MARXIST PERSPECTIVE ON NATIONALISM AND THE NATIONALITY QUESTION
Abstract
Nationalism and Marxism are philosophically incompatible. Nationalism is predicted upon the assumption that the most fundamental divisions of human kind are the many vertical cleavages that divide people into ethno national groups. Marxism, by contrast, rests upon the conviction that the most fundamental human divisions are horizontal class distinctions that cut across national groups. The nationalist would therefore contend that in a test of loyalties, national consciousness would prove more powerful than all international divisions, including that of class. Marxists, on the other hand, maintain that class consciousness would prove the more powerful. Because of contradictory nature of the philosophical assumptions of nationalism and Marxism, the former has played a central role throughout the history of the latter. Given their contradictory nature, it could logically anticipate that the role of nationalism in the history of Marxism would be that of an antagonistic force and indeed, such was often the case. However, this is only part and perhaps the least intriguing part of the historical relationship of the two isms. For Marxist not only learned to accommodate themselves to an expediential co-existence with a world filled with nationalists, but they also developed a strategy to manipulate nationalism into the service of Marxism. Marxist owes their major successes more to this strategy than to either the popular appeal or the predictive accuracy of Marxian ideology.