Capital

& Class
http://cnc.sagepub.com/

On the contemporary relevance of 'left nationalism'

Barry Ryan and Owen Worth
Capital & Class 2010 34: 54
DOI: 10.1177/0309816809353484
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/34/1/54

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:
Conference of Socialist Economics

Additional services and information for Capital & Class can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://cnc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://cnc.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/34/1/54.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Feb 10, 2010

What is This?

Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

On the contemporary
relevance of
left nationalism

Capital & Class

34(1) 5459
The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0309816809353484
c&c.sagepub.com

Barry Ryan

University of Keele, UK

Owen Worth

University of Limerick, Ireland

Abstract
This 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.
Keywords
nationalism, 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 concept that can aid in social transformation (Munck, 1985; Nimni, 1985). This form of progressive 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 important 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 socialdemocratic parties across Europes ideological divide. At the same time, whether as specific liberation movements or as national political parties in every possible guise of socialism, all sought
Corresponding author:
Owen Worth
Email: owen.worth@ul.ie
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

Ryan and Worth

55

to defend their own national strategies as a means of managing the universal principles of socialism. The positive aspect of this form of socialist strategy is that the socialist state acts as a sovereign 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 precisely this retreat to the national that has prevented any form of sustained strategy capable of moving 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 fallacies 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 nationalism

Many Marxist scholars, in particular those associated with Latin American studies or with postcolonialism, 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 understanding 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
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

56

Capital & Class 34(1)

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 materialism, 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 context of a larger understanding of emancipation, any form of nationalism, no matter how liberating 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 technically
moved 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.
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

Ryan and Worth

57

Bauer and contemporary nationalism

In 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 working 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 alternative 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 continues 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
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

58

Capital & Class 34(1)

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 supranational 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 nationalism in some form, its very existence provides divisions, reducing the potential for emancipatory 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 knowledge. 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 purpose of nationalism to Bauers. He saw it as a hegemonic agent, rather than as a neutral irremovable 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 antagonism. 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
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011

Ryan and Worth

59

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 proceduralism, 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.
References
Connolly J (1997) The Lost Writings (ed. Aindrias Cathasaigh). London: Pluto Press.
Deleuze G (1999) Foucault. London: Continuum.
Gramsci A (1996) Prison Notebooks, Vol. II (ed. Joseph Buttigieg). New York: Columbia University Press.
Habermas J (1998) The Inclusion of the Other. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jessop B (2008) State Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hardt M, Negri A (2001) Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Laclau E, Mouffe C (2001) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.
Luxemburg R (1971) Selected Political Writings (ed. Dick Howard). New York: Monthly Review.
Luxemburg R (1976) The National Question (ed. Horace Davis). New York: Monthly Review.
Luxemburg R (1986) Reform or Revolution. London: Militant Press.
Mamdani M (1996) Citizen and Subject. London: James Curry.
Munck R (1985) Otto Bauer: Towards a Marxist theory of nationalism. Capital & Class 25: 8497.
Munck R (1986) The Difficult Dialogue: Marxism and Nationalism. London: Zed Books.
Munck R (2007) Globalization and Contestation. London: Routledge.
Nimmi E (1985) Great historical failures: Marxist theories of nationalism. Capital & Class 25: 5883.
Poulantzas N (1978) State, Power, Socialism. London: Verso.
Radice H (2000) Responses to globalisation: A critique of progressive nationalism. New Political Economy
5/1: 521.
Roach S (2004) Minority rights and the dialectic of the nation: Otto Bauers theory of the nation and its
contributions to multicultural theory and globalization. Human Rights Review 6/1: 91105.
Worth O (2002) The Janus-like character of counter-hegemony: Progressive and nationalist responses to
neoliberalism. Global Society 16/3: 297316.
Worth O, Buckley K (2009) The World Social Forum: Post-modern prince or court jester? Third World
Quarterly 30/4: 64961.

Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at University of York on November 26, 2011