on the contemporary relevance of left nationalism

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DOI: 10.1177/0309816809353484 2010 34: 54Capital & Class

Barry Ryan and Owen WorthOn the contemporary relevance of 'left nationalism'

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On the contemporary relevance of left nationalism

Barry RyanUniversity of Keele, UK

Owen WorthUniversity of Limerick, Ireland

AbstractThis article re-examines the relevance of left nationalism as a form of progressive response to globalization, and argues that despite the considerable work that has been done to revise the concept of nationalism in the light of orthodox Marxist criticisms, such moves ultimately fall into the same divisionary trap that dogged the nationalist struggles inherent in post-colonialism.

Keywordsnationalism, Marxism, globalization, Luxemburg, Bauer

In a significant issue of Capital & Class (issue 25, 1985), Ronaldo Munck and Ephraim Nimni were joined by Gavin Kitching in a symposium that called on Marxist research to re-engage and re-evaluate the concept of nationalism, the study of which, at least in western academies, was largely distanced from the practical realities faced by socialist parties. Here, Munck and Nimni argued that the non-economistic account of nationalism developed by Otto Bauer allows us to think of ways that situate the concept away from its proximity to class politics, towards a con-cept that can aid in social transformation (Munck, 1985; Nimni, 1985). This form of progres-sive nationalism has been proposed in Muncks subsequent work as a suitable and practical tool with which to shield society from the excesses of neoliberal capitalism (Munck, 2007).

Munck and Nimni, amongst others, have been correct to highlight the shortcomings Marxist theory has traditionally displayed regarding the concept of nationalism. This is especially impor-tant given that the concept of national self-determination played such a significant role not only in the post-colonial politics of national liberation, but also within both communist and social-democratic parties across Europes ideological divide. At the same time, whether as specific lib-eration movements or as national political parties in every possible guise of socialism, all sought

Corresponding author:Owen WorthEmail: [email protected]

Capital & Class34(1) 54 59

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Ryan and Worth 55

to defend their own national strategies as a means of managing the universal principles of social-ism. The positive aspect of this form of socialist strategy is that the socialist state acts as a sover-eign nation and promotes peaceful co-existence with like-minded states, which serves to promote both nationalism and internationalism at the same time. As a result, it dismantles the age-old myth that socialism and nationalism are incompatible (Munck, 1986). Indeed, such strategies even evoke James Connollys dictum that socialism and nationalism are not only compatible but necessary for the building of socialist republics (Connolly, 1997).

Our concern with nationalism is not that it doesnt deserve full recognition as a key sociological construct; instead we wish to query why parties and movements affiliated to socialism tend to revert to nationalist strategies as a point of departure and critique. Or, to put it more strongly, it is pre-cisely this retreat to the national that has prevented any form of sustained strategy capable of mov-ing beyond the nation-state in the manner on which Rosa Luxemburg insisted during the Second International. Indeed, as Radice has illustrated, in the era of globalization, even when the intentions seem to suggest otherwise, the reality is that the favoured method of contesting globalizations fal-lacies is to revert to different forms of progressive nationalism (Radice, 2000). Using Luxemburgs initial understanding of the limits of the national, and then re-examining the use of Bauers work and its application to contemporary (global) politics, this brief essay seeks to reaffirm the problems the left will continue to face if it seeks to realign itself with national self-determinism.

Luxemburgs dialectical rejection of nationalismMany Marxist scholars, in particular those associated with Latin American studies or with post-colonialism, have pointed to the Euro-centric and reductionist nature of Luxemburgs rejection of self-determination during the Second International. In the many nationalist/internationalist debates that dominated Marxist circles from the late-1960s onwards, internationalists were also accused of failing to recognize that Luxemburgs position on national self determination had partially altered by the time of her release of the Junius Pamphlet, despite the fact that the article warned in great detail of the dangers of reactionary nationalism. Yet to assume that Luxemburg had altered this position to a point at which she accepted national self-determination under socialist conditions negates her own method of the possible, which she challenged through her understanding of dialectical materialism. Luxemburgs understanding of dialectical materialism was central to her understanding of Marxs theory of historical development (Howard, cited in Luxemburg, 1971), and this became evident in the tactics she believed should be employed within proletarian parties. It is also impossible to underestimate the emphasis she placed on dialectics. Luxemburg used dialectics as a tool with which to criticize both reformists in western Europe and Leninism in Russia, and this can be seen throughout her work, from her criticisms of Bernsteins socialism to her later criticisms of Lenin and Kautsky. Luxemburg attacked both parliamentary and dictatorial forms of socialism, since she considered both to be conceived through mechanical forms of strategic thought that is incapable of imagining beyond the narrow ontology of bourgeois liberal science (Luxemburg, 1971).

Luxemburgs idea of internationalism should be seen within her larger ontological understand-ing of dialectical materialism and of social transformation, the essence of which was outlined in her earlier attack on Bernstein in the pamphlet Reform or Revolution, and which was consistent throughout her later work and in her arguments on internationalism, which became synonymous with the Second International. In particular, she believed that social relations should be considered and understood through an examination of their specific historical appearance. Social transformation


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thus only occurs through a revolutionary process geared against the existing order, and through moving beyond the limits of that particular order. Any attempt to work within it and engage with it in the hope that it may evolve and reform itself misunderstands the process of dialectical mate-rialism, and is guilty of opportunism (Luxemburg, 1986: 6064). The process and the function of the nation-state were thus defined as historical entities that were ultimately structural conventions, and nationalism was the ideology of such an expression, used entirely for the purpose of capitalist exploitation. While this might attract charges of economic reductionism, Luxemburg was not simply attacking the concept of nationalism as merely an expression of the wider economic base, but, on the contrary, located it as a specific form within a wider dialectical set of relationships that are consistently shaped and redefined. What concerned her was that any embrace of nationalism would effectively negate the potential to move beyond the nation-state towards imagined futures that were not defined by specific structures, but by the emancipatory potential of the possible.

While Luxemburgs position on the national question should not be separated from her understanding of dialectics, its central message remains the more simple assertion that the very nature of nationalism is immoral, and contradicts the very nature of social emancipation and freedom. As a result, national movements often appear as a cancer that ultimately dilutes and destroys the goals and objectives upon which the movements were originally built. This is not due to reactionary elements within movements, but to the very nature of nationalism itself as an exclusionary and competitive expression. Its defining characteristics always lead to fragmentation, thus destroying class unification (Luxemburg, 1976). Seen in terms of dialectics and in the con-text of a larger understanding of emancipation, any form of nationalism, no matter how liberat-ing it might appear, ultimately leads to division and weakens such emancipatory potential.

This leads us to the question of where this fits in with contemporary debates around the wider politics of globalization. There are a number of observations to be made here. First, just as the rhetoric of globalization has provided the opportunity for a general rethink of the nature of former nationalist movements in the global South, so such responses have alsoat least technicallymoved towards greater global strategies, which have often been realized through social forums. However, while this might suggest that greater global civil convergence is being imagined in such forums that retain Luxemburgian idealsparticularly in terms of the maxim another world is possiblethe reality is that many participants in such forums (particularly in the World Social Forum) maintain nationally specific forms of groups and organization (Worth and Buckley, 2009). As a result, the spirit of Luxemburg might be employed with greater effect within such circles.

Second, if we are to envisage the emergence of some form of global civil society, then its responses to global capitalism must be organized along global, as opposed to national, lines. This brings us back to Radices concern that if states (or regions) seek to shield themselves from the instabilities of the global economy through new forms of regulationin the manner in which traditional social democrats and dependency theorists (and some world-systems theorists) have argued in subsequent decades that they shouldthen global capitalism will become more exploitative in nature (Radice, 2000). Such an observation has taken on greater significance in light of the current financial situation.

Third, the form of internationalism that we have developed here from Luxemburg needs to be understood in relation to its dialectical opponent. This brings us closer to an engagement with Bauer. We believe that, in hindsight, such an engagement does not address the fallacies of Luxemburgs economism, as is often intended, but that it rather opens up a fresh set of divisions that become evident when the implications of Bauers thesis on the contemporary state form are examined.


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Bauer and contemporary nationalismIn order to fully understand the concerns we have with previous adaptations, we need first to step back and examine what Otto Bauer proposed. Writing prior to the First World War, as the Austrian Empire declined under nationalist claims to territory and autonomy, Bauer was the contemporary equivalent of a third way thinker. His idea of a positive nationalism that could unite secession-minded sub-nations is not unlike UK prime minister Gordon Browns recent proposal to reclaim the British flag. Bauers left nationalism is in fact a solution to the crisis that occurs when multiculturalism clashes with capital. The forces of international capital, Bauer argues, produce a reactionary national pride at the state and sub-state level. This divides the work-ing class into ethnic categories that become rigid and antagonistic. The solution, therefore, is to create a nationalism that will overarch sectarianism and unite the workers around a common set of symbols and institutions. There would, therefore, ideally exist a federation of constitutionally equal national communities that would together pledge allegiance to a supra-national state. One is reminded of the slogan brat stvo i jedin stvo (brotherhood and unity) in Yugoslavia under Titothe function of the state is to maintain the framework of this national will: the rule that the external power should consolidate and serve the internal community. Contra Brown, Bauer focuses heavily on the role of trade unions in spreading education and promoting mutual respect.

As part of the tradition that became synonymous with the Austro-Marxists of the 1920s, Bauers understanding of nationalism should be seen in the context of the classical/orthodox interpretation of Marxism (drawn from Hegel) that was emerging at the time in western Europe, which argues that state power would always be necessary for achieving universal ends. By drawing on Bauer in his work, Munck is able to effectively create an alternative to the ascendant liberal predilection for defining nationalism in the negative, as all that is contrary to the apparent progressiveness of political and economic global integration. Again, European Union policies in the Balkans are illustrative. In south-east Europe, a Schmittian political divide has been constructed between those who support further European integration and those who are sceptical, the latter of whom are frequently portrayed as regressive, atavistic and prone to violence. Just as nationalist ideology has its totalitarian aspects, so too, of course, does liberal internationalism and globalization. It is also interesting to note that Munck is following Poulantzas, who similarly drew from Otto Bauers concept of nationhood to conclude that only a national transition to socialism is possible (1978: 118). Poulantzas took a relational approach to state power that argued that while the modern nation state is intimately connected with the bourgeoisie and capital relations, there is no reason to believe that this makes the national redundant as a site of struggle.

Thus in looking at Bauers work, we are presented with a strong state social-democratic alter-native to globalization. Contemporary thinking on state power, rather than making Bauers ideas obsolete, in fact seems to make them more relevant. Foucauldian scholars have successfully argued that the nation-state is a site of power relations in which power is exercised rather than possessed by a dominant class (Deleuze, 1999: 24). Jessop, too, sees power in strategic relational terms. He writes that the state is best comprehended as an emergent, partial and unstable system that is interdependent with other systems in a complex social order (Jessop, 2008: 78). Few could argue with Jessops view that globalization can modify power relations within a state, while also inciting struggles to reorganize state forms. To be sure, as Munck argues, nationalism con-tinues to articulate social discontent and is the source of new solidarities as well as the expression of older ones. However, social discontent can result in very different nationalist reactions. For instance, at the time of writing, in the UK the far-right British National Party (BNP) recently won two seats in the European parliamentary elections. The BNP has become a party


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of discontent with the effects of the European project on working-class communities in northern England, and has in particular used anti-globalization as a central feature of its rhetoric. In the same light, the Zapatista movement has been described as being a struggle against the social regime imposed by NAFTA (Hardt and Negri, 2001: 55); while Munck, in a recent work, describes it as the most significant single episode of global solidarity since the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s (2007: 66). Both of these movements, while occurring at the national or local or regional level, have a global referent and both produce a nationalist communitarian response to external politico-economic pressures (Worth, 2002). For Bauer, the goal is for the state to capture and manage these ethnically based antagonisms, much as Tito did with Yugoslavia between 1945 and the early 1980s. It is not surprising that liberal commentators look at Bauers theory in the light of its potential relevance to the European Union and its ambition to create a supra-national identity to transcend divisive national rivalries (Roach, 2004).

Nonetheless, it is important to realize that in playing with a powerful ideology such as nationalism there is a high likelihood of being burned. One is reminded, tragically, of attempts by post-colonial socialism in Africa to bind various national groups around a common state identity (Mamdani, 1996). In many of these experiments, as was the case in Yugoslavia itself, the centre simply did not hold. Bauers sub-nationalities can only reach political consciousness by challenging the other: counter-conceptions of nation. The nationalist state apparatus described by Munck, if it is to hold, implies the imposition of a supra-identity on a contemporary state that contains multiple sources of identity. As Laclau and Mouffe (2001: 170) might point out, positive nationalism sets up an antagonism between two poles: the people, which includes all those who defend traditional values; and their adversariesthose whose struggles fall outside the pale of ethnic affiliation (ethnic minorities, feminists, young people, etc.).

Gramscis concept of hegemony can also be employed here as a means of critiquing Bauers legacy as opposed to complementing it, as Munck and Nimni have previously argued (Munck, 1985, 1986, 1997; Nimni, 1985). As hegemony appears as a sum of the civil and the political, the nation represents a large component that is mobilized through the national-popular or the national popular will. Yet while those who aspire towards progressive nationalism might argue that a proletarian-orientated hegemony (Gramscis modern Prince) requires the forces of nation-alism in some form, its very existence provides divisions, reducing the potential for emancipa-tory politics. In addition, Gramscis own understanding of Bauer was quite clear. In the same manner in which Luxemburg criticized her contemporaries for lacking a dialectical spirit, Gramsci saw the Austro-Marxists as inhabiting a scientific understanding of sociological knowl-edge. Bauers understanding of both nationalism and factors such as religion were thus grounded in a positivism that accepted such phenomena as objective truths around which Marxism could be supported or integrated (Gramsci, 1996: 31; and see also Buttigiegs note, p. 427). Thus, in both methodological and theoretical terms, Gramsci had a different understanding of the pur-pose of nationalism to Bauers. He saw it as a hegemonic agent, rather than as a neutral irremov-able force that can be exploited for the greater good.

Returning to the question of globalization, we believe that those who offer a reconstructed nationalist response ultimately find themselves re-engaging with such an agent of hegemony in a manner that not only creates divisionary forms of political and civil society, but also moves to legitimize national inequalities. Thus an imposition of nationalism suppresses political antago-nism. This is the essence of an expression of nationalism which, as Luxembourg correctly observed, is heterogeneous to human emancipation. We would argue that an emphasis on reflexive citizenship that critically engages with ethnicity, rather than simply utilising it to create


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an inescapable homogenous fate, is a more emancipatory basis for struggle. This is not to suggest that the cosmopolitan vision of Jrgen Habermas, which invokes ethical procedural-ism, is a more effective universalizing framework for inter-cultural harmony (Habermas, 1998). It is rather to suggest that post-national theories that tap into the power of the political to achieve freedom, rather than into the power of prefabricated ideologies such as nationalism, surely offer us a greater hope of contesting the power of global capital.

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