{"id":19925,"date":"2021-11-28T18:56:11","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T18:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=19925"},"modified":"2022-04-18T20:04:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T20:04:03","slug":"ukraine-marxism-and-the-national-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2021\/11\/28\/ukraine-marxism-and-the-national-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine, Marxism and the National Question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>In September Marko Bojcun\u2019s book, <\/strong><strong><em>The Workers Movement and the National Question in Ukraine, 1897-1918, <\/em><\/strong><strong>was published. The Republican Socialist Platform co-hosted a Zoom meeting on 22<sup>nd<\/sup> September, at which Marko and others spoke and the issues raised by the book were discussed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Chis Ford of the Ukraine Solidarity campaign wrote the following introduction to the new book.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>&#8220;Bojcun explores the social-democratic workers\u2019 movement in the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire, focused on the Ukrainian, Jewish and Russian parties. Providing a wealth of information for the first time in English, he traces the development of the labour movement from its beginnings through the tumultuous first year of the revolution, examining the relationship of the social and national aspects of the revolution.\u00a0This new book is essential reading for an understanding of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921, which was to be pivotal to the fate of the Russian Revolution and the wider revolutionary wave in Europe at the time&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>UKRAINE, MARXISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/coverimage.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-19926\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/coverimage-197x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/coverimage-197x300.jpeg 197w, http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/coverimage.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Zoom Meeting, 22.9.21<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Co-hosted by the Socialist Republican Platform, Socialist Resistance with support from the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Chair<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Connor Beaton, Socialist Republican Platform<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Speakers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Marko Bojcun &#8211; Ukrainian Socialist, author of <em>The Workers Movement and the National Question in Ukraine, 1897-1918<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Yulia Yurchenko &#8211; Ukrainian Socialist, <em>author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Chris Ford &#8211; Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Andy Klimister \u2013 Socialist Resistance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Pail Inglis &#8211; Socialist Resistance and Republican Socialist Platform<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Allan Armstrong \u00a0&#8211; Socialist Republican Platform<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">This meeting can be viewed at:-<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ukraine, Marxism and the National Question: A Conversation With Marko Bojcun\" width=\"990\" height=\"557\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/alvhWa_SOL8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Paul Inglis has written up and extended his contribution.<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>UKRAINIAN HISTORY HOLDS LESSONS FOR SCOTTISH SOCIALISTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Historical Materialism<\/em>\u00a0book series has been the source of a number of useful works for my political thinking over the years. Previous volumes I\u2019ve encountered, like Alan Sennett\u2019s book on Revolutionary Marxism in the Spanish revolution and Ralf Hoffrogge\u2019s book on Richard M\u00fcller and the German workers\u2019 councils, have served as both examples of erudite scholarship and as powerful influences on the way I think about socialist politics, strategy and tactics. One of the latest entries in the series, Marko Bojcun\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Workers\u2019 Movement and the National Question in Ukraine, 1897-1918<\/em>, looks set to hold a similar place in my estimation going forward.<\/p>\n<p>This book presents a fascinating account of a lesser-known movement for leftists today, telling the fraught story of the Ukrainian working class movement, its political parties and organisations, and how they faced up to the national question amid the revolutionary tumult of the year 1917. Reading the book, it is like hearing about something of a lost world \u2013 tendencies and movements shrouded by the success of the Bolsheviks in the conflicts that followed the collapse of the Russian Empire. Furthermore, it is simply solid, detailed writing on the national question, and like any good writing on the national question, it has a relevance that leaps beyond its own subject matter and which sheds light on other national struggles and movements, past and present.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who has hitched my political commitments as a socialist to the opportunities and risks presented by the cause of Scottish independence, I am always interested to learn more about national movements from all over the world: how they organised, how they fought, what kind of compromises they made, and especially where they failed. In short, lessons of history! I think it is a shame that for a lot of the left and the national movement more broadly here in Scotland, there is a tendency to act like the only comparable situations for us are Catalunya, the Basque Country and Quebec, presumably because these are contemporary movements in Western nations.<\/p>\n<p>As long as we don\u2019t pretend there are any directly, exactly comparable situations, we can take valuable lessons from national movements both here and across the Global South, and from across history \u2013 specifically lessons pertaining to questions of approach and attitude. How does the working class get involved with national movements? How do we bring the class on board? What attitude should we take towards the moderate or liberal political parties and groups? How do we manage to get socialists from the larger nation, in our case England, to consider our national movement seriously and enlist their support? These are questions that face us today as they faced the Ukrainian socialists.<\/p>\n<p>Bojcun\u2019s book contains much on the specific historical difficulties of Ukrainian socialism and nationalism and the lessons gathered therein, but I wanted to focus this short article on some of the questions and thoughts about Marxism that I had running through my mind as I read the work, particularly the discussions in the third chapter on\u00a0<em>Social Democracy and the National Question<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It is very useful that this book not only gives a historical narrative of Ukrainian socialism, but also addresses theoretical concerns, problematising classical Marxist thinking on the national question \u2013 Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lenin and Luxemburg \u2013 and subjecting them to analysis and criticism in the light of contemporary nationalist movements in Eastern Europe. I was excited to see this as I have in recent years, especially as I have become more interested in the national question, come to believe that there is an unfortunate weakness in the Marxist \u201ccanon\u201d where the national question is concerned, one that plagues it to this day. Where thinkers like Marx or Engels can be thrilling and enlightening on a wealth of matters, they can be flippant, arbitrary and cruel when speaking about the fate of \u201csmaller\u201d nations.<\/p>\n<p>Take, for example, the remarks from Marx\u2019s early work, quoted by the author, on how Scots, Gaels and Basques are \u201chistorically unprepared for nationhood\u201d, national leftovers that \u201cwill become and will remain until their final extermination or denationalisation fanatical partisans of counterrevolution, since their entire existence is in general a protest against the great historical revolution\u201d. The thoughts of Engels on the South Slavs, which I first encountered in Mark Leier\u2019s excellent biography of Mikhail Bakunin, are a similarly crass diatribe.<\/p>\n<p>In this conception, the smaller nations of the world were simply written off as barriers to the centralising tendency of capitalism towards more unified, larger states and, apparently, a more effective and efficient development of the productive forces conducive to building socialism.<\/p>\n<p>What use is any of this to socialists in these smaller nations? Leaving aside the more complex tapestry of uneven economic development that resulted from the spread of global, imperialist capitalism and which calls into question the effective base for socialism that such great power \u201cassimilation\u201d has given us, the brutal reality of how stateless people have been forcibly integrated into larger nations through repression should give us all pause when we read of \u201cdenationalisation\u201d and the like. No culture disappears from the scene of history cleanly, and no language simply dies out gently.<\/p>\n<p>Now, to their credit, Marx and Engels of course came to a more sophisticated position on small nations in their later years, particularly regarding Irish freedom, but the \u201cgreat power assimilationist\u201d tendency in Marxism still runs through the thought of Kautsky, Lenin and Luxemburg, as the author shows. I quite enjoyed the exploration of the ambiguities of Lenin\u2019s writing on the right of nations to self determination, and the criticisms of the Ukrainian socialist Lev Yurkevych on this matter \u2013 how Lenin sort-of wants to have his cake and eat it by both supporting the right to national self determination but also discouraging it, lauding the advantages of big states and bourgeois development. Another area of Yurkevych\u2019s criticism looked at Lenin\u2019s assertion that the achievement of democratic multinational states would see strivings for complete freedom of secession weaken.<\/p>\n<p>This, considered in light of the modern day, feels like wishful thinking. The national question is alive and well in multinational democracies like the United Kingdom and Spain, and even if it is countered that this fact is only because of democratic deficits in these big states, it should be kept in mind that the centralising tendency of states like the United Kingdom and Spain has precluded the kind of genuine national autonomy that would render secession irrelevant. One need only think of the \u201cfruits\u201d yielded by Spanish democracy to the Basques in the 1980s, and how they can be measured in murdered, tortured and unlawfully detained independence activists.<\/p>\n<p>What I feel all of this criticism poses, and what I would hope all of you bear in mind as you read this work, and other works like it, is: how do we overcome this weakness in Marxist theory, and how do we do better in the future? How do we conceive a radical alternative to the current state of affairs that genuinely grants self-determination and security to national cultures, no matter how small? This is especially pertinent for us Scots, because we absolutely must make sure that, whatever Scotland emerges from the next period, the Gaelic language and culture is preserved and supported, and that the Gaels have whatever autonomy they feel is appropriate. To do otherwise would be to continue the historical record of the British state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">_________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">also see:-<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Internationalism from Below Book 3, Section 4B, The further development of\u00a0Internationalism from Below \u2013 Lev Yurkevich<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com\/2021\/07\/internationalism-from-below-book-3doc-1.pdf\">https:\/\/allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com\/2021\/07\/internationalism-from-below-book-3doc-1.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>2 Internationalism from Below, Book 4, Section 2D, \u00a0Other Centres, Other Timelines, Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/05\/internationalism-from-below-book-4a-3.pdf\">https:\/\/allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/05\/internationalism-from-below-book-4a-3.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and the ban on the CPU &#8211; Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"YaGVxR5trp\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/08\/ukraine-solidarity-campaign-and-the-ban-on-the-cpu\/\">UKRAINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN AND THE BAN ON THE CPU<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;UKRAINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN AND THE BAN ON THE CPU&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/08\/ukraine-solidarity-campaign-and-the-ban-on-the-cpu\/embed\/#?secret=bT2czCADBK#?secret=YaGVxR5trp\" data-secret=\"YaGVxR5trp\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Miners \u2018Stand Together\u2019 statement by the NUM \u2013 National Union of Miners<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"OWPjockpjE\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/28\/miners-stand-together-statement-by-the-num\/\">UKRAINE: MINERS STAND TOGETHER STATEMENT BY THE NUM<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;UKRAINE: MINERS STAND TOGETHER STATEMENT BY THE NUM&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/28\/miners-stand-together-statement-by-the-num\/embed\/#?secret=74OOVqJNef#?secret=OWPjockpjE\" data-secret=\"OWPjockpjE\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>5. No return to show trials in Russia \u2013 Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"FyHAwwc3pY\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/13\/no-return-to-stalinist-show-trails-in-russia\/\">NO RETURN TO STALINIST SHOW TRIALS IN RUSSIA<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;NO RETURN TO STALINIST SHOW TRIALS IN RUSSIA&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/13\/no-return-to-stalinist-show-trails-in-russia\/embed\/#?secret=dPxq82hE23#?secret=FyHAwwc3pY\" data-secret=\"FyHAwwc3pY\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>6. Past and present imperialisms, Putin, the war in Ukraine and the Far Right &#8211; Jean Batou, Europe Solidaire<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"MCR9qFQ7dw\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/26\/past-and-present-imperialisms-putin-the-war-in-ukraine-and-the-far-right\/\">PAST AND PRESENT IMPERIALISMS: PUTIN, THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND THE FAR RIGHT<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;PAST AND PRESENT IMPERIALISMS: PUTIN, THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND THE FAR RIGHT&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/26\/past-and-present-imperialisms-putin-the-war-in-ukraine-and-the-far-right\/embed\/#?secret=r1RC2ZmOMg#?secret=MCR9qFQ7dw\" data-secret=\"MCR9qFQ7dw\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Kargalitsky, the war and political corruption \u2013 Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"5ry4kc2up1\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/04\/kagarlitsky-the-war-and-political-corruption\/\">KAGARLITSKY, THE WAR AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;KAGARLITSKY, THE WAR AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/04\/kagarlitsky-the-war-and-political-corruption\/embed\/#?secret=XkwCZyPlqo#?secret=5ry4kc2up1\" data-secret=\"5ry4kc2up1\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>8. Stop the Russo-Ukraine War \u2013 Ukraine Solidarity Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"JHJlNHQfxV\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/02\/stop-the-russo-ukraine-war\/\">Stop The Russo-Ukraine War<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Stop The Russo-Ukraine War&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/02\/stop-the-russo-ukraine-war\/embed\/#?secret=FI9J0vtM2D#?secret=JHJlNHQfxV\" data-secret=\"JHJlNHQfxV\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>9. Ukraine caught between East and West &#8211; Zazkhar Popyvych<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"IaIFIL5UoT\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/13\/ukraine-caught-between-east-and-west\/\">Ukraine &#8211; Caught between East and West<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Ukraine &#8211; Caught between East and West&#8221; &#8212; Emancipation, Liberation &amp; Self-determination\" src=\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/13\/ukraine-caught-between-east-and-west\/embed\/#?secret=pePC5aqSqs#?secret=IaIFIL5UoT\" data-secret=\"IaIFIL5UoT\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In September Marko Bojcun\u2019s book, The Workers Movement and the National Question in Ukraine, 1897-1918, was published. The Republican Socialist Platform co-hosted a Zoom meeting on 22nd September, at which Marko and others spoke and the issues raised by the book were discussed. &nbsp; Chis Ford of the Ukraine Solidarity campaign wrote the following introduction&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1852,1858,1867,1846,1848,8829,1864],"tags":[818,9076,8098],"class_list":["post-19925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-communists-organise","category-oppression-liberation","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-british-imperialism","category-ex-ussr","category-national-liberation","category-our-history","tag-author-chris-ford","tag-author-marko-bojkun","tag-author-paul-inglis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":1423,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19925"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21371,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19925\/revisions\/21371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}