Marxism-Leninism makes a scientific analysis of national oppression and the struggle against it. It provides an arsenal of weapons for the liberation of the oppressed nations and peoples as well as the guidelines for cementing working-class unity through proletarian internationalism.
In approaching the national question in the Russian revolution, Lenin pointed out that it was in the interests of the working class to build socialism in a highly centralized and unified country, and to try to do this within the largest possible area. But while taking this as a general rule, he explained that “self-determination is an exception and prerequisite for our system of centralization.”[1] The demand for self-determination is a demand for oppressed nations to be free to determine their own social system and their own future. It was first put forward historically by the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie developing in nineteenth century Europe in the course of the struggle against feudalism. It emphasized the right of nations to secede from the feudal empires which imprisoned them, in order to establish their own nation-states.
Lenin and proletarian fighters all over Europe also adopted this demand, but under the conditions of imperialism, linked the national question with the question of the colonies.
The national question was thereby transformed from a particular and internal state problem, into a general and international problem, into a world problem of emancipating the oppressed peoples in the dependent countries and colonies from the yoke of imperialism.[2]
The right of self-determination was broadened to mean the right of the oppressed peoples of the colonies and dependent countries to complete secession and independence from their imperialist oppressors.
Marxism holds that the purpose of raising the demand for self-determination is to unite the people of the oppressed nation and unite the working class of both the oppressor and oppressed nations in struggle against national oppression, raising this struggle to a high place. Stalin observed, “When we put forward the principle of the right of peoples to self-determination we thereby raise the struggle against national oppression to the level of a struggle against imperialism, our common enemy.”[3]
Lenin also showed that the history of imperialist oppression had made the workers of different nationalities lose confidence in each other, creating deep divisions in the working class. To fortify the unity of the working class under socialism, the right to secession for oppressed nations had to exist. But by promoting the right to self-determination, the Marxist-Leninists never advocated secession exclusively or unconditionally.
Stalin observed, “A people has a right to secede but it may not exercise that right according to circumstances. Thus we are at liberty to agitate for or against secession according to the interests of the proletariat, of the proletarian revolution.”[4]
The demand for self-determination lies at the heart of the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the national question. But precisely because Marxist-Leninists strive everywhere to build unity between nations, the resolution of the national question must have features other than the demand for political secession. In fact, Lenin and Stalin enumerated five points of principle in regard to the national question under socialism which could be summed up as follows:
1) Establish a state with broad proletarian democracy.
2) Uphold the right to self-determination, basing the question of secession on the concrete interests of the working class.
3) Practice regional autonomy for nations which do not secede in order to guarantee the equality and full development of all nations.
4) Protect the rights of scattered minorities, for whom regional autonomy can’t be implemented, by implementing full national equality and ending all national privileges.
5) Insure the building of the party as a single, indivisible, multinational communist party, representative of the working class of all the nationalities.
In the Soviet Union, when it was a socialist country, and in China today, the communists have led a highly successful struggle for equality between nations. In both cases, the vast majority of formerly oppressed nations were brought into the centralized state, creating the conditions for the highest possible unity and internationalism in the whole working class. In both these countries, however, the battle for equality between nations did not end with their federation into a centralized state. Regional autonomy became the principle for the assurance of continued equality in respect to language, social life, culture, economic development etc. In this sense both self-determination and regional autonomy are principles for the solution of the national question in multi-national states.
In order to insure a correct policy on the national question as well as all other questions, Marxism-Leninism teaches that there can only be one party at the vanguard of the working class and that it must be a party which both politically and organizationally reflects the unity of the working class against national oppression. On this point Stalin spoke vigorously, criticizing the opportunists of his day:
We still have to settle the question of how to organize the proletariat of the various nations into a single, common party. One plan is that the workers should be organized according to nationality–so many nations, so many parties. This plan was rejected by the Social-Democrats (communists–ed.). Experience has shown that the organization of the proletariat of a given state according to nationality only leads to the downfall of the idea of class solidarity. All the proletarian members of all the nations in a given state must be organized in a single, indivisible proletarian collective.[5]
Today it is our recognition of the Afro-American question as a national question that distinguishes us from those opportunists who, under the mantle of Marxism, have sided with the monopoly capitalists in their onslaught against Black people and who parrot the imperialist phrase that “industrialization has done away with national differences.” Based on this recognition, we in the October League take on our revolutionary responsibility to uphold the right of self-determination of the Afro-American people up to and including the right to secede in the area known historically as the Black Belt South.
The main target of the modern revisionists and opportunists of different stripes (Trotskyism, etc.) is to liquidate the right of self-determination, particularly for those nations oppressed by their “own” imperialists. It was Lenin, who in drawing the line of demarcation between proletarian internationalism and social chauvinism correctly noted that:
Socialist parties which did not show by all their activities, both now, during the revolution, and after its victory, that they would liberate the enslaved nations and build up relations with them on the basis of a free union– and free union is a false phrase without the right to secede–these parties would be betraying socialism.[6]
It was in this spirit that the Communist Party in the U.S. adopted the famous Comintern Resolution of 1928 and 1930, which classified Black people in the Black Belt areas of the South as an oppressed nation, entitled to the right of self-determination.
The adoption of these resolutions was a momentous step forward for the American communist movement. It broke decisively with the white chauvinism of the old Socialist Party and recognized that the Afro-American question was a special question requiring special demands and special forms of struggle. It linked the Afro-American struggle with anti-imperialist struggle world-wide and laid the basis for principled unity between Black and white workers in the U.S.
This strong theoretical basis allowed the Communist Party to initiate and lead mass struggles of Black people including the famous case of the Scottsboro Boys, to actively involve thousands of Black workers in the left wing of the labor movement, and to recruit large numbers of Blacks into the Party itself.
It was only when the Communist Party came under the leadership of revisionists that it dropped this revolutionary position. From the struggle against social chauvinists in the early days of the Civil War, who refused to support the emancipation of Black slaves, through the Socialist Party; from the Browderites in the CPUSA to the present pack of revisionists who now control the party, one can trace the struggle against this betrayal in the U.S. movement. If we are to fulfill our historic duty, it is imperative that the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists presently struggling to build a new party make a clean break with social chauvinism. We must adopt an uncompromising stand on the proletarian internationalist demand for the right of self-determination for all oppressed nations, full democratic rights for all oppressed nationalities, and principled unity between the workers of various nationalities.
The assault and betrayal led by the modern day revisionists, regarding the Afro-American national question, has opened the door for all kinds of new theories which seek to justify the liquidation of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist position of the right of self-determination (“the nation has disappeared,” “nation of a new type,” “white blind-spot,” et al). While the liberal hypocrites and bourgeois sociologists blatantly reduce the question to one of “morality” and “racist ideas,” the opportunists hide under the mantle of Marxism.
Desperately creating “new historic periods,” these phoney Marxists generally cite migration and industrialization coupled with “advances” in bourgeois democratic rights as justification for their liquidationist theories. The examination of certain population shifts and economic factors, however, does not dismiss but actually demonstrates the continued intensified oppression of the Afro-American people.
The writings of Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsetung and the Comintern and the CPUSA (in its revolutionary period) on the Afro-American people constitute a tremendous foundation for the Marxist-Leninist position. In response to “new theories” and “new historic conditions,” Chou En Lai reaffirmed at the Tenth Party Congress of the CPC:
Since Lenin’s death the world has undergone great changes. But the era has not changed. The fundamental principles of Leninism are not outdated. They remain the theoretical basis guiding our thinking today.[7]
We feel that the Afro-American question in the U.S. is no exception to this affirmation of Leninism. This is not to say that the Black nation in the U.S. has not undergone great changes. The very nature of imperialism regarding oppressed nations is to continually assault them: culturally, economically, and politically. This policy of imperialist aggression includes driving people from the land and rural areas to the urban centers of the oppressor and oppressed nation. This phenomenon is not however a “new development,” but rather what has always been known as a policy of national oppression.
National oppression is the system of exploitation and robbery of oppressed peoples, the measures of forcible restriction of the rights of oppressed nationalities, resorted to by the imperialist circles.[8]
It is national oppression–exploitation and robbery of Black people–which has led to forced migration to urban areas and continued national oppression, both North and South. Therefore, the question is posed: does consistent national oppression eliminate the right of an oppressed nation to self-determination, or, more specifically in this case, does the imperialist policy of forcibly driving people from their land and “industrialization” eliminate the nation altogether? Our answer is a resounding NO!
It is true that the overwhelming majority of Black people in the U.S. today are oppressed as workers, not peasants. We understand the development of a proletariat in the oppressed nations is an inevitable result of imperialist exploitation. This constitutes one of the basic contradictions of imperialism. It is no surprise then that the majority of Black people are workers. Stalin states:
The purpose of this exploitation and of this oppression is to squeeze out superprofits. But in exploiting these countries, imperialism is compelled to build their railways, factories and mills, industrial and commercial centers. The appearance of a class of proletarians, the emergence of a native intelligensia, the awakening of national consciousness, the growth of the liberation movement–are the inevitable results of such a ’policy’.[9]
The fact that the majority of Black people are no longer peasants is not decisive in determining either nationhood or the centrality of the right of self-determination to national liberation. The principles of Leninism on the national question still apply. “. . . Leninism is the international doctrine of the proletariat in all lands, suitable and obligatory for all countries without exception, including the capitalistically developed countries.”[10]
The development of capitalism in the U.S. as a whole and the South in particular does not justify the liquidation of the Afro-American national question or “American exceptionalism.” The land question still remains a basic part of the solution of the Black national question, particularly in the deep South where a large number of Black farmers (pulpwood cutters, tenants, and sharecroppers) and agricultural workers still face direct imperialist aggression in the form of bank disclosures, “eminent domain,” illegal tax possessions, land foreclosures and other imperialist land-grabbing schemes. In 1910, Blacks had acquired 15 million acres of land. By 1969, they owned less than 6 million acres in the entire U.S.[11] There’s also the question of the already “displaced peasantry”–the many thousands of families who have already been robbed of their land by U.S. imperialists and who face permanent unemployment and degrading conditions in the urban centers. In addition, the land question is central to the historic national territorial rights involved in the right of self-determination of nations.
The communities and regions being torn apart in the Black Belt South are not a result of Black folks voluntarily deciding they want a change of scenery. The disruption of family ties and the uprooting of people from their life-long homes is a direct result of fierce economic and political coercion.
The imperialist policy of industrialization and dispersal of the oppressed nations results in economic and political concentration in the urban areas and the creation of a proletariat. This policy, an objective law of imperialism, is one of its basic contradictions, in that it broadens the ranks of the international proletariat, thus creating a revolutionary force to lead the national liberation struggles. The proletariat however does not view the imperialist domination, aggression and exploitation of oppressed nations as progressive. It stands for economic progress, the creation of a proletariat and unity of all nations–not by force or imperialist aggression, but on the basis of voluntary unity and complete equality.
Only in this way could Marx maintain–unlike the apologists of capital who shout that the freedom of small nations to secede is Utopian and impracticable and that not only economic but also political concentration is progressive–that this concentration is progressive when it is non-imperialist, and that nations should not be brought together by force, but by free union of the proletarians of all countries.[12]
In the face of the stepped-up imperialist attacks on the Black oppressed nation in the South and Blacks who are oppressed as national minorities in the northern urban areas, the way for communists to build proletarian internationalism in the working class is to fight for the right of self-determination. It would be a tragic mistake for a new communist party to follow the chauvinist line of the modern revisionists–to try to wiggle out of this responsibility by citing “new conditions” and “new historical periods.”
The more purely proletarian the struggle against the general imperialist front now is, the more vital, obviously, is the internationalist principal: No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.[13]
The relationship of the U.S. working class to the Afro-American nation oppressed within the borders of the U.S. differs from its relationship to the colonies maintained externally. Although the principles on which proletarian internationalism must be built are essentially the same, we uphold the right of self-determination in the former and the struggle for independence in the latter. The difference comes to the fore in terms of the concrete conditions shaping the strategic alliance between the Afro-American nation and the working class in the U.S. It is this strategic relationship which leads us to oppose secession at this time as the solution to the Afro-American question. “The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the U.S. have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. The struggle of the Afro-American people in the U.S. is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.”[14]
The fact that the majority of Black people are working side by side with their brothers and sisters, whites and other oppressed minorities, lays the basis for a united assault on the imperialists. Our strategic outlook then calls for a socialist revolution, based on proletarian internationalism, which will accomplish in one sweep the basic conditions for the emancipation of the working class and the liberation of Black people.
We oppose those who advocate secession or separatism as being the only way self-determination can be exercised. As Lenin said:
The right of nations to self-determination implies exclusively the right to independence in the political sense, the right to political separation from the oppressor nation. Specifically this demand for political democracy implies complete freedom to agitate for secession and for a referendum on secession by the seceding nation. This demand therefore, is not the equivalent of a demand for separation, fragmentation, and the formation of small states.[15]
Lenin also pointed out that the demand for the right of self-determination “implies only a consistent expression of struggle against all national oppression.” In each case, he explained, the question of secession versus federation would have to be dealt with on the basis of which choice would unite the working class and further the cause of socialism, which is in the final analysis the only system that can fully emancipate the oppressed nations. He compared the right of self-determination with the right of divorce, showing that equality in marriage necessitated the right of divorce, while equality among nations necessitated the right of self-determination.
To accuse those who support freedom of self-determination, i.e., 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.[16]
With the development of the U.S. into an advanced capitalist (imperialist) country and the bourgeoisie turning against certain initial democratic aims, the emancipation of the oppressed nationalities within the borders of the U.S. became completely bound up with the working class struggle for socialism.
From the time of the kidnapping of the first slaves through Reconstruction–when the national oppression of the Afro-American people became an inherent feature of U.S. imperialism–until today, resistance and struggle has characterized the Afro-American movement. In general, these struggles have been directed at doing away with national inequality and super-exploitation. At times, the struggle has taken the path of seeking secession as a separate nation. The history of the Afro-American people shows, however, a consistent struggle of national form whose aspiration has been for complete democracy.
The Marxist-Leninists, in direct opposition to the “apologists of capital” and the revisionist betrayers, recognize the legitimacy of the national character of the Afro-American people’s movement.
Without the perspective of POLITICAL POWER, the Negro people’s movement is reduced to an impotent appeal to the conscience of humanitarian instincts of the country and the world; indeed a moral question which some of the right-revisionists in their franker moments have called it.[17]
Understanding the historical roots and material basis for this oppression, we raise the revolutionary solution to it–socialism and the right of self-determination.
Since national oppression has become an inherent feature of capitalism (with the rise of imperialism), emancipation can only be fully realized with the overthrow of the imperialist system. This does not mean, however, that the struggle for the right of self-determination should be put off until socialism. Quite the opposite is true.
Today, the focus of the struggle by Black people against national oppression is the battle against the daily abuses of discrimination, ghetto conditions, police terror and inequality in all spheres of life. This is a continuation of the historic battles for basic democratic rights. The entire working class with its party must be the hardest and leading fighters in this sphere, and this is the context in which communists must raise the demand for the right of self-determination. Self-determination is the highest form of democratic rights and every victory in the democratic struggle is a step towards the realization of self-determination for the Afro-American nation.
. . . the fight for equality in all fields, and against all forms of racial oppression, in short, complete democracy in the country. The exercise of the right of self-determination is the crowning point of this struggle and symbolizes that the equality of the given nation has been fully achieved. Self-determination is merely the logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in every form, for complete equality in the South. It is an irrefutable demand of consistent democracy in the sphere of the national problem.[18]
In presenting the importance of the right of self-determination in the struggle for democracy, it becomes clear how the working class struggle for self-determination isolates the separatist trend and eliminates the desire for separation in a practical sense. By making the struggle for democracy and self-determination of oppressed nations a component part of the working class program for struggle, each victory of the class as a whole becomes equally a victory for the oppressed nations. In this light, we understand the following statement of Lenin’s:
The closer a democratic state system is to complete freedom to secede the less frequent and less ardent will the desire for separation be in practice, because big states afford indisputable advantages, both from the standpoint of economic progress and from that of the interests of the masses and, furthermore, these advantages increase with the growth of capitalism.[19]
With the victory of the proletariat and the establishment of socialism, the foundations will have been laid for the elimination of national oppression. Under the socialist principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work,” the working class will insure complete equality and eliminate the quest for the “superprofits” from national oppression on which the parasite imperialist class bases its rule today. Under socialism the working class will not be “holy and immune from errors,” for while the imperialist class will be overthrown, it will be a protracted struggle to completely eliminate their influence. For this reason, the democratic principles inherent in the right to self-determination will be maintained, even after the establishment of socialism.
By transforming capitalism into socialism the proletariat creates the possibility of abolishing national oppression; the possibility becomes reality ’only’–’only!’–with the establishment of full democracy in all spheres, including the delineation of state frontiers in accordance with the ’sympathies’ of the population, including complete freedom to secede.[20]
Like great nation chauvinism, the nationalism of the oppressed nation won’t disappear immediately either. “National antipathies will not disappear so quickly; the hatred–and perfectly legitimate hatred–of an oppressed nation for its oppressor will last for a while; it will evaporate only after the victory of socialism and after the final establishment of completely democratic relations between nations. If we are to be faithful to socialism, we must now educate the masses in the spirit of internationalism, which is impossible in the oppressor nations without advocating freedom of secession for oppressed nations.[21]
Under the rule of the working people, as national oppression is eliminated, as the masses become more internationalist in outlook and deed, the basis for both great nation chauvinism and narrow nationalism will increasingly disappear.
One aspect of national oppression is the forced migration of Afro-Americans from their historic homeland.
Stalin addresses this: “But the persons constituting a nation do not always live in one compact mass; they are frequently divided into groups, and in that form are interspersed among alien national organisms. It is capitalism which drives them into various regions and cities in search of a livelihood. But when they enter foreign national territories and there form minorities, these groups are made to suffer by the local national majorities in the way of restrictions on their language, schools, etc. Hence national conflicts.”[22]
Historically the large-scale migration of Black people from the South began with the failure of Reconstruction, the first such migration being the so-called “Great Exodus of 1879.” Centered in southern Louisiana, although encompassing a larger area, this “Great Exodus” became well-known because of its mass proportions. Some 50,000 Blacks moved north within a time frame of only 2-3 months. Bourgeois historians often point to the crop diseases of cotton at the time as a reason for this mass movement. It’s apparent that the real reason underlying these mass migrations was the defeat of Reconstruction, formally sealed by the so-called Hayes-Tilden agreement of 1877.
The failure of Reconstruction opened the doors once again for the Southern aristocratic class (now in complete alliance with their imperialist counterparts in the North) to openly resume their reign of terror over the Black masses. The first wave of mass migrations occurred generally in what is known as the post-Reconstruction era of (approximately) 1870-1890.
With the rapid growth of northern industry around the turn of the century and the beginning of the first World War, thousands more Black people embarked on a massive migration to the North, leaving behind them their rural surroundings. Between the years of 1900 and 1924, nearly 3 million Black people left the South; some in search of better jobs in war industry; some to escape the white terror of the Klan; some because any chance of leading a decent life, owning their own piece of land, or surviving at all under the oppressive political and primitive economic conditions in the South rapidly disappeared after the betrayal of Reconstruction by the Northern industrialists.
Having migrated from their historical homeland, forced into rat-infested ghettos and subject to the most intensive assault by the white supremacists, Black people in the North became an oppressed national minority. By 1930 they made up close to 40% of the work force in basic industries like meat packing, mining and transportation.
Betrayed by the chauvinist union leadership and organized only in some cases by communist-led union drives, the Black workers were forced into the lowest-paying, dirtiest jobs. When cheap labor was needed, Black people were increasingly driven from the South. During WWII thousands more made their way North. Today, nearly 47% of all Afro-American people have come to live outside the South. The great majority of them, even in the South, are urban dwellers and proletarians. This movement, rather than eliminating national oppression, intensified it, and the fight for national rights and equality became a battle cry both North and South, in the factories as well as on the plantations.
The shift of millions of Black people from being rural dwellers and small farmers to become primarily urban workers has had a profound effect not only upon the struggle of the Afro-Americans for their rights, but upon the entire working class movement. The fighting spirit of Black people gained through centuries of hardship and anti-slavery struggle, carried over into the working class movement. Particularly outstanding was the role of Blacks in the CIO organizing campaigns of the 1930’s and 40’s. In the key area of Alabama, Black workers took the lead in organizing the coal and steel unions. Under the leadership of communists and progressives, the CIO made a break with the “Jim Crow” policies of the old AFL and Black workers joined the CIO unions in unprecedented numbers. Foster estimates that by 1948, 1,500,000 Blacks were union members.
The militant, fighting role of the Black workers in the labor movement led the communist-led Trade Union Unity League to declare in 1929:
The Negro workers are good fighters. This they have proved in innumerable strikes in the coal, steel, packing, building and other industries, despite systematic betrayal by the white trade union leaders and the presence of an all too prevalent race chauvinism among the masses of white workers. They are a tremendous source of potential revolutionary strength and vigor. They have a double oppression as workers and as Negroes, to fill them with fighting spirit and resentment against capitalism.[23]
From the communist-led packinghouse workers’ strike, to the building of the CIO in the 30’s and 40’s, to the present labor struggles of auto workers in Detroit and miners in West Virginia, the Black workers have stood at the center of the working class movement.
Together with the demand for the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION, there must be a massive struggle built in support of FULL DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS FOR ALL BLACK PEOPLE, NORTH AND SOUTH.
The demand for full democratic rights is concretely linked to the right of the oppressed nation in the Deep South to self-determination. “Beyond the South, wherever the Negro worker may go, coast to coast and to the Canadian border, there he will find ’his people,’ whatever their class, living in the shadow of the plantation . . . The consequences of racist national oppression fall upon the Negro, whatever his social status, in town or country.”[24]
Whereas the struggle for democratic rights is basically a fight for reforms, the struggle for self-determination for Afro-Americans cannot be won without the revolutionary winning of state power by the working class. We must show how each instance of national oppression or “violation” of basic democratic rights is linked to the historic oppression of Afro-American people as a nation. In the Northern urban areas of Black concentration, varying forms of regional autonomy or self-rule must be implemented. If the right of secession is not exercised by the nation in the South, different levels of federation or regional autonomy are also possible alternatives. The degree of autonomy varies according to the size, economic and political status of the population.
Regional autonomy for the Black Belt, for example, would mean self-government over a large area crossing several present state and numerous county lines. Under socialism the large urban concentrations of Blacks in nearly every urban center–Watts, L.A., south side Chicago, Harlem, N.Y., etc.–cannot be “broken-up” arbitrarily. Autonomy for the large Black urban communities would mean self-rule on a district, municipal or county level.
Under socialism, special programs above and beyond the general plans to eliminate poor housing, health conditions, etc., would be applied to these areas. In addition, the arbitrary drawing of boundary lines and gerrymandering of voting districts, etc., practices under the imperialists’ brand of “democracy,” would be eliminated. The workers and oppressed peoples of minority nationality would thus be guaranteed full and adequate representation on legislative and governing bodies under socialism. These programs would be linked with complete opposition to the present racist segregationist policies of the imperialists in schools, housing and community development. Rather than encouraging separatism among the nationalities, these measures would lay the basis for complete equality and facilitate unity. At the time that Stalin wrote the communist program for regional autonomy in Russia, there were some, like the Jewish Bundists, who were putting forth the idea of “cultural autonomy” or the cultural separation of the different nationalities in separate schools, social organizations, and political parties, etc. To show the difference between cultural autonomy and regional autonomy, Stalin said: “The advantage of regional autonomy consists, first of all, in the fact that it does not deal with a fiction bereft of territory, but with a definite population inhabiting a definite territory. Next it does not strengthen national barriers; on the contrary, it breaks down these barriers and unites the population in such a manner as to open the way for division of a different kind, division according to classes.”[25]
In the People’s Republic of China such a program has been instituted and the more than 50 formerly oppressed nationalities (some numbering less than 1,000 people) all received some form of regional autonomy. While remaining part of the People’s Republic of China, they have the power of local self-government and the development of their national language, culture and schools in these areas.
Autonomy does not imply letting each area designated for self-rule “do its own thing.” The working class and its party will have a general program in education, culture, economic development, etc. “The proletarian cause must come first, we say, because it not only protects the lasting and fundamental interests of labor and of humanity but also those of democracy.”[26]
In response to bourgeois nationalists and others who might “object” or “complain” about this aspect, we say: We are concerned first and foremost with democracy for the working and oppressed peoples of the oppressed nations and minorities. In fighting against national oppression, we are not for bourgeois nationalism.
In advancing the slogan of ’the international culture of democracy and of the world working class movement,’ we take from each national culture only its democratic and socialist elements; we take them only and absolutely in opposition to the bourgeois culture and bourgeois nationalism of each nation.[27]
How will the working class organize the state? What is the role of democracy? The working class state will be organized on the basis of democratic centralism, centralism being the rule of the united multinational working class and its party or the dictatorship of the proletariat. So a united working class rules over the socialist state. That, in brief, is centralism. “It would be inexcusable to forget that in advocating centralism we advocate exclusively democratic centralism.”[28]
The working class will organize society in such a way as to eliminate the national inequalities ”left over” from imperialist rule. The principle of regional autonomy then is an essential element in eliminating national oppression and insuring working class democracy.
Far from precluding local self-government, with autonomy for regions having special economic and social conditions, a distinct national composition of the population, and so forth, democratic centralism necessarily demands both.[29]
In the U.S. today, there are some, who while understanding the value of regional autonomy for large areas such as the Deep South or the Southwest (as regards Chicano people) do not understand its importance for smaller concentrations of nationalities. Lenin asked the question:
Why national areas with populations, not only of half a million, but even of 50,000 should not be able to enjoy autonomy ... it is beyond doubt that in order to eliminate all national oppression it is very important to create autonomous areas, however small, with entirely homogenous populations, towards which members of the respective nationalities, scattered all over the country, or even all over the world, could gravitate, and with which they could enter into relations and free associations of every kind.[30]
Under capitalism each struggle for “community control,” etc. must be carefully examined as regards the class forces and program involved. We are firmly against reformist schemes and nationalist ambitions which would rely on “elections” and leave the masses of people chained to imperialism.
The communist program of the right of self-determination and full democratic rights is put forward as a concrete program for struggle both now and under socialism to bring about the total abolition of the imperialist system and national oppression.
[1] V.I. Lenin, Letter, December, 1913.
[2] J. Stalin, “Foundations of Leninism,” (Works, Vol. 6, p. 144).
[3] Stalin, ”Report on the National Question at the Seventh Conference of the RSDLP-B,” (Selected Works, Cardinal Publishers, p. 95).
[4] Ibid. pp. 95-6.
[5] Ibid., p. 97.
[6] V.I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” (CW, Vol. 22, p. 143.
[7] Chou En-lai, Report to the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 21.
[8] J. Stalin, op. cit., p. 94.
[9] J. Stalin, “Foundations of Leninism,” (Works, Vol. 6, p. 75).
[10] J. Stalin, “Concerning Questions of Leninism,” (Works, Vol. 8, p. 18).
[11] Ebony Magazine, October, 1974.
[12] V.I. Lenin, op. cit., p. 150.
[13] V.I. Lenin, “The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed-Up,” (CW, Vol. 22, p.343).
[14] Mao Tsetung, “Statement in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression,” 1968.
[15] V.I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” (CW, Vol. 22, p. 146).
[16] V.I. Lenin, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” (CW, Vol. 20, p. 422).
[17] Harry Haywood, For a Revolutionary Position on the Negro Question, Liberator Press, p. 17.
[18] Ibid., p. 19.
[19] V.I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self Determination,” (CW, Vol. 22, p. 146).
[20] V.I. Lenin, “The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed-Up,” (CW, Vol. 22, p. 325).
[21] Ibid., p. 353.
[22] J. Stalin, “Marxism and the National Question,” (Works, Vol. 2, pp. 334-5).
[23] Foster, op. cit., p. 496.
[24] Haywood, op. cit., p. 10.
[25] Stalin, op. cit., p. 375.
[26] V.I. Lenin, “Critical Remarks on the National Question,” (CW, Vol. 20, p. 32).
[27] Ibid., p. 24.
[28] Ibid., p. 46.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid., pp. 48-9.