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Two Marxist Approaches to Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Mary Matossian
Mary Matossian*
Affiliation:
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
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Extract

During the winter of 1912-1913 Lenin studied the problem of nationalism with all his famous powers of concentration. Such a study was long overdue. Two great multinational states—the Austro- Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire—had been steadily disintegrating; a third multinational state—the Russian Empire— was full of latent national hostilities; and so far the Russian Bolsheviks had failed to come to grips with the issue of nationalism. During this winter Lenin asked two of his disciples, Josip Dzhugashvili, a Georgian, and Stepan Shahoumian (Shaumian), an Armenian, to formulate their ideas on the nationality problem. He probably chose these men because they were natives of the Caucasus, an area of especially complex nationality problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1957 , pp. 489 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1957

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References

1 Shahoumian was born in Tiflis in 1878, the son of a poor Armenian merchant. He attended a Russian government real school in Tiflis, the Riga Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Berlin. Soviet sources claim that he joined the RDSRPin 1900. He met Lenin in Switzerland in 1903 and thereafter was a devoted disciple. His contemporaries relate that he was handsome, a good listener, and on good personal terms even with his political opponents. After leading the ill-fated Baku Commune he was shot by Socialist Revolutionaries in Krasnovodsk, September 20, 1918.

2 See A. Karinian's introduction to: Stepan Shaumian, Stat'i i rechi, 1902-1918 (Baku, 1924), p. 15. For the text of this article, in Armenian, see: Stepan Shahoumian, Untir Terger (Selected Works), (Erivan, 1948), pp. 140-72; or his Yerger (Works) (Erivan, 1955), I, 193-228. The 1948 version is hereafter cited as Shahoumian, 1906.

3 “David Ananoun” was the pseudonym of David Ter Danielian, a native of the Karabakh district. He was born around 1875 and attended high school, but thereafter relied upon his own efforts to advance his education. He was a leader of the cooperative movement before the Revolution in Baku, and later in the Armenian Republic (1918-1920) and in Soviet Armenia. Ananoun was exiled from Soviet Armenia in 1927 or 1928 to Arkhangelsk. He was reported still alive in 1935.

4 Shahoumian, Untir Terger, p. 368; and Richard Pipes, “The Genesis of Soviet Nationality Policy” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Harvard University, 1950), p. 57.

5 J. V. Stalin, “Marksizm i nacional'nyj vopros,” Sochinenija (Moscow, 1946), II, 290- 367; David Ananoun, “Azgayin hartse yev demokratian,” Nor Hosank (Tifiis), I, No. 1 (March, 1913), 142-54; No. 2 (April, 1913), 358-72 (hereafter cited as Ananoun-A); “Dartzeal azgayin hartse yev demokratian,” Nor Hosank, I, No. 6 (August, 1913), 1062-71 (hereafter cited as Ananoun-B); Stepan Shahoumian, “Azgayin koultourakan avtonomiayi masin,” Untir Terger, pp. 368-420 (hereafter cited as Shahoumian, 1914). This essay is hardly more than an introduction to these interesting articles. Unfortunately, the works of Shahoumian and Anaoun are relatively inaccessible. Ananoun's articles, which appear only in Armenian, may be obtained at the Armenian Cultural Foundation In Boston. Shahoumian's work is available in Russian at the Hoover Library, Stanford University, California and in Armenian at the Harvard College Library.

Where there was a lacuna in Shahoumian's position in the 1914 article I referred to his 1906 article. In the interval his essential position did not change, but was amplified; hence the two articles are complementary.

In September, 1915, Ananoun wrote an article attacking the position of Shahoumian, and of Lenin, on the nationality problem: “Mtki tkaroutiune azgayin hartsi loudzmoun khndroum,” (Feeble-Mindedness in the Problem of Solving the Nationality Problem) published in Gordz, 1917, No. 3 (March), Part II, pp. 14-30. His position is essentially the same as it was in 1913.

6 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 292-303; Shahoumian, 1906, pp. 144-9; and Ananoun-A, pp. 142-3.

7 However, Stalin said that one characteristic of a nation is a “community of psychological makeup” or “national character” which is manifest in a “community of culture.” This “national character,” however, is but a reflection of socio-economic conditions, and it changes as these conditions change. He said that the development of capitalism, specifically, serves to break up the “community of culture.” Stalin, op. cit., p. 328; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 390 and 393; Ananoun-A, pp. 142-5 and 151.

8 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 328-30; Shahoumian, 1914, p. 382; Ananoun-B, p. 1068.

9 Shahoumian, 1914, p. 378.

10 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 329 and 351.

11 Ananoun-B, p. 1063.

12 Ibid., pp. 1063, 1066 and 1068.

13 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 303-12; Shahoumian, 1906, p. 149; Ananoun-A, pp. 143-8.

14 Stalin, op. cit., p. 356; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 381, 398 and 403; Ananoun-B, p. 1064; Shahoumian, 1906, pp. 163-4.

15 On this point Shahoumian stood slightly apart from the others: he did not believe that the language of instruction was very important. He pointed out that the majority of Caucasian Armenian intellectuals—both nationalist and Marxist—had studied in government schools, where Russian was the language of instruction, and that any intellectual “cramping” received in such schools was not derived from the language of instruction but from their spirit and curriculum. On the other hand, Armenians studying in Armenian parochial schools were “cramped” by the clerical spirit prevailing therein. We note that Shahoumian attended a Russian real school and a Russian technical institute. (Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 396-7).

16 Stalin, op. cit., p. 363; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 395, 403 and 409-10; Ananoun-A, p. 151.

17 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 308-12; Shahoumian, 1914, p. 392; 1906, p. 152; Ananoun-A, pp. 150-1 and 153; Ananoun-B, p. 1069.

18 Shahoumian, 1914, p. 377; Ananoun-A, p. 145; Ananoun-B, p. 1068.

19 Shahoumian, 1914, p. 399.

20 For passages which suggest this interpretation see: Stalin, op. cit., pp. 310, 318-9, and 356; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 396-7 and 378; 1906, p. 163.

21 Ananoun-A, pp. 145 and 147; Ananoun-B, pp. 1069-70.

22 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 359-62; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 408-9.

23 Ananoun-A, pp. 358-9, 367, and 369-70.

24 Ibid., pp. 365-7.

25 Stalin, op. cit, p. 351; Shahoumian, 1914, p. 399.

26 Ananoun-B, p. 1064.

27 Ibid., p. 1070.

28 Stalin, op. cit., p. 294; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 383-88.

29 Ananoun-A, pp. 358-59; Ananoun-B, p. 1068.

30 Stalin, op. cit., pp. 362-3; Shahoumian, 1914, pp. 401-3.

31 Ananoun-B, pp. 1067-8.