Leftist Nationalism

What's wrong with wanting a free, cosmopolitan, immigrant-welcoming, socialist nation that considers racists to be a disgrace and traitors to the country?

People here constantly talk about reaching out to ordinary working people and there is no better way to do that than to promote a leftist version of national pride instead of burning your country's flag, thus alienating them and completely giving way the concept of caring about your nation to the far-right while doing so.

Far-rightists aren't true nationalists, they are racists and sexists that want to further divide their nations along racial and genre lines instead of abolishing the class division and unite the nation. This is what we should be promoting.

Other urls found in this thread:

sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html
libcom.org/library/nationalism-“national-question”-murray-bookchin
americansocialunion.wordpress.com
marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state
youtu.be/FRTsInTXAgk?t=4m15s
youtube.com/watch?v=m9We2XsVZfc
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01.htm
insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

dont do any of that secterian bullshit it doesnt help anyone even doe im an internationalist

*globalist

I thought the argument proposed by the alt-right was that diverse societies were overall less productive and more divisive. How the hell would leftist nationalism even work?

False dichotomy. How about neither?

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why do Holla Forumsyps think larping as a socdem is going to redpill us

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If you go that route, why still bother with a nation?

what the fuck is this shit. read bordiga

Because nationalism isn't merely taking pride in being part of a political entity that exists for good reasons, it's idealism that fetishizes the abstract notion of a nation and demonizes criticism of any instances of this notion, regardless of how well-meaning they are.

Patriotism is not the same thing as nationalism, and countries are not the same thing as nations in the context I mentioned.

All I have to add to this thread is American anarchists who burn their countries flag are engaging in the most counter-productive moronic behavior possible. We should be draping ourselves in the revolutionary legacy of 1776 even if it requires us to be deceptive and ahistorical.

That's all fine and dandy and I could even agree with you, but your logic relies on trying to reverse the flow of the river, the river here being the process of capital nuking all political and economic differences that do not benefit it. I'm not saying that borders should or should not be abolished because that's something that's happening independently of our petty opinions.

Nationalism hasn't been based on ethnicity in quite a while; at least in the West. White nationalists and black nationalists don't get such a hot reception these days.

Loyalty to government/state has nothing to do with nationalism, unless you specifically conceive of the nation state as the legitimate national authority. That's bourgeois nationalism.

Because national pride is an anthropological inevitability. You either embrace the human desire for meaningful senses of community, or you allow it to be exploited by bourgeois nationalists.

Nationalism, much like feminism, is whatever we make of it. There's already bourgeois, peasant and even aristocratic nationalism. Leftist nationalism is the nationalism of the proletariat.

this. leftards hate winning though.

Is that the Salvadoran flag
*checks date* shit it's not 1848 anymore

The Stalinists already tried that in America retard and it fucking failed, so much for "Communism is 20th Century Americanism"

Define nation but without a state.

If you can't, the nation has nothing to do with Communism.

Pretending to be something we are not will only make us useful idiots for ideologies that actually do embody the symbolism we are exploiting.

Internationalism is not the same thing as anti-patriotism.

Nationalism is a powerful spook so co-opting it for propaganda purposes can be a useful strategy. But as communists we recognize borders as arbitrary forms of restriction/oppression and want them abolished in the long run.

That's what Leftist Nationalism is.

Good thing I'm anti-welfare and pro-socialism then.

Yeah your pessimism is really going to motivate people.

I'm a state socialist, not an anarchist or a stateless communist moron. I don't believe in 'withering away the state' either, there will always be government, the question is whether it is in the hands of oppressive tyrants or protectors of freedom.

Bashing your country and burning it's flag will surely work! Just let the far-right have the concept of nation all for itself, hand them over religion while you're at it!

The means to communism isn't communism itself. But I'll admit by sentence wasn't properly worded.

sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html

Why are you envocing Marx then? And why are you a "state socialist"?

Goverment =/= State. If we are already to use Marxist terminology, the state is a tool to defuse class conflict, which implies the existence of classes and therefor also a conflict among them. So you're all in for classes, or do define class as government, meaning that this is all just a semantic issue.

Spooks.

Also, you didn't answer my question.

Confederalism > Nationalism (ie. spooked support for centralized states)

But waving the flag of the US/UK is not leftist nationalism because they havent done shit to deserve it

>sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html
I never claimed the Soviet Union was socialist but they were ruled by self-described communist parties and I was talking about the communist revolutions leading to oppressive states.

Because people on this board venerate him.

Yeah it's a semantic issue, who cares.

So a leader who restricts people's actions and another leader that protects people's actions to do whatever they want is spooks?

You can't have a nation without a state i.e. government.

Nationalism > Confederalism (ie. spooked support for decentralized states)

Also what happened to your "Government =/= State", why are you using the term "states" here?

Are there no US and UK leftist citizens and politicians? Are there no US and UK laws protecting minorities that the far-right wants to abolish?

An imagined community based upon a shared sense of identity, to which its members subscribe.

This.

Strawman, the point is not to just wave flags as if they unconditionally support it, but to change their nations for the better.

entryism seemed to work well for the right.

1) we've had half a century of civic nationalism, it's literally happening right now. where's all the harmony?
2) patriotism/nationalism are inherently terrain of the right – since right-wing politics = in-group tribalism and defense of hierarchy
3) social attitude surveys constantly reaffirm a correlation between reactionary attitudes (militarism, racism) and "love of country" (recall the reactions to colin kaepernick sitting during the anthem, it was 100% the right screeching)
4) you can't just change the meaning of this at will. blood and soil is a total spook, but it is real in a provisional and lived sense. it's been a horrible aspect of humanity for thousands of years. it is something people falsely percieve to be real, and has caused countless wars and genocides. all the more reason to dismantle capitalism, advance to socialism and communism and disintegrate borders and let people live where they please with total freedom
5) you're not interested in that because you're a socdem that will probably be a conservative in a few years

Civic nationalism =/= leftist nationalism

Leftist nationalism is against in-group tribalism and hierarchy.

In leftist nationalism standing alongside reactionaries during the anthem would be considered treason to the cause. Also leftist nationalists might want to create their own anthem and flag.

You obviously are incapable of understanding what's being discussed here. Go have your ass beaten up by the far-right you autistic useless anarchist.

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He doesn't help your case, that's my point.

The problem is that you create a lot of fuss about nothing. Nobody here (that I know if) is against goverment, just against states, except for the MLs, but even they officially only support these in order for them to "wither away".

So every region that is governed is a nation? Pretty ahistorical if you ask me.

The necessity for a leader to do this in the first place is the problem.

libcom.org/library/nationalism-“national-question”-murray-bookchin

I don't see the problem. Or are you complaining because I used "centralized" to emphasize the nature of the nation state?

Besides being a painful degree of IdPol, I have a few following questions. What kind of "identity" is this you are talking about? Sexual? Football team? Racial?
And who gets to define the "community"? Who gets to decide who is within and who isn't? And why does this necessitate a state, or at least always has?

National.

The community themselves, by whatever criteria they wish.

The community themselves, as well as the specific individual in question.

It doesn't.
Historically, nationalism has supported a state because we live in bourgeois society, and the dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class. Ergo, it captures and propagates its own bourgeois forms of whatever ideology it can get its hands on: feminism, Islam, nationalism, etc.

I notice you've linked to Bookchin. One thing you'll find that's common to almost all leftist critiques of nationalism, from Fanon to Luxemburg, is that they all firstly assume that nationalism is some kind of essentially bourgeois spirit, which is silly - ideologies have the class character that we give them. The other thing is that they implicitly accept the existence of the imagined communities that we call "nations", but then assume that these communities will lose all sense of common identity and solidarity once we replace capitalism. It's so naive, and it remains one of the Left's biggest oversights.

Marx and Engels didn't really care about how the post-revolutionary communist society was to be governed but modern marxists insist that anarchism is the definite socialist position.

The only one creating a fuss here is you, for most people government = state.

I didn't say that, I said "You can't have a nation without a government".

>libcom.org/library/nationalism-“national-question”-murray-bookchin
Not going to read a whole article on another site. Learn to make arguments yourself.

Still to vague. Please explain what constitutes this "identity"?

By democratic means? By electing a representative to decide? Or just some common sense consensus? You are presupposing too many things…

Then this "nationalism" is entirely meaningless in my eyes. What is the point of this then, if no state defines, "defends", manifests and legitimizes itself by this "nationality".

You know that the word "bourgeois" isn't just something like "jewish" that the right likes to throw around do devalue an idea?

Ask other people on this board, I'm sure they will distinct the two. If you mean "most people" as in the average person you'll meet on the street, I'm not talking about them.

No, since I clearly distinct between state and goverment, I'm saying "You can't have a nation without a state".

No ;)

You just stated the opposite of my comment, so I wasn't supposing this was a real discussion (also I just wanted to post this as a general resource), but I'll quote you a significant section anyway:

Forgot to add following paragraph:

How about you open your eyes and take a look at the world around you?
How many more bloody, dusty children in Syria do you need to see?
dude go sew a pink pussy hat and file your taxes

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It's not an "identity", it's a community that already exists and will continue to exist even after the revolution. We can either appeal to it and use it or we can ignore it and let the far-right win over it.

These nationalities are already well established, I wish they weren't but we're not living in the Medieval Ages you moron, you won't convince people to drop their nationality overnight.

I don't see much difference, since I could easily say that the government is a tool to diffuse class conflict and I would be correct.

Memechin's analysis is completely irrelevant since confederalism lost to nationalism and you can't go back to it, not to mention it's undesirable regardless. As a state socialist I am all for leftist/benevolent centralizing rulers that forge nations into people's havens.

Oh I clearly see the shitty world around me and I clearly see incompetent morons like you letting the far-right win and making the world even worse.

Didn't even knew about this before you mention, obviously you prefer to lose your time searching for this filth than actually thinking about a strategy to fight against the resurgent far-right.

Brown subhumans == no more civilization

Racists are uncivilized barbarians.

The states are not the nation, the people are the nation.

ive said this before and I'll say it again
the "nation" is a completely artificial construct.
Pride in and/or love for where you come from makes sense on a regional or local level. not nationalism though.

left wing nationalism only makes sense in a world of global capitalism

americansocialunion.wordpress.com

check out my flag and do some research friendo

Identities aren't "constituted". They're subscribed to.

Stop being autistic.

It's a logical and natural outlet for the human desire for community.

You know that ideologies and movements have something called "CLASS CHARACTER", and that "bourgeois" has an actual meaning that we leftists use?

Funny how every single developed country in the entire world went to the bother of constructing them then. Ditto for a whole host of disenfranchised national minorities. And how do you account for the spontaneous "construction" of nations in Yugoslavia and the USSR?

In global communism, nations will still exist, albeit without states. Just because I live in a world free of coercion, markets and borders, doesn't mean I've lost my sense of national identity and national consciousness.

Left nationalism is good, i support it.

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is dodger part of antifa? why did someone photoshop cum onto her face?

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Literally nothing. Patriotism and nationalism are different.

this is a shit meme tbh

That's a non-answer. People need healthcare, housing, food and education right fucking now. To demand that they wait until the revolution comes around is pointless cruelty - that's no better than the liberal who tells us just to wait until the crisis has run its course for employment to pick back up. To casually laugh away the welfare state as it exists is to betray your ignorance of how much people depend on it just to stay afloat.

Ivory tower rhetoric likes this deserves to be laughed out of the room.

I was responding to your friend who said that it is an identity - nice to know that the only two people on the board in support of """Left Nationalism""" can't make up their mind.

Great idea, let's also appeal with racism, sexism, racialism and other IdPol memes instead of showing how this concept of "nation" and "nationality" is nonsense.

Again, nobody is saying they would be "dropped" over night, but this doesn't mean that the Left should put emphasis and use this concept of a "nation". Also, why sustain them "after the revolution"?

Thereby becoming a state. It's a terminological difference, see marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state

Why do you say "go back to it"? If you're implying that this could only be done in the past, please read the article.

Never gone wrong before, this concept of "people's havens", amirite? Protip: yes, is has: youtu.be/FRTsInTXAgk?t=4m15s

You still haven't made it clear what defines this identity they subscribe to. Is it their common language? the fact that they live on the same territory divided by national borders? genetic relation? race?

Stop evading my questions.

So you're saying "nation" is just the "community of people"? Just makes it even more meaningless. I mean, how far does this "community" reach? Is a Russian in Moscow more related to a Inuit in Vladivostok than a person in Belarus? What about people with no national identification (eg. myself)? Where am I to go? What am I to do?

But you're using it in a derogative way, and that's my problem.

Go home, maoist.

youtube.com/watch?v=m9We2XsVZfc

Seriously, just stop being autistic.

Stop backpedaling and using ad hominems, kiddo.

Mate, it was called Not Socialism. It's literally in the game.

You're autistic. I don't respect you.

Please explain :^)

Alternatively, explain what the "Nation" is, because you still haven't given a coherent definition. Or you could also watch this: youtu.be/FRTsInTXAgk?t=4m15s

Nationalist movements are easy to attach any philosophy you please to them. There is no reason the left must restrict it's tactics in it's efforts to create a socialist state.

What's wrong is that it's capitalism.

It's rather simple: you're autistic and I don't respect what you have to say, because it's trash.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia

You're not doing this well. I've shown you how the concept of the nation is nonsense, but you've just gone on insulting me for no reason. But I understand it, it's not easy to admit you're wrong, but that's why we're anonymous here. You can come back tomorrow, with a changed mind an nobody will care or hold you accountable.

No, the concept of nation is not wrong. I do not wish to live in a boring standardized world like it is becoming at the moment.
You have the same dream as porky.

It's a product of capitalism, which is. The nation is the whole of the national capital; there is no nation without capital, for there is property under capital.

Porky's dream by definition involves nations, or the equivalent thereof.

Nations are a product of national consciousness, not capital or other material things.

I said nonsense, not wrong. How should a concept be "wrong" or "right"?

Nor do I, but you don't need nations for that. People can still have their culture, with or without nation (I'd say even better without, since you don't have the artificial concept of nation, see and the Russia example)

Proky doesn't care about the existence of absence of nations, they want states, and nations can or cannot be used to legitimize them. What they want is a global state to make capital flow as smoothly as possible. What I want are confederations, meaning the power ultimately comes from below, but that's not the point now.

Go to bed, Berkeley.

If that's the case how do you explain separatist movements?
They somehow claim allegiance to an imagined capital?

False consciousness, as with everything; the byproduct of being environmentally raised to revere the tribe instead of grasping one's conditions of existence.

Why do people like you come to a board filled with communists; people historically known to refuse to fight any wars whatsoever except the war of the classes? We ("we", as in our ideological ancestors) have been killed over refusing to throw our lives and the lives of the working class away in wars between capital's tribes (nation, firm, etc.). It made us public enemy number 1.

Is it wrong to use nationalism to fight against imperialism?

Oh geez…

If you truly are an anti-capitalist, then yes, for they are one and the same: imperialism is the form capital takes when it inevitably needs to expand outwards. Lenin called imperialism a "stage" of capitalism for this very reason.

As for nationalism; the modern (nation) state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with, and the whole mode of production never can.

At this point I can't even follow what it is you're implying.
Do you accept that individuals and groups can develop a sense of identity that is independent of their economic relations?

Of their material conditions, which may or may not be economic, and no.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01.htm

Wait, are you trying to say that a worker in one country has more in common with the bourgeois than with workers of other countries, and that therefore their interests are the same? Smells like class-collaboration

Realistically, how do you expect global communism to from?

How then do you explain material changes that were the product of social conditions? Say for example, the dissolutions of the USSR and Yugoslavia, which were largely (I would say primarily) the result of nationalist sentiment? How did Macedonians develop this distinct Macedonian identity while being part of a country that made nationalism literally illegal?

Do not separate material change and social condition; they are borne of the same thing: matter in discourse.

The USSR and Yugoslavia were little more than capitalist, and dissolution was welcomed by national capital because with it and liberal reform, capital could expand better. It was little more than a bourgeois stratagem, and the idea that the USSR was dissolved because people made them do so is absurd; especially as in the USSR dissolution was autocratically decided upon, with provisional government established by it in all post-union liberal democracies. Particular identitarian sentiments were raised by the dual force of nostalgism (resting upon prior material conditions) and individual bourgeois bodies igniting it as ideological edifice to weaponize their aims (in Yugoslavia, this is how the firms that always existed in it pushed for it).

sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html
insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/

Well that's rather convenient. It seems like when material explanations don't work you change the definition to include social conditions too.

This is a very round-about way of ignoring that nationalism was a primary force in breaking up both countries; and has been universally accepted since in both the former Yugoslavia and post-Soviet space.

Nostalgia for…a Russian republic that existed for a few months in 1917? For Serbian, Croatian and other republics that most people had never lived through? No, they just wanted independence and self-determination.

Agency is nothing without structure. There was a vast well of national sentiment that elites were able to tap into. Where did that national sentiment come from, in a country that made it illegal for decades?

You're too ignorant to have a discussion on this about. Educate yourself lest you expect people to spoonfeed you on every little thing when you want to talk to them about things that require prior knowledge.

Nostalgia doesn't have to relate to actually existing things. See US nostalgia for 50's/60's.

I've made a fool of you. Learn from your mistakes, buckaroo.

He's right you retard, the base determines the superstructure.

I've provided two concrete counter examples to that, so feel free to debunk them. Otherwise you're just shitposting based on some jpeg you saw once. Once you've done that (you can't and won't though) then you can start explaining why other national minorities have developed and sustained national consciousness in political environments that are hostile to them, and in which fostering that consciousness directly harms their material prospects.

What's wrong with a leftist nation who is friendly towards immigrants but still has a very strict immigration policy? Having a generous welfare system AND a lax immigration policy is just asking for a hugely unsustainable amount of migrants to pour into the country from poorer countries (not blaming them, I'd do the same), and that puts a huge amount of strain on the infrastructure of the country and causes public services to fail, and also contributes to the destruction of our green spaces due to ever-increasing demands for house.

There is nothing wrong with it "as such" (assuming it actually does what it promises, but that's an entirely different problem). But since most people here are Communists of one sort or another, our goal isn't having a friendly nation-state, with borders and possibly even classes. maybe if you're a socdem, maybe you want something like this, but most people here aren't.

You have ignored every argument until noe and have been utterly destroyed. Why do you still insist on being taken seriously?

Personally I think it's the only realistic solution until every state is economically equivalent and freedom of movement really is just based on wanting to experience a different culture or climate. That's why I favour very strict border controls (as well as foreign aid to help poorer countries reach their potential). I've spent more time on regular Holla Forums though and only just come around to the idea that I'm a lefty at heart, so I'm still developing my ideas.

Please don't mix """Nation""", Government and State up, see , ,

Yeah having pride in the shithole you didn't choose to be born into and the hicks back home sure makes more sense than having pride in the leftist nation you helped build.

Having pride in your nation just because it exists is retarded, I agree. Having pride in the nation that you and your fellow leftist countrymen struggled to create is good, that's left nationalism.

A true nationalist is proud of people immigrating to his nation because he knows it's a great nation to live in.

Yes and that includes immigrants.

No, I demand that they make the revolution and start organizing charities. State welfare is parasitism just like capitalism and welfare sustains capitalism, thus delaying the revolution.

Except for the fact that Left Nationalism is against racism and sexism because it divides the nation.

It does if you want to appeal to ordinary working people.

I never argued for that, I couldn't give a shit if my nation ceased to exist today, what part of cosmopolitan immigrant-welcoming nation did you not understand? Obviously nations will naturally disappear when every nation in the world is cosmopolitan with open-borders.

Whatever autist, go venerate Marx some more.

>Never gone wrong before, this concept of "people's havens", amirite? Protip: yes, is has: youtu.be/FRTsInTXAgk?t=4m15s
That's what happens when you don't put emphasis in the quality of individuals you let into the movement's leadership and when you don't plan about what exact type of systems will be implemented after the revolution, to do so would be "utopian socialism", amrite?

What's wrong is that it's limiting people's freedom of movement and everyone should be free to choose which country they want to go live in.

Then abolish welfare and put people to work, this is what the policy on refugees and migrants should be. Welfare sustains capitalism and is unfair to taxpayers regardless of immigrants.

And the nation divides the human race, you know, the thing the Internationale wants to unite.

My point is that Nation is just another useless division, and is also just another category of IdPol.

Again, we could also appeal to them with racism, sexism, racialism and other IdPol memes. Just because you're evading my point, doesn't make it less legitimate.

^^ So why the hell are you advocating for nations?

Non argument. And what's your problem with people using proper terminology, instead of just some vague "definitions".

Your last comment is so horrible, I don't even know where to start. You assume I'm a hardcore Marxist, just because I differentiate between Government and State, and try and bait me on that. It's just embarrassing, tbh.

But let me ask you this: How is your conception any different than Fascism? Mussolini was also a leftist with strong nationalist tendencies, until he turned to Fascism. Your version is basically just a bit more cosmopolitan and relaxed with immigrants, but other than that I don't see too many differences. Literally what is left-wing about your idea? Or have you fallen for the liberal left-wing definition?

The communist party motto of my country is: "A patriotic and leftist policy"

Are they fascists?

Are they ML?

The idea of a leftist nationalism can be positive in underdevolped countries, since they couldn't really built a "nation" due to imperialism/economic dependency.

Left wing economics are very compatible with nationalism. Thats why many communist (here in Holla Forums too) sound reactionary in their statements.