The Socialist Party is constantly being challenged to define their position in regards to nationalism and explain exactly what they think of patriotism. The sentiment of the Socialist Party is an international solidarity based on the principle class unity and not upon race or territory. In ancient times, patriotism applied to a defined circumscribed area and population – the city; in mediaeval time similarly to the township. Outside this, the only sentiment analogous to patriotism was loyalty to the territorial lord. All other sentiments of this nature are vague and blurred. Patriotism proper; the devotion to the modern State, is a product of capitalism hardly traceable before the sixteenth century, and the latest expression, imperialism, is simply a product of the Industrial Revolution in search of markets.
Patriotism groups men and women according to their land of origin, as decided by the vicissitudes of history; within every country, thanks to the patriotic link, rich and poor unite against the foreigner. Socialism, in contrast, groups all people, poor against rich, class against class, without taking into account the differences of race and language, and over and above the frontiers determined by the fortunes and misfortunes of history.
The Socialist Party are anti-patriots but let it be clearly understood that that love of one’s native village or familiarity with a town is not the type of patriotism to be condemned. What we denounce is jingoism and nationalism, that are not a natural sentiment, but prejudices very firmly implanted into the heads of people. We, who hate the existing nation states, retain a soft little spot for where we were born and raised. Neither have we ever maintained that there are not, throughout the existing nations, some noticeable differences of character and temperament such as have been caused by history and culture. Countries have had their raison d'être at a time and the best proof of it is that they were born and that they have endured; we even think that their existence, at certain periods and in certain circumstances, may even have contributed to the general improvement of our species. True patriotism seeks the welfare of each in the happiness of all. One time in the past the term patriot meant to be opposed to the governing class of your country in the interests of the people of your country. Patriotism consisted in opposing the powers that were against the interests of the people. Patriotism has now lost that meaning in small communities where once the cohesive principle of all for each and each for all had significance. When workers are primarily concerned with the direction of their own affairs, managing their own work-place and running their own communities and neighbourhoods, independent for practical purposes, distant territorial claims for allegiance will not easily find a “patriotic” echo
Nothing can be more dangerous if patriotism becomes the established religion of your country. No word in the language has been more abused since the beginning of the war than “Patriotism.” Every imaginable outrage may be perpetrated if one acts as a patriot. It is a magic word to cover any multitude of sins. Patriotism, as generally understood, is objectionable since it means placing one’s own country, its interests, and well-being, above and before those of the rest of humanity. Patriotism is not the noble virtue it is represented to be, but the vilest vice to disgrace humanity. Those who wants to see his or her country great and strong invariably wants to see it accomplished at the expense of the welfare and interests of other countries. “Patriotism,” is the word that seeks to lure and hook the empty-headed and the unthinking among the working class, a class which has no personal or material interest in the infamies perpetrated by its ruling class in the name of the nation. To-day, we too often see the spectacle of members of the working class applauding the crimes of their exploiters. How is this? Because the ruling class and its servile media are able to make use of slavish patriotism for their own purpose. It is the duty of the socialist party of every country to combat patriotism at home at every turn of the day. The politicians and preachers of capitalism are the real betrayers of the people.
To love your country, and be willing to sacrifice and battle for it, that is patriotism we are told in school and by the press and TV. While to be unable to provide for yourself and your loved ones with food, clothing and shelter, that is poverty. A man afflicted with poverty owns no part of any country, and patriotism does mean loving a country owned by others. Yet some poor individual who is starving in a country owned by another is exhorted to offer loyalty to that country, whether it changes his or her miserable status or not. Capitalism attacks and destroys all the finer qualities of the human heart; it ruthlessly sweeps away old traditions and customs which stands in the way of progress, and it exploits and corrupts those things once held sacred. A people’s culture and history is shredded. Too often it is the patriotism of the plunderer and the pilferer, the patriotism of the property-owner, the profiteer and the plutocrat that prevails.
In today’s centralised capitalist nation-states there exists a whole breed of loathsome patriots sponsored by unscrupulous capitalists and attended by all the base and sordid human villainy. Patriotism is cultivated in the fertile soil of parochial prejudice. It is better to be a traitor to your country than a traitor to your class. The cause of the working class is lost if they allow themselves to be caught in the spider’s web of patriotism with all its vicious and virulent sentiment formed at the will of the ruling class. We all know what patriotism means these days, rejoicing in the self-proclaimed superiority of your own nationality. One’s beloved country is to be supported right or wrong. Love it or leave it. Even if a country is committing a crime, the patriot wishes to see that crime succeed. This is patriotism. To the reasonable, unprejudiced person calling people patriots is a polite way of saying that they are gullible idiots or duped fools. There is hardly a politician who aspires for votes who won’t declare his love and loyalty for his country. The perpetuation of the rivalry between various nationalities serves the selfish interests of the profit-makers of those countries, and by no means of the peoples. The distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” nationalism is in practice impossible of definition. The Socialist Party repudiates patriotism and nationalism. It matters very little to us that our anti-patriotic declarations may cause us to lose votes. If socialism wants to progress and to take firm root in the hearts of the people, it must not be a party of only just a part of the people. If we hurt the nationalist and patriotic feelings of voters - so be it. The old society is dying; a new one struggles to be born, and it is not our fault if the latter cannot emerge from the former’s womb except by a painful delivery.
The Socialist Party contend that no class-conscious worker can support his or her own capitalist state to the detriment or disadvantage of other workers. If there is one doctrine fundamental to socialism it is that of the class struggle supersedes any national struggle, the class struggle replaces any struggle for national or racial superiority. In its fight against the employer class, the Socialist Party, fully aware of its aim of social reconstruction, there are only one people – the world’s working class. We raise above the concept of patriotism, the solution of the class struggle and the triumph of the workers, so for us the highest patriotism is the dedication of our lives and abilities to the service of our fellow workers. The Socialist Party hopes to persuade you to see how the working class are being hoodwinked and duped in this country and elsewhere by patriotic lies, and to hasten the day when the workers of the world will finally abandon the national flags of their masters, and bring themselves under the red banner of international socialism and human brotherhood. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that it is the worldwide, as opposed to a national administration of production and distribution, which is one the pillars of socialist principles.
If patriotism means the love of one’s country, and love of the country means nothing if it does not mean love of the people. True patriotism expresses itself in honest efforts to enhance the happiness and welfare of the population, to help them in their struggles for more food, better homes, higher education, larger freedom, brighter, happier lives. Life, liberty, and happiness for all human beings, is the great goal of the World Socialist Movement. To do away with patriotism altogether is to substitute in its place the internationalism of the class-conscious worker. Our patriotism is for a new society and the end of all nations – for the World Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth.
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