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national question
National struggle and class struggle: complementary or contradictory?
Introduction by Richard Fidler
November 23, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — A major item on the agenda of the upcoming convention of Québec solidaire (QS), to be held in the Montréal suburb of Longueuil December 1-3, will be a proposal for fusion with another pro-independence party, Option nationale (ON). This will entail revisiting the relationship between the parties’ support for Quebec independence (basically the entire program of ON) and Québec solidaire’s attempt to link the national question with its social justice program.
The current struggle for national self-determination in Catalonia quite naturally suggests parallels with the issues posed in the Quebec pro-sovereignty movement. In recent weeks, two leaders of Québec solidaire — Manon Massé, a party spokeswoman and member of Quebec’s National Assembly, and André Frappier, a member of the QS National Coordinating Committee — have visited Catalonia as invited guests of the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), a left pro-independence party that is now contesting the December 21 Catalan election.
A Québécois view of Canada’s 150th anniversary: Why celebrate colonial autonomy?
By André Binette, translation and notes by Richard Fidler
May 16, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national holiday. Generally, this date recalls the accession to independence. The United States, for example, chose to emphasize each year their unilateral declaration of independence of July 4, 1776. They preferred this date to the date of the Treaty of Paris, 1783, which ended the revolutionary war they had won thanks to France’s decisive support. Their national holiday commemorates a founding act.
The Kurdish struggle – An interview with Dilar Dirik
Dilar Dirik interviewed by George Souvlis, first published at Salvage
George Souvlis: By way of introduction, could you explain what personal experiences strongly influenced you, politically and academically?
Dilar Dirik: As a Kurd, you can never run from your identity, because your identity is essentially political and the level of your political consciousness acts as a self-defense as the only way to secure your survival and existence. That is why insistence on the free expression of your self-determined identity is portrayed as political controversy, nationalism, or terrorism by the capitalist-statist system.
Mapping the Canadian Left: Sovereignty and solidarity in the 21st century
By Andrea Levy and Corvin Russell
February 23, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project — If there is a single theme that has distinguished left politics in Canada and Québec at least since the 1960s, it is the aspiration to national sovereignty. For both the social-democratic and radical left in Québec, the pursuit of social justice is inextricably bound up with national liberation and the creation of a sovereign state emancipated from the colonial chokehold of the Canadian federation. Meanwhile, a considerable part of the left in English Canada for decades similarly conceived the liberation of the Canadian economy and foreign policy from domination by the superpower to the south as the starting point of any viable left project.
Catalonia and Spanish state: million-strong rally brings showdown closer
By Dick Nichols
September 22, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — On September 11, Catalonia’s national day (the Diada), between 870,000 and a million-plus came out to show their support for Catalan sovereignty and—for the majority of those present—for Catalan independence from the Spanish state.
The fifth annual mass mobilisation for Catalan statehood since 2012, again organised by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and the Catalan cultural association Òmnium Cultural, confirmed that this social movement remains by far the largest in Europe.
It continues to pose a threat to the Spanish state and will also become an increasingly critical issue for a European Union that continues to reel under the blows of Brexit, its brutal handling of refugees and economic stagnation in many major regions.
Anti-imperial Marxism: Borderland socialists and the evolution of Bolshevism on national liberation
By Eric Blanc
May 2, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Socialist Review with the author’s permission — Given the importance Marxists place on the fight against racial and national oppression, it is surprising that relatively little attention has been paid to the socialists of imperial Russia’s borderlands. Most of the inhabitants of the tsarist empire were non-Russian (Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Finns, Latvians, Georgians, Muslims, etc.), as were most revolutionaries. Yet academic and activist historiography has distorted our understanding of the socialist movement’s overall development by narrowly focusing on Central Russia.
Barry Sheppard: Recovering the revolutionary legacy of Malcolm X
For more on Malcolm X, click HERE. More by Barry Sheppard.
By Barry Sheppard
March 5, 2015 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- February 21 marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, one of the greatest leaders of the 1960s Black liberation movement in the United States.
Lenin once wrote:During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander.
Matzpen: Revolutionary anti-Zionism in Israel
Doug Enaa Greene's article below was based on his lecture on the history and perspectives of the Israeli Socialist Oranization (Matzpen), presented to the Center for Marxist Education.
For more by Doug Enaa Greene, click HERE.
By Doug Enaa Greene
December 23, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Shortly after the June 1967 war, revolutionary socialists, both Jewish and Palestinian, published a joint statement denouncing the war and calling for an end to Zionism. The Jewish socialists were perceived as traitors by Israeli society. In reply, the Jewish socialists published the following reply:
How socialists of Lenin’s time responded to colonialism
Manabendra Nath Roy.
For more discussion on the Communist International, click HERE. Click for more by John Riddell.
By John Riddell
[This text was first presented at the Ideas Left Out conference on Elbow Lake, Ontario, August 2, 2014.]
December 14, 2014 -- Johnriddell.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- As the 19th century neared its close, revolutionary socialists were hostile to the world’s imperial powers and to their colonial empires, which then encircled the globe. They foresaw the overthrow of colonialism as a by-product of socialist revolution in the industrialised capitalist countries.
They had little knowledge, however, of the anti-colonial freedom movements that began to emerge at that time. It was not until the Russian Revolution of 1917 that an alliance was forged between revolutionary socialism and the colonial freedom movement.
James Connolly: National liberation and socialism
Tribute to James Connolly by MyLittleTripod.
For more by Doug Enaa Greene, click HERE.
By Doug Enaa Greene
[See the video of this talk below.]
December 14, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- "My business is revolution."[1] These words of the Irish socialist James Connolly succinctly sum up the main focus of his life. James Connolly is one of the towering socialist figures of our time. Connolly’s commitment to socialism and internationalism saw him work as labour organiser in Scotland, the United States and Ireland.
Connolly was also a stalwart member of the left wing of the Second International along with Lenin, Eugene Debs, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky. However, Connolly is most well known for his central role in the struggle of Irish independence, especially in leading the Easter Uprising of 1916. The revolt failed and cost Connolly his life, but it was the spark that led to the end of British rule in the 26 counties of southern Ireland.
Catalan national struggle enters critical stage
On the day after the Constitutional Court decision, the squares of Catalonia’s towns were full to the brim with protesters.
Click for more on political developments in Catalonia and the Spanish state.
By Dick Nichols
October 12, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- On September 29, the normally sluggish Spanish legal system had an attack of extreme speed. Its Usain Bolt-like behaviour was sparked by the regional government of Catalonia formally decreeing the long-awaited November 9 non-binding consultation of Catalan opinion [referendum] on the future political status of the region.
Catalonia and the Spanish state on collision course
1.8 million people (25% of the population of Catalonia), took part in this year’s September 11 Diada demonstration. More pictures HERE.
Click for more on political developments in Catalonia and the Spanish state.
By Dick Nichols
September 17, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- This year’s September 11 Catalan national day (Diada) demonstration, in support of the Catalan parliament’s planned November 9 popular consultation on Catalan statehood, was the biggest since the present cycle of mobilisations for the country’s right to national self-determination began four years ago.
Liberación nacional y bolchevismo: la aportación de los marxistas de la periferia del Imperio Zarista
Bund miembros y las víctimas pogrom en Odessa, 1905.
[In English at http://links.org.au/node/3873. Haga clic aquí para más artículos en español.]
Por Eric Blanc
Sinpermiso.info -- La perspectiva desde las regiones periféricas del Imperio Zarista nos obliga a repensar muchas presunciones largamente sostenidas sobre las revoluciones de 1905 y 1917, así como la evolución de muchos análisis marxistas sobre la liberación nacional, la lucha campesina, la revolución permanente, y la emancipación de las mujeres.
Este artículo analiza los debates socialistas sobre la cuestión nacional hasta 1914. Sostengo en él que la estrategia del marxismo anti-colonial que se acabó imponiendo fue elaborada por primera vez por los socialistas de las nacionalidades periféricas del Imperio Zarista, no por los bolcheviques. Lenin y sus camaradas fueron por detrás de los marxistas no rusos en este tema crucial incluso hasta después de haber comenzado la Guerra Civil. Esta debilidad política ayuda a explicar el fracaso bolchevique a la hora de establecer raíces en los pueblos dominados del Imperio Zarista.
Basque Country: EH Bildu on the 2014 European election
[See a table containing the results for the European left, Green and left nationalist parties HERE.]
By EH Bildu
May 30, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Results in Euskadi (Basque Country in Spanish state)
EH Bildu (EHB) 20.91%
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) 20.29%
People’s Party (PP) 18.42%
National liberation and Bolshevism re-examined: A view from the borderlands
Bund members and pogrom victims in Odessa, 1905.
By Eric Blanc
May 28, 2014 – Submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author; also available at Johnriddell.wordpress.com -- A view from the Tsarist empire’s borderlands obliges us to rethink many long-held assumptions about the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, as well as the development of Marxist approaches to national liberation, peasant struggle, permanent revolution, and the emancipation of women.
Weighing the legacy of Lenin’s Comintern: John Riddell replies to Paul Kellogg
By John Riddell
May 15, 2014 -- Johnriddell.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- Paul Kellogg’s review in Socialist Studies of my edition of the Communist International’s 1922 world congress raises two probing questions regarding the legacy of the Communist International (Comintern) in Lenin’s time.[1]
First, he questions a long-held conception that the Bolshevik leaders initiated all the Comintern’s major steps in policy development. Second, he challenges the belief that the Lenin-era International represents a model or template for program and strategy in our time.
Ukraine: Outside powers exploiting ethnic nationalisms
For more on Ukraine, click HERE.
By Tony Iltis
March 22, 2014 -- Green Left Weekly -- Russian President Vladimir Putin announced legislation on March 18 accepting the formerly Ukrainian Republic of Crimea and City of Sevastopol into the Russian Federation. The legislation was passed by the Russian Duma (parliament) on March 20.
Crimea and Sevastopol had voted in a March 16 referendum to leave Ukraine and join Russia. This was the culmination of a process that began after the February 21 overthrow of unpopular Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich by protesters in the capital Kiev.
Crimea is 60% Russian-identifying and 84% Russian-speaking, and was not historically part of Ukraine. Sevastopol is the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Yet this dramatic change in Europe’s borders was not on the agenda before the fall of Yanukovich less than a month earlier.
The Ukrainian government responded with predictable outrage and threats to what it regards as a blatant annexation of its territory. But Ukrainian forces in Crimea ― those who have remained loyal to the new Kiev regime ― have been powerless to stop pro-Russian forces taking over their bases and naval ships.
The life of African-American socialist Hubert Harrison: a discussion with Jeffrey B. Perry
Doug Enaa Greene in discussion with historian Jeffrey B. Perry (above).
February 20, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Hubert Harrison (1883-1927) was an immensely skilled writer, orator, educator, critic and political activist who, more than any other political leader of his era, combined class consciousness and anti-white-supremacist race consciousness into a coherent political radicalism.
The St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born and Harlem-based Harrison profoundly influenced "New Negro" militants, including A. Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey, and his synthesis of class and race issues is a key unifying link between the two great trends of the African American liberation movement: the labour and civil rights-based work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist work associated with Malcolm X.
Harrison played unique, signal roles in the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the New Negro/Garvey) movement of his era. He was the foremost Black organiser, agitator and theoretician of the Socialist Party of New York, the founder of the "New Negro" movement, the editor of the Negro World and the principal radical influence on the Garvey movement.
Bosnia’s magnificent uprising: Heralding a new era of class politics?
Mass protest in Tuzla, February 7, 2014.
By Michael Karadjis
February 13, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Beginning on February 5, mass protests led by workers and retrenched former workers in the privatised factories, along with students and other citizens, have rocked most major industrial cities in Bosnia, notably Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica, Bihac and Mostar.
Ukraine: Russia or the European Union? Reject a choice between ‘lesser evils’
By Aleksandr Buzgalin
December 24, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- As this article is being written the outcome of the resistance remains undecided, but the author is certain that, one way or another, the present Ukrainian authorities will draw closer to the European Union. Meanwhile, one thing is clear: the profound problems of Ukraine, and of Russia’s relations with it, will not be solved as a result.
A tragedy turning into farce? Or farce as tragedy?
Ukraine is shot through with contradictions. For the second time in 10 years Kiev has become the scene of mass protest actions and of clashes with the authorities. But the events of late autumn 2013 are only superficially similar to those of 2004. The situation has grown far more complex.
