From this point of view, three categories of ideology can be distinguished : imperialist, cosmopolitan and internationalist.
Imperialism (as an ideology) consists in only considering, in any international problem, the interests of one's own nation, and in refusing to acknowledge the existence, the equality or the legitimate rights of other nations. An exclusive nationalism can only play a useful role within oppressed nations struggling for their freedom, but in any independent nation, it inevitably leads to attempted oppression of other peoples and to war.
Certain religions, such as Shintoism, Judaism (the "chosen people"), doctrines such as Nazism (the "race of lords"), fascism, maurrassism, and most current patriotic mentalities enter into this category.
Judaism, the cultural expression of the Hebrew nation, has played a capital role in the survival of this nation over the last two thousand years, whilst one observes its influence diminishing amongst the Israeli people as a more realistic and less mythical nationalism asserts itself.
Imperialist doctrines and mentalities are used by the leading classes to mask the existence of the nation's internal problems (essentially class problems), to blame other countries for the nation's internal difficulties and to avoid, through external conflict, a revolution which would overthrow them.
Imperialist ideologies do not allow a scientific definition of the nation, and rather consider it as a force in perpetual motion. This conception of the nation, corresponding to the "bestial" history of humanity and more specifically to the times when the earth was becoming populated, has only recently been abandoned.
At a time when a world war would be catastrophic for the whole of humanity, when any imperialistic attempts come up against obstacles that are almost impossible to overcome (because of the universal strength of the national consciousness, the fact that populations are now firmly and densely settled and because of external intervention by other nations) and when international co-operation would allow considerable improvement for all populations, imperialist conceptions, because of their anachronism, are in reality directly opposed to national interests. Here, as elsewhere, the only type of egoism in accordance with its own ends, is collective egoism; the true interest of a nation is interdependent with that of all other nations.
But national realities take revenge in their own way. Such ideologies are sufficiently vague and general to allow or indeed demand interpretations and additions that transform them into the instruments of a nation. The nation is thus presented as having for "mission" to bring the truth (to impose it) to other peoples: France, the "Church's eldest daughter", the great Russian people "the older brother" of socialism.
One can call such ideologies worldly or cosmopolitan. They include religions like Christianity and Islam, doctrines such as liberalism and democracy, federalism, naive pacifism, anarchism, Marxism.... The majority of them aim openly or more subtly at constituting a universal state which (taking into account the unavoidable persistence of ethno-geographical differences and of imperialist inclinations) would not be anything less than the hypocritical and veiled domination by one or several nations over the rest of humanity.
These ideologies are ambivalent from a national point of view, and can play a negative role (aggressive or defeatist) or, on the contrary, a positive role (pacifist or liberator), whether in a context of an independent population or an oppressed population.
One can refuse to take part in a war of aggression by conscientious objection, in the name of Christianity or Islam, one can protest against racial persecution, rise up against an oppressive (and non-believing) nation, but one can also justify any national oppression in the name of obedience due to the established leaders, preach in favour of invasions under the banner of crusades or a holy war against the unfaithful and send out missionaries everywhere that, at the same time, are the best emissaries of the colonists and imperialist soldiers. It was in order to "reveal the true faith" that the Spanish conquistadors massacred, stole from and enslaved the South American Indians. It was in order to impose the "prophet's law" that the Arabs conquered and yoked numerous Asian, African and Balkan nations. It was in order to wipe out "heresy" that the papist French conquered Occitania, burnt its towns and their inhabitants and massacred its civilisation.
"Heresies" and schisms, different interpretations of general principles, are more often than not the disguised expression of ethnic factors; thus, for example, the Persian Chiism, the Occitanian catharism, the Coptic monophysism.
Liberalism can signify freedom for all nations, but also so-called economic freedom, free trading, the common market, namely the freedom for the economically stronger nation to exploit the other nations. As all other cosmopolitan ideologies, liberalism claims to identify itself with a universal civilisation. As a form of expression belonging mainly to English-speaking peoples (along with French, Dutch, etc) this liberalism is principally used as a smoke screen to camouflage the exploitation of a large part of the globe by Anglo-American and French trusts. In order to allow them to benefit from its advantages, part of humanity it kept starving, expeditions are made to Saint Domingo and to Suez the atomic threat is regularly brandished should any protest be made.
Democracy, seen as a dogma, is as dangerous where national questions are concerned as when social issues are at stake. It is based on an illusion of abstract freedom which can be spiritually enjoyed, whilst the reality is one of human entities with individual needs, under the influence of external factors. Men are not born free, but as slaves (both physiologically and socially) and help is needed for them to free themselves. In the same way as workers can be aware of their situation and have their own aspirations, or have a consciousness which does not belong to their class but is imposed by the leading classes, the members of a nation can have a national consciousness or a foreign consciousness imposed by the dominant nation.
The so-called popular will is the product of existing power struggles, a compromise which can vary in importance between real inclinations and external pressure, and which often only expresses a gigantic hoax.
Democracy is therefore false in cases of assimilation and furthermore, it has no sense whatsoever in the case of a substitution of a population, apart from ratifying the power struggle. How much would a referendum in Ionia, following the expulsion of the Greeks by the Turkish in 1923, signify? What meaning would have a referendum today in Lower Silesia and in the Sudetes, once the Germans (who had been the sole inhabitants for five hundred years) were expelled by the Poles and the Czechs? Democracy, as far as the national issue is concerned, is not a valid principle but a means of imposing fair internationalist solutions used in varying degrees depending on the country and the era.
Pacifism, unless it takes into account such realities as imperialism, can condemn both conquerors and resistance fighters, and be used as a moral support for passivity opposed to oppression.
Federalism, which tends to dilute and drown the national factor in all sorts of different infra and supra-national communities (secondary communities, in other words), can be used to justify the claims for autonomy of an annexed nation, the first step towards independence, but it can also be used to mask the true nature of the problem, its national character, to prevent the separation, the nation's complete independence and finally, to camouflage attempted annexation. The "little European" federalism, the "supra-nationality" has, over the last few years, been the main camouflage used by two combined bourgeois imperialist states - the Anglo-Americans and the Germans.
Anarchism, with its varying and often confused currents, emerged partially from criticisms levelled at liberalism, at federalism and at naive pacifism, and partially from criticisms aimed at Marxism. Leaders of the national movement in Georgia, in Bulgarian Macedonia, sympathising with the Catalan national movement but ignoring a problem such as the Union of Spanish-speaking peoples, the anarchists helped the Bolsheviks to crush independent Ukraine.
Lastly, Marxism is the strongest doctrine in the struggle against the bourgeois imperialist states, but it can also lead to the sacrifice of these struggles in favour of what is believed to be the interest of a "worldwide proletariat", and also be used as an instrument and a justification for socialist imperialist states.
Every great scholar, theoretician or scientist tends to exaggerate the importance of his discovery, neglecting other aspects of reality. When they do take them into account, they tend to underestimate them and arbitrarily considers them as being a derivative of their specialist domain. Marx did not escape this rule. If, in his domain of class problems, certain tendencies appeared that he had not foreseen (which we cannot reproach him for), he also refused to see the importance of problems other than class problems, and his followers have hence tended to treat them simply as derivatives of class issues. Marx and his followers treated ethnic problems and family social problems in the same way.
It is clear that Marx, who shared the exclusive economism of the ruling capitalism, did not understand the role of language as being one of the primordial factors within a society, as one of the main themes which helps any understanding of history. Even more generally, he ignored the decisive role played by geographical and racial influences on the course of history. This position of economist/class fighter hindered him from seeing one of the principal aspects of economic exploitation itself, i.e. the exploitation of one nation by another. This position led him on to cosmopolitan considerations and hence imperialistic ones (or which were interpreted as such, since the majority of his disciples understood them in that way until only recently).
Because of this, Marxists have either ignored or violently fought against numerous movements in favour of national freedom. For example, Marx's hostile, contemptuous and totally unsympathetic attitude towards the nations of Central Europe and the Balkans.
As heir of the Judeo-Christian and democratic-bourgeois single line evolutionism, which conceives historical determinism as one of class conflicts and proletarian consciousness, itself a product of capitalism, the only issue for Marx was that of Western imperialism. Western European nations were the only capitalist nations, the only with a proletariat. They were thus the only nations capable of revolt and were to lead the socialist construction in the rest of the world. It is not surprising that in 1849 Marx wrote: "The next world war will see the disappearance from the face of the earth, not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but of entire reactionary populations. This is also part of progress".
The Hebrew renaissance was still a long way off and Marx, along with the Jewish Bolsheviks later on, remained prisoner of his status as an uprooted, denationalised, semi-assimilated person, with all the ensuing consequences.
Amongst the parties inspired more or less exclusively by Marx, the social democrats pushed Western Messianic imperialism, implicit in Marxism, to its practical conclusions. For example, the servile faithfulness of the 2nd International to the Austro-Hungarian unity and its lengthy hostility towards Polish independence, the attitude of the English labour government encouraging the Arab feudal leaders against the young Israeli state, its hostility of this same party towards the Welsh and Scottish demands, the politics of the labour movement in Australia forbidding huge uninhabited territories from being inhabited by the Asian populations crushed together in Bengal and Fou-Kien. Lastly, the constant support given by the SFIO (French socialist party) to French colonialism, going as far as leading a terrible imperialist war against the Arabs and the Berbers in Algeria, its hostility towards demands made by the Basques, the Bretons, the Germans in Alsace and Moselle and its support for "European" projects.
It is true that it is difficult to hope for anything else from European social democratic parties after they willingly took part in the huge butchery of 1914-1918, each in the camp of their own imperialism.
On the other hand, one must not forget the recognition of the independence of India, Burma and Ceylon by the English Labour Party - which, however, was paid for by the creation of a phantom and docile Pakistan. One should also note Jean Jaures' exceptional accuracy when he declared in 1910: "When a revolutionary trade-unionist claimed in the recent Toulouse congress "Down with the homelands, long live the universal homeland", he was not calling for the disappearance, the extinction of the homelands in an immense mediocrity, where the personalities and spirits would loose their individuality and colours. Neither was he calling out for the absorption of the homelands into one huge servitude, the taming of all the homelands by the strongest and the unification of humanity via a colossal military unity. When shouting "down with the homelands", he was shouting "down with the egoism and the antagonism of the homelands, down with the patriotic prejudices and blind hatreds, down with the fratricidal wars, the homelands of oppression and destruction; he was calling for a universal homeland of free workers, of independent and friendly nations."
Over the last few years, a definite evolution of several socialist parties has become evident: the Portuguese socialists are amongst the leading architects of the suppression of the Lusitanian colonial empire, whilst the French socialists have started supporting the more modest demands of ethnic groups within the country, and during recent socialist conferences, a brighter future has been envisaged for these different ethnic groups.
With Lenin and Stalin, the Marxists saw, in part at least, the importance of national factors and put forward the struggle for national independence against bourgeois imperialism. However, it was really more of a superficial and tactical attitude than a principle. In not admitting the linguistic criterion as the only criterion usable in practice, they were unable to determine when and where a nation begins.
They were not faced with the problem of establishing a policy of nationalities, based on scientific and ethnologic facts, and considered as being a fundamental objective, but how best to make use of the national questions in order to seize power and achieve the only essential objective - the socio-economic revolution - on a uniformly worldwide basis.
Stalin's study, inspired by Lenin, had the merit of being a first attempt at an objective approach to the problem, but deformed by the class dogmatism, it remained not only superficial and approximate, but also false, because it attempted to add other criteria, practically unusable, to the linguistic evidence. For example, Stalin considered the nation as a simple product of capitalism, and only examined the problem of national independence within the capitalist framework and as an aspect of the bourgeois revolution. In reinforcing the idea of a uniform worldwide communism, of a centralised international communist party, the Leninists ideologically and organisationally expressed the Russian socialist imperialism, camouflaged by a proletarian cosmopolitanism. This is a startling example (along the lines of the Christianity/Roman Empire comparison and democracy/French republic comparison) due to the fact that every cosmopolitan ideology becomes national as soon as it becomes a reality and is used as a justification for national expansion.
Whilst Lenin and Trotsky, remaining faithful to Marxist ideas, had only conceived the October revolution in a tactical perspective in order to assist the proletarian revolution in the West (a necessary prelude to the construction of socialism in Russia), Stalin and Boukharine went back, without admitting it, to the conception of the revolutionary socialist party, and decided to create socialism in Russia in an independent manner, based on the specific Russian, pre-capitalist conditions. Stalin had been opposed to Trotsky as the motor to the historic passage of western Marxism to the Russian National Socialism, which was a great progress for Russia. However, simultaneously, as Stalinism conserved the proletarian cosmopolitanism, it was transformed from an instrument of the German, English and French imperialist systems into an instrument of the Russian imperialism, of Western and Russian messianism.
The false comparison between the march towards general progress in the world and the specific form taken by this evolution in Russia, and the negation of the persistence of imperialist tendencies in the socialist regime, led the communist parties of other countries to sacrifice their national interests - the interest of socialism in each country - to the Russian imperialist designs and enticed them to put pressure on their own bourgeois class in order to let their country enter the Russian orbit, in the hopes that Russian domination would bring about socialism.
Without being able to examine here in detail the direction followed by all the communist parties on national questions, below are the essential points :
Externally, Soviet politics played an essential role in the struggle against Anglo-American imperialism but, under the pretext of fighting against the latter, they ensured their own domination over the "popular democracies" and the communist parties and subsequently offered real justifications to their adversaries. Each of the super-imperialists can only maintain its domination over its vassals when they are threatened by another super-power. Subsequently, a blow struck to one of them simultaneously touches its rivals (by facilitating the struggle against them in other countries) as confirmed by the internal unity of the conflict led by all the neutralist nationalist forces.
In France, the French communist party has resolutely fought against the Anglo-American influence in all its forms and has partially supported the populations of the French colonies overseas. Its anti-colonialism is very relative, since it is subordinate to its struggle against the present French regime, and could well become a socialist colonialism should they come into office in Metropolitan France; this explains the Communists' participation (when they were in the government) in the dispatching of the expeditionary corps to Indochina, as well as in the massacres in the SÈtif region in 1945, and their long-standing position in favour of a "true" French union and the departmentalisation of the West Indies. Through its unconditional support for Russian imperialism, the P.C.F. came up against the legitimate French nationalism of a large part of the population. At the same time the P.C.F. tried to make amends by flattering the imperialistic distortions of this nationalism by its semi-colonialism and its opposition to any concrete stand against the Algerian war.
On the other-hand, the P.C.F. does not lay claim to the French-speaking regions such as Walloon, French Switzerland, Val d'Aoste, French Canada, the Channel Isles, nor do they acknowledge the right to independence of Brittany, Provence, etc. They only refer to a "particular situation" in Alsace and Moselle instead of acknowledging the German right to the major part of these territories.
The Trotskyists have often been opposed to the imperialistic practice of the Stalinist epoch claiming, for instance, the independence of the Soviet republics and the evacuation of the "popular democracies" by the Russian army without, however, realising that this practice was ineluctably linked to Marxist and Leninist errors and theoretical inaccuracies.
Here, as in other domains, they did not attempt any theoretical renewal and they have kept cosmopolitan positions, and therefore pro-imperialist ones (such as support for the "United States of Socialist Europe"); they are one of the parties of Marxist origin that has learnt nothing about the national question. They have not understood that economic conflicts have always developed at two levels (between nations and between classes), and that the suppression of international power struggles, of imperialism, is an aim in itself of equal importance as that of the suppression of capitalism. They have not understood that the struggle for peace and national independence is related to the struggle in favour of socialism but is reliant on it.
In Ceylon, the only country in which the Trotskyists constitute an important force, they are opposed to Singhalese nationalism and, through the pretext of official equality, they encourage the increasing invasion of the whole island by the Tamils, instead of demanding the Singhalisation of the State and the repatriation of the Tamils back to Tami Inadu, in the extreme North of the island which was formerly exclusively populated by the Tamils.
As cosmopolitanism is only an abstraction masking imperialist activities, internationalism or ethnism is the only concrete alternative to imperialism, the sole concept able to uproot nationalism from reactionary forces by destroying abusive interpretations. Ethnism stems from the discovery by some Marxists and other left-wing tendencies of the importance and of the permanence of national factors and subsequently, of their practical and theoretical osmosis with purely nationalist movements. This leads increasingly to an awareness of the rights of all nations and the social implication of their struggles against imperialism.
This position underlines the fundamental character of national problems, condemns all imperialism and its cosmopolitan camouflages, seeks independence and the unity of each nation within its ethnic limits, condemns all foreign interference in the internal affairs of a nation, demands the suppression of power struggles between nations and the development of peaceful exchanges of all types between nations.
As far as different religions are concerned, it should be noted that contrary to the Roman "Catholicism" (a perfect example of a cosmopolitanism with an imperialist and theocratic content, having always dreamed of a Holy Germanic Roman Empire, especially under the pontificate of Pie XII) and whereas Protestantism tends towards a cosmopolitan democratisation, orthodox Christianity has always tried to valorise national cultures and to confirm the internationalist conception of national churches, whose collaboration (without inequalities or predomination) form the universal Church. However, it has to be specified that these churches should correspond to their own specific ethnic groups and existing states.
It would be unfair not to indicate that since the Vatican II council, the Catholic Church has undertaken a colossal mutation. Latin has been replaced as liturgical language by the national language of each country, a more democratic structure of national churches helps increasingly to outweigh the autocratic power of the Vatican, and in many countries there is an inclination to assume the national culture and to "autochthonise" the clergy and the episcopate. However, all this is far from being achieved everywhere.
The trend towards national independence and peaceful co-existence has tended over the last decade to prevail over the policy of the imperialist and monolithic blocks, which show increasing signs of disintegration. Nevertheless, this movement is still at a level of empirical achievement, lacking in theoretical elaboration and consequently is marred by numerous imperialistic symptoms.
The persevering attitude of the Yugoslavian communists has played a major role in the progression of this policy of active co-existence, and these were the principles that were proclaimed at the Bandung conference by the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa. In rejecting the linguistic definition of a nation much is left to be done by these states before they can apply the internationalist principles of their own countries and before they can hope to eliminate their own imperialistic tendencies.
In Yugoslavia, the Titoists have vigorously defended their independence and were the first national communist organisation to triumph after Russia - this time against her - whilst rejecting the principle of cosmopolitanism itself and any national messianism. They therefore rejoined the conceptions of the Ukrainian "Borotbists" and the Turkish national communists, supporters of Sultan Galiev. However, this did not prevent them from keeping the Albanian, Bulgarian, Rumanian, Hungarian and Italian territories and from creating alleged autonomous republics lacking a real national base (Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia) in order to mask the fact that there are two distinct nations: Serbo-Croatian and Slovenia (the latter including the "Kajkavian" Croats) and not on single Yugoslavian nation.
Maoist China clearly struggles against the two imperialist super-powers, and one can hardly reproach China for the inevitable concessions it has had to make. If China efficiently supports movements in favour of national liberation (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Southern Arabia) elsewhere she did not hesitate to encourage the Pakistani militaro-fascist imperialism against the Bengali nation and advocated the destruction of the national Hebrew State. In definitive, her foreign policy clearly shows that it is established, on one hand according to national diplomatic interests (and not according to internationalist principles) and on the other, that conflicts between socialist nations are just as tough as those between capitalist nations.
The Baathist and Nassenian Arab socialist nationalism is trying to achieve Arab independence and unity from Casablanca to Abadan. The action undertaken by the Arab states to recuperate the vast oil resources is a decisive step towards national progress and simultaneously represents a defeat with worldwide repercussions of western imperialism. However, all the Arabian political forces are determined to maintain the Arab domination on the Kurds, the Arameens, the Coptes, the Berbers, the black nations of Sudan, etc. and in spite of four successive defeats, it is not yet certain that the Arab states have given up their determination to destroy the Hebrew state.
One cannot reproach the latter for having demanded the only aid available, namely American aid. No more than one could have reproached Cuba for having asked for Russian assistance, Cambodia for having been supported by China and Yugoslavia for having been helped by the Americans.
It is perhaps in neutralist India that the ethnist principles have most progressed over the last twenty years. All the great nationalities and several smaller ones have obtained the officialisation of their language and their autonomous status, and some are now witnessing strong separatist currents (Cashmere, Mahrates, and Tamils...). In Africa, where the imperialist domination was without doubt the strongest, the colonial territories were cut up in the most absurd manner, without taking nationalities into account. The research for the maximum efficiency against European colonialism gave birth to the neutralist pan-Africanism, and already in some states positive national consciousness is appearing, alongside this necessary negative anti-colonialism. After the splitting up and reassembling of the current official states, these will lead the way to real national states.
In Russia, decisive progress has been made in an internationalist sense:
It can be hoped that a time will come when all the communist parties, after having gone through cosmopolitanism to Russian nationalism, will abandon the idea of "Russia - the homeland of socialism" (which concealed a defeatism of their own abilities to take power and build up socialism). It is to be hoped that these communist parties will abandon their double nationality in order to become fully national whilst remaining truly internationalist.
However, it is evident that an imperialist state cannot just commit suicide and willingly disappear. The ideological evolution of the leaders of Russian colonialism is itself the result of the growing pressure brought about by the oppressed peoples, and it was foreseeable that the struggles of the latter would be bitter in order to oblige the Russian leaders to apply and develop their new principles. The savage trampling down by Russian tanks of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, free for a while, will prevent the world from forgetting this. The victory of National Socialism in Albania and Rumania and the remarkable success of these regimes are permanent examples that will sooner or later be followed in all the "popular democracies" and afterwards in the "soviet" republics.
Reality will lead Marxists to increasingly give up their radical opportunism on the national question and quieten down their exclusive determinism of class whilst also admitting an ethnic determinism, and thus prop up a doctrine that has obviously proved insufficient.
In Western capitalist countries, whose domination has spread over the last centuries throughout the world, the development of internationalist tendencies was slow to take place. The independent nations whose national state and national consciousness were already formed in feudal times, and which were strengthened at the beginning of the bourgeois era, like those whose homogeneity was strengthened during the same era, are now about to be colonised in their turn by the Anglo-Saxon super-imperialism. This is due to the internal logic of the capitalist system to which these countries remain attached: concentrations of capital and Anglo-American imperialism are two labels for a sole phenomenon.
In the U.S.A., the black, American Indian and Spanish movements have developed strongly, but remain confused. The other nationalities already refuse the famous American "melting pot" and intend to conserve their cultural identity, whilst remaining "loyal" Americans. The division of the United States will come one day in the distant future, when the struggle of these peoples against the WASP domination (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) will lead them to separation.
In France, General de Gaulle managed to impose the de-colonisation of Algeria and North Africa, but failed in his second historic attempt to destroy American imperialism in France and to break up the Common Market. This failure was due as much to his inability to see the social consequences of his national option, as to the cosmopolitan blindness of the left. The left's victory and the future destiny of the French nation will principally depend on the left's ability to fully assume the national dimension of its ideas.
In Germany, the bloody Hitlerian imperialism led to an unprecedented catastrophe. The German nation found itself amputated of vast territories to the West (Lower Silesia, the Sudetes); millions of German citizens were deported to the West and the remainder was divided into two fractions, one of which was dominated by the Americans and the other by the Russians. The reunification and the independence of Germany will necessarily have to take place in a climate of international dÈtente, the socialisation of the "federal" republic and the democratisation of the "democratic" republic. The revival of the German consciousness which has been witnessed over recent years, along with the weakening of Europeanist illusions should, more than elsewhere, make a need for a clear distinction between the numerous and rightful national demands and imperialist nostalgia.
In the Spanish-speaking countries of America, the hostility towards the Yankee imperialism has triumphed in Cuba; however, the consciousness of any Hispanic unity is weak and the fragmentation of the struggles that have resulted has contributed to various defeats (Chilli, Argentina, Uruguay).
The American Indian countries of Central and Southern America (Guatemala, Salvador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, etc) are typical cases of what can be considered as superposed imperialist states. The American Indian peoples are kept dependant on the states belonging to the Spanish minorities, suffering great poverty and illiteracy. The states that dominate them are themselves exploited by the Anglo-Saxon trusts. Until now, there have been no real nationalist movements concerning the Mayas, the Kitchouas, the Guaranis, etc, but a national consciousness is beginning appear, particularly amongst the Kitchouas.
For the first time, these ethnic groups now have the possibility of giving their national movement a progressist and socialist content in opposition to the negative capitalism of the dominating nations. Over the last decade, the national movements have developed extremely quickly in Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Occitania, Rhetia, Frisia, Lapland and Sardinia, but the road promises to be long and difficult. These ethnic groups are simultaneously coming up against the old right-wing ideology of identification and submission to the dominating state and cosmopolitanism which is the ideology of "modern" Euro-American capitalism, and which is still shared by a majority of the so-called "left-wing" forces.
It should once more be underlined that it is only on the basis of a scientific study of the national factors that internationalism can be used as a practical guideline. At a time when contradictions between nations have overtaken the contradictions between classes (where the solution of the latter passes by the solution of the former) this is a priority. Essentially, if one does not admit the linguistic criterion, taken historically and adjusted in certain cases by the demographic criterion, the only remaining identification as to where and when a nation exists, is the state. That is to say, the support of established imperialism or a vulgar opportunism reducing its followers to a simple back-guard of the historical movement.