Theories of National and Colonial Questions

Lenin founded the theory of the problem of the relationship between national liberation movements and proletarian world revolution in the imperialist era. Lenin inherited and defended the Marxist theory of the nation, organically combined the national question with the colonial question; the national and colonial question with the question of overthrowing international imperialism; the national liberation movement with the international proletarian world revolution and created the theory of the national and colonial question.

The victory of the October Revolution and the changes in the world situation put the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat on the agenda. In the struggle between the international proletariat and the international bourgeoisie, the backward countries and nations, based on their own bitter experience of being oppressed and plundered by imperialism, could only stand on the side of the international proletariat and become a kind of helper of the world revolution. Lenin clearly pointed out that the proletarian party must deal with the national question in connection with the imperialist era of capitalist development, and that the central issue in the program of the proletarian party is to make a scientific distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations, instead of discussing nations, national interests, national movements, etc. in a general way.

At the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920, Lenin further pointed out that the “most important and fundamental idea” of the Communist International’s national colony program was the distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations. In the age of imperialism, the proletariat should solve the national colonial problem from the concrete reality of life and not from abstract principles.

In the “Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions”, drafted for the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin pointed out that at present “the world political situation has now placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day. World political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single focus—the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouped, on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, who are learning from bitter experience that their only salvation lies in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism.”

The whole policy of the Communist International on the national and colonial question is that there is need for closer union between the working people of the various nations; a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements. Lenin also pointed out that the Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and that all Communist parties should render direct aid to the revolutionary movements among the dependent and underprivileged nations and in the colonies. Should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.  It is particularly necessary to exert every effort to apply the basic principles of the Soviet system in countries where pre-capitalist relations predominate—by setting up “working people’s Soviets” but also to show theoretically that with the help of the proletariat in the advanced countries it is possible to make the transition to the soviet system without passing through the stages of capitalist development and then to communism after a certain stage of development. In this way, Lenin linked the proletarian movement in the West with the national liberation and peasant revolutionary movements in the East. The Communist International subsequently adopted the slogan of Workers and oppressed peoples of all countries, unite!

Lenin’s two “transitional” theories pointed out a new prospect for the development of backward countries: first to Soviets, to communism (socialism); then to the creation of conditions for the transition to the implementation of communism (socialism). In his later years, Lenin pointed out in articles such as “Our Revolution” and “Better Fewer, But Better” that, as a result of the First Imperialist War, the East had finally joined the revolutionary movement and eventually turned into the general vortex of the worldwide revolutionary movement, and that the world was entering a movement that would inevitably give rise to a worldwide socialist revolution, and that the imperialists had split the whole world into two camps.

Lenin pointed out that the end of the struggle depended, in the final analysis, on the following. In the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., account for the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe. And during the past few years it is this majority that has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely assured.

After this, Lenin’s view of the world strategy of the socialist revolution changed, criticizing the Eurocentrism and the German example advocated by the Second International, and arguing that the ultimate victory of the Russian socialist revolution no longer depended on the victory of the Western revolution, but on the mutual combination and mutual support of the national liberation movements and the revolutionary wars of the peasants in the East and the workers’ movement in the West. Emphasizing the general law of the development of world history, he did not exclude individual stages of development from showing particularity in the form or sequence of development, and insisted on the dialectical unity of the general and the particular.

Lenin’s theory on the national and colonial question enriched and developed Marx Engels’ theory on the backward countries’ path of non-capitalist development, and provided important theoretical guidance for China’s new democratic revolution.