National Issues: Engels’ & International Workers’ Association’s View on the Study of the Polish National Question: Engels proposed Two Concepts: Nationality and Nation
Xie Jiangping, 2023 May
To solve the problem of political revolution through national liberation, we must first understand the connotation of national liberation. What is national liberation? What problems does national liberation need to solve? Is it to restore the old territory and old system, or to carry out a political revolution? Is it to restore the national identity under the old system, or to achieve national revolution and strive to become a revolutionary nation? These issues sparked intense debates in the intellectual world of Europe at that time, and the debate surrounding the restoration of Poland was even more intense and typical.
Engels provided his own answers to these theoretical questions during this intense debate, thus elucidated his own historical philosophy. At that time, in the German theoretical community, discussions around the restoration of Poland were divided into two factions: first was bourgeois liberals and petite bourgeois thinkers; second faction was the International Workers’ Association led by Marx and Engels. The fist group discussed the issue of restoring Poland within the framework of nationalism, attributing the national liberation of Poland to the redistribution of Polish territory within the partitioned territories, or to the use of language to unify and coordinate the relationship between Poland and its partitioned countries, and even to cede certain democratic rights to compensate for the Slavic national characteristics of the Polish people, in order to meet their interests and demands. But Engels had firmly oppose these views of bourgeois liberals and petty bourgeois thinkers.
Engels argued that the restoration of Poland was not a matter of reallocating territory in a certain area of the Gua partition, nor was it a matter of establishing kinship relations between different ethnic groups within the Gua partition, but instead it was a matter of Poland as a nation-state gaining its sovereignty and national self-determination.
To solve this problem, of course, it was necessary to restore Poland’s territory, but what Poland wanted was not a small area within the Guadalcanal, but to restore all of Poland’s territory before it was partitioned in 1772, which was the material basis for restoring Poland. On August 5, 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed a treaty that partitioned Poland. Later during the Napoleonic Wars and in their immediate aftermath the borders between partitioning powers shifted several times. Ultimately, Russia ended up with most of the Polish core at the expense of Prussia and Austria. Following the Congress of Vienna, Russia controlled 82% of the pre-1772 Commonwealth’s territory (this includes Russia’s puppet state of Congress Poland), Austria 11%, and Prussia 7%.
In addition, what is more important is that Poland needs to carry out political and national revolutions to transform itself into a revolutionary nation. Engels’ political revolution here refers to the Polish people’s recognition and proclamation of land democracy, which would be the political foundation for restoring Poland. The so-called national revolution refered to the Polish people abandoning the Slavic national identity and making freedom and democracy the intrinsic spirit of the Polish nation, which would be the foundation for restoring Poland’s vitality. Engels believed that the Polish uprising itself had already indicated that Poland was undergoing such political and national revolutions, and had gained national vitality in such political and national revolutions, thus proving the inevitability and necessity of the existence of the Polish nation. Engels’ exposition of this viewpoint represents the attitude of the International Workers’ Association towards Polish independence. However, it was precisely this viewpoint that was ciriticized by Proudhonists. Prudongists argued that the slogan of Polish independence plagiarizes the principle of nationalities of Bonapartism, using the slogan of Polish independence to exclude Russia, the most advanced power, from the scope of civilized Europe. This was a violation of world democracy and the principles of nationalism.
When analyzing the concept of ethnicity, Engels proposed two concepts: Nationality and nation.
Engels believed that nationality refers to the nation connected by language, which is the natural attribute of the nation. The boundaries formed by this are only natural, while nation refers to the nation state established through government jurisdiction, which is the social attribute of the nation. The boundaries formed by this way were the national/state’s boundaries. In Europe, it was a common phenomenon for ethnic groups from different languages to coexist in a single country. Whether in Scotland, Germany, or Poland, the population structure was composed of people from different language groups. However, residents living in these countries identify with the ethnic life of their host country and “do not want to merge with the main body of their own ethnic group”. The advantage of this cohabitation was that “politically formed different ethnic groups often contain certain ethnic elements, which establish connections with their neighbors, making the overly singular national character diverse”.
The fact that the populations of European countries live together shows that “no national boundary line is consistent with the natural boundary line of “nationality”, that is, the boundary line of language” [18]. It is precisely from the inconsistency of these two dividing lines that two different ethnic views have emerged.
The nationality view that uses linguistic boundaries to negate the national/state boundaries was the nationalist national view, that is, the national view of the petite bourgeoisie. This national view advocated the supremacy of nationality in theory and answered national issues within the framework of feudal autocracy. However, in practice, it either leads to ethnic division within a country or becomes a diplomatic slogan for a country to invade other countries.The national principle proposed by Napoleonists was like this. The so-called petite bourgeoisie national principle emphasized that “every nation should be the master of its own destiny; and every individual part of any nation should be allowed to merge with its great motherland. According to this principle, Napoleon could extend the war to any European country and, under the banner of democratization, invade the territories of other European countries, implementing Napoleon’s dictatorship in France in Europe.
Unlike it, the national view that adopts national boundaries and uses ethnic national boundaries to govern language boundaries was the national view advocated by the International Workers’ Association, which is the Marxist national view and the national view of the working class.
This ethnic view theoretically emphasizes that nation is higher than nationality, and emphasizes that a nation’s character is determined by its state system. If a country is under a feudal autocratic system, then the national character of that state/nation will inevitably be closed, conservative, and reactionary; On the contrary, if a country is under a democratic system, then the national character of that nation must be open, enterprising, and revolutionary, and it is a vibrant nation,
After the partition of Poland, Russia proposed the slogan of restoring Poland, attempting to place most of the territories annexed by Austria and Prussia in 1793 and 1794 under Russian control under the name of the Kingdom of Poland, and gradually arousing hope among the Polish people that as long as they obeyed Russia’s highest authority and gave up all demands on the former Lithuanian region, they could expect to unify all other Polish regions and restore Poland under the condition of the Russian Tsar as king.”
So, what consequences will Russia’s actions bring to Poland’s independence? The result is that if Prussia (germany) and Austria were to engage in a war, it would likely be a war that ultimately would not result in Schleswig Holstein being annexed by Prussia or Venice being annexed by Italy, but rather in the annexation of the Polish territories occupied by Austria, and at least the Polish territories occupied by Prussia, to Russia. Obviously, under the principle of national identity, the restoration of Poland was just an illusory illusion.
The International Workers’ Association proposed Poland’s independence precisely to oppose the nationality principle, break the illusion of restoring Poland created by Russia, and establish a truly independent Poland, because the International Workers’ Association’s understanding of nationality was not nationality, but nation, which demanded Poland’s independence as a nation-state, that is, the existence of a modern state. Therefore, the so-called “restoration of Poland” here means the restoration of a country composed of at least four different nationalities, and the national character of Poland referred to here is not the Slavic nationality, but the revolutionary nationality.
Engels repeatedly stressed that Poland’s national character is fundamentally opposed to pan Slavism. Pan Slavism “is nothing more than to give a stronghold to the scattered Austrian Slavs who are dependent on Germans and Mazars in history, literature, politics, trade and industry. This stronghold is Russia on the one hand, and the Austrian United Monarchy, which is ruled by the majority of Slavs and is dependent on Russia on the other” [24]. Therefore, the nation following pan Slavism “must become a counter revolutionary nation” [25], but “Polans are not pan Slavs” [26], Poland After 80 years of oppression and enslavement, people “always stand on the revolutionary side and declare that Poland’s revolutionization is inextricably linked to Poland’s independence.In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy and Hungary, Poles have participated in all previous revolutions and revolutionary wars, whether against Germans, Slavs, Mazars, or even against Poles.
The Polish people are the only Slavic nation without any pan Slavic desires “[27], a nation that” values freedom more than Slavic national characteristics “[28], in short, Polish people form a nation that opposes pan Slavism and it is a revolutionary nation.That was why it received support from the International Workers’ Association.
This in turn proves that the principle of the International Workers’ Association supporting Polish independence was not a national principle, but a revolutionary principle; the national outlook pursued by the International Workers’ Association was by no means bourgeois liberalism or petty bourgeois national outlook, but revolutionary and working-class national outlook, which was also Marxist national outlook. By analyzing the two different national views on the issue of Polish independence, Engels expounded a principle of his historical philosophy: national liberation is closely linked to world revolution; National liberation is the practical foundation and internal driving force of world revolution, and world revolution is the historical height of national liberation. Therefore, in order for a nation to be at the forefront of world revolution, it must place its national liberation on the historical platform of world revolution, abandon its narrow national identity, and become a revolutionary nation. This is the principle of world historical progress.
This principle was proposed from the study of the Polish issue, but it has already surpassed the particularity of the Polish issue and has universal significance in world history, representing the revolutionary logic of world historical development.
When Engels was alive, he did not see the expected Polish independence, but the principle Engels proposed in studying Polish independence found theoretical and practical echoes in the surging national liberation movements of the 20th century, and has important methodological implications for people’s thinking about the relationship between nationalization and globalization in the changing world historical landscape of the 21st century. This is the connection between Engels’ historical philosophy and our era, and it is also the practical basis for us to commemorate Engels and study his philosophical ideas today.
From this perspective, in commemorating Engels and evaluating his philosophical contributions, we should not only study his dialectics of nature and his Marxist epistemology view, but also Engels’ philosophy of history. Not only should we talk about his theoretical contributions to the establishment of Marxist philosophy, but also about his contributions to the practice of the world socialist movement since the end of the 19th century, and more importantly, about the connection between his philosophical ideas and our era. Only in this way can we restore a true Engels.