S&S Quarterly, Inc. Guilford Press On the Development of a Marxist Approach to Nationalism Nationalism and Socialism. Marxist and Labor Theories of Nationalism to 1917 by Horace B. Davis Review by: V. G. Kiernan Science & Society, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 1970), pp. 92-98 Published by: Guilford Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40401465 . Accessed: 20/06/2014 19:21 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . S&S Quarterly, Inc. and Guilford Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science &Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEW ARTICLE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MARXIST APPROACH TO NATIONALISM has been,and remains, one ofthemostpotentand leastunNationalism littledebatedin derstoodforcesof themodernworld,and one curiously it concerns so whom Marxists, closelyin so many any systematic way. that this an have drifted toward problemhas aleasyassumption ways, it line" on "Marxist that is a been dealt there with, readyto hand. ready In thisbook*Dr. Davis doesnotsetout fromanyready-made thesis,but useful service far a morecriticaland more by reviewingthe performs bywhichMarxismgraduallyarrivedby long,painful,confused processes thetimeofWorldWar I at opinionswhicheventhenwerestilldubious and unsettled. He showshow theideas of Marx and Engelsthemselves and Hegeliantheory, a of Germanconditions from emerged background and goeson to tracetheirlaterthinking, oftena responseto European issuesof themoment, about thenation,nationalism, war,and theirsigHe discusses nificance fortheworkingclassand the socialistmovement. also theirdisputeswithotherrevolutionaries; it is an interesting feature of the book thatit stresses of theseissuesin ditheprimeimportance and givesBakunincreditforseeing vidingMarxismfromBakuninism, of the truth about them that Marxand Engelsmissed. aspects Therefollowsa surveyof thesocialistand labormovements growing up in theWestin theirattitudestowardforeigncountriesand toward thecoloniestheirowncountries Nextcomesthesituationthat possessed. bedeviled socialists in eastern similarly Europe,especiallyin the Hapswhere small nationalities werechallenging burgempire, longsuppressed thedomination of thestronger ones,Austrianand Magyarand Russian. A chapteron nationalminorities and theoutlookof laborin theUnited Stateswill be noveland stimulating to manyEuropeanreaders.Lenin's contribution towardbringingMarxismup to date endsa book against whichone'sonlyseriouscomplaintis thatit is notlonger.To closewith • Nationalism and Socialism. Marxist and Labor Theories of Nationalism to 1917, by Horace B. Davis. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967. $7.50. Pp. xiv, 258. 92 This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEW ARTICLE 93 WorldWarI wasa sensibledecision, givingtheworkmoreunitybylimitingit to theearlyand classicalperiodsof Marxism;but thereare sevthanthe withlessfamiliarmatters eralsections, someofthemconcerned nationalfeudswithintheHapsburgempire,whichcould have benefited oí literature fromgreaterdetailand fullerquotationfroma voluminous a master. whichDr. Davisis evidently He writesas a friendof Marxism,but a critical,even iconoclastic withthetwosmall one,a factthatwillstandout ifhisbookis compared 1940 and Wareditedin volumeson Marxism, byDona Torr. Nationality of a briefgeneration theorthodoxy These maybe said to represent ago. fromthesamecorpusof olderMarxist Theycontaina wealthofextracts thatDr. Davisdrawson,and theyweredonebya verycompetent writings intoa logis to tryto fitquotationstogether scholar;but theirtendency schemethatMarx,Engels,Lenin,and Stalinweresupposed ical,coherent tohavebequeathedto theirdisciples.Dr. Davison thecontrary recognizes that theseand othersocialistsBauer, Rosa Luxemburg, throughout a bewildering wereall gropingtheirwaythrough maze,forming Kautskyto the of on often spur passingevents,coming conclusions judgments or in contradiction sometimes mistaken or often one-sided, contradictory, Marxand Engels with what withpoliticalfacts.To sumup anyprecision he warnsus, is scarcely aboutnationalism, possible(p. 79). One thought mightadd that therewere topics,like "increasingmisery,"on which theyleftbehindthemtoohardand fasta creed;on thetopicofnationalismit was just theopposite."Marxhad not givena stronglead on the so theMarxistswerebadlydivided"(p. 105).Dr. subjectof nationalism, ofFrance,wherethebulkyEngels-Lafargue Davis is writing correspondfromthe1870 howFrenchsocialism, encemightbe drawnon to illustrate nationalpride;but similar war onward,was crippledby an embittered MarxIn encountered were everywhere. Germanyprofessed perplexities would Marxist no that endorse, istsoftenwanderedintoopinions today whodeveloped"whatwouldnow whileit was notseldoma non-Marxist a good Marxistposition"(p. 84). be considered about nationalismit It would seemthatin theirjoint speculations was Engelswhotookthelead,ratherthanMarx,whoseown territorial believedthoseofthenewproletariat rootswereas shallowas he wrongly in race to to be. It mayhavecomenaturally him to be moreinterested toward racialism,"as thanin nation.At any ratehe showed"leanings from more deal Dr. Davis says(and mighthave said a good forcibly), whichEngelshelpedto rescuehim(pp. 72-73).Engelsforhis partmust which be said to havehad leanings,or ratherworse,towardnationalism, He belongedto a postwithMarx helpedto counteract. hisassociation This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 94 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY 1815generationof Germanstudentswhose mentality,progressivein some ways,containeda verystrongdash of chauvinism;and later on he could harborsome illusions about his native land more easily because he spent mostof his life awayfromit. He and Marx would both have spokenmore indulgentlyof England if theyhad not lived there.Dr. Davis quotes some hair-raisingutterancesof his early days (p. 3). Engels was of course alwaysgiven to a bold uncompromisingmannerof sayingwhateverwas in his mind: he carried into controversyhis temperamentof a gunnery officer. His views about nationalityevolved,or fluctuated,but never lost a certain unconsciouslyGermanic undervaluationof Slavs, at any rate of the small scatteredSlav peoples that historyseemed to have forgotten about like so many unfinishednovels. Bakunin was readier to recognize his own Russian soul than Engels his German, and dreamed of a farflungfederationof emancipated Slavs (p. 42). In the split betweenhim and the Marxistcamp we mustsee an elementof the old historicdivision, whichstilllingers,betweeneasternand westernEurope. This divisionhas been mostobtrusiveand dangerousin the formof anti-easternfeelingby itselfwith the West a centralEurope, or Germany,bent on identifying and, to bolsterits claim of westernism, demandingthe leadershipof the West. Dr. Davis holds the balance fairly.He shows Engels learningby experience,comprehendingby 1882how disastrousa European war would be, and by 1893 that theRussia againstwhich he and Marx had so often since 1848 preached a crusadewas no longer militarilystrongenough to be a threatto united Germany.By the end of the centurythingswere changing further;Lenin saw this, Engels would have seen it. He and Marx and Bakunin were all, deeply as theymightbe tincturedby their local origins,genuine internationalists(pp. 50-51) . If pioneers did not indulge in some too rosy hopes, therewould be no pioneers.Marx and Engels early believed, and could never willingly cease to believe, that peoples were naturallyfriendly,and that once each had achievedunityand modernitywithinits naturalfrontiers theywould settle down happily together,and war lose any popular appeal. This owed too much to the illusionsof theband of liberal emigresfromall over Europe who rubbed shouldersin London or Paris before1848; it was on a par with the simple faith of Spanish and other democratsthat once monarchywas replaced by republicanismthe light of reason would shine on all. Engels failed to take into account that the fanaticismkindled by wars of national unificationlike those of Germanyand Italy was bound to acquire an energyof its own, and that governmentswould be able to fomentand manipulateit fortheirown purposesforyearsto come. Marx This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEW ARTICLE 95 failedto foreseethestrength of economicnationalism and its appeal to all classesbecause,Dr. Davis notes,he held thatneo-mercantilist systems likeList'swouldprovehelplessagainstthecompetition offreetrade(pp. 8-9). All thelaterrecordis of theworkingclassesof Europecomingto and theirinterests associatethemselves moreand morewiththeirown statesand rulingclasses.Russianworkers because escapedthisinfection was too obsoleteand reactionary to makethemfeelat homein tsarism therecould have been no 1917. theirown land; otherwise A relatedillusionof earlyMarxismwas thatthemanynationalities too smallto supporta moderneconomycould be painlessly, unprotestlike written disbanded when no wanted at the off, ingly regiments longer end of a campaign,and assimilated into biggerunits.Marxand Engels ofeasternEurope,ofsmallpeoplesin theiryounger werethinking chiefly whobefore1848seemedmerely futileand in 1848 astir, daysonlyfaintly a positivenuisance,an obstacleto theirbiggerneighbors' But progress. drawn hints in some useful from have the West, theymight happenings nationalities. If Welsh whichwas not withoutits own smallstruggling and Bretonshad scarcely as yet,therewas Irebegunto rousethemselves land,and in thegreatCarlistwarof 1833-39thereweretheBasquesand Catalans.Dr. Davis mighthave foundmore roomforSpain and its becausetherethe contestbetweenMarxismand minorities, particularly and federalism(a new versionof the nationalcentralism Bakuninism, of rivalry 1793),camemoreinto the arena of history Jacobin-Girondin thananywhere else,above all in thestormy daysof thefirstRepublic True,Basquesand Catalansin the1830swereon thewrongside,forDon and towhatever extentMarx CarlosandHolyChurchagainstLiberalism, and Engelstooknoticeofthemthismaywellhavehelpedto determine in advancetheirhostility to theCzechsand Croatsof 1848.But themoral in awakening theyoughtto havedrawnwas thatpopularconsciousness areaswas sureto takethemoldat first of nationality morethanof class; thatanyattemptto suppress it wouldhavea morbideffect; and thatthe a smallestofdisgruntled can be to the peoples stumbling-block biggestof Dr. Davis's of the neighbors. survey latter-day Hapsburgempireshows thatwhilein somewaysthe spreadof industry brokedown local sepas Marxismpredicted, it also had theoppositeeffect ofintensifyaratism, for local the instance masses of Slav ing feeling, among peasantswho had to migrate to German-speaking townsin searchofwork(pp. 143ff.)thekindof thingthatis nowhappeningin partsofAfrica. It has cometo be fashionable to contrast thelaterMarxunfavorably is nottheonlytopicon whichhe withtheyounger one,butimperialism and his allyweredistinctly wiserin theirlateryearsthantheirearlier. This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 96 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY As Dr. Davis says,"Here as elsewhere,realism and willingnessto learn featuredthe writingsof Marx and Engels" (p. 65). An article probably by Engels applauded the Frenchconquest of Algeria, despite its brutality,because the inhabitantswere "a nation of robbers,"irreclaimableby gentlermeans (pp. 63-64). In the same vein, akin to what came to be knownin England as "Liberal Imperialism,"Marx and Engels could see the medieval German drive into eastern Europe, the modern Russian drive into centralAsia, the Britishconquest of India, as all triumphsot progress.Somethingof thisrobustattitudelingeredin Marxismdown to verylate days.When Israel came into being it was feltby manythat this would be a blessing,if a rough one, to the Arabs, because the irruption of modern ways would shake them out of their old stagnation,wean them away fromfeudalismand bigotry.And in some ways, afterall, it has done this.Marxismstill cannot claim to have a finalor completeanswer to the question whetherit was good for India to be conquered by Britain,or centralAsia by Russia. (Soviet historianshave been inclined to take forgrantedthat the resultsfor India were bad, forAsia good.) But what Marx and Engels were compelled increasinglyto face was that such conquestscould produce real progress,if at all, only indirectly and painfully,by stimulatinga local reaction.Whetherforcibleoccupation by a socialiststate,as that of Tibet by China, can have a betteroutcome remainsto be seen. Under capitalist auspices at any rate a direct transitionfrombarbarismto civilizationwas no more possiblethan from feudalismto socialism.There would have to be an intermediatestage,of the conquered reassertingthemselves,strugglingfor an independence only to be won back throughinnerchange and acceptanceof a new world. Algeria would be civilized not by French colonialistsbut by Algerians learning to turn French weapons against them. Here too nationalism would be springingup in new forms,not dyingout, and the perplexities it had createdfor Europe would assail Asia and Africa.Anouar AbdelMalek's recentbook,Egypt:MilitarySociety,is a strikingexample of how Marxism is now having to wrestlewith these puzzles in freshcontexts. For an Arab socialist today the question of what is his nation- Egypt, Iraq, a pan-Arabunion- and what should be its attitudeto Israel, is indeed a dilemma. For the philosophicalhistorianto observethe superiorityof German materialcultureover Slav in the Middle Ages was one thing;forthiskind of observationto be broadcast among modern Germans was quite another-"Sweet, sweet,sweet poison for the age's tooth," as Shakespeare might say. United Germanyand the German workingclass were born more or less together, whichmade it easier forthe workersto be brought This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEW ARTICLE 97 to thinkof this new Reich as theirown, a Fatherland theywere helping to make- and to forget,afterthe firstfew years,how largelyit was only a centuries-oldPrussia expanded. There were fromthe outset two souls in the breastof the Germanworkingclass,as well as of the middle class. With the internationalsocialismupheld by Marx and Engels, Dr. Davis contraststhe nationalistictrend inspired by Lassalle (pp. 51 ff.).From thisa continuousline can be traceddown to the surrenderof the working class to Hitlerafter1933. This was not a sudden fall frominnocence. The workershad been deeply infectedby chauvinismbefore 1914; after the defeat of 1918 theyveered back toward socialism,but in the mass theyvoted for it while it appeared the more practical bread-and-butter choice, not because a bias toward socialismwas, as Marx had reckoned, a fundamentalof working-class existence.Socialistsare not born, in any but have to be made. class, European experiencein general has been the same, if nowhere else quite so glaringlyas in Germany.Even where socialism has come to power it has been heavilytingedwith nationalism.In 1941-45 the Soviet Union foughta Great PatrioticWar ratherthan a defenseof socialism, beand 1969's border clashes and hystericalchargesand counter-charges tween the Soviet Union and China are somber evidence that ruling groups in socialistas well as capitaliststatescan appeal to "patriotism" againsteach other.Today the prospectsof socialismin the restof eastern Europe depend verymuch on how farit can be harmonizedand blended withnational feeling;a factthat last year'soccupation of Czechoslovakia showed the Russian governmentobstinatelydeterminedto ignore,obstinatelyclingingto the delusion that small peoples (though not Russians) can be translatedat one strokefromtribalismto cosmopolitanism. Fortunately,thereis also a conversetruththathas become visible in the last fewdecades, that nationalismitselfcan be, or become,genuinely socialist.Dr. Davis shows in Chapter VIII how Lenin during 1913-16 was reviewingthe whole problem,and findingit, much more than Marx and Engels had done, a duty to supportnational freedommovements.In the colonies he expected local bourgeoisiesto head progressivestruggles, as in Europe before 1870. But in fact the unificationof Germanyand Italy, though it had benefitedcapitalism greatly,had not taken place under bourgeois leadership; and in most colonial movementsa small timid bourgeoisiesoon dropped out, frightened by repressionor by mass was to happen in the most What to control. not it could hope stirrings favorablecases- China, Vietnam,Cuba- was that the mass of the people were thenleftto representthe nation,to feel themselvesto be the nation, to pursue national and social liberationsimultaneously.Much the same This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 98 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY happened in Yugoslavia. It could happen only in relativelyprimitive communities,where the poor, or the "People," were the great majority; in advanced societiesthereis too much division,too heavy a dead weight of propertyoverwide strata.France,Holland, Norwaydid not riseagainst Nazi occupation as Yugoslavia did. Paradoxically the lesson of modern historyseems to be that it is the poor, backward nations that are to inherit the kingdom of socialism, whereas the industrial countries that Marx and Lenin thoughtto be on its thresholdhave found it as hard to enteras forthe camel to pass throughthe eye of the needle. Historicalbackwardnessis of course no guaranteeby itselfof success. In Ireland socialismhas been overlaid by religiosityand kulak-mentality; though as Dr. Davis says in a deserved tributeto James Connolly, this Irishmanwas one of the firstto see how socialismmightbe fusedwith a democraticnationalism of the masses-a doctrinestartlingin 1916, but destinedto be "accepted throughoutthe colonial world, and in Marxist theoryas well" (p. 126). If Wordsworthwas once drunk,and Porson once sober,the U.S. once had a progressivelabor movement."The tradeunion movement,incredible as it seems today,went througha phase of active opposition to the imperialisticactivitiesof the United States" (p. 168). There was also be* fore 1914 a militantSocialist Party,much of it recruitedfromEuropean immigrantsand their language societies.By an odd freakof historythe proletarian internationalism,the fraternityof peoples, that Marxism vainly preached in a Europe corroded by centuriesof national hatreds, found its freestif brief expressionbeyond the Atlantic.In spirit if not in dogma thesemigrantswere truersocialiststhan mostof Europe's,until the melting-pot,raised by American industrialismto a far higher temperature than the Hapsburg empire could achieve, puddled their children togetherinto one moremerenation,as aggressiveas any of Europe's. This too Engels, writinghis streamof lettersto settlersin America, did not anticipate. But Dr. Davis could not have concluded his study more judiciously than he has done by sayingthat Marxism is not to be blamed forfailingto supplyanswersto all problemsin advance. The test of a systemof ideas is its abilityto grapple with new problemsas they arise; and by this test "Marxism and the dialectic method have been abundantlyvindicated" (p. 214). They will always be vindicated while theyfindstudentsto pursue them as intelligentlyand as honestlyas Dr. Davis has done. Universityof Edinburgh Edinburgh,Scotland This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:21:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions V. C. KIERNAN