LENIN AND THE JEWISH QUESTION
Nathan Weinstock
After publishing Yesterday's essay Nathan Weinstock on Marx and the Jewish question we propose the same author's point of view on this issue of the founder of the Bolshevik party.
Contrary to Marx, Lenin knew the situation of the Jewish masses of the Russian Empire. If he is referring to the work of Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer, this is precisely insofar as it is to advise on trends assimilation "in the civilian world," that is not Eastern Europe, but the Western bourgeois democracies. (1)
So he read, more clearly than Marx, the consequences of the special role traditionally taken by the Jews. They form, he writes, a nation - "the most oppressed , the most persecuted " - which in Galicia and in Russia, "semi-wild backward countries, is maintained " violence in a state of caste . (2) The description puts well in relief of double nature, social and national, provided that the Leon (3) expressed succinctly in the definition of "people-class " Lenin thus corrects reviews too rigid and had expressed in 1903 in his polemic with the Bund, a time when he, without any nuance, put emphasis on the fact that the Jewish people had lost their national characteristics. In this period believed that the arguments of the Bund on the existence of a Jewish nation would lead to a autoisolazionismo reazionario, al ripiegamento sullo spirito del ghetto. (4)
Nelle sue note critiche sulla questione nazionale (1913) egli mette in rilievo innanzitutto le “due tendenze storiche nella questione nazionale”: il risveglio della vita nazionale e la formazione di stati nazionali all’alba dello sviluppo della società capitalistica e “la distruzione delle barriere nazionali, la creazione dell’unità internazionale del capitale, della vita economica in generale, della politica, della scienza, ecc.” che caratterizzano il capitalismo giunto nella sua fase di maturità. (5)
Ora, ponendo la questione ebraica in questa prospettiva, è chiaro che nell’Europa Eastern backwardness strengthens the Jewish particularism while in the western states are all conditions for assimilation ... " out of ten and a half million Jews worldwide, almost half live 'in the civilized world' in condition maximum assimilation, while the Jews of Galicia and Russia, unhappy, oppressed, deprived of rights, crushed by the various Puriskevic (Russians and Poles) are living in conditions of minimum "assimilation" of the particularly: to the point that have been set up "zones of residence required "for the Jews, who came to define even for them," a percentage rule "and other delights alla Puriskevic ”. (6)
A rigor di termini, gli ebrei non costituiscono una nazione né nei paesi semifeudali in cui formano una casta, né nei paesi occidentali in cui si assimilano. Questi fatti “ attestano che i soli che possano strepitare contro l’ “assimilazione” sono i piccolo-borghesi reazionari ebrei che vogliono fare andare indietro la ruota della storia, obbligandola a girare non nel senso che dalla Russia e dalla Galizia porti a Parigi o New York, ma in quello contrario ”. (7)
Un partito marxista “(formula) un programma nazionale dal punto di vista del proletariato”. (8) This means that "Marxism puts internationalism instead of every nationality). It "fully recognizes the historical legitimacy of national movements," but that this recognition does not mutate into a defense of nationalism that it should be limited strictly to what is there in these progressive movements-this award must never obscure the consciousness of the proletariat with bourgeois ideology. " Hence the duty and interest of the proletariat "to shake all the feudal yoke, all national oppression, privilege for any one nation or one language", in which case it is a progressive nationalism. But nationalism can only be sustained in these narrow limits, and in this context historically determined. Going beyond this essentially negative task-fight injustice "committed to democracy more and more consistent means to strengthen bourgeois nationalism. (9)
Each national culture has in itself a dominant bourgeois culture and "elements, although not developed a democratic and socialist culture," which arise from the living conditions of the oppressed working masses. "Therefore, the 'national culture' in general is that the landowners, the clergy and the bourgeoisie." (10) Consequently, the labor movement will have the password not the national culture, but proletarian internationalism, "the international culture of democracy and the labor movement universal (11), the fight against bourgeois nationalism and" its that "nationalism in particular. (12)
The proletariat "supports everything that helps to erase national distinctions," so that the unit is implemented in class and not in the nation (13). "Propaganda for full equality of nations and languages \u200b\u200bshould show only the elements in every nation of democracy resulting (Only those who are working class) who are not by nationality, but according to their tendency to serious and profound improvements in the overall structure of the state. (14)
Applying this analysis to the Jewish question, Lenin opposed to national culture in general-Jewish particularism which originates from the condition of Jews in the semi-feudal country, and reflects "everything that among the Jews in the nature of caste" - i "great universally progressive strands of Jewish culture", that is, proletarian internationalism and adherence to the movement. He adds:
"The percentage of Jews in democratic and proletarian movements is always higher than that of the Jews in the total population. " The statement of national culture is the goal that puts the Jewish bourgeoisie and the proletariat has the task of Jewish integration into the international working class, bringing her own contribution " for creating the culture of the international workers' movement '" (15).
Lenin argues bitterly with the Jewish Bund party, whose national program (the national cultural autonomy)" divide nationalities and approaches made to the workers of a nation to their middle class. " (16 )
Lenin pronounced instead for the repeal of all national privileges and equal rights of all national minorities. Recognizes "the freedom of each association, including the association of any community, whatever their nationality in a particular State." (17) also recommended to replace the outdated political boundaries with the new territorial units inspired, too, the national composition of the population. "To abolish all national oppression, it is necessary above all to create new divisions autonomous, even of the lowest proportions, a single national and comprehensive settlement, around which could also 'gravitate' and enter into relationship with esse associazioni libere di qualsiasi specie, i membri di una determinata nazionalità, dispersa nei diversi punti di un paese o anche del mondo”. Ma, aggiunge, se la composizione nazionale della popolazione è un fattore importantissimo “sarebbe assurdo e impossibile” separare le città (a composizione nazionale mista) dai villaggi e dalle frazioni che vi gravitano intorno in ragione dell’elemento nazionale”. (18)
Questo significa che la popolazione ebraica concentrata soprattutto nei grandi centri urbani, dove si trova in posizione minoritaria, non sarebbe in grado di formare in pratica tali entità nazionali.
Lo scarso successo dei soviet locali e regionali ebrei in Urss in the twenties shows this clearly. Moreover in the urban environment, the Jewish proletariat tends to assimilation.
In one of his last writings Lenin pointed out that to erase the legacy of national oppression of the tsarist and ensure solidarity among the nation's already dominant class and the previously oppressed people would require the larger concessions to the oppressed nation. (19)
_______________________________________________________________
NOTES
(1) LENIN, Notes critiques ...
p.16 (2) Ibid. pp.12-13
(3) Abram Leon, Belgian Trotskyist leader, author of " Marxism and the Jewish question ," Samona and Savelli, Rome 1968.
(4) See J. Fraenkel, Lenin and the Russian Jews , pp.104-105 and SM SCHWARTH, The Jewish in the Soviet Union , Syracuse, 1951, p.50
(5) LENIN, Notes critiques ..., p.14
(6) There , p.16
(7) Ibid
(8) There , p.30
( 9) There , p.22-23
(10) Ibid, p.11
(11) Ibid, p.8
(12) There , p.12
(13) Ibid, p.24
(14) Ibid, p.31-32
(15) Ibid, p .14 \u200b\u200b
(16) Ibid, p.32
(17) Ibid, p.28
(18) There , p.41
(19) " La question des nationalités, ou de l'autonomy "31.12.1923 in Lenine, Oeuvres, Tome 36, Paris Moscow 1959, pp.620-622.
0 comments:
Post a Comment