For one world - For world socialism

The left-wing "trot" out their old stale position that socialists are duty-bound to support struggles for "national liberation". They replace the Marxist principle of international class struggle with the doctrine of international struggle between states. As a result "socialism" became associated with militant nationalism rather than with the working-class internationalism it had originally been. The political struggle they present as a struggle, not between the working class and the capitalist class, but as a struggle of “patriots” — workers and capitalists together — against foreign rule and domination. They call upon the entire population, employer and employee alike, to combine in a common struggle to achieve independence. Any supposed "Marxist" who tells workers that they have more in common with their own ruling class than with the workers of other countries is a fraud. Any supposed "Marxist" who argues against the fundamental idea for the workers of the world to unite to overthrow all their exploiters and oppressors is clearly not Marxist. Nationalism is political poison for workers everywhere.

Nationalism has been a dangerous diversion from the class struggle and led to workers supporting the killing in wars of other workers in the interest of one or other state and its ruling class. It is of the essence of nationalists that when prevented from building up their own wealth they may well build their own independent capitalist state.  Nationalist struggles are class struggles under an ideological smokescreen, but not of the working class. They are either struggles by an aspiring capitalist class to establish themselves as a new national ruling class or struggles by an established but weak national ruling class to gather a bigger share of world profits for themselves. There is no reason why socialists should support independence movements. Socialists do not allow themselves to be used as tools of some capitalist.

Rosa Luxemburg's contribution to the debate on nationalism was her opposition to the idea of the  "right of nations to self-determination" based on the experience of the Polish working class in its struggle against its ‘oppressed’ native capitalist, has been largely forgotten. Although being Polish herself she chose to participate in the class struggle in Germany instead of advocating a "free" Poland and allying herself with the national bourgeoisie.  Luxemburg accused Lenin as having "thrown the greatest confusion into the ranks of socialism." and she goes on to explain: "The Bolsheviks have supplied the ideology which has masked the campaign of counter-revolution; they have strengthened the position of the bourgeoisie and weakened that of the proletariat...”

Rosa Luxemburg presented the Marxist case in regards to nationalism:
"A "right of nations" which is valid for all countries and all times is nothing more than a metaphysical cliché of the type of "rights of man" and "rights of the citizen...When we speak of the "right of nations to self-determination", we are using the concept of the "nation", as a homogeneous social and political entity… In a class society, "the nation" as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and "rights"."

In a statement from 1916 by some members of the SDKPL,  the political party of Luxemburg, they show a remarkable degree of understanding on this issue:

"The so-called right of self-determination is also used with the proviso that it will become a reality for the first time under socialism and is thus an expression of our striving for socialism. This proposition is open to the following objections. We know that socialism will do away with all national oppression, because it removes the class interests that furnish the driving force of such oppression. We also have no reason to assume that the nation, in socialist society, will form a politico-economic unit. By all indications it will have the character of a cultural and linguistic unit; for the territorial division of the socialist cultural unit, insofar as this will survive at all, can only follow the needs of production, and this division would have to be determined, not by individual nations separately, from their own power (as the "right of self-determination" demands), but through the joint action of all interested citizens. The carrying over of the formula of "right of self-determination" into socialism arises from a complete misunderstanding of the nature of socialist society."

Where is the link to the victory of capitalism to a socialist understanding of the workers, that some left nationalists say should have taken place? In fact, even a cursory reading of history shows that capitalism and the power of the capitalist have not been weakened. Has nationalism progressed the cause of the working class one inch over the decades? Or led it down many a tearful false trail?  Marx and Engels did support certain nationalist movements but it was to bring capitalism to feudal states or to give the capitalist class political power so they could create the pre-requisites of socialism - an industrialised society and with it an actual working class. Which Marxist seriously thinks that such a policy is required in to-day’s world where capitalism is now the predominant system and the working class that is now the decisive class not the capitalists. What may have been right in the 19th Century for Marx and Engels, may not now be the right choice in this century under changed circumstances.

For the socialist, class-consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. The concept of nationality is one of these obstacles. The idea that an area controlled by a privileged elite who thrive on the enforced exploitation of that area's producers, should grant to the latter the right to live there providing its members accept their wage-slave status and endorse the right of the privileged to live on their backs is offensive to any reasonably-minded person. Those who promote such nonsense are enemies of our class .

Nationalism means merely workers get new masters instead of the old ones. Capitalism does not change by a change of management personnel. Political control may well switch locations but yet the multinationals still maintain their economic stranglehold on the newly-independent nations.

"Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations." - Engels