalism to be fully consolidated, a single language must be consolidated as well.
The sooner conversion takes place to a single language, the better. Kautsky endorsed He concluded that the languages of the small Slavic nationalities and the Gaelic tongue in Ireland had no future. At most, they would remain in "domestic use" the way that "old family furniture" is taken out on special occasions but has little practical value.
The hostility to nationalism of "lesser" peoples reaches a frenzied pitch with the arrival of Rosa Luxemburg. Her fire is directed against the national independence movement of her native Poland, which even Marx and Engels favored.
Luxemburg argues that the Polish national aspirations were legitimate in 1848, but in the 20th century conditions had changed. Capitalism had arrived in Russia and Polish workers would be better off joining the Russian working-class in a fight for socialism than in allying itself with the reactionary Polish petty-bourgeoisie. They were based on cottage industries that felt threatened by large-scale Russian capital. As an orthodox Marxist, she opposed Polish nationalism since it was an obstacle to the spread of large-scale capitalism in Poland.
She declared that only two class factions could orient to Polish nationalism: the declining petty-bourgeoisie of cottage industry and the intelligentsia. The working-class could not take sides with such reactionary forces:
"If the proletariat would consider Polish independence as its own political program, this will be against the process of economic development. This will not only be of no help in the fulfillment of its task as a class, but, on the contrary, it will produce an ever widening gap between itself and its aspirations." (From her doctoral thesis on industrial development in Poland)
Luxemburg's intransigent position on Polish nationalism caused a split in the social democratic party there. The PPS (Polish Socialist Party) favored national independence while Luxemburg's party, the SKDKPiL (Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania), opposed it.
She would often use language in support of her arguments that smacked of the same great nation chauvinism that appeared in Marx and Engels. In an article published in Die Neue Zeit, she argued that the Russian middle class was immature because it did not intervene in the squabbles between lesser nationalities:
"the many Kirgiz, Baschirs, Lapps and others, the remainders and ruins of former nations had no more to say in the social and political life of Russia than the Basques in France and the Wends in Germany."
Lenin's break with the dogmatism of the Second International covers many different questions, but none is more important in some respects than the national question. Without a correct understanding of this question, revolution was not possible in Russia.
For Lenin, the key question is not just how to advance the historical development of the productive forces. This task was part of the larger socialist project, which included the development of a vanguard party that could act as a tribune of the masses in defense of all layers of the oppressed, including minor nationalities. The revolution is the culmination of the maturation of economic trends, but will certainly not occur unless the working-class and its allies are politically organized.
As part of the socialist project, the working-class must embrace the demands of all the oppressed, including the minor nationalities that earlier Marxists --including Marx himself-- considered impediments to bourgeois consolidation.
What distinguishes Lenin from Second International was his placing proletarian revolution in the foreground. While orthodox Marxists of the Menshevik faction worried about uncompleted tasks of the bourgeois revolution in Russia, Lenin looked forward to the socialist tasks. The dialectic of his approach could only guarantee success for bourgeois-democratic tasks since the Russian bourgeoisie was so craven and reactionary.
His position in favor of self-determination of nations put him on a collision course with Second International orthodoxy, and with Rosa Luxemburg in particular. Rosa Luxemburg rejected self-determination in Czarist Russia, including for her native Poland, because she saw no causality between such a goal and the aims of the working-class narrowly defined. She simply was not interested in any movement that did not directly advance the goals of the working-class *as a class*.
Lenin was a consummate politician and understood that a successful revolution would involve tactical alliances with political formations that were not directly based on the working-class. This quote from an article Lenin wrote for Luxemburg's theoretical journal captures his understanding of the dialectical relationship between class and national demands:
"...while being based on economics, socialism cannot be reduced to economics alone. A foundation --socialist production-- is essential for the abolition of national oppression, but this foundation must also carry a democratically organized state, a democratic army, etc. By transforming capitalism into socialism the proletariat only creates the possibility of abolishing national oppression; the possibility becomes reality 'only' --'only'!-- with the establishment of full democracy in all spheres, including the delimitation of state frontiers in accordance with the 'sympathies' of the population, including complete freedom to secede."
The reason that Lenin's approach to the national question is more correct than Kautsky's superficial orthodoxy is that it relates to the revolutions of the twentieth century that have occurred in "peripheral" nations. As preoccupied as Marx and Engels were with the unification of Germany on the model of Jacobin France, the national question is a burning one *for the working-class* and not the bourgeoisie in the twentieth century.
The reason for this is simple. We are living in the age of imperialism. Imperialism is a world-wide system and the resistance to it often takes the form of a struggle for national liberation. This has been the case in dozens of countries over the past fifty years. The revolution that originally caused many of us on this list to become Marxists was in many respects a nationalist uprising: Vietnam.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)