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Rosa Luxemburg and the National
Problem:
The Similarity of Luxemburg’s Theory
to “Austrian Marxism”
Writen by Hiroyoshi Hayashi
(1993)
Translated by Roy West
9. National Cultural Autonomy
and National Self-Determination
According to Luxemburg, the key to domestic self-government is
education. She links national self-government to the autonomy of education and
positions this as national autonomy, and this is an inevitable outcome of her
theory of the nation. While denying national self-determination, she advocates,
and even beautifies, nationalism in the form of “national self-government” or
autonomy within the Russian empire. She denies the ultimate appearance of
“national autonomy,” i.e. self-determination, but introduces a diminished form
of the same thing. She says that the rights of autonomy must be preserved within
the bourgeois state, but denies the right of self-determination to organize
one’s own state. There is a contradiction between recognizing national autonomy
within the country, while denying the right to organize the national state. She
spreads this dogma because she understands nationalism in the sole sense of the
aim of political independence, and she denies this form of nationalism. But
rather than denying cultural nationalism, she freely praises this. She presumes
that if nationalism is cultural nationalism then it is progressive and can lead
to the development of the class struggles of the proletariat. Therefore, this
should be included as one part of the program of the proletariat, and can even
have revolutionary significance. And she thinks that education is indispensable
to cultivate and foster this cultural nationalism. Luxemburg’s national
autonomy, is thus national autonomy within education, and necessarily has to be
so.
Luxemburg attempts to show the necessity of connecting public
education to domestic self-government, but this she does not succeed. Isn’t it
clear that national education is above all a means of uniting the state then
this can only take on meaning as true public education as an activity of the
state as a whole? Of course, there are some parts that can be left to regional
government, but even in this case this is limited to subordinate tasks. The core
of public education, i.e. national education, is above all assumed by the state.
Otherwise it would certainly not be public education. People like Luxemburg who
link public education to national cultural education, think that it is possible
to essentially combine public education with regional autonomy (i.e. national
autonomy). The concept of national education was the product of bourgeois
revolution, in particular the French Revolution, this, needless to say, is
inseparably linked from the beginning to the birth of the centralized power of
the bourgeois state.
Of course, Luxemburg recognizes that this national autonomy,
i.e. national education, is linked to and is the outcome of the democratic
reform of the Russian state as a whole, but still thinks that upon this
foundation it is possible to create a national education linked to regional
autonomy. She says that education cannot exist without the “wide participation
of the citizens,” and in fact opposes “popular participation” to centralized
power, and puts aside centralized power in favor of the “wide participation of
the citizens.” However, this sort of education could not overcome the level of
spontaneous, anarchistic, or empirical education, i.e. it could certainly not
reach the level of “national education”. To have public education governed by
local and national autonomy, would ultimately became the foundation for the
development of nationalism in the regional areas, which would be of no benefit
to the working class.
In short, Luxemburg defines national education as the
propagation of “spiritual culture,” and this one-dimensional emphasis on
spiritual culture?she says that this has significance for the class struggles of
the workers?inevitably leads to her emphasis on the significance of national
education. That is, for Luxemburg spiritual culture is only necessary as
national culture and can only exist as such.
The reason Luxemburg introduces the idea of regional autonomy
instead of the state is now clear. She wants to recognize nationalism within the
narrow range of regional autonomy. She firmly opposes the form of nationalism in
the state form, i..e. national self-determination, but she unconditionally
defends it when it appears in the sphere of regional autonomy. This standpoint
is peculiar, and contrasts with here stubborn opposition to the right of
national self-determination. While abstractly defending internationalism,
Luxemburg at the same time secretly and shamelessly tails after nationalism.
There is no way to distinguish her position from the standpoint of “cultural
national autonomy” of the Austrian Marxists, and they are essentially the same.
Luxemburg raises the issue of “culture” and regional autonomy,
i.e. the dogma of the realm of national autonomy. Of course, it is possible to
defend her by saying that subjectively speaking Luxemburg starts from the idea
that “culture” is decisively important in the class struggles of the workers,
and does not over-evaluate the problem of bourgeois “culture”. However, what she
is doing in fact is beautifying bourgeois and national “culture” in the name of
national culture?behind the premise that this national culture is decisively
important for the struggles of the working class, she beautifies bourgeois,
national “culture.” Luxemburg recognizes that what she calls national “culture”
is something bourgeois, and in her book she clearly says this. Nevertheless, she
still advocates this as one of the most important slogans for the Polish working
class.
The question arises of what is the difference, exactly, between
national self-determination (the recognition of the nation-state) and national
cultural autonomy. Why can the former be a revolutionary slogan (even though
this is not unconditional), whereas the latter is nothing but the byword of
opportunists?
First of all, this is a question of the socio-historical
conditions and the objective situation in which the slogan is raised, and
therefore a question of the class political power which raises this
question.
The former slogan of self-determination is one part of the
revolutionary, democratic slogans in a stage where democracy has yet to be
realized. This is a question of achieving more advantageous conditions through
the class struggles of the workers, but the later slogan of national autonomy is
a reformist demand of the petty bourgeoisie under capitalism whose opportunistic
essence must be completely recognized.
The former is a slogan to establish more favorable rule of
capital, while the latter is a demand of liberals and petty bourgeois civic
movements who are sympathetically inclined towards nationalism even after the
rule of capital has been established?this is not the demand of the revolutionary
workers who are opposed to all nationalism. Petty bourgeois liberals are unable
to one step beyond the standpoint of national chauvinism, and have nothing in
common with the outlook of the revolutionary workers who seek the sublation of
all nations. They are unable to oppose nationalism in general, and only oppose
the extreme and blatantly xenophobia forms of nationalism. They in fact justify
nationalism in general. This standpoint ultimately comes down to the petty
bourgeois nationalism of the Austrian Marxists, Russian Bund, and all
opportunistic liberalism.
At the basis of the opposition between national
self-determination and cultural national autonomy is a difference in the
understanding of the significance the bourgeois state holds for the class
struggle and emancipation of the workers. Marxists recognize the enormous
historical significance of this state. They know well that without the formation
of a bourgeois state, and the development of capitalism within it, and the
concentration and organization of capital, and the development of the class
struggles of the workers within this (their concentration and organization!),
socialism would be an impossibility or mere utopia.
For this very reason, we unconditionally recognize the
significance of national self-determination, i.e. the bourgeoisie voluntarily
forming a state. But what is national cultural autonomy? What significance does
this have for the development of the class struggle?
This is in fact nothing but a narrow-minded petty bourgeois
idea, unconnected to the task of achieving socialism that only exists within the
heads of the bourgeoisie as a utopia. In words only this is humanism, and the
wish that under a bourgeois state all classes and nationalities would understand
each other and co-exist in sympathy. This essentially lacks the awareness of the
liberation from the rule of capital, and for this reason it stops at the level
of the “equality” and friendship between nations. Not only is this unrelated to
the ideal of the working class, which seeks by means of class struggle to free
humanity from the rule of capital and relegate class society to the eternal
past, but it also does not understand that the end of capitalist society will
also definitely sublate the division of humanity into “nations”. Of course, even
in socialist society the some concept of race would remain, but this would not
be able to constitute the concept of “nation” in any sense. But Stalinists (as
well as Sakai) are unable to understand this, and instead follow in the
footsteps of Bauer’s concept, thereby revealing their own opportunism.
The advocates of national cultural autonomy, moreover, do not
understand the significance of the slogan of national self-determination under
certain historical conditions; while also failing to see the petty bourgeois
opportunistic essence of their own slogan of national cultural autonomy.
Under certain historical conditions workers defend the slogan
of national self-determination, while at the same time having no illusions
concerning its class and historical limitations. They carefully define the
“applicability” of this slogan, and once the bourgeois state and class rule has
been established, it becomes reactionary to raise this slogan. In such a
situation, workers would oppose all nationalism, and call for the joint
struggles of the workers of all “nations.” By contrast, the advocates of
national cultural autonomy (i.e. opportunists) ultimately promote the “national”
divisions of the workers by defending a type of nationalism (a shamefaced
version of nationalism!). Recently we have seen this sort of nationalism in
Japan, not only from reformists, but also up-close in the theories of Sakai and
Abe. Their ideas are almost identical to, and cannot be essentially
distinguished from, the “cultural nationalism” of Bauer, Luxemburg, and
Stalin.
Rosa Luxemburg and the National
Problem: Contents
- Introduction
- The Abstract Denial of Nationalism
- Are the National Tasks Bourgeois Tasks?
- The Theory of the “Nation-State” and the Class
Interests of the Workers
- The “National Self-Determination” of Poland
- Centralized Power and Regional Autonomy
- Luxemburg’s Concept of Nation
- Luxemburg Begins to “Select” or Screen
Nations
- National Cultural Autonomy and National
Self-Determination
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