“INTERNATIONALISM” is a central concept to socialist practice — and theory. The slogan “workers of the world, unite” (actually a mistranslation of a phrase in the concluding lines of the Communist Manifesto) and an anthem, The Internationale, have been adopted (in a host of languages) by communist and socialist groups worldwide. The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA) — otherwise known as the First International — was founded in London in 1864 (it met at what is today Marx House, home to the Marx Memorial Library; Karl Marx became a leading figure).

Subsequent “internationals” were formed in an effort to translate the IWA’s ideals into practice. But the term itself deserves unpacking.

Within the capitalist world (and beyond) internationalism takes many forms, from Thomas Paine and the Marquis de Lafayette going in 1776-7 to serve in the American Revolution; volunteers from many countries who fought fascism in the International Brigades in Spain between 1935 and 1938; to the “London Recruits” who used their “white privilege” to carry out secret missions to support the ANC in apartheid South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.

That internationalism is manifest today in the activities of organisations from the International Red Cross or Medecins Sans Frontieres, to Palestine Action and those who gather to protest against Britain’s support for the genocide in Gaza as well as CND, Just Stop Oil and other groups whose activism is based on an awareness of the potentially disastrous consequences of war and climate change for our planet and its peoples.

Internationalism need not always be overtly political or class based, nor need it be in opposition to ideas of the “nation-state.” Generally based on a concept of shared identity, not necessarily just of class, international and internationalist movements have championed the rights of women, of the oppressed (colonial nations, slaves, black and ethnic communities, religious groups) none of which can be reduced simply to class identity.

Internationalism is manifest also in the activities of some nation-states themselves. Cuba today in the most adverse circumstances demonstrates solidarity with other “developing” countries and those affected by natural disasters or health crises through its policy of “medical internationalism,” sending medical personnel and teams to countries in need, as well as training foreign medical students in Cuba.

Marx and Engels in their (scattered) writings on “the national question” saw nations not as eternal entities but as historical formations emerging alongside the development of capitalism.

They opposed reactionary or counter-revolutionary nationalism but argued that national movements could have positive elements, weakening feudal empires, furthering the development of capitalism and therefore of its working class, and laying the basis for future proletarian internationalism; they supported struggles for Polish and Irish independence and German and Italian unification as progressive because they undermined reactionary empires (tsarist Russia, the Habsburgs, British colonialism).

Lenin built on and systematised this approach, arguing for a nation’s right to secede from colonial and imperial domination and that workers of oppressor nations (including Russians) must actively oppose their own ruling class’s domination over others (Ukrainians, Finns, Poles, Georgians) who sought their own national autonomy and self-determination.

Only by championing the rights of oppressed nations, he argued, including language, cultures and institutions, can workers’ unity be restored. At the same time, all forms of national or ethnic chauvinism (excessive or prejudiced support or belief in superiority) had to be opposed: genuine proletarian internationalism required opposing all forms of national oppression.

National autonomy and internationalism need not always be in conflict; sometimes they are two sides of the same coin.

A movement of shared identity amongst South Slavs, in part at least a response to occupation (by the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires) led after the first world war to the formation of the state of Yugoslavia.

Its occupation by fascist Germany and Italy during World War II led to a strong movement of national liberation and partisan struggle, led by communists and socialists, and to the emergence of a socialist Yugoslav federation which — until its collapse following a revival of right-wing nationalism — became a leader of the global non-aligned movement.

The 1955 Bandung Conference brought together 29 Asian and African nations to promote peace, economic development and self-determination for all peoples under colonial rule, rejecting alignment with either the Western or Soviet blocs.

In Africa, Burkina Faso under Thomas Sankara had a strong policy of “Pan-Africanism,” changing its name from the colonial-era Upper Volta, rejecting Western “aid” and debt repayment, and supporting global liberation movements against imperialism — from Southern Africa (ANC) and Western Sahara to Central America (Nicaraguan Sandinistas). Analogous policies are being pursued by the present military junta under Ibrahim Traore.

In Britain, alongside Labour’s slide to the right in an attempt to buy into anti-immigrant sentiment, appease its corporate sponsors and brown-nose Trump, there are also signs that within its constituent nations, alternatives are being sought which challenge the domination of private capital.

Within the left this has led to the recognition that national identities can include challenges to the status quo, recognised, for example, in the Communist Party’s slogan of “progressive federalism.”

However there are also reactionary, capitalist manifestations of internationalism (sometimes called “bourgeois,” “liberal” or “cosmopolitan”) focused not on workers’ solidarity, but on expanding capital accumulation through trade, investment and the extraction of surplus value across borders.

Bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and their backers, multinational corporations, transnational banking networks and their own captive states (as well as some not-for-profit and charitable organisations) often project a rhetoric of human rights, democracy and other liberal norms which mask imperial or neo-colonial interests and (as with Nato’s “coalitions of the willing”) are used to justify military intervention to protect a global order of dependency, unequal exchange and capital accumulation.

And of course, fascist and neofascist movements — in Europe especially — have their own “internationalist” character.

The Cold War, a period of geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, is generally held to have started shortly after the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945.

It was supposed to have ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In fact the Cold War began in 1919. There were two “internationals” each seeking to remake the world in their image. That battle between internationalisms continues today.

Ultimately for Marx and Engels and Lenin, the working class had no country, and nationalism could not override the need for international class struggle.

The foundational principles of early Marxists continue to inform contemporary approaches. In an era of global capitalism, proletarian solidarity across national borders is essential. This combines respect for oppressed nations’ right to self-determination with an understanding that nationalism can be progressive or reactionary, depending on its historical and political context.

This requires support for anti-imperialist struggles in the global South as well as for indigenous sovereignty movements that challenge corporate or state exploitation.

It also involves analysis of and opposition to nationalism that reinforces “bourgeois” or elite domination, xenophobia, or militarism — including far-right nationalist movements in Europe and the US and other “ethno-nationalist” separatist movements, often backed by corporate interests.

In particular there is the recognition today that the solutions to exploitation, poverty, hunger, drought, pandemics, the environmental consequences of climate change, and securing decent living standards for all peoples — within individual nations and in the world as a whole, require internationalist solutions: solutions that are impossible in a world dominated by finance capital.

More Q&A — including on nationalism, the state, imperialism, neo-colonial dependency and on fascism and communism, can be found on the Marx Memorial Library’s website or the Morning Star online — links on https://tinyurl.com/FullMarxList/