National Liberation and Bolshevism Reexamined

Details: Published on Monday, 15 September 2014 01:40; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1036 .... September 14, 2014
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National Liberation and Bolshevism Reexamined:
A View from the Borderlands

Eric Blanc

A view from the Czarist empire's borderlands obliges us to rethink many long-held assumptions about the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, as well as the development of Marxist approaches to national liberation, peasant struggle, permanent revolution, and the emancipation of women.

The following paper analyzes the socialist debates on the national question up through 1914. I argue that an effective strategy of anti-colonial Marxism was first put forward by the borderland socialists, not the Bolsheviks. Lenin and his comrades lagged behind the non-Russian Marxists on this crucial issue well into the Civil War -- and this political weakness helps explain the Bolshevik failure to build roots among dominated peoples.

Consequently, the...

Bolsheviks were either too numerically weak and/or indifferent to national aspirations to successfully lead socialist revolutions in the borderlands, facilitating the isolation of the Russian workers’ government and the subsequent rise of Stalinism.

Given that activists today continue to look to the Russian revolution for lessons on how to successfully challenge capitalism, engaging with this history has important implications for contemporary political practice.