Marxists, Bolsheviks and the National Question

Abstract

The complexities of the national question made it one of the most hotly debated political questions in the European socialist movement around the turn of the century. After Marx, four principle positions on the national question emerged. The right of nations to self-determination, a position most clearly identified with Lenin; the ‘national nihilism’ of Rosa Luxemburg which was also supported by a number of leading Bolsheviks; extra-territorial national autonomy, a programme developed by the Austrian Marxists and the Jewish Bund; and state federalism, which was the policy of a number of socialist and nationalist parties within the Russian empire. The polemical nature of debate among European and Russian Marxists has tended to polarise these four positions, but in fact none of them apart from the first two was mutually exclusive from a theoretical point of view, and all could find a measure of support in the writings of Marx and Engels. In spite of the fact that the Bolshevik Party has been most closely identified with the policy of national self-determination, each of these positions had its adherents within the Party and elements from each were to play a more or less important role in the development of the Party’s national policy after 1917. In spite of the fact that Marxism and the national question have frequently been discussed by historians and political scientists, it is therefore necessary to present a brief overview of Marxist thought on the national question.