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| Sunday, 13 October 2002 |
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Lenin and the origin of self-determination Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake Last week we saw how the late V. Karalasingham had in his book 'The Way Out for the Tamil-speaking People - The Minority Question and the Ceylon Revolution' published in October 1963 propounded what would today appear to be the apocalyptic thesis that the oppression faced by the Tamil people at the hands of a bourgeois Sinhala-dominated State could only be eliminated by bringing the Tamils within the orbit of the Ceylonese revolution which he thought would yet take place.
However not only did the revolution fail to take place but Karalasingham's own party the LSSP and the CP, the two main parties of the left at the time, collaborated with the nationalist SLFP further alienating the Tamil people until not merely the moderate TULF but also all the armed Tamil groups were compelled to ask for a separate state of Tamil Eelam. Now this demand was based on the classical Marxist thesis of the self-determination of oppressed people to which we shall return presently. To be sure there were distinctions between these groups. While Dr. Anton Balasingham has been accused of trying to give some kind of a Marxist hue to the LTTE the animating force behind the LTTE seemed to have been a kind of Greater Tamil Nationalism or sense of fierce Tamil pride as indeed symbolised by its choice of the Tiger as its emblem this having been the symbol of the last Tamil King Sankili. Almost all the other groups, but most notably the PLOTE, EPRLF and EROS, propounded a kind of return to Karalasingham seeing the Tamil struggle as part of the revolution in the South though it was never explained who was to lead this southern revolution and what relationship the nascent Tamil state of the future would bear to the socialist South of the same future. It could certainly not have been the JVP which was to lead this southern revolt for it has consistently taken up a strong Sinhala nationalist, even chauvinist, position except perhaps for that period of aberration when Rohana Wijeweera wrote his famous Red Book. Now the concept of self-determination which seems to be the present Balasingham talisman itself stemmed from the classical European concept of the nation or national state. Lenin in his definitive, work on the subject 'On the National Question and Proletarian Internationalism' has said that the national state is the form most suited to present-day conditions (i.e. capitalist, civilised economically progressive conditions as distinguished from medieval, pre-capitalist etc.); it is the form in which the state can best fulfil its tasks (i.e. securing the freest, widest and speediest development of capitalism. In other words the nation state was the most suitable vehicle for capitalist development which Lenin following Marx saw as necessary for the ultimate triumph of socialism. Lenin further points out that Karl Kautsky had earlier propounded the correct view that states of mixed national composition (known as multi-national states, as distinct from national states) are 'always those whose internal constitution has for some reason or another remained abnormal or under-developed.' Kautsky too had been talking of abnormality in terms of the state's capacity to adapt to the requirements of a developing capitalism. Coming closer home Lenin says that capitalism having awakened Asia had called forth national movements everywhere in that continent and that the tendency of these movements is also towards the creation of national states which would ensure the best conditions for the development of capitalism. What has to be borne in mind is that when Lenin wrote this the October Revolution had not taken place in Russia and that the revolutionaries were fighting against Great-Russian oppression. In a sense this creates an ambiguity at the very heart of the Leninist thesis. For while in his own words the proletariat recognises the equality and equal rights to a national state, it values above all else and places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations and assesses any national demand, any national separation from the angle of the workers' class struggle. In other words the equality of the nation state is recognised but all national demands and aspirations are viewed in the light of the interests of the working class. That is why Lenin goes on to say that the only possible policy on the National Question is, a) the recognition of the right of secession for all and b) the appraisal of each concrete question of secession from the point of view of removing all inequality, privileges and all exclusiveness. Taking up a concrete example Lenin writes: "Whether the Ukraine, for example, is destined to form an independent state is a matter that will be determined by a thousand unpredictable factors. Without attempting idle' guesses' we firmly uphold something that is beyond doubt: the right of the Ukraine to form a separate state. We respect this right; we do not uphold the privileges of Great Russians with regard to Ukrainians; we educate the masses in the spirit of recognition of that right, in the spirit of rejecting state privileges for any nation." (Page 31). Having in principle upheld the right of self-determination to oppressed people groaning under the heel of imperialism everywhere Lenin is too percipient a politician and writer, however not to see the other side of the coin. That is why he writes: 'Those who stand by democratic principles, i.e., who insist that questions of state by decided by the mass of the population, know very well that there is a tremendous distance between what the politicians prate about and what the people decide. From their experiences the masses know perfectly well the value of geographical and economic ties and the advantages of a big market and a big state. They will therefore resort to secession only when national oppression and national friction make joint life absolutely intolerable and hinder any and all economic intercourse. In that case, the interests of capitalist development and of the freedom of the class struggle will be best served by secession.' (Page 44). Describing the freedom of political separation as the 'demarcation of state frontiers' Lenin continues: "In actual fact its frontiers will be delineated democratically, i.e., in accordance with the will and 'sympathies' of the population. Capitalism rides roughshod over these sympathies, adding more obstacles to the rapproachment of nations. Socialism, by organising production without class oppression, by ensuring the well-being of all members of the state gives full play to the 'sympathies' of the population, thereby promoting and greatly accelerating the drawing together and the fusion of nations." (Page 102). Where then does that leave Sri Lanka or the two protagonists to our National Question? As we observed last week (taking Karalasingham's 1963 argument to its contemporary logical conclusion) the very logic and dialectic of global capitalism today has made the LTTE and the Government sit down for talks at Sattahip. That capitalism which Lenin saw in 1917 as creating nation states all over the world has today reached such an apogee that Soviet Russia itself has been laid low and splintered and global capitalism led by Mr. Bush bestrides the so-called Global Village unchallenged to the hosannas of Mr. Francis Fukuyama. Let alone reaching the stage of global capitalism Sri Lanka is struggling to keep her economy afloat after the ravages of a debilitating ethnic war. Our Ministers roam the globe inviting what President Jayewardene once called 'Robber Barons.' As Lenin has observed the masses realise the significance of big markets and big states and if the conditions can be created for giving full play to what he called the 'sympathies' of the population the conditions can still be created for promoting, greatly accelerating and drawing together the fusion of the nations rather than tearing them asunder or poisoning their very heart. After all the interests of capitalist development (even if the freedom of the class struggle has today become old hat) demand this historically. The question, however is whether the country's political leadership (and this means not merely the Government and the LTTE but all political parties representing all the communities and religious persuasions) will have the courage, political will and imagination to cast aside old shibboleths, abandon archetypal phobias and anxieties and set about envisioning and shaping new structures of state and institutions of government to salvage Sri Lanka from the mouth of the abyss. Note: All quotations from Lenin's work are from the book published by the Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow in 1972. |
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