Given my ventures into seperatist areas in Europe, I was left with this question. Does a national liberation movement need to ‘tick the left wing boxes’ so to say for ML’s to consider their support, or is support given regardless of political stances?
One movement in particular that caused this question to arise is the Flemish independence movement which is almost entirely filled with right wing nationalists. I do not support their movement. But why? If they wanted to be independent, should I be against that based on their politics? Is that a valid thing to do?
The same thing can be asked with regards to the Basque movement. Should I support them because of their wish to independence regardless of their more left leaning ideologies? Or should the politics be entirely irrelevant in this?
What do you think?
It’s a myth that Marxism-Leninism says “thou shalt support every national liberation struggle.” If you read Foundations of Leninism it is pretty unambiguously clear that support for national liberation struggles should always be put into the global context of whether doing so supports the overall goals of dismantling imperialism and the global capitalist system or if it hinders it. If you read the book it is quite explicit that we should not support national liberal struggles that go against overall geopolitical interests; i.e. if that national liberation struggle is led and supported by big bourgeois imperialist powers and is being used to facilitate their own interests and so it would set the proletariat back to support it on the global stage. The point is that “national liberation” shouldn’t be treated as some sort of eternal unquestionable moral principle. You should put it into the global context. I don’t know very much about the specific cases you mention, but it is in no way inherently contradictory to Marxism-Leninism to question supporting a particular national liberation struggle. It depends upon their reasoning.