Marx on Emancipation and Socialist Goals by Robert X. Ware

Author:Robert X. Ware
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319977164
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Internationalism

Marx, it is widely held, was an internationalist , and nationalism is thought to be the opposite of, or contradictory to, internationalism. Thus Connor begins his book with the commonly held view that “[n]ationalism and Marxism are philosophically incompatible” ( Connor 1984, p. 5). Similarly, Lenin said: “Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism…. In place of all forms of nationalism, Marxism advances internationalism.”14 Marx was certainly an internationalist , but also a nationalist, in the sense that he thought nations are important as the home countries of proletarians. The very term “internationalism” recognizes the existence of nations. It is about helping those, or working with those, of other nations. Indeed, on Marx’s views, it is important to recognize the nations of other proletarians, as he said about the Irish: “it is a precondition to the emancipation of the English working class to transform the present forced union (i.e., the enslavement of Ireland) into equal and free confederation if possible, into complete separation if need be” (MECW 21, p. 89).15 As he said more generally: “Any people that oppresses another people forges its own chains” (MECW 21, p. 120).

The point goes beyond promoting the nation in order to bring emancipation to one’s own people. International struggles require international cooperation, and as Engels wrote to Kautsky (7 February 1882), “national independence … is in fact the basis of all international co-operation” (MECW 46, p. 192). Internationalists, like Marx and Engels, must also be nationalists, since “international co-operation is possible only among equals,” of one nation with others (MECW 46, p. 192). As Engels said in a late preface to the Manifesto: “A sincere international collaboration of the European nations is possible only if each of these nations is fully autonomous in its own house” (MECW 27, p. 274).

The alleged incompatibility between nationalism and internationalism is a simple confusion of two rather unclear “-isms.” “Nationalism” means something like developing or promoting a nation or nationality, while “internationalism” means something like working for the people of different nations or something like promoting cooperation of nations.16 There is no incompatibility. Nationalism is incompatible only to what might be called “antinationalism.”17 The terms “nationalism” and “internationalism” are not, for example, like “centralism” and “decentralism,” which are incompatible when applied to the same thing at a single time and place. (Parallel remarks apply to “globalism” and “localism.”) Even so, mistakes are common about centralism, which does not exclude decentralism of aspects of processes that are otherwise centralized. Processes can be both centralized and decentralized at the same time. Clarifying a point by Marx about centralization, Engels denied that “provincial self-government is in contradiction to political, national centralization” (MECW 10, p. 286n).

Neither nationalism nor internationalism means or requires exclusive commitment. Even if nationalism and internationalism were about the same kind of movement, one could promote and be committed to the two together, one more than the other, or both equally, without incompatibility. Nor need individuals deny their family membership nor their national citizenship (or any other “local” commitments) in a revolutionary struggle for international cooperation and justice.

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