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

62V. I. LENINsible, all his fine-spun talk about “monism” and our “inventing”examples of self-determination under imperialism, etc.,etc., falls to pieces. Kievsky defeats his own arguments.If “we” “actively resist suppression” of a “national uprising”—acase which P. Kievsky “himself” considers possible—what does this mean?It means that the action is twofold, or “dualistic”, to employthe philosophical term as incorrectly as our author does:(a) first, it is the “action” of the nationally oppressed proletariatand peasantry jointly with the nationally oppressedbourgeoisie against the oppressor nation; (b) second, it isthe “action” of the proletariat, or of its class-conscious section,in the oppressor nation against the bourgeoisie of thatnation and all the elements that follow it.The innumerable phrases against a “national bloc”, national“illusions”, the “poison” of nationalism, against “fanningnational hatred” and the like, to which P. Kievsky resorts,prove to be meaningless. For when he advises the proletariatof the oppressor countries (which, be it remembered, he regardsas a serious force) “actively to resist suppression of anational uprising”, he thereby fans national hatred andsupports the establishment of a “bloc with the bourgeoisie”by the workers of the oppressed nations.3) If national uprisings are possible under imperialism,so are national wars. There is no material political differencebetween the two. Military historians are perfectlyright when they put rebellions in the same category as wars.Kievsky has unwittingly refuted not only himself, but alsoJunius 30 and the Internationale group, who deny the possibilityof national wars under imperialism. And this denialis the only conceivable theoretical ground for denying selfdeterminationof nations under imperialism.4) For what is a “national” uprising? It is an uprising aimedat the achievement of political independence of the oppressednation, i.e., the establishment of a separate nationalstate.If the proletariat of the oppressor nation is a seriousforce (in the imperialist era, as our author rightly assumes),does not its determination “actively to resist suppression ofa national uprising” imply assistance in creating a separatenational state? Of course it does.