← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hilaire Belloc
Thread ID: 11054 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-11-13
2003-11-13 04:18 | User Profile
This was originally a post over at Slavic Nationalist Unity.
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Nationalism includes Socialism!
Seeing certain members of the forum show symapthy towards Pinochet and other servants of the elites that used even murder as a tool to prevent movement towards equality of their respective countrymen, claiming that their doing was in interest of their nation, reminded me of a topic I have been thinking about for quite some time. And the topic is just when was rodoljublje kidnapeded by the right wing and just how did the left came to aggree with it? Since when is a patriot, a nationalist the same as a rightwinger?
The left and the right are defined as opposing views on level of inferfearence the government should be allowed in the economy and just what corelation this has with nationalism, which is infinitley older than either the left, the right or the market economy is beyond me. I can not comprehend what connection there is beetwen financal policy that guarantees low inflation even if it means increase in unemployment and willingles to sacrifise in defence of interest of your nation. I can not comprehend just why is a puchist that enjoys support of industrialists a nationalist, while a leader of a socialist trade union is not.
Regular right (by which I mean all this fiscal conservatives even if there was a time where 9/10ths of todays left parties would be considered right) with its obssesion with charts of stock markets ratings, inflations and surreal economical theories obviously thinks of an economy (-which to them equals Dow Jones rating) as a goal to itself and its most obvious manifestation of lack of care for health of a nation is tolerance and even ecourangment of masive foreign imigration becouse it means an influx of cheap labor and a mean to disciplinise local work force. So basicaly all their "nationalism" or patriotism comes down to propagating death sentance and refusing to allow gays to adopt children.
I am quite certain there was no illusions about todays nice and proper right being nationalistic around here (I reckon not many people here would vote for union of right forces on upcoming election in Russia), but there certainly is a perception that extreme rightists ( of the past (lets just call them fascists) were somehow nationalists. Or at least, that they were bigger nationalists than socialists and communists were. But just what is nationalistic about policies of the likes of Pinochet, Mussolini or Franco? They imposed their rule upon their nation by force what should disgust nationalists that belive the only legitimisation for government comes from the narod. Yes they all claimed to do so becouse there was danger of rise of communism which is undisputedly a poison for nationalism and a health of a nation, becouse it propagates class identity at the expense of national identity and wants to replace a nation with some kind of absurd brotherhood of workers. But it is a fact that all this claims were completly baseless. In case of Pinochet he overthrew an elected leader, that was a socialst not a communist and that (unlike Pinochet) keept the institution of elections. Franco by force defeated a coalition of election winners whose mayority formed the republicans and that again unlike him wanted to keep an institution of elections. And in case of Mussolini there werent even any leftists anywhere close to government in sight. And even were there a danger of rise of communism present that would stil not justify the terror they launched afterwards they got the hold on power. Terrorising and inflicting violence upon one`s nation, by a brute that somehow got to power, should of course disgust any true rodoljub.
Further they were little more than agents of the old and new upper class. They came on power with support of industrialists, bankers, big landowners, former aristocrats and the church (-that is another great paradox, just when was the church abducted by the right and what ever happened to christian socialism). First they blocked movement toward greater social justice that would only benefit the nation and its coherance (Franco even went so far to block something as basic as agrarian reform). And they stayed on power by forwarding interests of parts of society that helped them to power at the expense of great majority of their respective nationals who continued to live in poverty and countinued to be exploited. And by doing so they were as great enemies of their respective nations as communists were. You see exploitation and unequality is poison to health of a nation and its coherance just as marxism is. And anybody in service of prolonging of unequality and exploitation can be no more of a nationalist than a bolshevik can. Becouse in doing so it allienates the exploited ones from the state and forces them to choose beetwen the (in case of fascists) supposed nationalistic goals of the state and an end of ones poverty and exploitation.
Were you a worker in early days of industrial revolution that has to work 16 hours a day for a wage that is barely enough to keep him alive, while the fruits of your work is spent for luxury of a factory owner that hasn`t moved a finger in his life, would you say that such sacrifise is needed for the development and faster industrialisation of your nation or would you start a workers rebellion? And would you choose to start a rebbelion, would that make you unpatriotic? More unpatriotic than the factory owner that exploited you?
So basicaly "nationalism" of fascists comes down to primitive chauvinism that rodoljubs should avoid and imperialism which is acctually the opposite of nationalism and has no place among ideas of nationalism, since nationalism belives in nation-states which end on borders of ethnic area of one nation not in empires.
So what part of the right that nationalists put their hopes into we havent examined jet? The anwser is of course todays anti-immigrant far right which is of course labeled as extreme-right by panicked political opponents that equate it with nazis and other such evils, by which they are giving this quite harmless formations much more credit than they deserve. Such parties of cheap demagogy and populism, not even very convincing demagogy ride on the wawe of xenophobia that is begining to show itself in Europe. This xenophobia is of course an irrational, emotional reaction to foreign immigration and only helps to stronger the position of pro-immigration, becouse its attacks on immigration are quite emotional and primitive and directed against immigrants themselves as often as on open-door policy itself and can therefore be easily labeled as untolerant or even racist by opponents. More importantly voting body of these forces has no understanding of reasons and mechanics of immigration. Otherwise they would understand that immigrants are as much of victims of todays rampant globalist capitalism as they themselves are and would attack reasons for immigration rather than results of them. Therefore I don`t see a particular reason why nationalists should affilate with this new far-right.
Nationalist should aspire to prosperity of ones nation. What includes taking care that national culture is preserved, enriched and well placed in the hearts of its nationals. And enabling social development in direction of greater coherance and health of a nation and economical prosperity of a nation. But becouse the nation is neither a state, neither some methaphysical poetic term, but is exactly the sum of all of its elements (all people of a certain nationality), economical prosperity of a nation means exactly economical prosperity of all it`s nationals. And economical prosperity of all nationals can not be achived if one part of a nation exploits the other part and prospers by empovrishment of the other part. State can economicaly prosper this way, but not the nation! Therefore neither should national state if it is truly national. What means that nationalists should always also be socialists*. And that a nationalist which is not a socialist is, weather he knows or admits it or not, just a servant of the upper class and a tool of destruction of coherance and health of its own nation.
As a nations coherance is endangered when one part of the nation has to adres the other part with "your sirship" (-formal unequality dealt with by the republican nationalists), it is also endangered when part of a nation earns just enough to survive while other has millions (-unformal, practical, social unequality to be dealt with by socialist nationalists).
*here is socialism of course meant as a system which activly pursues the goal of relative social equality, with way to achive this goal undefined (-but faschist head-busting of trade unionists doesn`t qualify) **
Click on the link to read more of the discussion on this topic.