Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 14:19:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Lenin & nationalism


Louis Proyect:

Is there some problem here? 

In one paragraph--a quote from Paul Mattick--we get a polemic against Max 
Schachtman for still supporting nationalism despite the fact that 
"liberated" nations are forming a fascist ring around the USSR. 

In the second paragraph, Trotter tells us to WATCH OUT: the PLO, IRA and the 
ANC are going to shoot down the workers. Isn't there a paragraph or 
paragraphs missing between these 2? Can this gap in the logical 
presentation of ideas be possibly explained by a malfunction in TCP/IP?
Perhaps the missing paragraphs were siphoned off by the CIA as part of a 
counterintelligence operation. We need more an iron-clad, bullet-proof 
internet communications protocol, or perhaps, more logically constructed 
contributions to the discussion. 

On Fri, 7 Apr 1995, Alex Trotter wrote:

> 
> In his post concerning the Bolshevik nationalities policy (consisting 
> mostly of quotes from Lenin) Tom Condit correctly points out that Lenin 
> did not support nationalism itself, only the "right" to national 
> self-determination. And so Lenin's position on imperialism was more 
> sophisticated than that of his rotten third-worldist and Stalinist 
> epigones. Nonetheless, his policy, which became the Bolshevik Party's 
> official position, was mistaken, and opened the door to the later 
> nationalist movements and military coups masquerading as proletarian 
> revolutions. In answer to the Lenin quotes, I offer here one from Paul 
> Mattick:
> 
> "The 'liberated' nations form a fascist ring around Russia. 'Liberated' 
> Turkey shoots down the communists with arms supllied to her by Russia. 
> China, supported in its national struggle for freedom by Russia and the 
> Third International, throttles its labor movement in a manner reminiscent 
> of the Paris Commune. Thousands and thousands of workers' corpses are 
> testimony of the correctness of Rosa Luxemburg's view that the phrase 
> about the right of self-determination of nations is nothing but 'petty 
> bourgeois humbug.' The extent to which the 'struggle for national 
> liberation is a struggle for democracy' (lenin) is surely revealed by the 
> nationalistic adventures of the Third International in Germany, 
> adventures which contributed their share to the preconditions for the 
> victory of fascism. Ten years of competition with Hitler for the title to 
> real nationalism turned the workers themselves into fascists. And 
> Litvinov celebrated in the League of Nations the victory of the Leninist 
> idea of the self-determination of peoples on the occasion of the Saar 
> plebiscite. Truly, in view of this development, one must indeed wonder at 
> people like Max Schactman who still today are capable of saying: 'Despite 
> the sharp criticism levelled by Rosa at the Bolsheviks for their national 
> policy after the revolution, the latter was nevertheless confirmed by 
> results.'" [in _The Modern Monthly_; quote by Schactman from _The New 
> International_, March 1935]
> 
> And we can, no doubt, look forward to the day when IRA, PLO, and ANC 
> governments will shoot down the workers. So put that in your pipe and 
> smoke it, comrades.
> 
> --AT
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 


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