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== Quotes == | == Quotes == | ||
The below quotes illustrate the Communist position on what is often referred to as the "national question". These quotes, taken from a wide range of political perspectives, including some people we have serious disagreements with (such as those of Emma Goldman or Nikita Khrushchev), touch on many aspects of the national question. Nominally, these quotes address the following topics: 1) patriotism and its application by both [[proletariat|proletarians]] and the [[bourgeoisie]]; 2) historical nihilism (revisionism and ignorance of world-history); 3) superpatriotism (national chauvinism, etc) and anti-patriotism (anarchism, woke liberalism, etc); 4) the contradiction between the state as popular sovereignty vs the state as unpopular or corrupt sovereignty; 5) the contradiction between nationalism and internationalism ; and finally, 6) American socialist patriotism in particular, and socialist recognition of America's revolutionary and working-class history. | The below quotes illustrate the Communist position on what is often referred to as the "national question". These quotes, taken from a wide range of political perspectives, including some people we have serious disagreements with (such as those of Emma Goldman or Nikita Khrushchev), touch on many aspects of the national question. Nominally, these quotes address the following topics: 1) patriotism and its application by both [[proletariat|proletarians]] and the [[bourgeoisie]]; 2) historical nihilism (revisionism and ignorance of world-history); 3) superpatriotism (national chauvinism, etc) and anti-patriotism (anarchism, woke liberalism, etc); 4) the contradiction between the state as popular sovereignty vs the state as unpopular or corrupt sovereignty; 5) the contradiction between nationalism and internationalism ; and finally, 6) American socialist patriotism in particular, and socialist recognition of America's revolutionary and working-class history. <blockquote>''“The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises… who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races… for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blood, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into black and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed.” - Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara'' | ||
''“The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises… who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races… for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blood, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into black and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed.” - Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara'' | |||
''"The U.S. flag is your flag, you cannot allow the U.S. ruling class to own the flag. The working class of the U.S. must fight for the flag and once socialism is established it is up to the workers to decide what they want to do with flag and the U.S. as it exists." - (Fidel Castro, Addressing a group of students who did not want to associate with their flag while people from other countries sat next to theirs)'' | ''"The U.S. flag is your flag, you cannot allow the U.S. ruling class to own the flag. The working class of the U.S. must fight for the flag and once socialism is established it is up to the workers to decide what they want to do with flag and the U.S. as it exists." - (Fidel Castro, Addressing a group of students who did not want to associate with their flag while people from other countries sat next to theirs)'' | ||
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''“The socialist of another country is a fellow patriot; the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy.” - James Connolly'' | ''“The socialist of another country is a fellow patriot; the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy.” - James Connolly''</blockquote> | ||
''“We are full of a sense of national pride, and for that very reason we particularly hate our slavish past (when the landed nobility led the peasants into war to stifle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia and China), and our slavish present, when these selfsame landed proprietors, aided by the capitalists, are loading us into a war in order to throttle Poland and the Ukraine, crush the democratic movement in Persia and China, and strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys and Purishkeviches, who are a disgrace to our Great-Russian national dignity. Nobody is to be blamed for being born a slave; but a slave who not only eschews a striving for freedom but justifies and eulogises his slavery (eg. calls the throttling of Poland and the Ukraine, etc. a ‘defence of the fatherland’ of the Great Russians) - such a slave is a lickspittle and a boor, who arouses a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt, and loathing.” - V.I. Lenin'' | ''“We are full of a sense of national pride, and for that very reason we particularly hate our slavish past (when the landed nobility led the peasants into war to stifle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia and China), and our slavish present, when these selfsame landed proprietors, aided by the capitalists, are loading us into a war in order to throttle Poland and the Ukraine, crush the democratic movement in Persia and China, and strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys and Purishkeviches, who are a disgrace to our Great-Russian national dignity. Nobody is to be blamed for being born a slave; but a slave who not only eschews a striving for freedom but justifies and eulogises his slavery (eg. calls the throttling of Poland and the Ukraine, etc. a ‘defence of the fatherland’ of the Great Russians) - such a slave is a lickspittle and a boor, who arouses a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt, and loathing.” - V.I. Lenin'' | ||