22.04.1999

Self-determination and Kosova

Sandy McBurney is wrong about self-determination, argues Michael Malkin

In last week’s paper, comrade Sandy McBurney rebuked Michael Malkin and the CPGB for demanding Kosovar self-determination and independence (Weekly Worker April 15). In our reply, we should like to deal first with some specific questions raised by the comrade and then to look at the theoretical basis of our principled, communist approach to the subject of self-determination.

Comrade McBurney, as we shall see presently, commits what for a Marxist is a fundamental error: he confuses facts and values, mixes a concrete analysis of things as they are with reflections of how things ought to be. Even when he confines himself to the situation in the Balkans as it actually exists, the comrade makes serious mistakes.

First, he claims that the demand for Kosovar independence is one that “suits the present purpose of imperialism” in the region. Therefore, to support the KLA’s struggle against Serb national chauvinist barbarism, to support the Kosovars’ aspirations to independence, is nothing less than objectively to support the imperialists’ war plan. This is not true.

Self-determination and independence for Kosova is not and never has been part of the six-nation Contact Group’s or of Nato’s strategic vision for the Balkans. The imperialists’ central aim was to safeguard the stability of their southern flank. As always, they were concerned exclusively to uphold the sovereignty of existing state structures - ie, conveniently stable entities allowing the maximum possible exploitation. What concerns the imperialists, as always, is lines on a map, rather than the interests of people and the rights of nations to determine their own future. Bourgeois international law recognises the right of states, not nations, to self-determination.

Hence, independence was never on the table at Rambouillet. The draft interim accord envisioned a three-year period of purely notional “autonomy” for Kosova within the existing boundaries of the rump Yugoslav Federation - an “autonomy” that would have left the Kosovar ‘government’ with no control over its own foreign relations, defence arrangements or economic affairs. In other words, what Britain’s ‘ethical’ foreign secretary, Robin Cook, had the impudence to call a blueprint for a “democratic, self-governing Kosovo” was nothing more than a sham edifice, an undemocratic pseudo-solution to the Kosovar crisis, preserving the formal rights of the Milosevic regime over Kosova, on the understanding that he would kindly agree not to go on killing and terrorising the Kosovar population.

Of course, following the disastrous outcome of Nato’s air war against Yugoslavia, it may well be that the imperialists will themselves now call for an ‘independent’ Kosova, but it need hardly be said that this will be a mere slogan and that a restored Kosova will be nothing more than a protectorate, enjoying just as little real autonomy, in fact rather less, than that envisaged by Rambouillet.

Secondly, in his analysis of the current situation, comrade McBurney tells us that the KLA’s goal is the creation of a “greater Albania”. This is misleading and anachronistic. There was a time, more than 20 years ago, when this might have been true: then, the KLA was a self-proclaimed ‘Marxist-Leninist’ force, combating ‘Titoist revisionism’ in Yugoslavia and aspiring to union with the ‘Marxist motherland’ of Albania under Enver Hoxha.

But now? The KLA’s political complexion appears to be bourgeois-nationalist - though the possible impact of more socialist, even revolutionary elements within its ranks should not be underestimated. In its desperation to fend off Milosevic’s genocidal assault on the entire Kosovar nation, the KLA is prepared to seek assistance from the imperialists. Nonetheless, the stubborn fact remains that the KLA is fighting a just struggle against Serbia; it enjoys mass popular support among the ethnic Albanian population of Kosova, support that can only have intensified following the attempt by Milosevic to destroy them or drive them into exile.

Viewing the situation with Olympian detachment, comrade McBurney is content to dismiss the KLA’s struggle for self-determination on the grounds that it lacks a “progressive dynamic”, that the KLA itself has “no progressive policies”. In our view the demand for nations to have the right to self-determination is democratic. If for no other reason, those actually fighting to exercise that right, in general, should be viewed as having a “progressive dynamic” to their politics. Communists have a choice to make: do we follow the likes of McBurney and condemn the KLA because they do not conform to the pattern of what freedom fighters should be like - ie, they do not have a programme for socialism - or do we give recognition and critical support to the democratic, not to mention the ethical, validity of the KLA’s leading role in the Kosovars’ resistance to Serb nationalist genocide? As regards the comrade’s attitude to a “greater Albania”, should we, as communists, reject this out of hand? Certainly not. If it were the democratic desire of the Kosovars not only to gain their independence, but thereafter to merge with Albania, that is their right.

Thirdly, comrade McBurney describes the entire tragedy of the Balkans over the last decade as “the fruits of the demand for self-determination”: first the German imperialists’ demand that their traditional client in the region, Croatia, should be given independence; then the US government’s support for an independent Bosnia; now the Kosovars’ demand for independence - which he wrongly attributes to more imperialist scheming. All these are lumped indiscriminately together, and by implication we are led to believe that, had it not been for such demands, then the “tragic fracturing of the Yugoslav working class” would not have taken place, that somehow the old ‘former workers’ state’ of Yugoslavia could have remained viable.

There is more than a whiff of ‘Yugoslav defencism’ in this position, which is profoundly unhistorical. The south Slav nation(s) have long existed as the objects, not the subjects of history, continually a prey to the machinations of the big powers. Nevertheless after World War II they were bureaucratically united in a self-proclaimed socialist republic led by the Yugoslav League of Communists. For some 45 years - partly by efficient policing, partly through bureaucratically balancing one republic against another, but mainly through the rule of one man, Tito - the Yugoslav state remained in existence.

Tito’s Yugoslavia certainly had progressive and positive characteristics: the bourgeoisie and big landowners were expropriated, factories were nationalised and nominally run by workers’ councils, a culture of allegiance to Yugoslavia was inculcated in the masses and the idea was propounded that Tito’s version of socialism could effectively surmount centuries of division based on ethnic or religious background.

Tito’s attempt to replace the internecine divisions and hatreds of history with loyalty to a socialist Yugoslavia was laudable - to the extent that it was progressive - but with hindsight we can see that it was doomed. Unity cannot be imposed permanently from above by means of suppression, however well-intentioned. Unity has to arise organically and democratically from below. The fate of Yugoslavia after Tito’s death in 1980 is a classic case. Old ethnic and historically shaped antagonisms were reasserted, or simply invented by a miscellany of bourgeois restorationist, reactionary, petty nationalist and bureaucratic strongmen, leading to bloody civil wars and the disintegration of the federation into its component and sub-component parts. Milosevic led the way by whipping up Serb nationalism. As large numbers of Serbs lived outside Serbia this necessarily meant a denial of rights for others. The Kosovars were among the first victims. Milosevic launched a nationalist-chauvinist coup against Kosova’s status as an autonomous entity and incorporated it into a ‘greater Serbia’.

The Kosovars’ struggle against Serb chauvinism has been going on for over a decade. At first it was purely peaceful, but since March 1998 it has been pursued by means of armed struggle led by the KLA. Unlike the ‘Bosnians’ (a non-nation), the Kosovars are a historically constituted people who share a common culture, language and territory. Hence, they have a straightforward right to determine their own future. As communists and internationalists, we advocate at all times the maximum real and voluntary unity among peoples and nations. As democrats, however, we accept the Kosovars’ justified demand for independence in the face of massive violence and coercion aimed at creating a ‘unity’ that would be totally false and involuntary.

Having looked at some of comrade McBurney’s mistakes about the facts of the concrete situation in Serbia and Kosova, what about his mixing of facts and values, of what is and what ought to be? Here we encounter a familiar line to the effect that “only the project of a united socialist federation of the Balkans offers a way out of this bloody conflict” - the only means he can see of securing his holy grail, “the promotion of working class unity”. This maximalist pose is common across the economistic left. The Socialist Party in England and Wales is typical: “Socialists advocate a socialist Kosova, as part of a socialist confederation of Balkan states on a free, equal, and voluntary basis” (The Socialist October 9 1998).

This position is right - as an aspiration, or as an abstraction - but without a bridge linking it with today’s conditions - that is, a minimum programme - it becomes no more than a pious slogan, a statement worthy of Pontius Pilate. In effect comrade McBurney is saying to the KLA and the Kosovars: ‘Look here, you people are not even socialists, and even if you were, your call for self-determination at the present juncture can only make matters worse. You must wait for socialism and in the meantime desist from fighting to save yourselves from annihilation.’ To the Serbian working class he is saying: ‘Look here, you people should be socialists, and then you would realise that you are killing your brothers and sisters in Kosova.’

In the face of mass slaughter and deportations, rape and arson, it is frankly obscene, in the name of ‘Marxism’, to demand that the KLA and the Kosovars should ‘wait for socialism’ or ‘become socialists before we give you our support’. In any event, it is incorrect as well as facile to pose a socialist federation as an immediate demand - socialism belongs to the maximum, not to the minimum programme. In other words the key question is how we get to socialism. Leninists insist that the revolutionary fight for democracy is the only road - eg, championing national self-determination. Comrade McBurney, in contrast, considers such questions secondary at best, a dangerous diversion at worse.

Comrade McBurney is not blind to the fact that the rump Yugoslav Federation is a state that contains oppressor and oppressed nations. He says that “of course, communists in Serbia must oppose the Serbian state’s oppression of the Kosovar people”. Indeed, but the problem is that the voice of communists in Serbia is silent; the Serbian working class, as far as we can judge, has no feelings of socialist solidarity with their fellow ‘Yugoslavs’ in the south and has evidently been bombed by Nato into supporting Milosevic. Perhaps comrade McBurney knows differently? If so, he will no doubt give us his evidence, but in the meantime we can see nothing to suggest that the KLA’s struggle for independence is in some way damaging the prospects for what would otherwise be a potential ‘socialist’ solution to their plight, a solution based on working class unity and solidarity across the ethnic divide.

As we have already observed,

“the only moral basis on which we as communists could support the slogan of ‘Yugoslav’ unity would be if the Serbian working class had been actively, consistently and boldly championing the rights of the Kosovar population - up to and including independence - on a mass scale. Then the call for unity - perhaps in a federal republic - could be countenanced. This would be a precondition for a democratic unity of this ‘former workers’ state’ under socialism. If the Serb working class were acting as the foremost defenders of democratic and socialist values against the reactionary petty bourgeois nationalism and chauvinist demagoguery of Milosevic, then of course we would support unity with them. But there is no sign yet of any such development. Given this situation, our support for an independent Kosova, for the right of the Kosovar people to self-determination, must remain unaltered” (original emphasis Weekly Worker April 8).

Comrade McBurney evidently believes that nothing good, no “positive dynamic”, can come from the Serbian war. His weeping and gnashing of teeth about the “fruits” of the demand for self-determination suggest that he shares the negative, passive approach of the wretched social-pacifists who dominate the SWP’s coverage of the conflict. They are wrong. Of course, we too condemn imperialism’s war against Serbia; of course, we recognise the obvious fact that this war has brought about a human catastrophe on a truly monumental scale. But there is more to it than that. The present conflict, including the part played in it by Kosova’s demand for self-determination, raises real possibilities for profound, perhaps even revolutionary, political and social changes in Yugoslavia.

The Milosevic regime is far from stable. Some comrades seem to have forgotten that only two years ago it was tottering. Under the leadership of extreme nationalists hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Belgrade. On that occasion Milosevic was able to buy off the opposition, but now there is war.

The task of communists is to take the working class beyond mere economic struggle to the high planes of politics - that is why scientific theory and a fully rounded communist programme are vital. The working class must oust the brown nationalists from the leadership of the democratic, anti-Milosevic movement.

Nato bombing has already reduced many state enterprises to rubble. Whole sectors of the economy, such as oil, petrochemicals, motors and heavy goods, have been decimated, putting many thousands of workers out of a job. With Nato set to intensify its aerial bombardment of Serbia and extend its targets across the whole Serbian economy, the damage to the Serbian working class’s basic interests might soon be manifest in war-weariness and social unrest. Class issues will again be on the agenda - not merely economic problems, but centrally with the intervention of communists issues of democracy and accountability. In such circumstances, things that now appear to be remote will become reality, including the resurgence of a genuinely socialist, democratic movement among the Serbian working class.

If, as seems likely, Nato eventually launches a ground offensive against Serbia, the whole Balkans and beyond could be ignited; given the weak links in its organisation - France, Italy, Greece, Germany and Spain are all, to a greater or lesser extent, ambivalent about a ground war - Nato itself could fall apart, with potentially disastrous political consequences for imperialism. Even if Nato does succeed in putting together the troops and material necessary for a ground offensive, the alliance will face heavy military losses and a period of acute political tension and instability. A European war would lead to seismic shifts in the current political landscape. Let us not forget that it was war which ushered in some of the essential preconditions for the success of the October Revolution. Does this mean that we communists of the CPGB are ‘warmongers’, eager to see a European conflagration? Of course not. But the duty of all communists and socialists at this time is to be prepared for a radical change in the political climate that could galvanise the now passive and atomised working class.

Against such a background, theory assumes an overwhelming importance, and it is to the Marxist theory in relation to the question of self-determination that we must now turn, with a particular eye on the problems raised by comrade McBurney.

With its emphasis on the negative “fruits” of the demand for self-determination and its contention that the Serbian crisis can only be solved under a socialist confederation, comrade McBurney’s thesis smacks of a sort of half-hearted, half-articulated Luxemburgism.

Rosa Luxemburg is often the starting point for any theoretical discussion of leftwing opposition to self-determination. Her views are well known and can be briefly summarised. According to the iron logic of this implacable opponent of an independent Poland and stern critic of the Bolsheviks’ programmatic commitment to self-determination, because oppression of all kinds is intrinsic to the rule of capital, only the destruction of capitalism and the advent of socialism can solve the problem of oppressed nations. Socialism, by definition, will remove every kind of oppression. To struggle for self-determination under capitalism is consequently a waste of time and harms the workers’ movement by undermining proletarian internationalism.

Luxemburg’s view was that the concept of self-determination was derived from bourgeois nationalist ideology and could not be reconciled with Marxism. According to her doctrinaire account of Marx’s teaching, both the ‘nation’ (viz, an integrated social whole) and ‘national’ aspirations to self-determination (transcending society’s intrinsic class divisions) are theoretical absurdities and simply cannot exist. In short, the idea of a ‘right to self-determination’, suggesting that every ‘nation’ has an equal right to decide its own future, is no more than an idle petty bourgeois phrase and humbug. The natural tendency of history is for small nations to be swallowed up by bigger ones. To try and reverse this inevitable historical process is reactionary and utopian.

Under the influence of Luxemburg’s ideas, the Polish adherents of the Zimmerwald Left, specifically Karl Radek, produced in 1915 their Theses on imperialism and national oppression, which can be summarised as follows: first, the self-determination of nations is impossible under imperialism, because imperialism inevitably intensifies the oppression of weak nations - hence this oppression can only be abolished by abolishing imperialism itself - ie, by the socialist revolution. Secondly, the self-determination of nations would in any event be harmful - to set up “new frontier posts” would constitute an obstacle to the development of the united struggle of the masses across national frontiers. Thirdly, national self-determination is unnecessary - the socialist revolution will abolish all frontiers and all forms of oppression (see VI Lenin Selected Works Moscow 1936, Vol 5, p379).

Self-determination was also rejected by the Bolsheviks Pyatakov and Bukharin, whose own theses on the question, entitled The slogan of the right of nations to self-determination, also appeared in 1915. Bukharin writes:

“We do not under any circumstances support the government of the great power that suppresses the rebellion or the outburst of indignation of an oppressed nation; but, at the same time, we ourselves do not mobilise the proletarian forces under the slogan ‘right of nations to self-determination’. In such a case, our task is to mobilise the forces of the proletariat of both [oppressed and oppressing] nations ... under the slogan ‘civil class war for socialism’ and conduct propaganda against the mobilisation of forces under the slogan ‘right of nations to self-determination’” (my emphasis ibid pp379-80).

The positions adopted by Radek, Bukharin, Pyatakov and others (including Trotsky) all ran counter to a specific programmatic commitment to self-determination adopted by the RSDLP at its second congress in 1903. Point nine of the RSDLP’s programme (‘For the right of all nations in the state to self-determination’) was itself based on a resolution of the Second International adopted at its London congress in 1896. Over a long period, Lenin fought consistently against all those who sought to nullify or dilute this commitment. Considerations of space oblige us to examine only a few of his articles in summary form. Their relevance to comrade McBurney’s approach to the question will be readily apparent.

In an article entitled ‘On the right of nations to self-determination’, written in 1914 as a riposte to Rosa Luxemburg’s article ‘The national question and autonomy’, Lenin writes that self-determination of nations means “the right to separate state existence” (Selected Works Vol 4, p251). Luxemburg’s contention that fighting for self-determination objectively constitutes siding with the bourgeoisie is emphatically rejected: “The policy of the proletariat in the national question ... supports the bourgeoisie only in a definite direction; it never coincides with the policy of the bourgeoisie ... the working class supports the bourgeoisie only ... for the sake of equal rights, for the sake of creating better conditions for the class struggle ... To the extent that the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation struggles against the oppressing one, to that extent, we are always, in every case, and more resolutely than anyone else, for it, because we are the staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression” (ibid pp264, 266). In general, Lenin writes,

“the bourgeois nationalism of every oppressed nation has a general democratic content which is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we absolutely support, strictly distinguishing it from the tendency to one’s own national exclusiveness” (original emphasis ibid p267).

Let those who condemn the aspirations of the KLA and the Kosovars to self-determination, and refuse to support them on the grounds that they are ‘bourgeois nationalist’ take note. Nobody can surely maintain that their struggle does not have a “general democratic content”; nor can they deny that it is directed against Serbian oppression in the form of genocide and mass terror. Likewise, these comrades should bear in mind Lenin’s warning that Luxemburg, by denying the right of secession to oppressed Poles and other oppressed nations, was “in fact assisting the Great Russian Black Hundreds” - ie, counterrevolutionary reaction (ibid p266). Cannot the same be said of those whose ‘ideological purity’ prevents them from backing the KLA and the Kosovars? While they wring their hands and agonise about the ‘bourgeois nationalist’ content of the struggle of Kosova against Serbia, they objectively assist the red-brown Milosevic.

Lenin’s position was consistent with the resolution on self-determination adopted by the London congress of the Second International. It reads as follows:

“The Congress declares that it upholds the full right of self-determination of all nations and expresses its sympathy for the workers of every country now suffering under the yoke of military, national and other despotism; the congress calls on the workers of all these countries to join the ranks of the class conscious workers of the whole world in order to fight together with them for the defeat of international capitalism and for the aims of international social democracy” (ibid p269).

As Lenin points out in his article, the opponents of self-determination merely ignored the first sentence of the resolution and fastened on the declaratory sentiments of the second. In essence, the same can be said of comrade McBurney: he rejects the “demand for self-determination in the context of the Balkans”, pointing to its baleful “fruits” and its purported lack of a “progressive dynamic”. Yet he is content to make pious, empty declarations, calling for a “united socialist federation of the Balkans”. The point is that both aspects of the resolution - “the absolutely direct, unambiguous recognition of the full right of nations to self-determination” and “the equally unambiguous appeal to workers for international unity in their class struggle” (ibid p271) - represent the only principled approach to the question. The two propositions are not contradictory, but complementary.

Perhaps the clearest and most concise exposition of Lenin’s standpoint on the question is contained in his article, ‘The socialist revolution and the right of nations to self-determination’, consisting of nine theses directed against those of Radek and the Polish left Zimmerwaldists (Selected Works Vol 5, Moscow 1936, pp267-281). From the outset, Lenin defines self-determination as “the right to free political secession from the oppressing nation ... the logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in any form” (ibid p270).

Refuting Radek’s contention that self-determination is “impossible” and “illusory” so long as imperialism exists, Lenin points to the fact that

“not only the right of nations to self-determination, but all the fundamental demands of political democracy are ‘possible of achievement’ under imperialism, only incompletely, in a mutilated form ... This does not mean simply, however, that social democracy must refrain from conducting an immediate and determined struggle for all these demands ... not in a reformist, but in a revolutionary way ... widening and fomenting the struggle for every kind of fundamental, democratic demand right up to and including the direct onslaught of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie: ie, to the socialist revolution” (ibid p269).

To those who then (and now) would maintain that the demand for self-determination is reactionary and harmful, in that it leads to the creation of new frontier posts and “fractures” the unity of the working class (McBurney), Lenin replies that what matters is the democratic content of the demand for self-determination and the implicit “complete freedom to carry on agitation in favour of secession”.

In concrete circumstances, the demand for self-determination need not, in fact, be identical with the demand for secession: “The more closely the democratic system of state approximates to complete freedom of secession, the rarer and weaker will the striving for secession be in practice; for the advantages of large states, both from the point of view of economic progress and from the point of view of the interests of the masses, are beyond doubt.” In short, the aim of socialism, in calling for the right to self-determination, is not to bring about the creation of small states. On the contrary, socialism aims “to abolish the present division of mankind into small states ... not only to bring the nations closer together, but also to merge them”. The point, however, is that this can only be done on a democratic and free basis:

“Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the transition period of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all the oppressed nations - ie, their freedom to secede” (ibid pp270-271).

As Lenin points out in another article against Radek’s theses (‘The revolutionary proletariat and the right of nations to self-determination’),

“We demand the freedom of self-determination - ie, independence; ie, the freedom of secession for the oppressed nations - not because we cherish the ideal of small states, but, on the contrary, because we are in favour of large states and of the closer unity and even the fusion of nations, but on a truly democratic, truly international basis which is inconsistent without the freedom of secession” (original emphasis ibid p289).

Dealing with the contention (voiced now as well as then) that supporting the right to self-determination can objectively mean serving the interests of imperialism - for example, comrade McBurney’s claim that support for Kosovar self-determination plays an “anti-working class role” - Lenin states: “There is not a single democratic demand which could not serve, and has not served, under certain conditions, as an instrument of the bourgeoisie for deceiving the workers.” Nevertheless,

“the fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain circumstances, be utilised by another ‘great power’ in its equally imperialist interests should have no more weight in inducing social democracy to renounce its recognition of the right of nations to self-determination than the numerous cases of the bourgeoisie utilising republican slogans for the purpose of political deception” (ibid pp272-3).

Comrade McBurney asks: “Why should communists give this project [Kosovar self-determination] any credibility?” By now, the answer should be apparent, but here is another reason: to teach the Serbian working class some practical lessons about what it means for the proletariat to fight for the complete and all-sided achievement of all just, democratic demands, rather than merely exhorting them (as comrade McBurney does) to be good socialists.

In this connection, Lenin draws our attention to the reasons why Marx himself demanded the separation of Ireland from Great Britain:

“He demanded it not from the standpoint of the petty bourgeois utopia of a peaceful capitalism, not from considerations of ‘justice for Ireland’, but from the standpoint of the proletariat of the oppressing - ie, the English - nation against capitalism. The freedom of that nation was cramped and mutilated by the fact that it oppressed another nation. The internationalism of the English proletariat would remain a hypocritical phrase if it did not demand the secession of Ireland ... Marx never was in favour of small states, or of splitting up states ... he considered the secession of an oppressed nation to be a step towards federation; consequently not towards the splitting of nations, but towards concentration ... concentration on the basis of democracy” (original emphasis ibid p285).

If this is not clear enough, then there is little else we can do to help the comrade understand the theoretical basis of Lenin’s and our commitment, both in theory and practice, to the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations. In the case of Kosova, quite apart from considerations of justice, it should be apparent to all that Kosovar independence from ‘Yugoslavia’ (ie, freedom from the yoke of barbaric Serb national chauvinism) is an essential precondition for future voluntary unity on the basis of peace, equality and democracy.