Lenin on the national question

Bolshevik leader VI Lenin advocated the right of all nations to self determination, as well as full equality of all nations and peoples. The aim was to get the national question off the agenda, to oppose all variants of bourgeois nationalism and to appeal for unity of proletarians of all nations in their struggle against the ruling classes.

The national programme of working-class democracy is: absolutely no privileges for any one nation or any one language; the solution of the problem of the political self-determination of nations, that is, their separation as states by completely free, democratic methods; the promulgation of a law for the whole state by virtue of which any measure (rural, urban or communal, etc., etc.) introducing any privilege of any kind for one of the nations and militating against the equality of nations or the rights of a national minority, shall be declared illegal and ineffective, and any citizen of the state shall have the right to demand that such a measure be annulled as unconstitutional, and that those who attempt to put it into effect be punished.

Working-class democracy contraposes to the nationalist wrangling of the various bourgeois parties over questions of language, etc., the demand for the unconditional unity and complete amalgamation of workers of all nationalities in all working-class organisations — trade union, co-operative, consumers’, educational and all others — in contradistinction to any kind of bourgeois nationalism. Only this type of unity and amalgamation can uphold democracy and defend the interests of workers against capital — which is already international and is becoming more so — and promote the development of mankind towards a new way of life that is alien to all privileges and all exploitation....

The conclusion to be drawn from this? It is that all liberal-bourgeois nationalism sows the greatest corruption among the workers and does immense harm to the cause of freedom and the proletarian class struggle.

— VI Lenin, “Critical remarks on the national question”, 1913, reprinted in Collected Works, Volume 20