Exh neteans

Why is some nationalism inherently right-wing, and some left-wing? Or, at minimum, has the potential to be left-wing and genuinely revolutionary?

To comprehend this, we must understand specifically national oppression.

And here, as usual, we’ll be using the Bolshevik definition of a nation as being

a “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”

So, in the very same vein that there are oppressor classes such as the bourgeoisie, and oppressed classes like the proletariat, there are also oppressor nations and oppressed nations.

African Americans in the US, or New Afrikans, are a nationally oppressed people.

We can look at the statistics of anti blackness and these related types of issues in all of their manifestations enacted against this nation for ample evidence of this truth.

While there are certainly oppressive individual members within this nation, along with all others,

this in itself doesn’t alter the principal aspect of the contradiction, that is principally being an oppressed nation.

Of course, former President Barack Obama sat in the driving seat of the imperialist death machine known as the US

But, nope, that didn’t end national oppression, anti blackness and these related types of issues.

Similarly, the indigenous peoples all across the Americas are also oppressed nations. The Palestinian people too constitute an oppressed nation.

And Ireland, also, is principally an oppressed nation, despite Ireland having things easier than the aforementioned groups.

In studies on Socialism 101, on Dialectical Materialism and Contradiction, one divides into two.

Oppression is constituted by an aspect that is the oppressed, and another aspect that is an oppressor.

These two forces of nature exist in dialectical unity, struggling in opposition.

And so it is with national oppression; in a place with oppressed nations, there has to be national oppressors.

Which means oppressor nations – wherein the principal aspect determining the nature of such nations is that of being the national oppressor.

Examples of these sort of national oppressors include the major capitalist-imperialist powers, including the US, the UK, France, etc.

These are bourgeois capitalist-imperialist powers through and through, the biggest national oppressors that exist on Earth currently

As such, commodifying and waving the flags of these superpowers (both literally and metaphorically) - supporting these bourgeois capitalist-imperialist states with blatant crypto national chauvinism that we see around Patriotic holidays (i.e the Fourth of July, Memorial Day), or after an attack on our country, or to brag about US war victories reinforces the subjugation of the genuinely nationally oppressed peoples of the world.

The US has been a bourgeois settler-colonial national oppressor from its very beginning, being founded on the genocide and displacement of indigenous peoples and built through harsh and exploitative labor practices and labor abuse

From it’s very beginning, former President George Washington described it explicitly as a “nascent empire”.

So by waving the US flag to brag about US war victories, or by supporting patriotic holidays, patriotism after attacks on our country etc all at their core means Americans are upholding empire - both in the sense of classical imperialism, as well as modern capitalist-imperialism.

It means upholding John Bolton esque settler-colonialism and the subjugation of the oppressed nations within the confines of its territory.

It means upholding the continued colonial occupation of places like Guam. It means upholding dropping bombs on children in the Middle East, Northern Africa and western Asia.

It means upholding the zillions of war crimes and atrocities that have been committed under the US flag – the atrocities of the most brutal and vicious imperialist death machine that’s ever existed.

This is to say, there isn’t any possibility for a left-wing or progressive nationalism of any type with national oppressors such as these except in ways I write in these blogs.

Upholding this oppressor nation “US cultism chauvinism” – this bourgeois nationalism in disguise- fundamentally reinforces capitalist-imperialist rule which necessitates the ongoing and expanding subjugation of the oppressed nations and oppressed classes of the planet.

It is entirely antithetical to the aims of communists and non Liberal 2.0 progressives of all stripes the world over, and a fundamental treason of proletarian internationalism.

Now even with regular patriotism, the left has to harness the love of country to help build left wing economic systems, especially Left socialism.

But should we appeal to conservative impulses? This something that real communists in well-known parties spout

Obviously, there is a full superstructure in place to intentionally mislead the masses into supporting reactionary bourgeois interests, here manifesting in bourgeois nationalist ideology.

And a lot of the people definitely are indoctrinated and hoodwinked into holding these type of positions, as I touch on here and here (August Bebel quote)

Yet communists don’t manipulatively only tell the people whatever they want to hear in order to win their support. This is misleading and opportunistic.

Communists are committed to honestly engaging in the “ruthless criticism of all that exists”

(Karl Marx: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm), tirelessly battling alongside the masses, correcting misapprehensions, and guiding the people forward towards left wing economic systems like Libertarian Marxism with authenic revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice – NOT championing the most reactionary elements of bourgeois ideology.

Upholding so-called “ blatant crypto national chauvinism” or “proletarian patriotism” (whatever trendy term bourgeois nationalism is disguising itself under) in the context of these capitalist-imperialist oppressor nations, is blatant opportunism, sacrificing the long-term health of the communist movement in favor of short-term transitory gains which do not help in any way to advance us down the road to stateless, classless, moneyless society.

This is blatant revisionism, fully breaking with and revising the revolutionary developments brung forward by the Bolshevik line on the National Question which supports national liberation and nations’ right to self-determination (and are rendered not possible by upholding the bourgeois oppressor nations).

The Bolsheviks didn’t mince words on this subject.

In actuality, it’s explicitly stated in Marxism and the National Question that “the class-conscious proletariat cannot rally under the “national” flag of the bourgeoisie”.

Finally, upholding this so-called “liberalism” or “proletarian” patriotism in the context of oppressor nations is exactly the Tailism that Vladimir Lenin warned us of in “What Is to Be Done?”, as we get a glimpse of these bourgeois nationalist charlatans dragging like a tail behind the masses of people, myopically supporting the people’s most reactionary, backward impulses which have been foisted upon them by their ruling class, and thereby legitimizing national chauvinism, which – it needn’t be even said – is diametrically against the interests of the international proletariat and our worldwide struggle for our left wing isms.

Don’t be a freaking NazBol weirdos

End your support for these brutal capitalist-imperialist superpowers who rely on the subjugation of the oppressed masses of Earth.

Fly the flags of Luxemburgian, Mutualism-Left Wing Free Market Anarchism, Left Social Democracy, Libertarian Socialism, Left Communism, Libertarian Marxism high whenever you want to

Lend your support for the global working-class, and do your part to assist in the national liberation struggles of the colonies peoples across the world.

And, before the cry-baby chauvinists start coming at me with “Wahhhh --- Sakaiist!! Ultra-leftist!!

Wahhhh” – all things in this post and my previous posts on Nationalism has been full on Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong , with some important added points from Frantz Fanon and James Connolly.

This is now and has been always the communist position on the National Question in the Bolshevik tradition.

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