Not Nationalism

The love for the land of our birth is foolish, absurd, and the enemy of progress. The Socialist Party seeking to win support among working people face the obstacle of class collaboration in the form of nationalism. Socialist principles and working class interests take precedence over all national interests whatsoever. The Socialist Party internationalism involve being also being anti-patriotic. Patriotism is an objectionable sentiment since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. We are constantly having impressed upon us by the Left that internationalism does not mean anti-nationalism. Those who wishes his or her country strong invariably requires it to be at the expense of the welfare and interests of other countries. 

Nationalism is really only thinly-veiled imperialism. All nationalisms are reactionary. Nationalist struggle denies class struggle. The left wing error is assuming that national liberation struggles lead to an escalation in class struggle. Nationalism is a weapon in the hands of the ruling class in order to mislead working people.

Too many nationalists say “My country right or wrong.” Even if it is is committing crimes against international law , they wish to see that crime succeed to a certain extent. The Socialist Party regards patriotism as the enemy of socialism and human justice. W e aspire to a greater sentiment than that of loyalty to a particular piece of soil, or even to a particular section or group of the human race into which one happens to have accidently been born into. This is the adequate ground, speaking for myself for my enthusiastic espousal of the cause of the wantonly invaded against the wanton invader. The principle of nationality – of “fatherland” or “motherland”- is not held dearly by ourselves. The principle of being part of the human family is. It is incumbent upon every socialist to assume an anti-patriotic, anti-nationalist, attitude. It is a question of fighting, not for the political independence of one nation, but for a new society – for the worldwide Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth. The cause of the working classes is lost if we allow ourselves to be caught again in a web of patriotism.

The achievement of socialism awaits the building of a mass base of socialists, in factories and offices, on farms and campuses. The development of socialist consciousness, on which can be built a socialist base, must be a socialist’s first priority. Socialism is a process of raising socialist consciousness, and a strategy to make visible the limits of capitalism. Capitalism must be replaced by socialism. Any section of the capitalist class is an enemy of the working class. Only the working class can change society. No small group can perform this task for them. The conspiratorial methods of terrorism runs counter to the mass mobilisations of workers and are alien to the labour movement. It is a tactic of despair which is doomed from start to finish.

There can be no socialist movement which does not face the elementary question of the unity in struggle of the working class beyond borders and nation-states. Nationalists have successfully dress themselves in ‘radical’ clothes. They succeeded because there was no genuine class alternative. Workers can be won from the blind alley of nationalism only if the socialist movement spells out the alternative, drawing workers together around its red banner. Let us cast off all sectionalism, all parochialism, and sit down as brothers and sisters.