Rosa Luxemburg and the National Problem:
The Similarity of Luxemburg’s Theory
to “Austrian Marxism”

Writen by Hiroyoshi Hayashi (1993)
Translated by Roy West

4. The Theory of the “Nation-State” and the Class Interests of the Workers

Next we will consider the question of the “nation-state.” This is a theoretically (and therefore practically) important point because the concept of the nation is inseparably connected to the bourgeois state (and its form). The essential understanding of the bourgeois state is the basis for the concept of the “nation.”

Luxemburg shows a particular understanding of the “nation-state,” which is connected to her theory of the nation. She begins by critically examining Kautsky’s theory of the “nation-state,” and notes that Kautsky’s theory of the nation-state consists of the following three moments:

In his article on the struggles of the nationalities and the social-democratic program in Austria, published over ten years ago, Kautsky enumerates three factors, which, according to him, make up the “roots of the modern national idea,” as found in the rise of the modern state in all of Europe. These factors are: the desire of the bourgeoisie to assure for itself an internal or domestic market for its own commodity production; second, the desire for political freedom?democracy; and finally, expansion of the national literature and culture to the populace. (p. 159)

Luxemburg does not agree with Kautsky’s concept. However, the focus of her criticism is not Kautsky’s eclecticism of confusing economic and historical elements with the ideational elements. Indeed, she fails to notice that Kautsky understands the nation-state as fundamentally the “national” state [minzoku kokka]. According to Luxemburg, the nation-state is not a “national” state, but rather its essential characteristic is that the bourgeoisie of a certain nation govern or oppress several?or many?of the other nations which surround it. Therefore, this state essentially is not a “national” state, and she concludes that the bourgeois state can not be a “national” state. This is said to be true both historically, as well as theoretically. The “theory” she presents in order to justify her dogma is the following?first, Luxemburg asserts that the nation-state was formed differently from what Kautsky claims.

However, it would be wrong to take Kautsky’s formulation literally; we cannot assume that the material foundation of modern national movements is only the vaguely understood appetite of the industrial bourgeoisie for a “native” market and its commodities. (p. 162)

Luxemburg says that Kautsky’s material foundation of national movements is incorrect or incomplete, and thus one naturally expects her to propose an alternative “material basis.” Instead she offers the following:

Moreover, a capitalistic bourgeoisie needs many other conditions for its proper development: a strong military, as a guarantee of the inviolability of this “fatherland,” as well as a tool to clear a path for itself in the world market; furthermore, it needs a suitable customs policy, suitable forms of administration in regard to communications, jurisdiction, school systems, and financial policy. The bourgeoisie needs for its normal existence not only strictly economic conditions for production, but also, in equal measure, political conditions for its class rule. (p. 162)

This explanation, however, is complete nonsense, because what Luxemburg proposes here does not even come close to being the material foundation of the nation-state. These are rather political elements that make up the “superstructure” of the state?i.e. not the cause of the state, but simply its outcome. Needless to say, to understand the state from this aspect represents the typically petty bourgeois tendency of “politicism.” Luxemburg claims that Kautsky’s concept of the state is incorrect, and that the theory of its material basis is strange, but what she offers in its place does not amount to a refutation of Kautsky. This is because Luxemburg cannot offer an alternative “material foundation” to that of Kautsky. No one would object to the idea that the class state has need of an apparatus of violence. However, it is completely mistaken to present this violent apparatus as the “material foundation” of the state, in the place of the material foundation of commodity=capitalistic production. We have to firmly oppose such a frivolous distortion of Marxism.

But it soon becomes clear why Luxemburg offers such a nonsensical idea. She does not accept Kautsky’s concept of the nation-state, and instead offers her own concept:

From all this it follows that the specific form of national aspirations, the true class interests of the bourgeoisie, is state independence. The nation-state is also simultaneously that indispensable historical form in which the bourgeoisie passes over from the national defense to an offensive position, from protection and concentration of its own nationality to political conquest and domination over other nationalities. (p. 162)

The lack of necessity in Luxemburg’s theoretical development is extremely tiresome. We have no great objection to the idea that the class interests of the bourgeoisie seek state independence. However, it is not clear at all why this concept is connected to the earlier concept that the state requires an apparatus of force. Here the state is explained solely from political necessity, and this political necessity is said to be determined by “national rule” rather than from class rule (i.e. the violent apparatus to rule the workers, and make their suppression and exploitation possible). This is the “particularity” of Luxemburg’s theory of the state.

According to Luxemburg’s view, the formation of the nation-state also marks the beginning of national oppression, and herein she finds the essential moment or meaning of the nation-state. She is advancing an extremely one-dimensional account of the formation of the nation-state and its historical significance. Of course, we don’t mean to imply that the bourgeois state does not in fact suppress ethnic groups within its borders, and as an imperialist state also dominate other nations. But it is certainly not correct to view the formation of the bourgeois state as being exclusively determined by this one aspect. Ultimately, this only confuses the struggles of the working class and opens the door to reactionary elements.

Luxemburg claims that her own state theory is different from the “conventional ‘nation-state’ ideology.” Here she seems to be referring to bourgeois liberalism, i.e. the idyllic concept of the democratic and liberal state. She offers instead a state whose essential moment and content is national oppression, and in thus a barbaric and reactionary violent state. In this sense, Luxemburg’s criticism of the state is resolute and without compromise, although somewhat beside the point. In explaining the difference between her own concept of the nation-state, which differs from the “conventional” concept, she says, “according to the bourgeois way of thinking, it is possible to have a national movement for unification and defense of one’s own nationality, and at the same time, to oppress another nationality.” (p. 163) Luxemburg explains this by drawing on the examples of Germany, Hungary, the Czechs, and Poland. Here it is probably worthwhile to look at the example of Poland. She says that in seeking the formation of a Polish nation-state, “Polish bourgeoisie nationalism is directed as much against the Ruthenians as against the Lithuanians. The very nationality which had to endure the bitter policy of extermination by the portioning powers?Prussia and Russia?now refuses the right of independent existence to other nationalities.” (p. 164) She points out that the same thing can be said for the nationalism of the Germans and Hungarians. Luxemburg offers the following explanation of this fact:

This strange double-edged character of bourgeois patriotism, which is essentially based on the conflicting interests of various nationalities rather than on harmony, becomes understandable only when one takes into consideration the fact that the historical basis of the modern national movements of the bourgeoisie is nothing more than its aspirations to class rule, and a specific social form in whose aspirations this expression is found: the modern capitalistic state?“national” in the sense of the dominance of the bourgeoisie of a certain nationality over the entire mixed population of the state. (pp. 165-6)

This is a very strange idea. On the one hand she says that the modern state is nationalistic, while on the other hand there is national oppression. However, this is certainly not a “double-edged character” in the sense of oppositional meaning, but rather an inevitable outcome of bourgeois rule, and simply a different expression of this. Bourgeois rule emphasizes nationalism on the one hand, while assuming a hostile attitude towards the nationalism of other nationalities, and this stems from this essence. There is nothing particularly unexpected or strange about this. If Luxemburg thinks that bourgeois nationalism should adopt a magnanimous attitude towards the nationalism other countries, then she doesn’t understand the reality of bourgeois nationalism.

The bourgeois state appears in the “national” guise because the bourgeoisie derive a great benefit from incorporating the working class within the “people,” and this nationalism naturally confronts the nationalism of other countries. This is because they are viewed as nothing but a stubborn obstacle to national unity. Therefore, in order to understand the essence of the bourgeois state, first one must first overturn the idea that the “national” in the bourgeois state can be understood as the “dominance of the bourgeoisie of a certain nationality over the entire mixed population of the state.” In fact, the “dominance” of small nationalities stems from the essence of the bourgeois class state, and so the essence of the bourgeois state cannot be explained from the “dominance” of the small nationalities. However, Luxemburg has this all upside down:

The substance and essence of the modern state compromise not freedom and independence of the “nation,” but only the class dominance of the bourgeoisie, protectionist policy, indirect taxation, militarism, war and conquest. (p. 170)

Luxemburg offers petty bourgeois politicism that has nothing even remotely in common with Marxism. A superficially “revolutionary” criticism of the bourgeois state often masks opportunism. While she fashions the bourgeois state into a “villain” by calling it a reactionary state in general, this is contrasted, on the other hand, with her attempt to create a modern civilized bourgeois state?the favorite method of liberals. Luxemburg has forgotten that the bourgeois state also represents the “freedom and independence” of the nation. This is a nation-state for the precise reason that this is the “freedom” and “independence” for the ruling nation. She has even forgotten this elementary point. She evaluates the bourgeois state as only a militaristic and reactionary state?in a word, the imperialistic state of the stage of monopoly capital?and in contrast to this she recommends another kind of state that is “free” and “independent.” However, Luxemburg conceals from the workers that the state she is advocating is also fundamentally a bourgeois state.

She says that the standpoint of the workers and that of the bourgeois are fundamentally different, and this is absolutely correct in a sense. However, the problem centers on the content of this. Luxemburg argues the following:

The national policy of the proletariat, therefore, basically clashes with the bourgeois policy to the extent that in its essence it is only defensive, never offensive; it depends on the harmony of interests of all nationalities, not on conquest and subjugation of one by another. The conscious proletariat of every country needs for its proper development peaceful existence and cultural development of its own nationality, but by no means does it need the dominance of its nationality over others. Therefore, considering the matter from this point of view, the “nation”-state, as an apparatus of the domination and conquest of foreign nationalities, while it is indispensable for the bourgeoisie, has no meaning for the class interests of the proletariat.

Therefore, of these “three roots of the modern national idea” which Kautsky enumerated, for the proletariat as a class only the last two are important: the democratic organizations, and education of the populace. Vital for the working class, as conditions of its political and spiritual maturity, are the freedom of using its own native language, and the unchecked and unwarped development of national culture (learning, literature, the arts) and normal education of the masses, unimpaired by the pressures of the nationalists?so far as these can be “normal” in the bourgeois system. It is indispensable for the working class to have the same equal national rights as other nationalities in the state enjoy. Political discrimination against a particular nationality is the strongest tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which is eager to mask class conflicts and mystify its own proletariat. (pp. 168-9)

If, on the one hand, political independence, i.e., the nation-state, is necessary for capitalism and the class interests of the bourgeoisie just because a nation-state is a tool of domination (or control) and conquest, on the other hand, the working class is interested in the cultural and democratic content of nationalism, which is to say that the workers are interested in such political systems as assure a free development of culture and democracy in national life by means of defense, not conquest, and in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation of various nationalities which belong historically to the same bourgeois state. Equality before the law for nationalities and political organizations, and the assurance of national cultural development?such are the general forms of the program of the proletariat, a natural program resulting from its class position, in contrast to the nationalism of the bourgeoisie. (p. 175)

These passages expose the essence of Luxemburg’s national policy: i.e. a reactionary policy almost identical to the Austrian Marxists’ opportunistic policy of “national cultural autonomy.”

She contrasts the bourgeois state which is a tool of “rule and subjugation” of other nationalities, to a state realized from a proletarian national policy which would supposedly be in harmony with other nationalities. However, is this state really a proletarian state? Fundamentally speaking, this would not be the case. This would still be a state built on the foundation of capitalism; a type of bourgeois state. Didn’t Luxemburg just say that the bourgeois state carries out a national policy of “rule and subjugation” precisely because it is a bourgeois state? What right does she have to say that a bourgeois state would be able to carry out a harmonious and peaceful national policy? For Luxemburg two types of bourgeois states are possible, i.e. an “offensive policy” and a “defensive” policy.

What is Luxemburg trying to say, exactly? Is she calling for the establishment of the most democratic state possible in a period of bourgeois revolution by means of the struggles of the working class? Or is she introducing an ordinary program of reforming the bourgeois state? Even if we would grant the favorable interpretation of the former, this doesn’t change the fact that she is raising the question in an extremely vague and mistaken way. In fact, however, she is standing on the totally opportunistic standpoint of the Austrian Marxists?the standpoint seeking reforms within the bourgeois state (the call to defend or strengthen nationalism which is called “national cultural autonomy”). Starting from political radicalism, Luxemburg easily comes approaches and tails after petty bourgeois opportunism.

Incidentally, the idea of “national cultural autonomy” in the program of the Austrian Social Democrats was correctly defined by Lenin as nothing but “shamefaced” or refined nationalism. Under the rule of the bourgeoisie, liberally diluted nationalism?the idea premised on the existence of various nations and nationalism while calling for mutual understanding and cooperation, or the defense of the special rights of “minority” nations?is not compatible with the internationalist standpoint of a workers party that unites all of the working class of a country. Lenin was also clearly opposed the programmatic standpoint of separate national self-governance or education. But Luxemburg is in fact advancing the same sort of opportunism.

Rosa Luxemburg and the National Problem: Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Abstract Denial of Nationalism
3. Are the National Tasks Bourgeois Tasks?
4. The Theory of the “Nation-State” and the Class Interests of the Workers
5. The “National Self-Determination” of Poland
6. Centralized Power and Regional Autonomy
7. Luxemburg’s Concept of Nation
8. Luxemburg Begins to “Select” or Screen Nations
9. National Cultural Autonomy and National Self-Determination