On Mon, 29 Mar 1999 08:38:00 -0500 Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> writes:
>Walter Keen wrote:
>>As a marxist, I have no option but to be for Kosovar independence.
>This is
>
>We should remind ourselves that Lenin supported self-determination
>because
>in the case of oppressed nationalities, it helped mobilize people
>against
>imperialism. There was a class basis for it.
Many progressives including Marxists seem to view the right to national self-determination as an end-in-itself rather than as means to building class unity. This has led them to support this right even in situations where the consequences will most likely benefit imperialism, and which will make the struggle for socialism all the more difficult.
> Secessionist movements in
>Yugoslavia have had no such dynamic. In point of fact, imperialism has
>pushed the hardest for such movements, beginning in Croatia and
>Slovenia,
>which soon became clients of Germany. The US became interested in
>Bosnian
>independence for the same reason. It now covets Kosovo. If I were a
>Yugoslav communist, I would have been fighting for unity of the nation
>from
>the very beginning. The disintegration of Yugoslavia has been wrapped
>up
>with the introduction of capitalist property relations.
>"Self-determination" in the context of the 1980s and 90s is a formula
>for
>counterrevolution in the Balkans.
If the NATO action is successful then Kosovo will most likely either
become an independent state which will be a client of the US or it
will become a part of Albania which is itself a client of the EU and
the US.
>
>On the other hand, Kurdish national demands directed against Turkey, a
>client of the US, are progressive, as are the Palestinian's and East
>Timorese. Our goal as socialists should be the breaking down of
>borders and
>the creation of a unified human race without any national
>consciousness.
Chris Burford stumbled into the truth when he argued that leftists should use the Kosovan situation to press the point that Turkey has been systematically repressing its Kurdish population in much the same manner that the Serbs are accused of repressing the Kosovan Albanians. All the talk by the US and the EU of supporting the right of national self-stermination is sheer hypocrisy which attempts to give a humanistic veneer to what are geopolitical calculations.
>Nationalism, religion and racial pride are irrational beliefs that
>must
>disintegrate in the bright light of a society governed by science and
>social justice.
True enough, but it is also the case that Marxists will under certain circumstances support nationalist movements if they calculate that the likely consequences will enhance possibilities for proletarian unity. In the last century, Marx & Engels supported the cause of German unification, not only in 1848, when that was primarily a cause for leftists and liberals but later on when it was finally achieved under the conservative auspices of Otto von Bismarck. That was because that a united Germany would industrialize more rapidly, leading to the more rapid development of an industrial proletariat which would no longer be divided among the numerous kingdoms, duchies, and principlaities that had constituted Germany. Likewise, Marx & Engels supported the Polish nationalists because it was directed against the Czarist regime of Russia, which was in the 19th century the great fountainhead of reactionary politics throughout Europe. Anything that weakened that regime would be of benefit to progressive forces in Europe. (Also, I think that Marx & Engels welcomed the unifcation of Germany because it would counter Czarist ambitions in Europe). In any case the Marx & Engels never supported nationalism as an end-in-itself. They as socialists (as Lou pointed out) looked forward to a society where national consciousness will whither away. And in fact Marx & Engels opposed many of the new nationalisms of eastern Europe which were asserting the right to national self-determination against Austria-Hungary. They perceived that not all assertions of this supposed right were necessarily progressive. On the contrary, in many cases the assertion of this right can have reactionary consequences.
Jim Farmelant
>In the meantime, living under capitalism, our interest
>is
>to examine these tendencies as a way of undermining that very system,
>not
>preserving them in amber.
>
>Louis Proyect
>(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>
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