Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

56V. I. LENINaristocracy.* That is a fact. To a certain degree the workersof the oppressor nations are partners of their own bourgeoisiein plundering the workers (and the mass of the population)of the oppressed nations.(2) Politically, the difference is that, compared with theworkers of the oppressed nations, they occupy a privilegedposition in many spheres of political life.(3) Ideologically, or spiritually, the difference is that theyare taught, at school and in life, disdain and contempt for theworkers of the oppressed nations. This has been experienced,for example, by every Great Russian who has been broughtup or who has lived among Great Russians.Thus, all along the line there are differences in objectivereality, i.e., “dualism” in the objective world that isindependent of the will and consciousness of individuals.That being so, how are we to regard P. Kievsky’s assertionabout the “monistic action of the International”?It is a hollow, high-sounding phrase, no more.In real life the International is composed of workers dividedinto oppressor and oppressed nations. If its action is tobe monistic, its propaganda must not be the same for both.That is how we should regard the matter in the light of real(not Dühringian) “monism”, Marxist materialism.An example? We cited the example of Norway (in the legalpress over two years ago!), and no one has challenged it.In this concrete case taken from life, the action of the Norwegianand Swedish workers was “monistic”, unified, internationalistonly because and insofar as the Swedish workersunconditionally championed Norway’s freedom to secede, whilethe Norwegian workers raised the question of secession onlyconditionally. Had the Swedish workers not supported Norway’sfreedom of secession unconditionally, they would have beenchauvinists, accomplices of the chauvinist Swedish landlords,who wanted to “keep” Norway by force, by war. Had theNorwegian workers not raised the question of secession conditionally,i.e., allowing even Social-Democratic Partymembers to conduct propaganda and vote against secession,they would have failed in their internationalist duty and* See, for instance, Hourwich’s book on immigration and the conditionof the working class in America, Immigration and Labour.—Ed.