Lenin linked national self-determination to voluntary proletarian union.
Evidence
Lenin understood better than his comrades of the revolutionary left the dialectical relationship between internationalism and the right of national self-determination. He understood, firstly, that only the freedom to secede makes possible free and voluntary union Secondly, that only the recognition by the workers’ movement in the oppressor nation of the right of the oppressed nation to self-determination can help to eliminate the hostility and suspicion of the oppressed, and unite the proletariat of both nations in the international struggle against the bourgeoisie. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 366
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- XREF: Connects to later debates over Black self-determination within US communism — Lenin’s position anchors the reader’s awareness of how Black radicals used Marxist frames.
Related
- Recognition of oppressed nations’ secession right is required to unite proletarians across nations (similarity 0.87)
- The Comintern adopted self-determination to pre-empt a resurgence of Black nationalism. (similarity 0.80)
- Lenin held that the proletariat spontaneously develops only trade-union, not revolutionary, consciousness (similarity 0.78)