Independence then socialism is often the nationalists’
favorite bait for workers. Independence is said to be a step forward towards the
workers’ own liberation, a step towards socialism. Nothing could be further
from the truth. With the conditions that prevail today around the world, movements
for independence would not mean a step forward towards socialism. It would be a
step backwards. Despite protestations of being populists nationalists work on
behalf of the capitalists but those on the Left declare they merely wish freedom
from “imperialist domination”. The Left-wingers simply play with words. The
point of nation states is that they compete with each other, sometimes through
alliances with other nations. In fact it
is usually through alliances with other nations, but this doesn’t make such
alliances examples of internationalism.
The success of socialism depends on achieving the greatest
possible unity of the working class and it is utterly ridiculous to argue that
the working class ought to divide itself into different countries in order to
accomplish this unity. It is completely absurd to justify this with the false
argument, disproved many times, that the battle for socialism would be easier
if it were led by a more nationally “pure” and homogeneous working class. Working
class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the
crisis measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up
against all the attacks on our democratic rights. The working class faces a powerful
class enemy which is solidly united (despite differences within its ranks). The
people’s forces are not going to win by dividing themselves on the basis of
their place of birth, rather than their place within the capitalist machine. Those
who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class
are the objective allies of the capitalists who dominate the politics and pull
the strings.
We do not fight capitalism with nationalism. We fight
capitalism with socialism. The working class is an international class.
McDonald workers in Britain, America or India have more in common with each
other than they do with the millionaires of their own countries. The
capitalists often try to turn the workers of one country against another through
rousing national hatreds and promoting myths of national superiority. There is
no national solution to the crises caused by global capitalism. It is not
possible to build socialism in one country – socialism, like capitalism, would
need to be a global system in order to survive. We face huge problems like
poverty, disease and climate change that can only be eradicated by a world-wide
effort mobilising people and resources across the borders that currently divide
us. Let us not fight against each other. The working class have no power
individually; we must fight collectively as part of trade unions, and as a
political party.
In regards of claims of national sovereignty nations do not
exist in some kind of abstract, mythical world of complete autonomy. States
exist in relation to other states. Some are strong and some are less strong.
There are big robbers and smaller robbers collude over how to divide up the
booty. For anyone who calls themselves socialist, by definition the problem is
the social system. One that produces
disaffection everywhere and therefore cannot arise from ‘foreign rule’. Socialists are also, or rather they should
be, well used to nationalist campaigns that put the ills of society down to the
nationality of the state, and which therefore obscure real causes. Apparently a
capitalist state can be reformed in the interests of the workers according to left nationalism theory. Such a new
state will not be part of the prevailing world order. How?
Who knows – for even a workers revolution that placed political power in
the hands of a completely democratic workers’ state could not escape being
locked into a world economic system of capitalism. Only in a scenario of immediate spread of the
revolution could it have any hope of surviving and still be something worthy of
the description socialist. Socialism is
the movement of the working class and its conquest of economic, social and
political power, irrespective of nationality.
It can exist only at an international level. This too is a simple description. But even at this simple level is shows the
incompatibility of nationalism with socialism. What independence movements do
is promote nationalist solutions to the problems of capitalism
Nationalism, no matter how left it is, always confuses
action by the state for socialism, so it calls upon the state to redistribute
wealth and take control of resources “for the people”, whereas socialism calls
upon workers to take ownership of production itself and build the power of its
own organisations so that one day these can replace the state. Internationalism is not the solidarity of one
progressive state with another but is the international action of workers, from
organising in parties and unions across borders, not favouring the population
within certain lines on a map. Left nationalism is not internationalism but the
alliance of nationalisms. The betrayal of socialism involved in the embrace of
nationalism by sections of the left is revealed by this statist conception of
socialism, although this is hidden from many because socialism was popularly
identified with the growth of gigantic, bureaucratic state power, exemplified
by the Soviet Union. This is one reason
it remains unpopular among the mass of workers.
Borders don’t protect us, they divide us—creating needless
friction with the excluded while obscuring real differences among the included.
We need forms of belonging that are not predicated on exclusion, and the
possession of a passport or visa.
Marx said that “The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”. This is an apt epitaph for the nationalists,
particularly those who say they are socialists.
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