Dear friends, Adolfo O. has come up with a number of quotes (a few way out of historical context) from Marx, Lenin, Comintern Cong., etc. claiming to justify his maoist doctrine of the workers subordinating their struggles to the national capitalist interests. But I don't think Lenin,when calling for the workers to "constitute itself the nation" meant this is the Maoism-menshevik sense. Remember Lenin and the bolsheviks dumped the concept of workers only taking power to pave the way for the "progressive" bourgeoisie in Russia to rule and instead changed their programme & went on to lead the working class to sieze power with all other classes subordinate--the opposite of the maoist schema that Adolfo puts forward. Marxists want the the dictatorship of the Proletariat/workers councils Maoism favors the Dictatorship of the "progressive" National bourgeoisie. This is the real meaning as with bourgeois social relations predominant, the national bourgeoisie must foster/build them against the proletariat to maintain its own class position to accumulate capital --or it dies. And This no oppressor class will ever do voluntarily. This issue of the "right of self determination" has always been a sticky one in the communist and marxist movements. 1) Marx and Engels in their time supported some national bourgeois movement and trashed a number of others. Others, like Ireland, they seemed to have a love-hate/love hate position! This seemed to based on whether the national struggles would pave the way for cleaning out the feudal-slave social relations and pave the way for the growth of the working class This was also PRIOR to when capitalist realtions engulfed the world! 2) True Lenin held a specific "Right to self determination" but was fought fircely over this for years in the bolshevik Party and also in the ealrly Comintern. Lenin said it was a 'right' which need not necessarily be exercised . He compared the 'right' to the Right to divorce which all couples have but which only a minority of people actually use. But on the batlle for Finland in 1918-19 , Lenin too switched his stand and tried to get help to the minority finnish soviets against the Finnish national bourgeois-white guardist-intervention regime. But German interventionists prevented the Red Army from turning the tables on the Finnish independence. Things have changed a lot since Marx and Engels. Capitalist production since WW1 has dominated the whole world. All capitalisms progressive role for laying foundations for communist society are OVER! This was conformed by the WW1 itself and the modern imperialist capitalist age. This recognition is why the Bolsheviks had to radically change their own programme on tactics and which class leads and rules in the April thesis of 1917. Lenin recognized that it was now unnessasary forALL states to mechanistically go through a bourgeois democratic revolution before progressing to the proletarian communist revolution. Lenin did however , it is true , still back national"independence movements " because he thought this would weaken the imperialist powers who then in 1918-21, trying to squeeze the Russian revolution by the throat and kill it themselves. But with world capitalist hegemony and ongoing global rivalry between imperialist states large and small. Meaningful national liberation has today become all but impossible. In fact even Lenin wavered on this at times supporting Rosa Luxembourgs position against tailing the national bourgeois in Poland. Supporting workers revolt against the national bourgeois. Lenin had to fight a fierce almost pier 6 battle in The bolshevik Party congresses to get them to support his views /tactics on supporting national struggles . He was actually outvoted on this in 1918 but got the Party resolution overturned in 1919. Similar polemical battle was true in the early Comintern where Lenin and his supporters squared off against M. Roy and Sultan Zadeh/Bukharin /Piatikov, etc. but even Lenin then admitted: " that with the aid of the proleatariat in the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the soviet system and, through certain stages of developement , to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage" "Report of commission on the National and Colonial Questions ' 2nd Cong. Comm. International 7/26/20 But we have to look at the the practice of workers "subordinating" their class interests to the national capitalists . It has been a disaster! I can't say but maybe Zaynep T. may know more about the Way the Comintern supported nationalist Kemal Ataturk regime turned on the workers and slaughtered tens of thousands of its best militants in the mid twenties. Then there was the slaugher of the workers in Shanghai,& Canton, China in 1927 buy the Comintern supported/trained Chaing Kai-shek KMT national bourg. movement. Then there was was Spain in the thirties, Indonesia in the 60s, Chile in the early 70s, Argentina in 50s-60s etc. etc. et. al. Under modern capitalist relations worker movements/parites supporting national bourgeois forces will only get the workers . 1) stepped up slave driving so the bourgeois can accumulate,get rich, pay debts. 2) repression by cops/guards if they oppose/threaten capitalist exploiters 3) conscription notices to get slaughterd in bourgeois wars, proxy wars direct inter- imperialist confrontations 4) Wiped out in surprise coups-de etats engineered by the workers so-called progressive bourgeois national patriot partners-usually with help from imperialist finance capital . Karl C. was right. We can all use "quotes" all year to prove our points! But the track record speaks louder than quotations from any "chairman". Neil
