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15.09.2024 – The International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations (ICOR) organized the seminar “Lenin’s Teachings Are Alive,” bringing together more than 700 participants from 45 countries and 40 organizations, spanning from Argentina to Palestine, Germany to Congo, Tunisia to the USA, and Mexico to Cyprus, in Thuringia, Germany.
The Union of Cypriots contributed to the “Lenin and the Struggle for National Liberation” section of the seminar. Alongside the Union of Cypriots, representatives from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Supporting Organization of the Communist Party of Mexico, the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan, the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (Mass Line), and the Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany made significant contributions.
In the contribution from the Union of Cypriots, read by Eren Ali, a member of the International Relations Committee, Lenin’s distinction between the nationalism of oppressor and oppressed nations was emphasized, arguing that genuine internationalism requires supporting national liberation struggles and combating the chauvinism of imperialist powers to achieve true equality and solidarity.
The Union of Cypriots’ contribution to the “Lenin’s Teachings Are Alive” seminar is as follows:
Lenin and National Liberation
The “national question” occupies a central place in Lenin’s thought, standing right in the middle of the question of imperialism and revolution.
“Social revolution,” says Lenin, “cannot come about except as an epoch of civil war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries, combined with a whole series of democratic and revolutionary movements, including movements for national liberation, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations.”…
Because, as Marx and Engels taught, the national question is a two-way yoke.
As Marx said, “A nation that oppresses another can never be free,” and as Engels explained: “Irish history shows one how disastrous it is for a nation when it has subjugated another nation. All the abominations of the English have their origin in the Irish Pale… Things would have taken another turn in England but for the necessity for military rule in Ireland and the creation of a new aristocracy there.”…
This is precisely why Marx said: “The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland.”…
Lenin, the best student of Marx and Engels, takes up this point and makes a clear distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed. He distinguished between the nationalism of the Great Russians and the British and the nationalism of the Poles and the Irish. This distinction, he wrote in 1915, is “the essence of imperialism.”
As far as nationalism is concerned, Lenin speaks of two tendencies within capitalist development: “the struggle against all forms of national oppression” and “the ‘national markets’ for national states…”
In the age of imperialism and revolution, that is, in the age of Lenin, to minimize or ignore the “national question” is the biggest quagmire to fall into. This is precisely where the chauvinism of the oppressor nation and liberalism converge. The “national question” is easily swept under economism or liberal identity politics.
Today, the abstract discourse of “workers’ rights” and “brotherhood of peoples” also appears as colorblind racism.
The age of imperialism is an age in which an abstract and hollow false discourse of “internationalism” is easily used as a weapon against oppressed nations. The easiest approach is the one that claims “all nationalisms are the same” or “there is no difference between the nationalism of the oppressor and the oppressed nation” under the name of “internationalism.”
Here we have to refer to Lenin:
“abstract presentation of the question of nationalism in general is of no use at all. A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a big nation and that of a small nation.…
…We, nationals of a big nation, have nearly always been guilty, in historic practice, of an infinite number of cases of violence…
That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or ‘great’ nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice…
Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, he is still essentially petty bourgeois in his point of view and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view.”…
To ensure real equality beyond formal equality, Lenin proposes measures in favor of the oppressed/small nation at the expense of the oppressor/big nation.
We are all brothers and sisters, yes, but first we must be equal!
We are all soldiers of our class, yes, but only if we first throw off the yoke of the chauvinism of the oppressor nation!
We are all saved by internationalism, yes, but only if we first turn history against the oppressor nation!
To sweep the distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed nation that Lenin made so clearly under the rug of “all nationalisms are the same” is nothing but advocating the subjugation of oppressed nations.
It is essential for Lenin to distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed nation. In this context, to use Lenin’s words, the program of socialism on the national question must be a program that “takes into account the hypocrisy and cowardice of the Socialists in the oppressing nations.”
The distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations is not abstract but concrete, and it determines the stance to be taken in unjust colonial wars and just national liberation struggles.
Let us give some historical examples:
In 1839-42, Marx defended Afghanistan, calling Britain’s war against Afghanistan “disgraceful.”
In 1856-57, Marx sided with Iran in Britain’s war against Iran.
In the “Second Opium War” waged by the Europeans against China in 1856-59, Marx and Engels did not hesitate to defend the Chinese.
They supported the Indian “national revolt” of 1857-59 against British colonialism.
Marx and Engels opposed French colonialism in Bonaparte III’s 1861-67 campaign against Mexico…
In the Urabi revolt against Britain in Egypt in 1882, Marx and Engels sided with the Egyptians.
In 1900, Lenin opposed the participation of Russian troops among the imperialist troops against the Boxer Uprising in China.
In Morocco, the Communist International supported the uprising against the French and Spanish in 1921 led by Abd el-Krim, which lasted until 1926.
We could continue with more examples up to recent history. Those who strayed from Marxist teachings have remained “neutral” in all wars since the Gulf War, confusing the distinction between oppressor and oppressed.
When we confuse the distinction between oppressor and oppressed:
We betray the Palestinian national liberation struggle. We remain “neutral” between the occupying settler terrorists and the indigenous resistance…
We cannot understand the struggle for the existence of the indigenous people in the French colony of New Caledonia, who today struggle against settler colonialism.
We expect the Kurds, whose language is forbidden, to submit to Turkish nationalism under the guise of “brotherhood of peoples.”
We see the complete displacement of the indigenous population in Puerto Rico by the U.S. to create a new entity to replace the indigenous population as a simple “neo-liberal process” that happens everywhere.
Cyprus has been under Turkish occupation for 50 years; Turkey expelled a third of the total population from their homes at gunpoint, replacing them with settler colonization by moving populations from Anatolia. The processes that took place in Ireland, Palestine, New Caledonia, Kurdistan, Puerto Rico, and many other colonies were intertwined in Cyprus. We know from the history of Cyprus the distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed.
We have to distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed because, as Lenin said, this is “the essence of imperialism.”
