Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 11:24:51 -0800
From: jones/bhandari <djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Lenin & nationalism


Alex did not mention that he was quoting from a 1935 article by Paul
Mattick "Luxemburg vs. Lenin" which was reprinted in PM's   Anti-Bolshevik
Communism (London: Merlin Press, 1978), p. 27. There is much to talk about
in this article; the comparison of the two revolutionaries' crisis theories
is also quite interesting.
Rakesh

>"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.



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