Palestine: In Revolutionary Context

Courtesy of the South East Idaho Democratic Socialists of America

One cannot seriously speak about the, “common cultures,” of a nation when employers and workers of one and the same nation cease to understand each other. What, “common destiny,” can there be when the bourgeoisie thirsts for war and the proletariat declares war on war?
– Stalin, 1913

                  J. V. Stalin. Among conservatives, liberals, and even leftists, not many other names can arouse such strong feelings as his. Best known as the leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death and the subject of much Red Scare propaganda, Stalin was a committed revolutionary and writer even prior to the Russian Revolution that put the Soviets in power and deposed the Tsar. Perhaps his best-known writing is “Marxism and the National Question,” first published in 1913. 

In this time of one state, acting in defense of its self-proclaimed national-cultural identity, committing genocide against a stateless nation bound together by geography, it seems pertinent to revisit this important work.

As a work focused on the material conditions of its time, the first portion of the work, focusing on the “national question” can be a bit dense or downright incomprehensible with Stalin describing various positions of now-defunct political assemblies and parties. At its core, however, the first portion of the work reviews various ideas on what a “nation,” as opposed to a state, is. This was as important in 1913 as it is today, though we hardly separate the idea of nation and state in common conversation. Fundamentally, the “national question,” that Stalin is reviewing is how political power should be organized among affinity groups. The idea of a nation had evolved, at that time, away from the idea of a tribe or a race and into the idea of a nation being defined as, “primarily a community, a definite community of people.” But the quest to answer what “community” was, if not defined by race or tribe, was up for debate in both legislative bodies and political discourse in the streets. Included in this debate across Europe and Asia were several groups, national identities, and movements we may find familiar to us today; Polish and Ukrainian nationalism as well as Zionism.

Stalin calls out these national definitions as being both baseless and regressive. He points out that people of shared cultural heritage, living in different places, have different material conditions that can serve to divide them. A German-American living in Iowa has little in common, day-to-day, with a German living in Berlin outside of their linked genetic heritage. From healthcare to environmental safety to public transit, their lives are vastly different. It would be foolish to say that they have more in common with one another than they do with their day-to-day neighbors of Polish, Irish, and Lebanese extraction. Instead, the main uniting point between the German in Berlin and the German-American in Iowa is their class, for there they can find a shared struggle decoupled from any genetic memory.

None of this is to say that heritage and ethnicity are unimportant! We see the effects of bigotry and racism against various groups every day. The point Stalin was making is that the working class everywhere has more in common with each other than with disparate members of the same culture in different material and class conditions. What does Danish-American Jeff Bezos have in common with a working-class Dane, in reality?

Stalin also points out a tactic of the ruling bourgeoisie to divide the working class; special protected groups will be raised by the bourgeois government in order to distract from the oppression of other groups of people and to pull away from international class unity. Under this guise, socialism is twisted to the cause of nationalism. We see this today with the genocide in Gaza, where white liberal feminists identify more with the oppressors than they do with the women who are experiencing catastrophic reproductive health crises, and with Israel bringing “pride” to the ruins of Gaza (to which we must say, “no pride in genocide!”). It goes almost without saying that these oppressed groups are in need of liberation and these struggles are important, but their rights cannot be truly protected under the current system because capitalism does not profit from it. In fact, majority rights cannot be protected under this system either, for the only rights that capitalism will ensure are those of capital itself.

Indeed, Stalin correctly points out that minority rights are only as strong as the forces within a capitalist government wish them to be. Furthermore, any passing protection of a minority group will be the basest form that the democratic means will allow. Largely speaking, reforms are only as effective as the ruling class wishes them to be, within the barest pretext of the existing democratic structure. “More women drone pilots, more trans cops,” as the sayings go, and we see people like Pete Buttigieg raised up by the liberal establishment as an example of the triumph of liberal “progress” while he serves as a tool of oppression within the genocidal Biden administration. We see the loss of nationwide reproductive rights under the bourgeois liberal order, as the reforms to protect those rights were not deemed necessary for the bourgeoisie. Multiple Democratic administrations refused to act on this over the decades, showing the truth in what Stalin had to say about the strength and efficacy of protection for minority groups.

We hear often in the media these days about, “Israel’s right to protect itself.” This is imperialism using the language of socialism. Israel is an occupying entity, not an innocent party. Palestinians form a nation of people, acting in resistance to protect themselves, whereas Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. This is the only “right to self protection,” that exists in this conflict. It is true that nations have a right to self determination, as Stalin points out, and can conduct within their boundaries as they see fit, which may mean that liberation groups and parties may take lines or actions that do not immediately benefit the working classes within that liberation struggle. He also states, however, that communists have a duty to agitate against harmful actions and work to change the behavior of those nations to act in favor of the proletariat. Uncritical support for anything doesn’t and shouldn’t exist, but critical support for those liberation movements is essential. A nation working to break free from the yoke of oppression does not, by its own existence, automatically become correct in all actions even if that work is (in general) in the correct direction. We cannot expect an oppressed people to always take the correct position on every possible problem every time; nations are made of people and just as no person is perfect no national liberation struggle can be perfect. But as people from Palestine to the north of Ireland to pre-Revolutionary China have pointed out time and time again, one must be alive to fight for their rights. Ireland had to break free of England and then the grip of the clergy before it could begin to guarantee the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community. The ability to break the working class free from national bourgeoisie oppression is the precondition for true, and not symbolic, liberation of minority groups.

This line of thought has been used to critique Stalin (and Leninists by extension) for being “class reductionist,” which seems to show little understanding of Stalin’s underlying point. It is clear that Stalin is starting to articulate an early idea of intersectionality, where the true liberation of all oppressed peoples are bound up in uniting their struggle. To say that Stalin is advocating for class reductionism is a reductionist argument in itself, and also suggests that the folks making this argument believe that true liberation from capitalist oppression of a minority group can come about independent of all other oppressed people in a nation, region, or globally. This argument is hard to find support for both in theory and in the real-world experiences of oppressed peoples.

In his concluding section, Stalin argues that the complete democratization of the country is both the basis and solution for the national question, as allowing for true democracy will enable the true will of the people to be expressed as opposed to being mediated by bourgeois organs of “democracy.” External complications can arise as capital searches for new markets to exploit, as Marx and Engels pointed out. This leads Stalin to reiterate his point about the two possible definitions of a nation. The idea of national cultural autonomy draws together people who have been separated and acted upon by disparate events, and stimulates nationalism as it leads to the othering of peoples, which is incompatible with social democracy. It leads to unity between and bourgeois elements under a unified banner, which in the end, can only benefit capital. National autonomy does not solve the problem.

Regional autonomy instead solves these issues because it relies on a population in an area, not any national character or national border that artificially exists. It unites workers who share the same material conditions across geography, allowing for the crystallization of the class struggle while also opening the region for natural resource production for all workers in that region without waiting for decisions from geographically removed but culturally tied elites. 

Stalin returns to the idea of minority oppression, showing his concern not just for class struggle but for the struggle of all oppressed peoples and giving the lie to the idea of, “class reductionism.” He states that at the outset it is natural that minority groups would have fear of oppression within this scheme, but only insofar as the bourgeois government and its systems remain. He argues that the removal of bourgeois elections and rule, and opening of complete popular democracy would prevent this feared oppression.

In fact, Stalin cogently addresses many of the concerns about rights and oppression that are often raised in favor or liberal bourgeois reforms and concessions. Minorities, he states, don’t want some super-organization transcending national (state) boundaries to act as their, “voice,” but which is powerless to actually assert itself and make change. We can find an example of this in the current situation in Palestine. The Gaza Strip and West Bank are functionally nations, as envisioned by Stalin. Christians and Muslims coexist, united by their material conditions under the oppression of the State of Israel. Israel, being an ethnostate, is united only by its settler-colonial ideal of Zionism which has drawn people from dissimilar classes and backgrounds into one “super-organization,” functioning as a state. Is it any wonder that Israel has the highest number of dual citizens in the world, or that non-Zionist Jews, as well as Christians and Muslims are treated as second-class citizens?

Stalin points out, correctly, that real, protected, concrete rights within the area or jurisdiction that people inhabit are the only way to prevent oppression. National minorities are not oppressed because they lack a national, trans-state union but because they lack specific, concrete rights. These include freedom of language, schooling, freedom of movement and freedom of religion. Granting (and upholding) these rights to all within the boundaries of a regional autonomous nation will ensure that no minority group is oppressed within this nation. A change in material conditions, not sloganeering and hollow words, is the only thing that can actually better the  of any oppressed people.

Reviewing this work during this time of rising nationalism both within the United States and elsewhere, it has become clear that the problems Stalin (and the Bolsheviks in general) saw and faced in the opening of the 20th century are sadly not far removed from where we find ourselves today. It also drives home the point that many on the left, even those opposed to Stalin, have come to realize; hollow words and token representations do not bring about socialism. Indeed, these actions only serve to heighten the contradictions within the capitalist system. Im American, as millions call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and many of those same people go to sleep wondering about their next meal or their housing or whether this round of COVID will be their last, Israel raises the pride flag and says, “land back,” over the ruins of Khān Yūnis making a mockery of everything those symbols and statements stand for. The contrast between neo-Nazi brigades in Ukraine, or Patriot Front militias in Idaho is no less clear. Let the next “land back” cry come from a unified, multicultural nation called Palestine where the working classes of all religions live in peace.