First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 39, October 10, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The recent history of the revisionist Communist Party U.S.A. is marked by chauvinist attacks on the movements of the oppressed nations and nationalities. While parading under the mantle of “ally of the third world” and “internationalism,” modern revisionism is in fact stained with the poison of great-nation chauvinism spread by imperialism.
In the September issue of the revisionist journal, Political Affairs, CP nationalities “expert” James Jackson launches a new diatribe against the national movements fighting imperialism and social-imperialism. He does this under the guise of attacking “nationalism.”
In the article entitled “On Certain Aspects of Bourgeois Nationalism,” Jackson pretends to analyze the “mythology of white supremacy„ and the “division of racism” as a “psychological presence” among the American people. But, in fact, he completely covers up the systematic oppression of nations by imperialism.
To the capitalists and revisionists, the national question is a “psychological” question that can be resolved “peacefully” if everyone would only forget about national differences and “assimilate” together in the great capitalist melting pot. As for the revolutionary nationalism of the oppressed peoples resisting imperialist domination, the revisionists attack it in every way, shape and form.
Reflecting the deeply-imbedded chauvinism of a party that has attached itself to the interests of imperialism and social-imperialism for over two decades, Jackson claims, “The national question is always the playground of the bourgeoisie ... ” (Political Affairs, p. 39)
For real communists, the national question is a vital question for the working class. While generally opposing nationalism, communists must draw distinctions – first, between the nationalism of the oppressor nations and that of the oppressed; and secondly, between nationalism’s progressive and backward aspects.
As Lenin put it: “The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support. At the same time we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness ... ” (“The Right of Nations to Self-Determination”)
But to Jackson, “the main function of nationalism, whatever its form, (our emphasis) is to split and divide and fragment the international working class and the advanced contingents of the national liberation movements.” (p. 39)
In all fairness to the revisionist Jackson, we must point out that in practice, the CP really does make such distinctions. For example, Jackson finds it within his heart to support the bourgeois nationalism fomented by certain reformist politicians (like Maynard Jackson in Atlanta or Coleman Young in Detroit) who use the question of nationality to trick people into believing that liberation can come through the ballot box.
The revisionists also dutifully defend the nationalism of the imperialists – whether it be the old-line U.S. imperialists and their oppression of the Afro-American nation or the Soviet social-imperialists and their czar-like oppression of the non-Russian peoples. Yet in Jackson’s article and other recent ones, the revisionists are falling all over themselves to loudly denounce “all forms of nationalism.”
Lenin pointed out that “the principle of nationalism is historically inevitable in bourgeois society and, taking this into due account, the Marxist fully recognizes the historical legitimacy of national movements. ” (“Critical Remarks on the National Question”). He called on revolutionaries to support that which is progressive in such movements while discarding the reactionary and divisive narrowness of nationalism. He emphasized the importance of defending the right of self-determination for all oppressed nations as a component part of the fight against capitalism.
Jackson never once links the national question to the struggle to eliminate the cause of national oppression – the capitalist system itself. Instead, he calls in abstract, idealist tones for the “convergence of nations and peoples, nationalities, and for the removal of all the fences that hem people in and isolate brother and sister from brother and sister the world around, regardless of language and so forth.”
Jackson concludes, “Therefore, we are in our personal attitudes and our personal assessments integrationists, assimilationists, we are Communists.” (p. 41)
Jackson even goes so far down the reformist road as to suggest “intermarriage” as a solution for eliminating differences between the oppressed and oppressor nations. (p. 41)
All this longing for “togetherness” by Jackson is very touching. But it is missing only one little thing – the struggle against imperialism. After all, these boundaries and “fences” don’t simply exist in people’s minds but are a product of imperialism. Nations and national differences will continue to exist as long as capitalism exists, and even for some time under socialism.
The main question for communists at this period in history is not simply “assimilation” or “integration,” but the revolutionary struggle against imperialism. As long as capitalism exists as a world system of colonial oppression – as Lenin called it, “financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of ’advanced’ countries” – what kind of assimilation can there be?
To promote such abstract calls for “assimilation” without targeting imperialism is, in reality, to justify oppression. Nowhere is the case clearer than in Jackson’s defense of the Soviet Union where he says national differences and “national egotism” are disappearing. (p. 39) Jackson claims that today’s Soviet Union has “modeled a pattern for the whole world to follow” in solving the national question (p. 41).
But his readers might well ask, what about the thousands of Jews and other oppressed nationalities that are either fleeing the country or staging militant resistance against the new czars in the Ukraine, Soviet Georgia and Armenia? What about the people of Czechoslovakia still living under the heel of Russian occupation after nine years? Is this the “international spirit” Jackson is referring to?
The Soviet revisionists are working to suppress the nationalities and therefore must suppress their cultures and languages. This is what Jackson means by “assimilation” and “integration.” It is the forced assimilation of millions against their will, not the voluntary merging of different peoples under socialism on the basis of equality. It is similar to the suppression of Black culture or the Spanish language here in the U.S. by the ruling class.
While attacking the nationalism of the oppressed nationalities in the U. S. and the USSR, Jackson parrots the fascist philosophy of the new czars, referring to the people of the USSR as a “new historic race, so to speak, emerging out of the conditioning impact and influence of a socialist environment under the patronage of the working class in power ... ” (p. 39)
A “new historic race” indeed. The expansion and striving for world domination by the social-imperialists is now justified as a “racial” question. If this sounds a bit like Hitler’s racial theories, it is.
This same chauvinism is of course carried over to the U.S, where the modern revisionists long ago abandoned the Afro-American people’s demand for the right of self-determination, again calling for “assimilation” and “integration” under capitalism as the road to liberation.
So it seems that the national question has become a “playground” for the revisionists, carrying out their sabotage of the movements against national oppression. They are defending imperialism and social-imperialism under the banner of “combating nationalism.”