national question

End occupations everywhere placard

From Ukraine to Palestine: The challenges of consistent internationalism

Blanca Missé — Many activists recognize movements face the same decadent global capitalism and its imperialist state system. However, international and regional politics shape these struggles, making it hard for them to unite against their common enemy.
Summer-1917-rally-for-Central-Rada-Kyiv

Ireland and Ukraine’s struggle for independence 1916 –23

Ireland and Ukraine had similar challenges in the period 1916 – 1923. Conor Kostick and Vladyslav Starodubtsev answer questions about the period and compare the experiences of the left in that era.
Lenin statute

Lenin on national rights: Lessons for interpreting the Ukraine war

Renfrey Clarke — Few questions of international politics have seen the Western left as sharply divided as the war in Ukraine. But there is no good reason why Marxists, with the writings of Vladimir Lenin at their disposal, should lack clarity on how to analyse the war.
Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev

Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev: Pioneering Bolshevik theorist of imperialism, national liberation and socialism

Rohini Hensman — Given his prominence as a high-ranking Bolshevik, Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev is very little known. This is a pity, because there is much we can learn from his writings as well as his practice even today.
German advances through Belgium

Supporting Ukraine's right to self-determination: The historical example of ‘poor little Belgium’

Richard Fidler - Historical analogies can indeed be useful in assessing the issues posed in contemporary events, provided of course that careful attention is paid to the particular circumstances and to what degree the differing situations and protagonists are comparable.
Vladimir Putin

Ukraine, Russia, imperialism and national self-determination

Renfrey Clarke - The war in Ukraine has presented left-wing theorists and commentators with a difficult analytical challenge. How are we to resolve this conundrum? As well as needing to answer the question of where Russia stands within the capitalist world-system we also need to decide how the right to national self-determination plays out within this context.
lenin ukraine

Did Lenin create Ukraine? On the right of nations to self-determination and Marxism

Grusha Gilaeva analyzes the positions of Marx and Lenin on the national question and explains why the left movement must support the anti-colonial struggle of Ukraine
Ukraine flag

Q&A: Navigating the left’s Ukraine debate

Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Elly Leary - Sovereignty and self-determination are important concepts to keep at the heart of Left analysis —and can help orient us in the confusion and misinformation surrounding Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Nikolay Bogdanov-Bel’sky, “New Fairy Tale,” 1891.

Ukraine and its language in the political imagination of the Russian empire

Hanna Perekhoda - In order to understand Putin’s war against Ukraine and its people, one must take a close look at the place that Ukraine, its state, language, and culture occupy in the imperial and national imagination of Russians.

A Québécois view of Canada’s 150th anniversary: Why celebrate colonial autonomy?

By André Binette, translation and notes by Richard Fidler May 16, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national holiday. Generally, this date recalls the accession to independence. The United States, for example, chose to emphasize each year their unilateral declaration of independence of July 4, 1776. They preferred this date to the date of the Treaty of Paris, 1783, which ended the revolutionary war they had won thanks to France’s decisive support. Their national holiday commemorates a founding act.

The Kurdish struggle – An interview with Dilar Dirik

 
 

Dilar Dirik interviewed by George Souvlis,