File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-08.224, message 96


From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: M-I: nationalism cyberseminar
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 15:48:16 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)


     I agree with Louis Godena probably more than he 
thinks.  Nevertheless, several observations on the 
nationalism question in both the US and the USSR.  
Curiously I see some parallels as well as differences.
     In both states there was traditionally a dominant 
ethnic group (WASPS in the US and Great Russians in the 
USSR) that imposed its language on all the various 
national, racial, and ethnic groups within the state 
(Bismarck once said that the most important fact of the 
nineteenth century was that English was the official 
language of the US rather than German, even though German 
immigrants outnumbered Engish ones.)  In both states there 
was an irony in that many people identified as being of the 
dominant group actually had very mixed ethnic backgrounds.  
Thus many WASPS have lots of Scottish, Welsh, 
Scotch-Irish, Irish, German, Native American, African 
American, French, Dutch, Spanish, and numerous other 
nationalities in their ancestry.  But they were 
"successfully assimilated."  Likewise in the USSR (and its 
successor states today) many "Great Russians" (as defined 
by their passport identities) had/have very mixed 
ancestries: Polish, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Tatar, Jewish, 
German, and so forth.  Lenin himself was viewed as the very 
model of the New Soviet Man in that he was of a very mixed 
background with no group predominating, although he was a 
Russian speaker and clearly thus "successfully 
assimilated."  Although there was some tendency in both 
nations for people of "pure" ruling nationality background 
to be in ruling elites, this was and is hardly a 
complete generalization.
     In both states the national, racial, ethnic groups 
that were most clearly oppressed and also tend to be 
disproportionately represented in the working class and 
among the poor more generally tended to be those that were 
conquered or enslaved during the periods of expansion by 
the dominant group.  Both imperial Russia and the US 
experienced "frontier expansion" in which other national 
groups were conquered.  In the USSR these would become the 
constituent republics, with a few exceptions.  In the US 
this was the Native Americans, the partly Native American 
derived Hispanics of Mexico and Puerto Rico, and the 
African Americans with their special legacy of slavery.
     That Stalin would pursue the black belt strategy was 
not at all surprising, given the world situation at the 
time.  Inside the USSR there was this curious interplay 
between "socialism in one country" and the suppression of 
nationalities through a sort of "proletarian 
internationalism" declared within the socialist one 
country.  Louis G. may not see a contradiction there, but I 
see at least a partial one.
     BTW, Garvey was hardly the first "back to Africanist." 
An earlier movement began in the 1820s and culminated in 
the 1840s with the establishment of Liberia in West 
Africa, technically independent, but long a de facto colony 
of the US.  Until the relatively recent takeover by Samuel 
Doe, the ruling elite of Liberia was derived from the small 
group of African Americans who "went back" and took over.  
The odd quaintness of the origins of this group shows in 
that the so-called "Americo-Liberians" ruled through a 
political party known as the "True Whig Party" and also 
maintained control through a group of Masonic orders.  So 
much for Back to Africa movements.
Barkley Rosser

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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