Vladimir Lenin
The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-determinaton
Written: January-February 1916
Source: Collected Works, Volume 22, p. 143-56
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1964
First Published: Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, No. 1, October, 1916
Online Version: marx.org, 1998; marxists.org, 1999
Transcribed: Richard Bos
HTML Markup: Brian Basgen and David Walters
Contents:
Imperialism, Socialism, and the Liberation of Oppressed Nations
The Socialist Revolution and the Struggle for Democracy
The Meaning of the Right to Self-Determination and its Relation to Federation
The Proletarian-Revolutionary Presentation of the Question of the
Self-Determination of Nations
Marxism and Proudhonism on the National Question
Three Types of Countries in Relation to Self-Determination of Nations
Social-Chauvinism and Self Determination of Nations
The Concrete Tasks of the Proletariat in the Immediate Future
The Attitude of Russian and Polish Social-Democracy and of the Second
International to Self-Determination
1. Imperialism, Socialism, and the Liberation of Oppressed Nations
Imperialism is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital in the
advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national states. It has
established monopoly in place of competition, thus creating all the objective
prerequisites for the achievement of socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in
the United States of America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for
the overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the
bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the masses into
this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an immense degree, by worsening
the conditions of the masses both economically -- trusts and high cost of
living, and politically -- growth of militarism, frequent wars, increase of
reaction, strengthening and extension of national oppression and colonial
plunder. Victorious socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently,
not only bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to
the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free
political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their
activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that
they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the
basis of a free union and a free union is a lying phrase without right to
secession -- such parties would be committing treachery to socialism.
Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state
disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from
completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism.
2. The Socialist Revolution and the Struggle for Democracy
The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a
single front; but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of
battles on all fronts, i.e., battles around all the problems of economics and
politics, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It
would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can
divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow
it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it
introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for
victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a manysided, consistent and
revolutionary struggle for democracy.
If would be no less mistaken to delete any of the points of the democratic
programme, for example, the point of self-determination of nations, on the
ground that it is "infeasible," or that it is "illusory" under imperialism. The
assertion that the right of nations to self-determination cannot be achieved
within the framework of capitalism may be understood either in its absolute,
economic sense, or in the conventional, political sense.
In the first case, the assertion is fundamentally wrong in theory. First, in
this sense, it is impossible to achieve such things as labour money, or the
abolition of crises, etc., under capitalism. But it is entirely incorrect to
argue that the self-determination of nations is likewise infeasible. Secondly,
even the one example of the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905 is
sufficient to refute the argument that it is "infeasible" in this sense.
Thirdly, it would be ridiculous to deny that, with a slight change in political
and strategical relationships, for example, between Germany and England, the
formation of new states, Polish, Indian, etc, would be quite "feasible" very
soon. Fourthly, finance capital, in its striving towards expansion, will
"freely" buy and bribe the freest, most democratic and republican government and
the elected officials of any country, however "independent" it may be. The
domination of finance capital, as of capital in general, cannot be abolished by
any kind of reforms in the realm of political democracy, and self-determination
belongs wholly and exclusively to this realm. The domination of finance capital,
however, does not in the least destroy the significance of political democracy
as the freer, wider and more distinct form of class oppression and class
struggle. Hence, all arguments about the "impossibility of achieving"
economically one of the demands of political democracy under capitalism reduce
themselves to a theoretically incorrect definition of the general and
fundamental relations of capitalism and of political democracy in general.
In the second case, this assertion is incomplete and inaccurate, for not only
the right of nations to self-determination, but all the fundamental demands of
political democracy are "possible of achievement" under imperialism, only in an
incomplete, in a mutilated form and as a rare exception (for example, the
secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905). The demand for the immediate
liberation of the colonies, as advanced by all revolutionary Social-Democrats,
is also "impossible of achievement" under capitalism without a series of
revolutions. This does not imply, however, that Social Democracy must refrain
from conducting an immediate and most determined struggle for all these demands
-- to refrain would merely be to the advantage of the bourgeoisie and reaction.
On the contrary, it implies that it is necessary to formulate and put forward
all these demands, not in a reformist, but in a revolutionary way; not by
keeping within the framework of bourgeois legality, but by breaking through it;
not by confining oneself to parliamentary speeches and verbal protests, but by
drawing the masses into real action, by widening and fomenting the struggle for
every kind of fundamental, democratic demand, right up to and including the
direct onslaught of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, i.e., to the
socialist revolution, which will expropriate the bourgeoisie. The socialist
revolution may break out not only in consequence of a great strike, a street
demonstration, a hunger riot, a mutiny in the forces, or a colonial rebellion,
but also in consequence of any political crisis, like the Dreyfus affair,' the
Zabern incident," or in connection with a referendum on the secession of an
oppressed nation, etc.
The intensification of national oppression under imperialism makes it necessary
for Social-Democracy not to renounce what the bourgeoisie describes as the
"utopian" struggle for the freedom of nations to secede, but, on the contrary,
to take more advantage than ever before of conflicts arising also on this ground
for the purpose of rousing mass action and revolutionary attacks upon the
bourgeoisie.
3. The Meaning of the Right to Self-Determination and its Relation to Federation
The right of nations to self-determination means only the right to independence
in a political sense, the right to free, political secession from the oppressing
nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom
to carry on agitation in favour of secession, and freedom to settle the question
of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede.
Consequently, this demand is by no means identical with the demand for
secession, for partition, for the formation of small states. It is merely the
logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in every form.
The more closely the democratic system of state approximates to complete freedom
of secession, the rarer and weaker will the striving for secession be in
practice; for the advantages of large states, both from the point of view of
economic progress and from the point of view of the interests of the masses, are
beyond doubt, and these advantages increase with the growth of capitalism. The
recognition of self-determination is not the same as making federation a
principle. One may be a determined opponent of this principle and a partisan of
democratic centralism and yet prefer federation to national inequality as the
only path towards complete democratic centralism. It was precisely from this
point of view that Marx, although a centralist, preferred even the federation of
Ireland with England to the forcible subjection of Ireland to the English.
The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into
small states and all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer to
each other, but also to merge them. And in order to achieve this ...
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