Lenin and the Bolsheviks supported movements for national self-determination in Ireland, eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America less as a matter of principle than from their conviction that these movements could only realize genuine national independence through socialist revolution. They believed they would necessarily evolve in that direction in the age of imperialism and that revolutionary Marxists based on the working class and peasantry would accordingly replace bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leaders at the head of these struggles. Until the collapse of the USSR, this approach was largely vindicated in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere. In the 21st century, the revolutionary left no longer has any presence in national movements, much less in their leadership, which calls into question this strategic orientation developed in radically different historical circumstances.
Were he alive today, I very much doubt Trotsky would align himself with those of his admirers (probably a minority in the global movement although well represented on this list) who wish to see the Ukrainian national movement as engaged in an authentic war of liberation despite its already having achieved (capitalist) statehood, its bourgeois leadership, hostility to socialism, and embrace of Western imperialism. I’ve commented on Trotsky's hostility to bourgeois Ukrainian nationalism in more detail at https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/17618 and https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/17712. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34581): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34581 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110506717/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
