The National Question Once Again—Concerning the Article by Semich

Stalin’s works on the national question which was first published in the 11th and 12th issues of Bolshevik magazine on June 30, 1925. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 7 of the Complete Works of Stalin.

Semich, who was criticized by Stalin was a Yugoslav politician and scholar, formerly Markovich Sima, Semich was his pseudonym when he went to the Soviet Union for the Communist International meetings held in 1922 and 1925. As a representative and right-wing leader of opportunism in the period of the legal activities of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, he expounded on the question of national question, on the peasant question and the role of the working-class political parties from the perspective of non-Marxism. On March 30, 1925, during the Yugoslav Commission’s meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Stalin made a speech “On the National Question Within Yugoslavia”, criticizing the mistaken views of Semich on the national question. However, Semich said that he had no differences with Stalin on the national question, and that these differences were caused by a “series of misunderstandings”. These misunderstandings were caused by his “one speech that was not fully and correctly translated” at the meeting of the Yugoslav Commission.

In this work, Stalin pointed out to the three differences of views on the national question between him and Semich, refuted his argument that he was “misunderstood”, and advocated the correct Marxist views on national question.

On the question of the ways of solving the national question, according to Semich, the national question can be reduced to a constitutional issue, which can be solved by means of improvement. Semich argued that only through the revolutionary struggle can we obtain the right of national self-determination and equate the revolutionary struggle with the revolutionary action. Stalin criticized that Semich had not fully understood the main essence of the Bolshevik view of the national question” that he separated the national question from the general question of the revolution, and that, consequently, he was inclined to reduce the national question to a constitutional issue. Stalin pointed out that: To speak of the victory of the revolution as the fundamental condition for the solution of the national question is one thing; but it is quite another thing to put “revolutionary actions” and “revolutionary struggle” as the condition for the solution of the national question. Because the road of improvement does not exclude revolutionary action and revolutionary struggle at all. Secondly, to judge whether a party is a revolutionary party or a reformist party, the criterion is not the revolutionary action itself, but the political purpose and political task that the party should achieve by taking and using the revolutionary action. Thirdly, the above-mentioned mistakes of Semich are basic mistakes, and his other mistakes are all directly generated from these basic mistakes.

On the social content of the national movement in the current historical era, Semich argued that the social significance and content of the Yugoslav national movement is the competition among Serbian capital, Croatian capital and Slovenian capital. Stalin pointed out:

Firstly, Semich’s belief that the national movement lies in the competitive struggle between the bourgeoisies of the different nationalities cannot regard the national question as a peasant question, in essence. Second, the essence of the national question today lies in the struggle that the masses of the people of the colonies and dependent nationalities are waging against financial capital exploitation, against the political enslavement and cultural effacement of those colonies and nationalities by the imperialist bourgeoisie of the ruling nationality. Third, the mechanical quotation of Marxism and the National Question written by Stalin in 1912 before the imperialist war confuses the differences between the two stages of the formulation of national question. Russian Bolsheviks’ formulation of national question can be divided into two stages: the stage before October Revolution and the stage of October Revolution. In the former stage, i.e., during the bourgeois democratic revolution, the national question was regarded as a part of the general democratic movement; the latter stage was the proletarian revolution, the national question becomes a component part of the proletarian revolution. Fourth, the reason for his wrong understanding of “national movement is the competition between the bourgeoisies of different nationalities” is due to an under-estimation of the inherent strength of the national movement and a failure to understand the profoundly popular and profoundly revolutionary character of the national movement”.

On the role of international factors in national question Semich tried to treat the national question in Yugoslavia in isolation from the international situation and the probable prospects in Europe. Stalin pointed out: First, the international situation under present conditions, especially in relation to Yugoslavia, is a major factor in the solution of the national question. The Yugoslav state itself was formed as a result of the clash between the two major imperialist coalitions, which Yugoslavia cannot escape from the big play of forces that is now going on in the surrounding imperialist states. Second, the current national boundary problems in Yugoslavia caused by war and violence cannot be regarded as the starting point and legal basis for the solution of the national question. Or it is clear that the point about the right to self-determination cannot be at one and the same time both an appendage to and the basis of the national program.

Third, Stalin quoted Manuilsky’s report to the Fifth Congress of the Communist International to criticize Semich: “The fundamental premise of Semich’s whole presentation of the national question is the idea that the proletariat must accept the bourgeois state within those frontiers which have been set up by a series of wars and acts of violence.”

The work criticizing Semich’s mistaken views on the national question, clearly points out that we can’t talk about the national question without specific time and space and living social and historical environment, puts forward two stages of the formulation of the national question, and pointed out that the national movement in the period of bourgeois revolution has the color of bourgeois revolution, the national movement in the period of proletarian revolution has the nature of proletarian revolution, which profoundly reveals the objective law of the development of national movement with the development of social change, which has important theoretical and practical significance for the national liberation movement at that time.