The tremendous crisis of capitalism is bringing to the surface all the system’s old contradictions. Instability, polarisation and huge political shifts are on the order of the day.
As part of this process, unsolved national questions are erupting once more around the globe. Millions of oppressed people are striving for a way out of the impasse. This striving can take the form of renewed national movements. On the other hand, as the struggle between the national gangs of capitalists becomes more intense, the ruling class pollutes the atmosphere of the whole world with the fumes of national hatred.
For Marxists, the national question is one of the most challenging we face. There is no simple, magic formula for all times and all places. Rather, it is necessary to study each national question in its historical evolution. Marxists must carefully distinguish between what is progressive and what is reactionary in any national movement, as a surgeon carefully distinguishes between healthy and diseased tissue. Above all, we take as our starting point the need to unite the working class on a worldwide scale for the overthrow of international capital.
From Marx’s writings on Ireland and India, to Lenin’s extensive writings on the national question, to the works of James Connolly, there is a tremendous treasure trove of Marxist literature dealing with the subject. For today’s revolutionaries, it represents an indispensable arsenal in the struggle to overthrow capitalism.
Learn the basics
Rob Sewell
This article deals with the important contribution Lenin made on the national question and how such a correct stand on this issue guaranteed the success of the Bolshevik Party in October 1917.
Ben Curry
Instability, polarisation and huge political shifts are taking place all over the world. As part of this process, unsolved national questions are erupting once more with renewed force around the globe – from Catalonia to Kurdistan to Ireland.
The European Union throws up a number of questions for Marxists, not just in terms of our perspectives for the class struggle in Europe, but also theoretical questions on the nature of the EU and the attitude of Marxists to the idea of European integration.
The European Union throws up a number of questions for Marxists, not just in terms of our perspectives for the class struggle in Europe, but also theoretical questions on the nature of the EU and the attitude of Marxists to the idea of European integration.
In-depth analysis
Niklas Albin Svensson
Marxists must call for workers' unity, organisation, and internationalism.
James Kilby
The issue of anti-Semitism is being cynically used by the Blairites in the Labour Party as their main weapon to attack the left.
Leon Trotsky
From chapter 39 of Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution.
V.I. Lenin
A classic on the national question by V.I. Lenin.
Workers' International League
This document was passed at the 2008 National Congress of the US section of the International Marxist Tendency.
John Peterson
“You can’t have capitalism without racism.” (Malcolm X)
MARXIST CLASSICS & BOOKS
Ted Grant and Alan Woods
This 4 part document by Ted Grant and Alan Woods reviews the rich Marxist literature on the national question and applies it to today's conditions.
V.I. Lenin
“Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination.” The classic theoretical work on the national question by Lenin.
V.I. Lenin
Written by Lenin in October-December 1913 and published the same year in the Bolshevik legal journal Prosveshcheniye.
Audio & Video
Marxist classics
& books
Fred Weston
Martin Luther King was killed because of the danger his ideas posed to the establishment. Fred Weston looks at MLK's life and ideas, and discusses the way forward today in the fight against racism and for liberation.
Niklas Albin Svensson
In this talk from the Revolution Festival 2019, Niklas Albin Svensson discusses why revolutionaries must oppose any repression of migrants and refugees, and fight instead for workers of all countries to unite.
Francesco Merli
Francesco Merli analyses the origin of the nation state from a materialist perspective, and looks at the dialectical method that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky took in approach to the question of nations, self-determination, and national liberation movements.
Hamid Alizadeh
The legacy of colonialism lives on today, with just as great a chasm between a handful of powerful capitalist states, and the impoverished ex-colonial countries. Hamid Alizadeh explains what Marxists in the West can do to support the struggles for liberation taking place across the world today.
Fred Weston
In this recorded discussion, Fred Weston explains the Marxist approach to the national question.
Fred Weston
Fred Weston speaks on the effects of positive discrimination and the lessons for the labour movement, touching on the origins of racism and the Black question in the USA.
