In 1956, the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski wrote the poem “What is Socialism?”. The text was very popular in Poland and Hungary, where a workers’ and socialist revolution was taking place, challenging the Stalinist regime. Kolakowski, who supported this movement, opens his poem with a long list of what socialism is not, thus highlighting the hypocrisy and cynicism of the ruling bureaucracy, denouncing political and social aspects of these regimes that usurped the name of socialism. Inspired by Kolakowski’s approach, this essay will offer a definition of what internationalism is by examining the many ways in which the current political scenario offers us examples of what it is not. 

Advocating the unity of the working class and “its” bourgeoisie in the name of defending the homeland is not internationalism. At the time of “emerging capitalism,” the nation-state expressed a political tool of the bourgeoisie, a necessary lever in its struggle against feudalism. The formation of national states and national ideology then played a progressive role in overcoming the domination of lords and monarchies, which constituted an obstacle to the development of society as a whole. The French Revolution of 1789 was the most powerful expression of these movements in which the bourgeoisie, as an oppressed class, played a revolutionary role.

The situation today is radically different. The bourgeoisie has become reactionary across the board. Its economic and political-social system, capitalism, has reached its imperialist stage. That is, according to Lenin, an epoch has arrived in which monopolies dominate the economy, in which capitalism has become “the negation of democracy in general.” But the epoch of imperialism is also marked by: 

The progressively mounting oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of Great Powers; it means a period of wars between the latter to extend and consolidate the oppression of nations; it means a period in which the masses of the people are deceived by hypocritical social-patriots, i.e., individuals who, under the pretext of the “freedom of nations”, “the right of nations to self-determination,” and “defence of the fatherland,” justify and defend the oppression of the majority of the world’s nations by the Great Powers. ¹“The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” Lenin, Works, Vol. 21, p. 407-414..

In other words, the capitalist nation-state of the imperialist era (in which we are still living) is the political-administrative and military organization from which national capitalists organize their struggle for the division of the world, in a logic of opposition with the capitalists of other nations. In this context, nationalism is the ideology they use to rally the workers and classes they exploit and oppress on national soil, “welding the nation” behind the interests of the bourgeoisie. In the past, this bourgeois and imperialist nationalism led Europe to the slaughter of the two world wars, where proletarians and peasants from all over the continent tragically killed each other to defend the interests of their exploiters. In this sense, there should be no mistake: the bourgeoisie is once again ready to mobilize, if necessary, this harmful nationalism to recruit the youth and the working class into their reactionary adventures.

In both world wars, to take just these examples, socialist internationalist revolutionaries fought against the tide, against bourgeois nationalism, but also against the chauvinist agents of the capitalists within the workers’ movement. Their aim was to break this reactionary unity between the exploited and their “compatriot exploiters,” while building bridges of solidarity and fraternity with their class sisters and brothers on the other side of the border. The bourgeoisie, for its part, condemned to death any soldier who tried to fraternize with those in the enemy armies ²Fraternization was perceived as a threat by the high command of the enemy armies because it introduced an element of unity between soldiers on both sides of the front line capable of breaking the national unity and nationalism of the bourgeoisie. It was in this sense that fraternization was harshly punished. In a 1915 text, on the question of fraternization and the repression that followed it, Lenin wrote: ” There is another practical question: should we perish as blind and helpless slaves, in a war between slave owners, or should we fall into ‘attempts at fraternization’ between slaves, for the purpose of rejecting slavery. Indeed, fraternization meant a break with the chauvinism that fueled the war, and a bridge to internationalist ideas within the troops, composed mainly of poor workers and peasants. In this sense, internationalism is a powerful weapon of the proletariat in its revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system.

Nor is internationalism “national preference.” In times of economic crisis, nationalist currents, including those of the extreme right, attempt to attract the sympathy of workers and popular sectors by explaining that they should stay close to employers in order to protect “national industry” in order to preserve their social gains and living conditions. Thus, reactionary and anti-worker politicians, but also so-called “progressive” politicians, may go so far as to present various types of “protectionism” as a policy favorable to the working class. Protectionism is a cousin of “national preference”: they both aim to protect the interests of the most concentrated sectors of national capital in the face of competition from foreign capitalist monopolies, but in no way to protect the interests of workers and their families. Protectionism asks workers first to join forces against the foreign competitors of national bosses, then to accept wage freezes and cuts, even layoffs, in the name of “protecting the national economy.” Make no mistake: these same “patriotic bosses,” who indulge in national pride to extract efforts from workers in times of economic difficulty, will not give a single cent to the proletariat in times of opulence, but will instead do everything they can to always privatize the profits, and socialize the losses.

The bourgeoisie has every interest in masking and obscuring the real class oppositions that are at stake: that is the oppositions between capitalists and workers, or exploiters and exploited. It always attempts to divert attention from this issue by emphasizing instead the “opposition between nations.” To this end, the ruling classes and their political personnel do not hesitate to spread racist and xenophobic venom within the working class and exploited sectors of society in order to divide “national” workers and foreign workers, preventing them from making common struggle together. Thus, foreigners (or those perceived as such) become the “danger,” the “enemies,” the “scapegoats” for the misery into which capitalism plunges millions of workers and their families.

But, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, “Workers have no fatherland… Abolish the exploitation of man by man, and you abolish the exploitation of nation by nation. The day class antagonism within a nation disappears, so does the hostility of nations to one another.” This is where the power of internationalism lies. Marx anchors his argument in the fact that the working class is an international class: it struggles against its national bourgeoisie but also against the entire capitalist class internationally. Contrary to what capitalists and their politicians would have us believe, the working class is not in a better position when national capitalists are strong. On the contrary, the working class is in a better position when it is bound together in solidarity and also in struggle with workers across national borders. Contributing to strengthening “our” capitalists is nothing more and nothing less than contributing to strengthening the very people who are lowering wages, laying off workers, closing factories and cutting services, making us work ourselves to death, even as they gorge themselves on state subsidies and tax breaks.

Internationalism does not mean defending the colonial or imperial domination of the national capitalist class. For the working class, especially in the imperialist states, this question is decisive. Much of the wealth and political power of the imperialist bourgeoisies is based on their economic, political, and military domination. In this sense, the possession of colonies or imperialist domination over semi-colonies is crucial, including the domination of the proletariat of those colonies. Claiming that the defense of these colonial possessions or the “power” of this or that imperialist state is in the interest of the working class of these states is dangerous: the more the imperialist capitalist class dominates regions of the world, the more influential it is internationally, imposing itself not only on oppressed peoples but also on its imperialist rivals, thus increasing the power and effectiveness of its exploitation of workers at the national level.

The defense of the “glory of the nation” also allows for the spread of chauvinism and xenophobia within the working class. At home, this translates into a form of national/racial supremacism. Speaking of the colonial/racial divisions of the proletariat in England, K. Marx wrote in a letter from April 1870 that: 

Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

Marx, for whom “a people that oppresses another cannot be free,” deduced in the same letter the tasks of the socialists of England, stating that “It is the special task of the Central Council in London to make the English workers realise that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.” Indeed, for Marx the English aristocracy and bourgeoisie used their colonial domination over Ireland to perpetuate their domination over the English proletariat. The national liberation of Ireland was thus intimately linked to the revolution in England because it weakened the English ruling classes and, on the other hand, a revolution in England would weaken the yoke on Ireland, which would allow it to free itself more easily. 

Regrettably, organizations of the so-called radical left confuse workers by fueling certain nationalist prejudices. In France, this is particularly the case with La France Insoumise, whose patriotism and pride in French colonial possessions are openly proclaimed. As we recently wrote: 

In the context of heightened international tensions and the race to war in Europe, the “diplomatic” centrality of the so-called “overseas” territories occupies an even more central place for La France Insoumise [(LFI)] as they open a window on the world for the French state. Because for LFI, it is a question of refusing to subordinate itself to the United States or the European Union and of seeking to form alliances on a case-by-case basis, notably with the BRICS countries, so that the French state can hold its own and oppose the current dynamics, the former French colonies play a fundamental role in its strategy.

In the context of rising nationalism and militarism, this orientation is very dangerous for the working class. By posing as defenders of the “greatness of France on five continents,” France Insoumise fuels a certain form of chauvinism among the working class while trivializing the domination of French imperialism throughout the world.

Internationalism is not, however, the negation of the national rights of oppressed peoples and nationalities. The struggle for the national liberation of oppressed peoples is central to the strategy of socialist internationalist revolutionaries. However, certain currents within Marxism can sometimes take a mechanical and non-dialectical approach to this question and, under the pretext of rejecting nationalism, posit an equivalence between the chauvinism of imperialist states and the national sentiment of oppressed nations. In one case, nationalism is reactionary; in the other, it can play a progressive role in the struggle against national oppression that can pave the way for a movement toward socialism. It is in this sense that socialist internationalism implies the unconditional defense of the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination.

Therefore, when faced with the question of nationalism, internationalist revolutionaries have specific tasks depending on their situation (in imperialist states or in colonial or semi-colonial states). Lenin wrote in 1915 that the “the Social-Democrats of the oppressor nations must demand that the oppressed nations should have the right of secession, for otherwise recognition of equal rights for nations and of international working-class solidarity would in fact be merely empty phrase-mongering, sheer hypocrisy.” Regarding the tasks of revolutionaries in oppressed countries, he adds that they “must attach prime significance to the unity and the merging of the workers of the oppressed nations with those of the oppressor nations; otherwise these Social-Democrats will involuntarily become the allies of their own national bourgeoisie, which always betrays the interests of the people and of democracy, and is always ready, in its turn, to annex territory and oppress other nations. ³“The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination”, October 1915, Works volume 21, pp. 425-426.”

In other words, for socialist internationalists, defending the national liberation of oppressed peoples does not mean aligning themselves with the national bourgeoisie, much less with the policies of a competing imperialist bourgeoisie. But proletarian internationalism can never be used as a pretext for rejecting support for the struggle for the national liberation of an oppressed people, especially for revolutionaries in an imperialist country. Socialism is a society free from exploitation and all forms of oppression, including national oppression. The struggle against national oppression is one of the central political struggles of the proletariat in its movement toward the overthrow of capitalism. In the same text quoted above, Lenin explains that “The social revolution is not a single battle, but a period covering a series of battles over all sorts of problems of economic and democratic reform, which are consummated only by the expropriation of the bourgeoisie… It is quite conceivable that the workers of some particular country will overthrow the bourgeoisie before even a single fundamental democratic reform has been fully achieved. It is, however, quite inconceivable that the proletariat, as a historical class, will be able to defeat the bourgeoisie, unless it is prepared for that by being educated in the spirit of the most consistent and resolutely revolutionary democracy.”

Internationalism is not the defense of open markets, of the international exploitation of workers and natural resources by capitalists. As Marx and Engels explained in the Communist Manifesto: 

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.

In other words, the bourgeoisie, by its very economic activity, is “internationalist.” It uses nationalist ideology and the nation-state as instruments to perfect its domination and to maintain its social order.

Working-class internationalism is not to be confused with the tendency toward international domination and exploitation organized by capitalists, exacerbated by neoliberal globalization. Under a false “internationalist” veneer, large monopolistic groups are increasing the exploitation of workers and natural resources like never before. Moreover, we are witnessing a growing and deregulated circulation of goods, businesses, and capital, a freedom of movement that does not, however, extend to people. Indeed, only the citizens of a handful of imperialist states enjoy partial freedom of movement around the world, as globalization has been accompanied by the strengthening of repressive policies against migrants fleeing their countries plundered by the same imperialist powers.

The crisis of neoliberal hegemony has fostered the rise of reactionary nationalist currents within imperialist powers, challenging the effects of this globalization. They share with “globalist” currents their hatred of migrants, but advocate forms of economic nationalism and protectionism. These currents support a policy of national withdrawal that is not only reactionary but also illusory, as Donald Trump’s protectionist policy in the United States demonstrates.

The internationalist and socialist politics of the working class has nothing to do with this “nationalist protest” against neoliberal globalization, nor with capitalist “internationalism.” The internationalist and socialist proletariat must fight against imperialism in all its forms: chauvinistic nationalist or “internationalist.” This must first of all involve defending the rights of populations oppressed and exploited by industrial groups and imperialist capital and therefore a battle against the racism and xenophobia that fall upon foreign workers, against policies of border closures and the “illegalization” of people. The more foreign workers are exploited and oppressed, the more the working class as a whole is divided and vulnerable to attacks from the bosses.

Internationalism “is a good thing” but also an ideology, a practice, and a strategy explicitly opposed to capitalism and bourgeois society. Indeed, Kolakowski ended his 1956 poem by asserting that “socialism is a good thing.” We can only agree and add that this is also true of internationalism. However, we must emphasize that, for most workers today, internationalism may seem an abstract concept, at best a kind of moral imperative. However, as Trotsky explained in 1928,

Internationalism is not an abstract principle: it constitutes only the political and theoretical reflection of the world character of the economy, of the world development of the productive forces and of the world impetus of the class struggle. The socialist revolution begins on the national terrain, but it cannot remain there.

The proletarian revolution can only be maintained within national frameworks in the form of a provisional regime, even if it lasts for a long time, as the example of the Soviet Union demonstrates. In the case where an isolated proletarian dictatorship exists, internal and external contradictions inevitably increase, along with the successes. If the proletarian state continues to remain isolated, it will ultimately succumb, a victim of these contradictions. Its salvation lies solely in the victory of the proletariat of the advanced countries. From this point of view, the national revolution is not an end in itself; it represents only one link in the international chain.

In other words, the overthrow of capitalism as the system governing the bourgeois social order is unthinkable without internationalism. The working class can only win against the capitalists at the international level, even if the struggle begins at the national level. This implies, from a strategic point of view, the organization of the exploited and oppressed at the national and international levels. Let us recall that the bourgeoisie’s interest is to obscure the true meaning of the class struggle, disguising class antagonisms with the help of nationalist ideology. This has the effect, on the one hand, of bringing the national working class to regroup behind its exploiters, and, on the other hand, of dividing the workers. It is in response to these harmful dynamics that socialist internationalism is a crucial instrument for the workers’ movement in its struggle against bourgeois ideology, against its politics but also against its agents within the working class such as trade union bureaucrats and professional politicians pretending to be “friends of the people.”

Leon Trotsky, on the eve of the Second World War, wrote a text on the 90th anniversary of the writing of the Communist Manifesto. In it, he returned to the aspects that had aged as well as those that remained highly relevant today. On the importance of internationalism and the attitude of the agents of the bourgeoisie within the workers’ movement, he explained: “The workers have no fatherland.” This phrase from the Manifesto has often been judged by philistines as a joke good for agitation. In reality, it gave the proletariat the only reasoned directive on the problem of the socialist “fatherland.” The suppression of this directive by the Second International led not only to the destruction of Europe for four years, but also to the current stagnation of world culture. Faced with the approach of the new war, the Manifesto remains today the safest advisor on the question of the capitalist “fatherland.”

The development of capitalism, despite the complexity and divisions it imposes on the working class, objectively unifies billions of workers around the world through their conditions of exploitation. Internationalism is what can make all the exploited and oppressed aware of their unity and common interests with the goal of overthrowing a social order that crushes and kills them daily. In this sense, internationalism is a fundamental instrument for building a new socialist society, free from all forms of exploitation and oppression.

Originally Published in French in Révolution Permanente on May 17, 2025.

Prepared for an English audience by James Dennis Hoff.