Our party stands resolute against the rising tide of nationalism in the global paradigm, as we always have. It has become apparent, however, that the question of nationalism is prominent in the minds of many. It is our duty as Communists to provide our reasonings for why we stand against this rot of Nationalism. We, as a party, also stand against any war where the global proletariat is not united against adverse forces. War itself has gone through many changes throughout history, and we have come to the stage where imperial actors utilize proxies to extract resources for their imperial core.

Let us speak on war. War itself, in its current structure, has forever been molded by nationalism.  Historically speaking, National liberation from the yoke of “foreign invaders” has been used by the bourgeoisie of one nation to send countless working class people to their deaths under the illusion of shared interests.  National liberation, in pre-capitalist struggles, is something to examine, as it is a strain of nationalism, albeit a much less threatening one to the revolutionary process. National liberation, in the context of pre-capitalism, has mostly been relegated to the annals of history, but nevertheless, there are still cases of this in isolated pockets of the world.

But most of the nationalist struggles of today are not pre-capitalist in nature. They are explicitly bourgeois. Nationalist wars only harm the working class. Due to the workers’ place in society, that of the wage slave, there is no escape from war. The ability of each class to move across state borders profoundly impacts how war affects them. The Bourgeoisie, with their capital, both monetary and physical, have the ability to liquidate their assets and run with their tails between their legs, while the working class is often left to feel the brunt of invasion with its indignities and its horrors. This salts the wound of class inequality, as the working class has the least to gain from either defensive or aggressive wars. The workers do not reap the gains of a defense contract (or if they do see gains from their wages, it is nothing compared to the gains seen by their bosses), or benefit beyond the status quo, if they can even retain that during the time of war, if a war is won. 

 Let’s examine the second Balkan War for an example, where the old allies of the first Balkan War fought amongst themselves over national sovereignty and national expansion. The ways in which nationalist identities were created in “liberation struggles” against the Ottoman (and, contemporarily, Austrian and Russian) Empires demonstrates how nationalism is first and foremost a bourgeoisie interest. While working-class people in these Balkan states may have also wished to free themselves of an Ottoman yoke, the ideological leaders and backers of nationalist movements were, much like America’s founding fathers, overwhelmingly owners of trade and commercial interests. It was they who drove these revolts against the Ottoman Empire, and while some may have played as generals, by their sheer numbers the working class people of each country were the ones suffering and dying in the First Balkan War. Once free of their Ottoman overlords, many of these same bourgeoisie leaders turned their nationalism increasingly towards the ethnically homogenous “nation-state” to distract from their newfound status as the foremost exploiters of the working class, leading to even more suffering for the working class in the Second Balkan War, and later ethnic conflicts and genocides around the region. The Balkans provide a tragic example of how a non-revolutionary, ethnically defined “liberation struggle” led by bourgeoisie interests leads only to liberation of further profits at the expense of the working class.

 Let us discuss a more recent war, one that is more relevant to our current times, the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Before the Euromaidan, this invasion would have been unthinkable, as Yanukovich was a lapdog of the Putin Regime and its capitalist interests. The Ukrainian and American bourgeoisie both wished to move Ukraine into the American sphere of capitalist interests, and another color revolution took place. This shift away from Russia’s grasp gave an excuse for the Russian state to invade, citing “denazification” of Ukraine. This is, of course, a lie. The invasion of Ukraine is but another Imperial proxy war between bourgeois interests, where the proletariat is driven to death by the thousands for the sake of industrial interests and vacation homes for the Russian bourgeoisie.

The pressure faced by the Working class, the looming threat of having all their hard-earned gains taken away, is felt even more strongly during peace. The time between wars is, for the bourgeois interests of the defense-industrial complex, a time to prepare for the next clash of national interests, and is filled with hawkish rhetoric aimed at opposing capitalist forces, which the working class hears from the high towers of the bourgeois citadels and from other paid interests claiming to speak for the working class. The bourgeoisie benefits enormously from the preparation for the National War, while the working class can only suffer: weapons production increases, double-time is enforced, pay is cut. Weapons production, as even a leader of bourgeois interests could once admit, is theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. It’s unsurprising that, as socialist tendencies and international solidarity rise in a state, the chances of winning any war becomes increasingly difficult. National War, that is war between consolidated and bureaucratic nation-states, is war first and foremost between industrial concerns, with the greater industrial base grinding down its opposing capitalist rival while greased by the blood of working class people. War requires a level of obfuscation by the bourgeoisie to hide the cost of their interests-the idea of nationalism, of shared national interest regardless of class, is how they choose to obfuscate. As that veil begins to drop, so too does the ability to muster the proletariat effectively in any war scenario. For every war, there will be extreme grief felt by the working class.

It is imperative that the support of the nation, of the Fatherland be sacrificed on the altar, lest we fall into reactionism and revisionism, failing to advance the working class towards a better future. The worker has no homeland, especially when being asked to march for a bourgeois ideal. It goes without saying that there is no national war that could possibly advance the global proletariat’s stance. The national war, even when a subsection of the proletariat benefits, takes everything from another. There is no war for the worker that benefits them but the class war.