Socialist Patriotism: Difference between revisions

''“Mussolini does his utmost to make capital for himself out of the heroic figure of Garibaldi. The French fascists bring to the fore as their heroine Joan of Arc. The American fascists appeal to the traditions of the American War of Independence, the traditions of Washington and Lincoln. The Bulgarian fascists make use of the national-liberation movement of the seventies and its heroes beloved by the people, Vassil Levsky, Stephan Karaj and others. Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with the cause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinely Marxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present struggle with the people’s revolutionary traditions and past - voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses.” - Georgi M. Dimitrov, in a speech delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, held in 1935''

''“But people cannot live together, for lengthy periods unless they have a common territory. Englishmen and Americans originally inhabited the same territory, England, and constituted one nation. Later, one section of the English emigrated from England to a new territory, America, and there, in the new territory, in the course of time, came to form the new American nation. Difference of territory led to the formation of different nations.” - (J.V. Stalin, Marxism and The National Question)''

''“In fighting for the right of nations to self-determination, the aim of Social-Democracy is to put an end to the policy of national oppression, to render it impossible, and thereby to remove the grounds of strife between nations, to take the edge off that strife and reduce it to a minimum. This is what essentially distinguishes the policy of the class-conscious proletariat from the policy of the bourgeoisie, which attempts to aggravate and fan the national struggle and to prolong and sharpen the national movement. And that is why the class-conscious proletariat cannot rally under the ‘national’ flag of the bourgeoisie. That is why the so-called ‘evolutionary national’ policy advocated by Bauer cannot become the policy of the proletariat. Bauer’s attempt to identify his ‘evolutionary national’ policy with the policy of the ‘modern working class’ is an attempt to adapt the class struggle of the workers to the struggle of the nations. The fate of a national movement, which is essentially a bourgeois movement, is naturally bound up with the fate of the bourgeoisie. The final disappearance of a national movement is possible only with the downfall of the bourgeoisie. Only under the reign of socialism can peace be fully established. But even within the framework of capitalism it is possible to reduce the national struggle to a minimum, to undermine it at the root, to render it as harmless as possible to the proletariat. This is borne out, for example, by Switzerland and America. It requires that the country should be democratised and the nations be given the opportunity of free development.” - J.V. Stalin''</blockquote><blockquote>''“I daresay you yourself do not know quite clearly why you have lost these illusions. You are a patriot, - as good a one as any among these super-patriots. You are very sincere in your patriotism, but so too are they. So there must be something wrong in the very conception of patriotism, which can lead men to pursue such contrary and often contradictory goals. Actuated by the same spirit of patriotism, one man reads the Gita, one sends missionaries to America to preach the gospel of Sri Ramkrishna, one orders the whole nation to spin, one cooperates in the working of the Montagu Reforms, another throws bombs, and there are even some who drink three bottles of whiskey a day. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that all of them are equally patriotic. Every one of them loves the Motherland, serves her, worships her, glorifies her, idealises her, - almost every one of these Indians believes implicitly in the providential mission of India to spiritualise the world. Yet in spite of all this, these patriots and the philosophy they preach do not satisfy you any longer, although there was a time when you accepted their teachings as infallible. This shows that there is some fundamental difference between your patriotism and that of the leaders in whom you have lost faith.” - M.N. Roy''

''“Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are the following; the schools, colleges and universities will be coordinated and grouped under the National Department of Education and its state and local branches. The studies will be revolutionised, being cleansed of religious, patriotic (bourgeois patriotism) and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new socialist society. Present obsolete methods of teaching will be superseded by a scientific pedagogy.” - William Z. Foster''

''“A truly democratic government, unless it were to fail and be crushed under the violent attacks of big business, would have no alternative but to develop into the general type of government now existing in a number of countries of Eastern and Central Europe and known as People’s Democracy. This new kind of government, in which the basic economic system is controlled by the people, the power of monopoly capital is shattered, and the working class is the leading class, is one which definitely tends to orientate toward building socialism, and not toward patching up obsolete capitalism. Socialism in the United States naturally would have some specific American characteristics. However it would embody the socialisation of all the social means of production and distribution, the carrying on a planned production for use instead of for profit, with the Government under the acknowledged leadership of the working class. Only with such a system, with the exploitation of man by man completely abolished, will American society finally be freed of the fascism, poverty, economic chaos, and warmongering that are increasingly menacing our country as well as other lands. All these socialist measures would, naturally, be legally adopted by the people’s democratically elected government, by the People’s Democracy, despite employer resistance, whatever its form and violence.” - William Z. Foster''

''“Throughout the ages the central principle of all great systems of morals has been ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Under slavery, feudalism, and capitalism, although the ruling classes have constantly preached this maxim to their slaves as a way by which to regulate their lives, they themselves have cynically ignored it in practice. Their systems of exploitation, including present-day capitalism, have always been based upon a ruthless class ethics, condoning the most brutal violation of every principle of human solidarity. That is why Christianity has never ‘worked.’ As has been truly said, ‘It has never been tried.’ It is only with the introduction of socialism, and later of Communism, that the Golden Rule, without benefit of religion, becomes a matter of practical politics and of general acceptance by society as a whole.” - William Z. Foster''

''“Dearborn, Kentucky, England (Ark.), Lawrence, Pittsburgh coal strike, etc., reflect the new spirit of the American class struggle. The capitalists, in the midst of the sharpening general crisis of capitalism, are determined to force the living standards of American toilers down to European levels, or lower. The workers will respond to this offensive by increasing class consciousness and mass struggle. More and more they will turn to the Communist party for leadership, and eventually they will be joined by decisive masses of the ever-more ruthlessly exploited poor farmers. The toiling masses of the United States will not submit to the capitalist way out of the crisis, which means still deeper poverty and misery, but will take the revolutionary way out to socialism. The working class of this country will tread the path of the workers of the world, to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a Soviet government. Lenin was profoundly correct when he said in his Letter to American Workingmen, of Aug. 20, 1918: ‘The American working class will not follow the lead of its bourgeoisie. It will go with us against its bourgeoisie. The whole history of the American people gives me this confidence, this conviction.’” - William Z. Foster''

''“There is no other group as loyal to the interests of the workers and the people as the Communists. As I have pointed out earlier, the whole life of our party has been a ceaseless fight for the interests of the workers, the Negro people, the nation. In our demand for socialism for the United States, we are giving expression to the supreme interest of the overwhelming majority of the American people. It is precisely because the Communists are the very best defenders of the interests of the American people that eventually our party will be the leading party of the nation. I, as other Communists, love the American people and their glorious revolutionary democratic traditions, their splendid scientific and industrial achievements. And I love, too, our beautiful land, in every corner of which I have lived and worked. I want only the best of everything for our people and this country. I have only contempt, therefore, for the ‘foreign agent’ charge, and doubly so because it comes from reactionaries who live by exploiting the American people and whose basic principle of operation is to peddle away the national welfare for the sake of their narrow class interests. We Communists revere our country. We are ardent patriots, but not nationalists. We defend the people’s interests but we do not try to shove official American (capitalist) interests ahead at the expense of those of other peoples. For that is the road to war and general ruin. We are Marxian internationalists. We realise very well the common interests that the workers and the peoples of the whole world have together. They key to an intelligent internationalism in our day is friendly co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union. This collaboration is indispensable if world peace is to prevail. On this basic issue we Communists stand four-square, come hell or high water! Our resolute position in this fundamental matter puts us into direct and irreconcilable collision with the imperialists.” - William Z. Foster''

''“Now that the insane Tsar and his soothsayers are relegated to the farm, Lenin is a patriot to the limit, as well as an internationalist, ready to fight for the world.” - William Z. Foster''

''“Socialism in the United States will, out of necessity, have some American characteristics.” - William Z. Foster''

''“We will incorporate U.S. traditions into the structure of socialism that the working class will create.” - William Z. Foster''

''“One thing is certain: the economic survival of the Black in the South depends on close union with white workers, so as to present a united front against the tremendous growth of monopoly capital in the South today. When we compare African Americans with other groups we are not comparing nations or even cultural groups, since African Americans do not form a nation and are not likely to, if their present increasingly successful fight for political integration succeeds. They will exercise political power but not as a unit, since that would contradict their fight against segregation. They do not even form a complete cultural unit, although by reason of suffering and discrimination, and by historic artistic gifts, such a culture may be deliberately cultivated and in the end will unify the Black with other groups rather than divide them. African American, Russian and Irish art can flourish in the same state side by side. How the political aspect will develop is not clear. The old idea of mass migration of African American to found a foreign state is unlikely to be renewed. The newer idea of an American Black state within the United States is both improbable and undesirable. It contradicts our present effort at complete integration, and also the modern tendency toward fewer rather than more separate political states with state antagonisms, hatreds and war. Cultural units may, on the other hand, develop and grow to the advantage of all." - W.E.B. Du Bois''

''“The question here concerns the ideology encouraged by the imperialists, which propagates a sham ‘obsolescence’ of the principle of sovereignty, the ‘legitimacy’ of limiting state independence, an indifference to natural traditions and contempt for national culture. This ideology alleges that at the present time the idea of motherland is devoid of any meaning. For the financial oligarchy of the U.S.A., cosmopolitism has proved the best way of disguising its struggle for world supremacy and for the doing away with the independence of other states; The unions of monopolists are presented as the embodiment of ‘unity of the European peoples’ and as the way to overcome ‘national limitations’. Small wonder that such propaganda is openly supported and financed by the big monopolies; The favourite thesis of the ideologists of cosmopolitism, especially the Right-wing socialists among them, is the allegation that in the modern world the principle of sovereignty has become an obstacle to the development of the productive forces; The enemies of Marxism assert that by defending the principles of state sovereignty and independence Communists oppose the tendencies of social development and want to preserve the division of the world into states and the disunion of the nations in the international arena; Nor can the danger of war be eliminated by a campaign against sovereignty. In our time wars do not arise as a result of adherence to state independence, as the ideologists of bourgeois cosmopolitism allege, but owing to socio-economic causes connected with the predatory nature of monopoly capital; the propagandists of cosmopolitism claim that the principle of sovereignty is antiquated because it hampers the development of general culture aand impedes the fusion of the peoples into one family; The fact that the proletariat defends the freedom of the nations, their independence and national traditions is an expression of the patriotism of the working class, which is the direct opposite of both the chauvinist and cosmpolitan ideology of the bourgeoisie. The patriotism of the working class springs primarily from the feeling of pride in the contribution that the people or nation concerned has made to the struggle of the oppressed and exploited masses for their liberation from exploitation and oppression. The patriotism of the working class is therefore profoundly progressive and revolutionary. Bourgeois propaganda tries to represent the capitalist class as the bearer of patriotic feelings. They want to slur over the fact that the patriotism of the bourgeoisie is always subordinate to its selfish, narrow class interests, and to disparage the patriotism of the working class and Communists. In this connection, bourgeois propagandists sometimes refer to the passage in the Communist Manifesto which says that ‘the working men have no country’. It is perfectly clear, however, that it is not a question of repudiating the fatherland, but of the fact that in a society ruled by capitalists the fatherland is actually usurped by exploiters and is not a good father but a vicious stepfather to the workers. By overthrowing the rule of the exploiting classes the working class creates the conditions for the fullest possible manifestation of its patriotism, for it itself is the true bearer of patriotism in our time; Developing the Marxist point of view regarding the fatherland, Lenin wrote in 1908: ‘The fatherland, i.e., the given political, cultural and social environment, is the most powerful factor in the class struggle of the proletariat… The proletariat cannot be indifferent to and unconcerned about the political, social and cultural conditions of its struggle and, consequently, cannot remain indifferent to the fate of its country. But the fate of the country interest it only to the extent that they affect its class struggle, and not in virtue of some bourgeois ‘patriotism’, quite indecent on the lips of a Social-Democrat; The whole spirit of Marxism, its entire system demands that each proposition should be considered α) only historically, β) only in connection with others and χ) only in connection with the concrete experience of history.’; In what historical situation the slogan of defence of the fatherland is proclaimed, what class proclaims it and for what purposes - these are the things that primarily interest the working class; The Bourgeois ideologists allege that by combating cosmopolitism Marxists disavow the international character of their doctrine and become nationalists. But the authors of such falsifications perpetrate a double forgery. Firstly, they put a sign of equality between the cosmopolitism of the bourgeoisie and the internationalism of the working class, and, secondly, they ascribe to Marxists the nationalist views which are characteristic precisely of bourgeois ideology. The internationalism of the working class is, as already stated, an expression of the community of interests of the workers of all countries in their struggle against their common enemy - capitalism, of the unity of their aim, the abolition of exploitation of man by man… and the unity of their ideology - the ideology of friendship and fraternity of the peoples. In this sense all workers belong to the same ‘nation’ - the world ‘nation’ of working people oppressed and exploited in all bourgeois countries by the same force - capital. This does not in any way mean, however, that while belonging to the single international army of working people, the worker ceases to be a Frenchman, Englishman, etc. Quite the contrary. True and not sham patriotism springs naturally from proletarian internationalism. In point of fact, does not faithfulness to the ultimate ideal of the working class imbue the workers with a fervent desire to see their own people free, prosperous, and achieving social progress? Seeking liberation from all forms of oppression and exploitation… The working class wants this not only for itself, but also for all the working people, for the whole nation. Only the achievement of the ultimate aims of the working class, i.e., the overthrow of the power of the exploiters, who impede the progress of the nation… and the building of socialism, can bring every nation real freedom, independence and national greatness. It follows that the most internationalist class - the working class - is at the same time the most patriotic class; The Communist Parties of the capitalist countries hold high the banner of national independence and freedom. Preservation of state sovereignty and realisation of an independent foreign policy are demands that form part of the programme of the Communist movements in France, Italy and other countries.” - (Otto Wille Kuusinen, Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism)''

''“The internationalism of the Communist Party was expressed by the Communist Timbaud, who was killed at Chateaubriant shouting ‘Long Live the German Communist Party!’ adding ‘Vive la France!’; There is no left or right wing in our party. The Communist Party has never been as united around its Central Committee as it now is in the task that it is accomplishing - together with all patriots - to wrest victory over Hitlerite Germany as quickly as possible.” - Maurice Thorez''

''“I fell in love with my country - its rivers, prairies, forests, mountains, cities and people. No one can take my love of country away from me! I felt then, as I do now, it’s a rich, fertile, beautiful land, capable of satisfying all the needs of its people. It could be a paradise on earth if it belonged to the people, not to a small owning class.” - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn''

''“Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed. Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution - what was it based on? The land-less against the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed. Was no love lost; was no compromise; was no negotiation. I’m telling you, you don’t know what a revolution is. ‘Cause when you find out what it is, you’ll get back in the alley; you’ll get out of the way. The Russian Revolution - what was it based on? Land. The land-less against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven’t got a revolution that doesn’t involve bloodshed. And you’re afraid to bleed. I said, you’re afraid to bleed.” - Malcolm X''

''“All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” - (Hồ Chí Minh, The Vietnamese Constitution, in a direct quote from the American Constitution)''