INTERNATIONALISM FROM BELOW Volume 3 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, NATION-STATES AND NATIONALISM IN THE AGE OF HIGH IMPERIALISM AND THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889-1916) Allan Armstrong 1 Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 2. THE IMPACT OF HIGH IMPERALISM A. The triumph of the High Imperialism i) Mercantile, Free Trade and Monopoly Capitalist Imperialism ii) A world divided into ‘nation’-states with their colonies iii) From territorial division to redivision; from international diplomacy to the possibility of world war iv) The political impact of Imperialist populism v) The victims and the resistance B. The Development of Orthodox Marxism and the ‘National Question’ i) The Positivist-Materialist and Idealist philosophical split amongst pre-First World War One, Social Democrats and its application to the ‘National Question’ ii) From Positivist-Materialist philosophy to mechanical economic determinist theory iii) Kautsky and the Austro-Marxists set the terms of the debate on the issue of nationality, nations and nationalism C. Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz takes on the Orthodox Marxists i) Luxemburg and Kelles-Krauz and the division over Poland in the Second International ii) Luxemburg and Kelles-Krauz take their differences over Poland to the 1896 Congress of the Second International in London iii) Luxemburg and Kelles-Krauz continue their struggle at the 1900 Congress of the Second International in Paris 2 iv) Kelles-Krauz challenges Luxemburg’s Radical Left and Auer and Winter’s Right social chauvinist alliance in the SDPD v) Kelles-Krauz takes on Kautsky of the SDPD and Renner of the SDPO vi) Kelles-Krauz’s contribution on the issue of national minorities - the case of the Jews vii) Kelles-Krauz and organisation amongst oppressed minorities viii) Kelles-Krauz’s theory of nation and nationality formation D. James Connolly’s early contribution towards ‘Internationalism from Below’ i) Connolly uses the language issue to point the way to a new ‘internationalism from below’ ii) Kelles-Krauz and Connolly find common ground over the business of the 1900 Paris Congress iii) Summary of the impact of ‘High Imperialism’ on Social Democratic politics 3. THE IMPACT OF THE 1904-7 INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY WAVE A. The 1904-7 International Revolutionary Wave i) The impact of workers and peasant struggles ii) The impact of national democratic struggles within the Tsarist Russian Empire iii) The impact of national democratic struggles outside the Tsarist Russian Empire B. Revolutionary social democrats consider the issue of Imperialism and different paths of development i) Kautsky and Bauer and the different challenges from the three wings of the Internationalist Left 3 ii) Kautsky’s and Bauer’s differences over their solution to the ‘National Question’ mask their agreement over the maintenance of existing territorial states iii) The ‘National Question’ - old issues sharpened after the new issues raised – the Jews and the Muslims iv) The International Left - the Radical Lefts, Rosa Luxemburg and the Balkan Social Democrats v) Imperialism - the new Centre takes the theoretical lead but is challenged by Rosa Luxemburg vi) Luxemburg and Lenin on different paths of capitalist development vii) Luxemburg and Lenis on two worlds of development and their differences on the role of the peasantry viii) Luxemburg and Lenin clash over ‘the right of nations to self- determination’ and national autonomy ix) Luxemburg and Lenin attack Bauer over the issue of ‘one state, one party’ x) Lenin on the “democratic and socialist element” in national culture and the case of Norway xi) Summary of the impact of the 1904-7 International Revolutionary Wave on Social Democratic politics 4. PURSUING AN ‘INTERNATIONALISM FROM BELOW’ STRATEGY RESPONDED BETWEEN THE TWO INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY WAVES A. The further development of ‘Internationalism from Below’– James Connolly i) Connolly uses some parallel arguments to Lenin on the “socialist and democratic element” in his History of Irish Labour ii) Connolly comes up against the limitations of ‘one state, one party’ politics of the International Left iii) The outbreak of the First World War and the responses on 4 the International Left up to the 1916 Dublin Rising B. The further development of ‘Internationalism from Below’– Lev Iurkevich i) The Tsarist Empire - a ‘prisonhouse of nations’ ii) Lenin and the influence of developments in Finland, Poland, Georgia and Latvia iii) Ukraine challenges the social chauvinism of the RSDLP before the First World War iv) The background of Lev Iurkevich and his role in Ukrainian Social Democracy v) Iurkevich and Lenin debate the nature of Imperialism and the forthcoming revolution vi) The contradictions of federation vii) Iurkevich investigates the historical roots of Russian social chauvinism and imperialism viii) Iurkevich’s opposition to ‘the right of self-determination’ ix) Iurkevich identifies the common ground held by Lenin and the Radical Left x) Iurkevich highlights the connection between the exercise of self-determination and the need for independent parties xi) Towards the ‘Russian’ Revolution xii) Summary of the thinking of James Connolly and Lev Iurkevich 5 1. INTRODUCTION Volume Two examined the body of work left by Marx and Engels on the ‘National Question’ between the end of the 1847-9 International Revolutionary Wave and Engels’ death in 1895. It was shown that Marx and Engels bequeathed a particular legacy on this issue, which, in its most developed form, amounted to an Internationalism from Below approach. In 1896, soon after Engels’ death, the Second International, which had been formed in 1889, adopted its well-known support for ‘the right of nations to self-determination’. This was a significant contribution by leading Social Democrats to addressing the ‘National Question.’ They wanted to forge an orthodox Marxism which they thought should underpin the working of the Second International. Volume Three examines some of the debates from 1895, which took place amongst Social Democrats within the Second International and its constituent Social Democratic parties up to the first two years of the First World War from 1914-16. After this Introduction (Chapter 1), Chapter 2A outlines the global context of ‘High Imperialism’ which dominated the world from 1895-1916. ‘High Imperialism’ was the culmination of two decades of the ‘New Imperialism’, which had been building up since the 1870s (see Volume 2, Chapter 3A). Chapter 2B shows outlines the debates over the ‘National Question’ of those wanting to claim the orthodox Marxist mantle. In this new situation of ‘High Imperialism’, theoreticians and spokespersons, from a number of Second International affiliated Social Democratic parties, examined the ‘National Question’ by looking through ‘lenses’ they claimed to have been left by Marx and Engels. However, they could be quite selective in their choice of 'lens'. This often led to blinkered viewpoints. As the pressures of the ‘New Imperialism’ (1) followed by ‘High Imperialism’ bore down upon Social Democrats, they tended to ignore Marx and Engels’ own later ‘internationalism from below’ approach to the ‘National Question’. As the influence of ‘High Imperialism; grew, would-be orthodox Marxists of the Second International were able to identify a definite Revisionist 6 current associated with Social Democracy’s Right wing. However, most Rightists were less interested in participating in Social Democracy’s Marxist debates. Instead they increasingly used their official party and trade union positions to come to an accommodation with their host states, their rulers, employers and the imperialist policies they promoted. Thus, an initially unacknowledged social chauvinism and social imperialism, often found amongst Social Democrats in the dominant nations of the imperial states contributed, in turn, to a social patriotic response amongst many Social Democrats in the oppressed nations and nationalities. Orthodox Marxists were often less vigorous in opposing the Right in practice, as opposed to theory. However, even the developing orthodox Marxist theories had failings, which made them less effective in countering the overall drift to the Right. Those would-be orthodox Marxists of the Second International became divided into two main camps over the ‘National Question’. The first camp was led by Karl Kautsky of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDPD) (2), the second by Otto Bauer of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDPO) (3). The debates between these two camps had most resonance in the Prussian/German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Given the awe, in which the SDPD was held by most Social Democrats, it was Kautsky’s theories that tended to have the greater international influence. Many on the Left saw the organisationally and electorally successful SDPD, and its ‘German road to socialism’, as the model to adopt. Just as the earlier, very French Jacobins believed that they provided a universal model for others to emulate, so too, if not so self- consciously, did the German Social Democrats. Most revolutionary Social Democrats, including Lenin and others in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) also accepted the SDPD's and, in particular, Kautsky's political lead up to the First World War. Bauer led the other would-be orthodox Marxist, Social Democratic approach to the handling of the ‘National Question’. Along with Max Adler and Karl Renner, he helped to develop an Austro-Marxist (4) approach to the ‘National Question’. The SDPO advocated the reconstitution of