Any correct presentation of the Chicano national-colonial question must first begin with a discussion of the Marxist-Leninist position on the national-colonial question. Marxism-Leninism teaches that a nation is a historical category. However,
A nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism. The process of elimination of feudalism and development of capitalism was at the same time a process of amalgamation of people into nations. Such, for instance, was the case in Western Europe. The British, French, Italians and others formed themselves into nations at the time of the victorious advance of capitalism and its triumph over feudal disunity.[1]
Thus we see that rising capitalism calls nations into existence, for it is that development of the economic community most suitable for capitalism (the national state) which demands the adoption of a common language, breaks down tribal and feudal barriers, and welds people into a nation.
Nations possess fundamental characteristics, all of which must be present in order for a nation to exist.
A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.[2]
Thus we see the characteristics which all nations possess. It need only be added here that it is the peasantry of a nation which determines the common territory of a nation for it is the peasantry which anchors a nation in place and provides the basis of its economic community.
The national-colonial question is not a fixed question but instead can be divided into three distinct periods of development which we have historically experienced: the period of rising capitalism, the development of nations, and the view that the national question was confined to Europe and a circle of questions dealing with the Irish, the Poles, etc; the age of imperialism, the breakdown of national borders, the dispersal of nations, and the merging of the national question with the question of the colonies in general; and the period of Soviet power, the demise of capitalism, socialist construction, and the solution of the national-colonial question. These three periods are by no means walled off from each other but are interrelated and connected.
The merging of the national question with the question of the colonies is of great importance for it represents the possibility and necessity of converting the colonies and neo-colonies from reserves, of the bourgeoisie into the vast reserves of the proletariat, thus linking the national liberation movement in the colonies and dependent nations with the question of proletarian revolution.
Comrade Stalin explained why this linkage was possible: “Leninism has proven, and the imperialist was and the revolution in Russia have confirmed, that the national question can be solved only in connection with and on the basis of proletarian revolution and that the road to revolution in the West lies through the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent nations against imperialism.”[3]
Another extremely important development in the national-colonial question during the age of imperialism is the inability of the bourgeoisie to lead the national liberation movement. Because the question of national liberation has been merged with that of proletarian revolution and the struggle against imperialism, and because the liberation of the colonies and dependent nations can only be accomplished by the overthrow of capital, it follows that only the proletariat of the colonies and dependent nations is capable of leading the struggle for national liberation for only the proletariat is capable of waging uncompromising struggle against the power of capital and ultimately of overthrowing it.
The Marxist-Leninist solution of the national-colonial question is based on four propositions:
A) Recognition of the right of nations to secession;
B) Regional autonomy for nations remaining within the given state;
C) Special legislation guaranteeing freedom of development for national
minorities;
D) A single, indivisible proletarian collective, a single party, for the proletarians of all nationalities of the given state.[4]
Leninism took the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination and transformed it from the watered-down misinterpreted slogan of the Second International to a revolutionary slogan calling for the right of dependent nations and colonies to complete political secession, to existence as independent states. This does not mean that because the proletariat of oppressor nations must raise this slogan that each and every dependent nation must secede and form an independent state. “Hence the question of secession must be determined in each particular case independently, in accordance with the existing situation, and, for this reason, recognizing the right of secession must not be confused with the expediency of secession in any given circumstances.”[5]
[1] (P l) J. Stalin, Selected Works, Cardinal Publishers, p 56.
[2] Ibid., p. 53.
[3] J. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Peking, 1970, p. 73.
[4] J. Stalin, Selected Works, p. 97.
[5] Ibid., p. 96.