One of the unique aspects of the socialist case against capitalism is that socialists reject nationalism, nationalist struggles and national identity. For socialists, nationalism is bound up with the historical development of capitalism during the 19th century. Capitalism is made up of competing capitalist states each with a capitalist class and working class. The capitalists own the means of production and distribution to the exclusion of the working class majority. It was Marx and Engels who, in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ of 1848, stated that workers “have no country”. They wrote “We cannot take from them what they have not got” (Communist Manifesto).
Increasingly, those who believe that capitalism can be regulated and reformed, left wingers and social democrats, have courted nationalism to gain support from the conservatives and populist politicians. The Labour Party now wraps itself up in the Union Jack, claiming they are “proud patriots” and would support the Tory government in any war or conflict to show that Labour was just as nationalist as the Tories. It should be remembered that the Labour Party has a history of supporting capitalism’s wars.
Labour has been helped in this embrace of nationalist politics by journalists who should know better. Socialism puts the class struggle first and last. Nationalism is a barrier to socialism. Socialism is a global social system or it is nothing. There will be no nation states in socialism, no boundaries, no borders or barriers preventing people moving across the world.
So who are these journalists claiming nationalism trumps class struggle and that to get rid of the Tories we all have to become patriots? Regrettably one of the leading advocates of “Left-wing nationalism” is Patrick Cockburn, a journalist at the i newspaper.
In an article, “How to stop populist leaders exploiting patriotism” (January 1st 2022), Cockburn wrote that “nationalism, national identity and national self-determination are three main driving forces of modern history”.
Contrast this with the statement in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ made by Marx and Engels that the class struggle is “the motor force of history”. Nationalism and nationalist struggles changes very little: usually one ruling class by another. The class struggle – the working class struggle over the intensity and extent of class exploitation – has revolutionary potential; the end of buying and selling, labour markets, class exploitation, employers and its replacement with production solely and directly for use. In short, with class struggle pushed to its final limit with the establishment of socialism, we will have: ”… an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Communist Manifesto).
Cockburn went on to write that these three nationalist driving forces of history:
“…….remains the primary focus of communal loyalty – something demonstrated decisively by the response worldwide to the Covid-19 pandemic. The lack of international co-operation when the chips were down has had destructive consequences and this has been the repeated pattern in the past two years”.
Really? Did the working class form government policy on the Covid -19 pandemic? It was the Tory government who refused to give vaccines in any great number to poor countries because it wanted to keep the working class in the UK fit and healthy for class exploitation. And what of “communal loyalty”? Capitalists like Dyson have no compunction to move their operations abroad to tap into cheaper labour markets or to stash their profits in off shore tax havens.
And despite the nationalist platform given to politicians like Nigel Farage and the millions the capitalist class spend on class division in the media there was mass support for the RNLI saving lives of desperate men, women and children coming over in boats from France.
It is class solidarity which should be aimed at not class division through nationalism and nationalist struggles.
Cockburn goes on to say:
“The priority should be not to deride the patriotic card with the aim of discrediting it, which seldom works, but to take it away from those who exploit it”.
Cockburn criticises those who believe nationalism:
“… is largely a mask for racism and imperialism”.
While he chides “ “progressives” who once supported:
“…national liberation movements in Vietnam and Algeria… and faces on the placards they carried during demonstrations were those of patriotic heroes”
And he concludes:
“…for good or ill, the basic building blocks of international co-operation are the nation states and the idea of a truely global response to anything has always been wishful thinking”.
How does a socialist respond for this nationalist apologetics from the capitalist left?
For a start if you do not want the corrosive and divisive politics of nationalism then socialism is the only answer. The “patriotic card” should be replaced by the acknowledgement that the working class do not have the same interest as the capitalist class. We do not share their history. And class, class interest and class struggle trump the “patriotic card”, no matter who holds it.
Under Starmer, the Labour Pary want to be seen as more nationalist than the Tories. Missives from Starmer made from Downing Street always have the union jack flags in the background. And his client journalists, like Cockburn, echoes this nationalism.
A war led by Sir Keir Starmer is just as repugnant as one led by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak. Starmer has no difficulty supporting Isreal’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Starmer still takes Ukraine’s side in its war with Russia. He celebrates the Atlee Labour government for promoting the NATO military alliance. And Starmer would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
Workers have no interest in wars led by a Labour government anymore than they have for ones led by a Tory, Green of SDP government. There is a world working class with identical interest in replacing the profit system with socialism.
Second, nationalism is a mask for racism and imperialism. Behind the mask is class division and British exceptionalism. Behind the mask there is contempt for “the other” and pride in Empire with its genocide, slavery, plunder and colonialism. Take the mask off and deal with the politics behind it. Socialists have to confront class division to make a socialist case for class unity.
What of socialist support for “nationalist movements” in the 1960s and 1970s. There was none. The Socialist Party of Great Britain rejected the politics associated with nationalist movements. We opposed the IRA and Irish nationalism and we opposed the Nationalists in the North during the Vietnam War. We had no placards with “patriotic heroes” since socialists reject political leadership and political heroes. Facts, evidence and reasoned argument to support the socialist case against capitalism is what socialists care about.
This is what socialists said about the Vietnam War and “patriotic heroes”. On the front page of the Socialist Standard (October 1968), we said:
“Vietcong, No!, Mao, No!, Che, No!: Socialism, Yes!”
And inside the issue we reminded readers what the SPGB had said at the outbreak of the First World War:
“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of Capitalism and the triumph of Socialism”
And third what does “international co-operation” under capitalism amount to. We live in a capitalist system where capitalist states are in conflict with each other. War over oil, gas, land, spheres of political influence and, trade routes is the reality of “international co-operation”. Does Cockburn not read his own articles where he has shown “International co-operation” to be a mirage”? What about his articles on the Civil war in Syria and Libya?
Socialists do not take sides in capitalisms wars. We do not take the side of Ukraine or Russia in war that has entered is 1000th day of conflict. Nor do socialists take sides in the conflict between the State terrorism of Isreal and the nationalist terrorism of Hamas ; a conflict which has seen 35,000 deaths in which more women and children have been killed by Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year (Oxfam November 2024). Socialists do not demonstrate, as thousands of misguided workers do, for a Palestinian state but instead we work for the abolition of all states and the establishment of world socialism.
The basic building block is not “international co-operation” but the formation and movement of a world socialist movement with its only goal being the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by all of society. And that co-operation starts with rejecting the “patriotic card” and its class division.
(photo: Jose Lekube addressing a Basque separatist rally 1933)
