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

A CARICATURE OF MARXISM57would have sunk to narrow, bourgeois Norwegian nationalism.Why? Because the secession was being effected by the bourgeoisie,not by the proletariat! Because the Norwegian bourgeoisie(as every other) always strives to drive a wedge betweenthe workers of its own and an “alien” country! Becausefor the class-conscious workers every democratic demand(including self-determination) is subordinated to the supremeinterests of socialism. For example, if Norway’s secessionfrom Sweden had created the certainty or probability of warbetween Britain and Germany, the Norwegian workers, forthat reason alone, would have had to oppose secession. TheSwedish workers would have had the right and the opportunity,without ceasing to be socialists, to agitate againstsecession, but only if they had waged a systematic, consistentand constant struggle against the Swedish Government forNorway’s freedom to secede. Otherwise the Norwegian workersand people would not, and could not, accept the adviceof the Swedish workers as sincere.The trouble with the opponents of self-determinationis that they confine themselves to lifeless abstractions,fearing to analyse to the end a single concrete real-lifeinstance. Our concrete statement in the theses that a newPolish state is quite “achievable” now, given a definite combinationof purely military, strategic conditions,* has not beenchallenged either by the Poles or by P. Kievsky. But noone wanted to ponder the conclusions that follow from thistacit admission that we were right. And what follows,obviously, is that internationalist propaganda cannot be thesame for the Russians and the Poles if it is to educate both for“monistic action”. The Great-Russian (and German) workeris in duty bound unconditionally to insist on Poland’s freedomto secede; otherwise he will, in fact, now be the lackeyof Nicholas II or Hindenburg. The Polish worker couldinsist on secession only conditionally, because to speculate(as do the Fracy 28 ) on the victory of one or the other imperialistbourgeoisie is tantamount to becoming its lackey. Failureto understand this difference, which is a prerequisitefor “monistic action” of the International, is about the sameas failing to understand why “monistic action” against the* See present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 143-56.—Ed.