The following are the alleged writings of Stalin on nations. They are worth a read. We all too often see Stalin as merely the Soviet executioner. There was a thought process there as well. I make no comments on what follows.
What is a nation? A nation is primarily a community, a
definite community of people. This community is not racial, nor is it tribal.
The modem Italian nation was formed from Romans, Teutons, Etruscans, Greeks.
Arabs and so-forth. The French nation was formed from Gauls, Romans the Britons,
Teutons, and so on. The same must be said of the British, the Germans and
others, who were formed into nations from people of diverse races and tribes. Thus,
a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of
people. On the other hand, it is unquestionable that the great empires of Cyrus
and Alexander could not be called nations. although they claim to be
constituted historically and were formed out of different tribes They were not nations,
but casual and loosely-connected conglomerations of groups, which fell apart or
joined together according to the victories or defeats of this or that conqueror.
Thus, a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration,
but a stable community of people. But not every stable community constitutes a
nation. Austria and Russia are also stable communities, but nobody calls them
nations. What distinguishes a national community from a state community? The
fact, among others, that a national community is inconceivable without a common
language, while a state need not have a common language. The Czech nation in
Austria and the Polish in Russia would be impossible if each did not have a
common language, whereas the integrity of Russia and Austria is not affected by
the fact that there are a number of different languages within their borders.
We are referring, of course, to the spoken languages of the people and not to
the official governmental languages.
Thus, a common language is one of the characteristic
features of a nation. This, of course, does not mean that different nations
always and everywhere speak different languages, or that all who speak one
language necessarily constitute one nation. A common language for every nation,
but not necessarily different languages for different nations! There is no
nation which at one and the same time speaks several languages, but this does
not mean that there cannot be two nations speaking the same language!
Englishmen and Americans speak one language, but they do not constitute one
nation. The same is true of the Norwegians and the Danes, the English and the
Irish. But why, for instance, do the English and the Americans not constitute
one nation in spite of their common language?
Firstly, because they do not live together, but inhabit
different territories. A nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and
systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after
generation. But people cannot live together for lengthy periods unless they
have a common territory. Englishmen and Americans originally inhabited the same
territory. England, and constituted one nation. After, one section of the
English emigrated from England to a new territory. America, and there, in the
new territory, in the course of time, came to form the new American nation.
Difference of territory led to the formation of different nations.
Thus, a common territory is one of the characteristic
features of a nation. But this is not all. Common territory does not by itself
create a nation. This requires, in addition, an internal economic bond weakly
the various parts of the nation into a single whole. There is no such bond
between England and America, and so they constitute two different nations. But
the Americans v themselves would not deserve to be called a nation were not the
different parts , of America bound together into an economic whole, as a result
of division of labor between them, the development of means of communications
and so forth
Take the Georgians, for instance. The Georgians before the
Reform, inhabited a common territory and spoke one language. Nevertheless, they
did not, strictly speaking, constitute one nation, for, being split up into a
number of disconnected principalities, they
could not share a common economic life; for centuries they waged war against
each other and pillaged each other, each inciting the Persians and Turks
against the other. The ephemeral and casual union of the principalities which
some successful king sometimes managed to bring about embraced at best a
superficial administrative sphere, and rapidly disintegrated owing to the
caprices of the princes and the indifference of the peasants. Nor could it be
otherwise in economically disunited Georgia. . . . Georgia came on the scene as
a nation only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when the fall of
serfdom and the growth of the economic life of the country, the development of
means of communication and the rise of capitalism, introduced division of labor
between the various districts of Georgia, completely shattered the economic
isolation of the principalities and bound them together into a single whole.
The same must be said of the other nations which have passed
through the stage of feudalism and have developed capitalism. Thus, a common
economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a
nation. But even this is not all. Apart from the foregoing, one must take into consideration
the specific spiritual complexion of the people constituting a nation. Nations
differ not only in their conditions of life, but also in spiritual complexion,
which manifests itself in peculiarities of national culture. If England, America
and Ireland, which speak one language, nevertheless constitute three distinct
nations, it is in no small measure due to the peculiar psychological make-up
which they developed from generation to generation as a result of dissimilar
conditions of existence. Of course, by itself, psychological make-up or, as it
is otherwise called, 'national character,’ is something intangible for the
observer, but in so far as it manifests itself in a distinctive culture common
to the nation it is something tangible and cannot be ignored.
Needless to say, 'national character’ is not a thing that is
fixed once and for all, but is modified by changes in the conditions of life;
but since it exists at very given moment, it leaves its impress on the
physiognomy of the nation. Thus, a common psychological make-up, which
manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of
a nation. We have now exhausted the characteristic features of a nation. A
nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the
basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up
manifested in a common culture.
It goes without saying that a nation, like every historical
phenomenon, is subject to the law of change, has its history, its beginning and
end. It must be emphasized that none of the above characteristics taken
separately is sufficient to define a nation. More than that, it is sufficient
for a single one of these characteristics to be lacking and the nation ceases
to be a nation. It is possible to
conceive of people possessing a common ‘national character who, nevertheless,
cannot be said to constitute a single nation if they are economically
disunited, inhabit different territories, speak different languages, and so
forth. Such, for instance, are the Russian, Galician, American, Georgian and
Caucasian Highland Jews, who, in our opinion, do not constitute a single nation.
It is possible to conceive of people with a common territory
and economic life who nevertheless would not constitute a single nation because
they have no common language and no common "national character".
Such, for instance, are the Germans and Letts in the Baltic region. Finally,
the Norwegians and the Danes speak one language, but they do not constitute a
single nation owing to the absence of the other characteristics.
It is only when all these characteristics are present
together that we have a nation
Reference: ‘The Nation', in Marxism and the Natural
Question, from The Essential Stalin: Major
Theoretical Writings 1905-1952, ed. Bruce Franklin (Croom
Helm: London, 1973), 57-61.
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