Louis Proyect wrote:
> Joseph Green:
> > But the right to self-determination isn't just
> > necessary in
> >order to help the Albanian Kosovars. It is also necessary
> >in the interest of the Serbian working class, youth, and
> >progressive activists.The oppression of Kosovo has been a
> >rope around the neck of the Serbian people.
>
> I am skeptical that demands for self-determination have any
> sort of progressive dynamic in former Yugoslavia. The
> Bosnian republic--the last time I checked--was mired in a
> reactionary brand of particularism.
If Louis Proyect had a magic wand which he could wave and
eliminate all nationalism in the world, then his stand would make
some sense. But until he can do this, the task facing the socialist
working class movement is what stand to take with respect to
nationalism in order to help unite the workers of all countries. It
isn't up to the socialist working class movement whether nationalism
exists or not; nationalism exists in this world. What the socialist
activists have to do is formulate policies to deal with nationalism
and with national oppression and to fight the chauvinism of the
bourgeoisie of all countries..
The right to self-determination is one of the main policies
needed by the socialist working class movement to deal with national
oppression and nationalism. This doesn't mean that the socialists
advocate that all nationalities become independent; it means that the
socialists advocate that the people in these areas have the right to
decide for themselves whether to become independent. For the
socialists to advocate the right to self-determination would mean
that they have more trust in the working masses of other
nationalities, and more desire to build friendly relations with them,
than interest in state boundaries. This policy, while facilitating
various nations obtaining independence, in the long run creates the
best conditions for future unity.
>
> I doubt if Joseph Green has a clear idea why Bolsheviks
> supported self-determination of oppressed nationalities. It
> was not because there is some advantage to having your own
> flag and the right to speak your own tongue.
> Self-determination was of interest in the particular
> context of struggle against imperialist nations, which were
> prisonhouses of such nationalities. When the Ukranians
> fought along nationalist lines against the Czar, the
> Bolsheviks championed their demands. When Ukranian
> nationalists rose up against the Soviet government, it was
> correct to suppress their movement. The only political
> imperative in the age of imperialism is to make socialist
> revolutions.
I am astonished that Proyect sees no value in being able to
speak one's own native language. But then again, if he sees no value
in the people concerned being able to decide the question of
independence for themselves, it is just as well that they be mute and
silent as well.
The main point, however, is that Proyect presents Leninist
support for the right to self-determination simply as a cynical,
instrumentalist ploy. One tells the masses that one supports the
right to self-determination, even though one really doesn't, simply
in order to mobilize them against one's enemies. Of course, after one
does this a few times, no one will ever believe one again.
Actually, Marx and Lenin regarded the right to
self-determination as a key part of the stand on the national
question. Indeed, they held that the right to
self-determination would apply even to a socialist state.
Lenin polemicized against those who regarded that the age of
imperialism or the socialist revolution meant throwing aside
the right to self-determination.
> The breakup of former Yugoslavia has not unleashed any
> progressive tendencies. If anything, Marxists should be
> mobilizing against nationalist tendencies, just as they
> should in the former Soviet Union. Bosnian, Kosovan,
> Chechnyan, Azerbaijani, Armenian nationalist movements of
> the recent period basically represent reactionary and
> particularist drives to salvage bourgeois republics out of
> the detritus that the collapse of bureaucratic socialism
> has left behind.
>
> Are we advocates of self-determination for all the
> Congolese nationalities? Are we for the breakup of Nigeria
> into Yoruba, Ogoni and Ibo homelands? I think it is
> important to understand the impasse of African politics in
> the same light as former Yugoslavia.
Would it have helped or hurt the Russian people to have
recognized the right to self-determination of Chechnya (i.e. the
right of the Chechen people to decide on independence)? Would it have
helped or hurt the cause of unity between the Russian and Chechen
people to have granted them the right to self-determination? Was it
better that Yeltsin waged a savage war to suppress the Chechen
people? And was his mistake simply that he lost this war?
With respect to Yugoslavia, the only way that Yugoslavia was
reformed after World War II was because the right to
self-determination was promised to all the major nationalities
(except the Albanians). Would it have helped or hurt the prospects of
unity of the workers of different nationalities to allow the
republics of Yugoslavia to decide peacefully for themselves whether
to stay in Yugoslavia or not? Whichever way they decided, wouldn't
allowing them to decide for themselves have been better than waging
wars to suppress the republics, wars that have left wounds that will
last for decades? And wasn't it these wars that helped increase the
chauvinism in most of the republics of Yugoslavia?
> What is often forgotten is that Tito actually made a
> sincere effort to provide equal social and economic
> resources to the poorer sections of Yugoslavia.
It's a little late to refer to this after Milosevic came to
power and torn away the Titiost institutions with respect to Kosovo.
For that matter, Proyect has a glorified picture of Titoist policy
towards Kosovo, where resource extraction and the bureaucracy were
financed, while the mass of the population remained the poorest in
Yugoslavia.
> The real question is not who gets raped
> more, or who has larger concentration camps, or who does
> more "ethnic cleansing". Rather, it is which struggle has
> the potential to move humanity out of the dark ages of
> capitalism. So far, there's not much to choose from.
Let Proyect wave his magic wand and eliminate the existence of
separate nationalities in the world. Let him wave his magic wand and
make everyone enthusiastically speak the same language. But until he
can accomplish this, the right to self-determination will remain an
important part of socialist tactics in dealing with the national
question. It is an essential demand of the socialist movement which
strikes hard against "ethnic cleansing", concentration camps for
those who insist on speaking their native language, and other
atrocities out of the dark ages of capitalism.
--Joseph Green
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