National Communism

Peter Zwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429725081
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

According to the generally accepted view that nationalism is alien to communism and that internationalism disallows divisions based on nations, the existence of national communism is often interpreted as a sign of the breakup of the world communist movement. This book reexamines the evidence on the role of nations and national variations, beginning with Marx and moving through Leninism and Stalinism to Titoism, Maoism, Castroism, and current national liberation movements (e.g., in Nicaragua). Professor Zwick concludes that nationalism has always been an inherent element of communism. He demonstrates with numerous concrete cases that, rather than signaling the decline of communism, national adaptation is the source of its strength. The limits of national variation as defined by the Brezhnev Doctrine are precisely defined and examined in the cases of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The book bridges the gap between Marxist theory and communist practice with respect to the central role that nationalism will continue to play in the contemporary world. No other study presents this material in a cross-national, comparative perspective.

1
The Nationalist and Communist Roots of National Communism

In his classic critique of contemporary communism, The New Class, the Yugoslavian Marxist Milovan Djilas argued: "Today, national Communism is a general phenomenon in Communism. To varying degrees all Communist movements ... are gripped by national Communism."¹ Djilas contended that "in order to maintain itself" any communist regime "must become national."² These observations, made in the 1950s, have unquestionably been confirmed by subsequent developments within the communist movement.

In the past few decades China and the Soviet Union have taken markedly different courses and the two nations have been in serious conflict. The communist leaderships of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and, most recently, Poland have openly challenged the Soviet hegemony in East Europe. A war between Vietnam and Kampuchea over national territorial issues has drawn China into an invasion of Vietnam. Cuba has developed its own communist model, which has had some influence in Latin America, most notably in Nicaragua. The nonruling parties in some Western nations have embarked on a separate, Eurocommunist road. In short, wherever there are communist movements there are national variations. The right of each communist party to determine its own future in the context of unique national conditions has become the universal theme of Marxists.

This contemporary marriage of communism and nationalism, movements that have historically been at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, raises some difficult questions. How can "international" communism become "national" communism without losing its ideological identity as a global movement that transcends national boundaries? After all, wasn't Karl Marx an internationalist who abhorred nationalism and called on the workers of all countries to unite? Didn't Engels, Marx's collaborator, predict that the nation-state would "wither away" under communism? Isn't nationalism historically a right-wing political movement that has been universally condemned by communists?

The apparent contradictions between what is seen as Marxist theory and contemporary communist practice have raised some doubts as to the future of communism. For those who view national and communist commitments as antithetical, such as Djilas, "national Communism is Communism in decline."³ An alternate but less orthodox interpretation would be that there is no inherent contradiction between national and communist sentiments. This latter view, which will be the underlying theme of this book, holds that whatever vitality persists in contemporary communism actually derives from its national orientations. Rather than being a source of weakness, nationalism is communism's major source of strength, and rather than being communism in decline, national communism is the only form capable of survival in the contemporary world.

As a first step toward understanding the relationship between nationalism and communism and the phenomenon of national communism, we must give these concepts some meaning. Often, however, they are defined in vague terms that contribute little, if anything, to our understanding of them. For example, one scholar has defined national communism as "the explicit assignment of priority to internal considerations even if openly challenged by those who consider themselves the essential spokesmen of international communism."⁴ And another has characterized national communism in terms of what he believed were its two essential features. "First, national communism means putting the interests of one's state above the interests of any other country. . . . Second, it implies that Marxism can and should be adapted to local conditions, as interpreted by the local leader."⁵ The problem with these definitions is that they depend, in turn, on related concepts such as "Marxism" and "international communism" that are not specifically defined.

It is possible, of course, that the ideas of nationalism, communism, and national communism are void of content. They may merely be the ideological inventions of social scientists and politicians who wish either to classify political movements artificially or to control those movements. In order to counter the view that nationalism and communism may mean anything and everything or mean nothing at all, we must begin with a brief review of how these concepts developed and have merged into the phenomenon we call national communism.

NATIONALISM AND COMMUNISM — MYTHS OR REALITIES

Nationalism

In the past two centuries many political leaders have appealed to national emotions in order to promote their causes. The goal of these nationalists has been to convince their followers that a shared national identity exists and that this national community constitutes a viable political system. But what is a nation? What common characteristic is strong enough to provide a permanent political bond for an otherwise atomized population?

The element most often suggested as the critical source of a nationality is language. Opinion on this matter is by no means unanimous, and although few students of the subject would argue that language is the sole element of a nationality, it is generally conceded that a nation is a linguistic collectivity. "Nationality," in the words of one scholar, "denotes a group of people . . . who are distinguishable from all others by speaking the same language, sharing in some of those cultural values that are tied to the use of a particular language. . . ."⁶

The objection most often raised against this linguistic definition of nationality is that there are numerous historical and contemporary instances of multilingual nations, and that there are also many linguistic groups that are divided among several nations.⁷ If speaking a common language sets a group apart and establishes within it a communication linkage through which social relations are transmitted, how can the exceptions be explained? The answer provided by those who conceive of nationality as a linguistic unit is that to "speak the same language" does not necessarily mean to use a single language. In Nationalism, K. R. Minogue observed that "a language may be taken not merely as a set of words and rules of syntax, not merely as a kind of emotional reciprocity, but also as a certain conceptualization of the world."⁸ Presumably, then, Switzerland is a nation despite the fact that four languages are spoken within its borders, because the Swiss "speak the same language" in the sense that they share a world view different from that of other nationalities.

Language, no matter how it is defined, is undoubtedly an important element of group identification, but as Minogue also noted, "The nationalist belief that a language expresses the soul of a nation is a piece of mysticism difficult to construe rationally."⁹ A language is indeed capable of transmitting the spirit of a culture, but it does not follow that nationalism is the unavoidable consequence of this commonality of language. Nationalities do "speak the same language," but not every group that speaks the same language is necessarily a nationality.

Similarly, other commonly mentioned sources of national identity, such as race, religion, custom, and geography, are usually integral elements of nationality; but like language, none can be isolated as the sole criterion of nationhood. The fact is that nations are determined not by specific internal sociocultural criteria that provide a sense of community, but by the existence of others who may be identified as strangers or foreigners. The nation is a conceptualization of "us" defined by the presence of "them." Nationalism is therefore a means of mobilizing a people in defense of their political community, which, in modern times, has taken the form of the nation-state. When the medieval principle of allegiance on the part of a few noblemen to the defense of the king's person and property became antiquated in the wake of the industrial revolution and its accompanying technological complexity, it was replaced by a new principle of allegiance on the part of the entire population to the defense of the institutions and property of the state.¹⁰

Nationalism, then, must be viewed in its historical perspective as an idea that emerged in direct response to a particular set of political and economic conditions existing within western Europe. Although it may sound curious to those who have become accustomed to identifying nationalism with the horrible excesses of Hitler's Third Reich, the fact remains that the principle of rule by the governed, which is modern democracy, and the principle of popular allegiance to the nation-state first emerged at the time of the American and French revolutions as mutually supportive tenets of modern government.¹¹ When, at the end of the eighteenth century, popular support replaced heredity and divine right as the legitimator of political authority, the people had to be provided with a new source of group identity that could transcend purely local, parochial interests. Allegiance to the political system had to be broadened in order to ensure that enough people with diverse enough interests were included to make the modern state self-sustaining and competitive in the Western industrial world. This new spirit of the people was nationalism. As Hans Kohn observed: "The growth of nationalism is the process of integration of the masses of the people into a common political form. Nationalism presupposes the existence, in fact or as an ideal, of a centralized form of government over a large and distinct territory."¹²

In other words, nationalism was a liberal idea at its inception and has always been an integral part of democracy. It was John Stuart Mill, a liberal spokesman, who "identified the principle of nationality as a clause of liberalism itself" because the right of a people or a nation to govern itself and be free of foreign control was, according to democratic theory, natural and inalienable.¹³ In Nationalism: A Religion, Carlton Hayes has noted that one of the characteristics of nationalism is that it assumes different forms as it is adopted by different groups, Hayes labeled the nationalism of the utilitarians like Mill "liberal" as opposed to the "traditional" nationalism of the Burkean conservatives that preceded it. According to Hayes, liberal nationalism was converted by the twentieth-century imperialists into "integral" nationalism, which is characterized by totalitarianism.¹⁴

The benign liberal version of nationalism eventually developed into more pathological forms because the nationalist cause can be invoked by any group with a national grievance. The reductio ad absurdum (or in this case the reductio ad Hitlerum) of the nationalist position is that the right of national self-determination can justify aggression as easily as defense. The liberal faith in the rationality and essential goodness of humanity has not been borne out by history, and the lesson of the twentieth century has been that nationalism in the hands of an evil master will have evil results.

According to Hans Kohn:

Nationalism is a state of mind, permeating the large majority of a people and claiming to permeate all its members; it recognizes the nation-state as an ideal form or organization and the nationality as the source of all creative cultural energy and economic well-being. The supreme loyalty of man is therefore due to his nationality. . . .¹⁵

As a "state of mind" nationalism ts neither a left-wing nor a right-wing movement. What makes nationalism illiberal is what makes any movement absolutist—the substitution of a single goal (such as racial mastery or class domination) for the diverse needs of a population.¹⁶

In The Meaning of Nationalism, Louis Snyder contended that "nation" and "nationalism" are abstractions that have no inherent content. "Nationalism," Snyder thought, "may mean whatever a given people, on the basis of their own historical experience, decide it to mean."¹⁷ He contrasted nationality, which he viewed as a social science term, with race, which he conceived of as a fact of natural science: Whereas race is natural, or a physical reality, nationality exists only in people's minds.¹⁸ Snyder's definition of a nation as "a community formed by the will to be a nation" is, therefore, very similar to the explanation offered by Hans Kohn that "in modern times, it has been the power of an idea, not the call of blood, that has constituted and molded nationalities."¹⁹ Kohn's thesis, with which Snyder would no doubt have agreed, was that "a living and active corporate will"²⁰ transforms a collectivity into a nation. Leaders with political goals to achieve shape this corporate will to suit their own purposes and give nationalism its content. Thus, as form in search of substance, nationalism has taken many shapes, each molded by the circumstances of time and place. The fact that nationalism is essentially contentless and defies universal definition does not, however, devaluate it as a political force. On the contrary, it is just this malleability that explains nationalism's survival and contemporary vitality.

If it is true that a nation is simply a collectivity of individuals who conceive of themselves as a nation and that nationalism is whatever nationalists say it is, must we therefore conclude that the ideas of nation and nationalism are empty of substantive meaning? Despite the vagueness of the notion, one fixed principle does appear to characterize nationalist movements. This single contentual element is the belief that the "state" is the ideal form of political organization. The constituent elements of the state are multidimensional and may include religion, ethnicity, geography, and any other appropriate sources of identification; and all of these are combined into a unified conception of the "nation." Nationalism stands in sharp contrast to principles such as Christian humanism, technological cosmopolitanism, and even proletarian internationalism, all of which contend in their own way that the bonds of humanity transcend politico-administrative boundaries. Because it makes the political entity, the state, the fundamental social institution, nationalism is truly a "political," as opposed to an economic, or religious, theory. Class and sect are replaced by nationality, and it is the politics of the state, rather than the will of God or the force of class conflict, that shapes humanity's future. What distinguishes nationalism, then, is that it is a theory of "political determinism."

Nationalism has been described as a modern, secular religion that has replaced traditional religion as the source of human inspiration. The similarities between nationalism and religion are numerous, but they do not make of nationalism a religion. As one student of nationalism pointed out, the facts that nationalism emerged at the same time that religion was on the decline as a moral force in the West and "that once men worshipped God and now they seem to worship the nation" do not explain, "Why the nation?"²¹ The reason nationalism appears to have replaced religion is that humanity, if it has any need to worship at all, worships power. Although the nation w...