Socialist Patriotism

Socialist patriotism is a concept in Marxism-Leninism which understands patriotism from the standpoint of the working class rather than the interests of the bourgeoisie. It refers to attachment to one's country, people, culture and historical inheritance while rejecting national chauvinism, imperialism and the identification of the nation with its existing ruling class.

The concept rests on a distinction between the country and the political class which governs it. A communist may oppose the government, ruling class or foreign policy of their own country while remaining attached to its people and revolutionary traditions. Vladimir Lenin expressed this position during the First World War when he wrote that class-conscious Russian workers loved their language and country while regarding the tsarist state, landowners and capitalists as enemies of the Russian people.

Socialist patriotism is consequently connected to proletarian internationalism, not opposed to it. Mao Zedong argued that a communist could and should be both an internationalist and a patriot, while stressing that the political content of patriotism depended upon historical circumstances. Chinese resistance to Japanese invasion and the appeals to patriotism made by Japanese imperialism did not represent the same class interests.

The term should not be confused with Lenin's pejorative use of social-patriotism during the First World War. Lenin used social-patriot and social-chauvinist for socialists who supported their own bourgeois governments in an imperialist war. Socialist patriotism in later Marxist-Leninist usage refers instead to a class-conscious attachment to the country and its people.

In the United States, Infrared revived the concept during the early 2020s and developed a specifically American interpretation of socialist patriotism. Infrared argues that Marxism must take concrete national form, that communists cannot approach the American working class as a people without history or national existence, and that revolutionary traditions within American history should be contested rather than surrendered to the political right.

Marx and Engels

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not use socialist patriotism as a developed technical term, but their writings contain several ideas which later became central to it.

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels described the struggle between workers and capitalists as international in its ultimate interests but initially national in political form. The proletariat of each country first confronts its own bourgeoisie, while communists simultaneously represent the common interests of workers independently of nationality.

The Manifesto also answers the accusation that communists seek simply to abolish countries and nationality. Marx and Engels wrote that the proletariat must acquire political supremacy and become the leading class of the nation, although "not in the bourgeois sense of the word".

This national form did not cancel internationalism. Marx and Engels argued that overcoming exploitation within nations would also undermine the exploitation of one nation by another. National independence could therefore be a necessary condition for international working-class cooperation rather than its opposite.

Their writings on Poland illustrate this point. Marx supported the struggle for Polish independence and rejected the idea that independence was merely a secondary concern when considered from an international perspective. In correspondence with Engels he argued that a people required the political conditions from which it could conduct its own historical struggle.

Engels made a similar point in his 1893 preface to the Manifesto. Discussing the revolutions of 1848, he argued that national autonomy and unity had been necessary before workers of different countries could cooperate internationally on an equal basis.

Lenin

Lenin developed the class distinction between bourgeois and proletarian approaches to the nation more explicitly.

In On the National Pride of the Great Russians, written in 1914, Lenin rejected the idea that socialist internationalism required contempt for one's own country. He wrote of Russian revolutionaries, workers and peasants as sources of legitimate national pride while condemning the imperial state which oppressed both Russians and other nationalities.

For Lenin, the history of a country did not belong exclusively to its ruling class. Russian history contained tsars, landlords, pogroms and imperial conquest, but it also contained revolutionaries, democratic movements, peasant struggles and an increasingly organised working class. His attachment was to the latter inheritance rather than to the empire which ruled in its name.

This is also why Lenin could advocate revolutionary defeatism during the First World War without treating himself as an enemy of the Russian people. He regarded the defeat of tsarism as preferable to an imperial victory which would strengthen the very ruling class oppressing Russian workers and the other peoples of the empire.

The same distinction explains Lenin's attack on social-patriotism. During the First World War, several socialist parties supported their own governments in the name of national defence. Lenin described this as social-chauvinism: socialist language placed at the service of an imperialist bourgeoisie.

The two uses of the word should therefore not be confused. Lenin opposed patriotism when it meant subordinating the working class to an imperialist state, while explicitly defending a form of national pride based upon the revolutionary history and interests of the people.

Development in Marxism-Leninism

Following the October Revolution, the national question acquired a different character in communist politics. The Soviet state was no longer understood by its supporters as the political instrument of a capitalist ruling class, and defence of the country could therefore be presented as defence of a socialist social order.

The language of socialist patriotism became increasingly common in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. This development was closely related to both the consolidation of socialism and the growth of fascist movements across Europe.

At the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in 1935, Georgi Dimitrov criticised communists who treated national history and popular patriotic sentiments as inherently reactionary. Fascist movements attempted to appropriate national heroes and revolutionary traditions for themselves; Dimitrov argued that communists should expose these distortions rather than simply surrender the national past to the far right.

Dimitrov distinguished this position from bourgeois nationalism. Communists remained opponents of national chauvinism and of the oppression of other peoples, but he also rejected what he called national nihilism: indifference or contempt towards the national sentiments and historical traditions of working people.

The Second World War strengthened this conception considerably. Soviet defence against Nazi Germany was described as the Great Patriotic War. Defence of the socialist state, defence of the peoples of the Soviet Union and the international struggle against fascism were treated as parts of the same conflict.

After the war, Soviet political literature continued to distinguish socialist patriotism from both chauvinism and cosmopolitanism. Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism described working-class patriotism as pride in the contribution made by one's people to struggles against exploitation and oppression.

National sovereignty

National sovereignty also became an important part of the Marxist-Leninist understanding of patriotism during the period of decolonisation.

At the Nineteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952, Joseph Stalin argued that sections of the bourgeoisie which had previously presented themselves as defenders of national independence were increasingly willing to subordinate their countries to stronger capitalist powers. He called upon communist and democratic parties to take up the defence of national sovereignty themselves.

This argument reflected the political conditions of the post-war period. Communist parties were active in national-liberation movements throughout Asia, Africa and other parts of the colonial world, where national sovereignty and social transformation were often closely connected.

The defence of sovereignty did not mean that every existing government was considered representative of the people. Marxist-Leninist politics continued to distinguish between the nation and the class controlling the state. National independence could provide the political ground on which class struggle developed without implying that class contradictions inside the nation had disappeared.

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong gave one of the most direct statements of the relationship between patriotism and internationalism.

During the Chinese war against Japan, Mao wrote that communists were both patriots and internationalists because Chinese resistance to imperial conquest served the interests of the Chinese people while also weakening an imperialist power. Japanese communists, by contrast, were expected to oppose their own government's war.

The difference was determined by concrete historical circumstances rather than the nationality of the people involved. Patriotism which defended a people against subjugation was different from the "patriotism" invoked by a ruling class to justify aggression against another nation.

Mao also insisted that internationalism continued after the establishment of socialist states. Relations between socialist countries were supposed to combine patriotism with common international interests, while great-power chauvinism was to be opposed.

This was connected to Mao's broader argument concerning the national form of Marxism. In On New Democracy, he argued that Marxist principles could not simply be applied as abstract formulas detached from the actual history and culture of a people. Marxism had to be joined with the concrete conditions of the country in which the revolution was taking place.

Patriotism and internationalism

Socialist patriotism differs from nationalism which places the interests of one nation above those of other peoples. Its internationalism follows from the common class interests of workers while recognising that workers actually live, organise and struggle within historically formed countries.

This distinction was not confined to Soviet Marxism-Leninism. Irish socialist James Connolly argued that capitalist classes habitually presented their own interests as the interests of the entire nation. Working-class politics, in his view, required contesting this claim rather than abandoning the country to the possessing classes.

Connolly later described the patriotism of the working class as one which judged political questions by their effect upon working people rather than by the interests of capital. He simultaneously regarded socialists of other countries as comrades rather than national enemies.

The class content is therefore decisive. Patriotism may be used to demand sacrifice from workers for an imperial war, defend private property or conceal class exploitation. It may also express the defence of national independence, popular sovereignty or the historical achievements of working people. The word by itself does not determine which class interest is involved.

National nihilism

National nihilism is a term used in Marxist-Leninist literature for the dismissal of national culture, history or popular attachments as inherently reactionary.

Dimitrov's 1935 discussion of fascism is one of the clearest statements against this tendency. He argued that when communists ignored the popular history of their countries they allowed fascists to appropriate historical figures and movements which had actually belonged to democratic or revolutionary struggles.

The Soviet treatment of the subject did not present every national tradition as progressive. The issue was instead to distinguish the history of rulers and oppressors from the history produced by the people themselves. Revolutionary movements, anti-feudal struggles, resistance to foreign domination, scientific and cultural achievements, labour struggles and popular democratic traditions could form part of a socialist account of national history.

This approach also rejects the idea that acknowledging crimes committed in a country's history requires hostility towards the people themselves. Lenin's treatment of Russian history combined open condemnation of imperial oppression with pride in Russian revolutionary movements.

The opposite error is national chauvinism, which identifies the people with their ruling class and treats domination of other peoples as an expression of national greatness. Socialist patriotism historically developed in opposition to both positions.

United States

Arguments over patriotism have appeared throughout the history of American socialism and communism.

Eugene V. Debs frequently attacked the use of patriotic language to mobilise workers for capitalist wars. He nevertheless distinguished this from a wider attachment to humanity and to the struggles of working people in the United States. During the First World War, his opposition was directed at workers being sent to fight one another for competing ruling classes rather than at the American people themselves.

American communists later placed greater emphasis on the country's own revolutionary and democratic traditions. Abolitionism, slave revolts, Reconstruction, labour organising, the struggle for the eight-hour day and the Black freedom movement were treated as parts of American history which did not belong to the ruling class.

Paul Robeson gave a particularly direct expression of this position during his 1956 appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. When asked why he did not leave the United States, Robeson answered that his father had been enslaved and that his people had helped build the country; his struggle for Black equality was therefore a claim upon America rather than a rejection of it.

William Z. Foster likewise argued that American socialism would necessarily develop forms specific to American conditions. The communist movement could not become a mass political force simply by reproducing Russian or other foreign forms regardless of the history and composition of the American working class.

Later American Marxists made similar distinctions between popular patriotism and state nationalism. Michael Parenti used the term superpatriotism for an uncritical identification with government power, militarism and empire, contrasting it with attachment to the country expressed through struggles for democracy and social justice.

These figures differed considerably from one another and did not constitute a single theoretical school. What connects their treatment of patriotism is the refusal to equate the American people with the American ruling class.

Infrared

In 2021, Infrared produced a theoretical treatment of socialist patriotism which gave the concept renewed prominence in American online communist politics.

Infrared's formulation places particular emphasis on the national form of socialism. It argues that a communist movement cannot begin from an abstract model of what a revolutionary population ought to look like, but must begin from the people, history and social relations which actually exist.

In this account, the nation is not reducible to the government, flag or institutions of the capitalist state. It is a historically developed community whose culture and social existence cannot simply be discarded because its existing political institutions are capitalist. The working class does not stand outside the history of its country; it is itself one of the forces which produced that history.

Infrared therefore argues that American communists should contest the meaning of America rather than define communist politics through rejection of everything perceived as national. American history contains slavery, indigenous dispossession, imperial war and capitalist exploitation, but it also contains slave resistance, abolition, the labour movement, struggles against monopolies, popular democratic movements and the political activity of the country's working population.

This position draws upon Mao's argument that Marxism acquires definite national characteristics when applied to concrete conditions. Infrared describes the mechanical reproduction of foreign revolutionary forms as inadequate to the development of an American communist movement.

The position also contains a philosophical argument about internationalism. Infrared rejects an internationalism based upon an abstract individual detached from country, history and culture. Internationalism instead arises through relations between concrete peoples, each possessing its own historical development.

National question in the United States

Infrared's interpretation of socialist patriotism also informs its position on the American national question.

Infrared accepts the historical conquest, dispossession and violence suffered by indigenous peoples while rejecting theories which treat the contemporary American population as nothing more than a settler population without a legitimate collective future. It argues that the crimes involved in the development of capitalist America should be addressed through socialist reconstruction rather than by treating the existence of the American people itself as an historical mistake.

This position has produced a sharp disagreement with political currents influenced by J. Sakai and some forms of settler-colonial theory. Infrared argues that these approaches underestimate the revolutionary potential of the contemporary American working class and can turn historical analysis into a moral division between supposedly legitimate and illegitimate sections of the population.

Its criticism of some versions of the Land Back slogan follows from the same argument. Infrared instead advocates land reform together with recognition of historical injustices, cooperation with tribal authorities and expanded indigenous autonomy within a future socialist reconstruction.

These positions are specific applications of Infrared's theory to the United States. They should not be treated as definitions of socialist patriotism accepted by every historical Marxist-Leninist movement.

Relation to "Patriotic Socialism"

Socialist patriotism should not be confused with Patriotic Socialism or PatSoc.

Patriotic Socialism was a loose label applied during the early 2020s to a range of American communists and online political figures who used patriotic language, criticised the contemporary Western left and emphasised the national form of socialist politics. It did not describe a single coherent doctrine or organisation.

Infrared was frequently grouped into this tendency because of its defence of socialist patriotism, but later rejected the idea that a unified "PatSoc" movement existed. In On the 'Patsoc' Split, Haz argued that the label had grouped together people with major differences over class analysis, political organisation and strategy, united largely by opposition to the mainstream left.

The split became explicit in 2022, when Infrared broke with several figures who had previously been associated with the label. Haz distinguished Infrared's position from what he called Patriotic Social Democracy or PatSocDem and wrote that there was no coherent "PatSoc community".

The disagreement was not over whether communists could be patriotic. Infrared continued to defend socialist patriotism as part of Marxist-Leninist politics. The dispute concerned what patriotism meant in class terms, how communists should relate to the American working class and what kind of organisation was required.

Infrared's conception of socialist patriotism does not reduce patriotism to the use of flags, national symbols or support for the existing state. It distinguishes the country and its people from the ruling class and treats patriotism as attachment to the historical life of the people, their labour, culture and political future.

This distinction became more important with the later development of MAGA Communism. Infrared increasingly moved away from the PatSoc label and framed its politics through the partisan, class independence and the attempt to bring Marxism into contact with political forces outside the established American left.

Patriotic Socialism therefore refers mainly to a contested political label associated with a particular American milieu of the early 2020s, whereas socialist patriotism has a much older history in Marxist-Leninist theory and the political practice of socialist states.

American Communist Party

The American Communist Party (ACP) has incorporated socialist patriotism into its own political outlook.

Its 2024 constitution describes the ACP as an organisation of the American working class and states that it seeks to continue the American revolutionary tradition while developing Marxism within the specific conditions of the United States.

The ACP's programme combines this national language with proposals for extensive economic restructuring. These include a national public bank, an economic bill of rights, large-scale public and cooperative ownership, land reform, industrial development and the restriction of monopoly power.

The party distinguishes the American people from the existing structures of capitalist political power. Its use of patriotism therefore does not amount to political support for every action of the United States government or the present economic order. Instead, the country is presented as something whose political future is contested between classes.

This conception resembles earlier communist arguments that national traditions should not be surrendered to the bourgeoisie. It also reflects Infrared's emphasis on developing Marxism from American historical conditions rather than constructing an American movement as an imitation of another country's revolution.

Socialist patriotism and the state

The distinction between the country and the state is necessary to understanding socialist patriotism.

A capitalist state represents a particular class order. Marxists therefore do not regard loyalty to the existing state apparatus as a requirement of patriotism. Opposition to the government may instead follow from the belief that the government acts against the interests of the majority of the population.

This is visible across very different historical situations. Lenin opposed the Russian Empire while expressing national pride in Russian revolutionary history. Connolly opposed British rule in Ireland and the Irish capitalist class while describing working-class politics as the highest form of patriotism. Robeson rejected US racism and foreign policy while insisting upon his own claim to the country his ancestors had built.

Socialist patriotism therefore does not require the political status quo to be preserved. A revolutionary movement may regard the existing state as an obstacle to the development of the country itself.

Distinction from nationalism

Socialist patriotism is not synonymous with nationalism.

Nationalism can treat the nation as politically unified regardless of class, present the interests of capitalists and workers as identical, or justify domination of other peoples. Marxism rejects such assumptions because the nation remains divided by class interests.

Socialist patriotism instead identifies the working population as the basis of the country's future. The value placed upon national independence or culture does not abolish class struggle within the country, nor does it establish a right to exploit another nation.

This is why Marxist-Leninist writers frequently paired patriotism with warnings against chauvinism. Mao's discussion of patriotism during the anti-Japanese war simultaneously called for solidarity with the Japanese people and for Japanese communists to oppose their own ruling class. Soviet literature likewise presented socialist patriotism as internationalist in content rather than as national superiority.

The distinction also separates socialist patriotism from fascist conceptions of the nation. Fascism subordinates class antagonisms to an authoritarian national unity while preserving capitalist property relations. Socialist patriotism instead begins from class struggle and the political independence of the working class.

See also

• Marxism-Leninism
• Socialism
• Communism
• Proletarian internationalism
• Patriotic Socialism
• MAGA Communism
• Infrared
• American Communist Party
• J. Sakai
• Great Patriotic War

External links

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party
• Vladimir Lenin, "On the National Pride of the Great Russians"
• Georgi Dimitrov, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International
• Mao Zedong, "Patriotism and Internationalism"
• Infrared, "On the 'Patsoc' Split"