Attitude of 20th Century Marxists Towards Question of the Right of National Self-Determination for Small National Groups

Abstract

It is perhaps questionable to bring Lenin and Stalin within the scope of this discussion, since it is extremely difficult to relate either to the main theme of this paper. Rosa Luxemburg, principally through her arguments concerning Polish-Russian, and to a minor extent Finnish-Russian, opposition to the principle of national self-determination provided a bridge linking the 1848/1849 arguments of Marx and Engels to Lenin, in respect to Poland and also in respect to the question of the right of nations to self-determination. In his exchange with Rosa Luxemburg in 1913 over the latter question, Lenin briefly discussed the 1848/1849 disturbances in Austria in his article, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination.” In doing so, he took a position on the question of the behavior of the Czechs and other Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy which was quite different than that taken by Marx and Engels. Lenin wrote at that time:

On the other hand, the attempt of the Hungarians to create an independent national state collapsed as far back as 1849 under the blows of the Russian army of serfs.

A very peculiar situation was thus created; a striving on the part of the Hungarians and then of the Czechs not for separation from Austria, but on the contrary, for the preservation of Austria’s integrity precisely in order to preserve national independence, which might have been completely crushed by more rapacious and powerful neighbors.¹