I've been wondering whether nationalism is inherently a left-wing or a right-wing ideology.
Historically, the answer doesn't seem obvious. During the French Revolution, nationalism was largely associated with the Left. It challenged monarchy, aristocratic privilege, and the old dynastic order by arguing that sovereignty belonged to the nation rather than to a king. In that context, nationalism was a revolutionary and emancipatory force.
Today, though, the picture seems much more complicated.
In many countries, nationalism is primarily associated with the Right: conservative movements, anti-immigration politics, cultural traditionalism, or ethnic conceptions of the nation. Examples could include much of the contemporary European far right or various forms of right-wing populism.
At the same time, there are clearly left-wing nationalist movements. Irish republicanism is probably one of the best-known examples, where nationalism has often been intertwined with socialism, anti-colonialism, and labor politics. Similar patterns can be found in other anti-colonial or national liberation movements.
What's even more interesting is that the same national movement can contain both right-wing and left-wing currents.
Ukraine seems like a good example. There is an explicitly right-wing nationalist current, represented by groups such as Azov and similar organizations, emphasizing military traditions, conservative values, and ethnic nationalism.
But there is also a distinctly left-leaning current of Ukrainian nationalism, often represented by younger activists and parts of civil society. Their understanding of national identity is frequently combined with feminism, LGBTQ rights, decolonial theory, and other progressive ideas. Ukrainian feminism, for example, draws on a long tradition of influential women writers and intellectuals, while decolonial studies have become increasingly important in interpreting Ukraine's relationship with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Am I missing something here, or is nationalism better understood as a politically neutral framework that can be adopted by both the left and the right?
Every single indigenous group should seek to be sovereign. This is why nationalism in the global south is largely progressive, it's a nationalism that seeks to establish sovereignty against neocolonialism and imperialism. This is also why settler-colonial "nationalism" is highly reactionary, and why nationalism in imperialist countries usually serves to entrench imperialism.
In other words, as a rule of thumb global south nationalism like in Palestine is good, global north nationalism like in the US Empire is bad. Nationalism is highly contextual, and is at its most progressive when helping a colonized group gain sovereignty.
I can agree with you that nationalism itself is not always good or bad. It depends on the situation and whether it is used by an oppressed group fighting for sovereignty or by a dominant group trying to maintain power.
But in practice I find this idea difficult to apply. What about nationalism in the Balkans? Croatian nationalists openly collaborated with the Nazis, Serbian nationalists committed ethnic cleansing during the Yugoslav wars, and I do not think I need to explain in detail everything that happened there.
Are the Balkans simply not considered part of the Global South? But these nations also fought against imperial rule and foreign domination. So how do we decide when nationalism is a progressive struggle for freedom and when it becomes a reactionary ethnic ideology?
You have to connect the national struggle to the class struggle. They have to be united. In the case of nationalism that undermines socialism, this is a case of a disconnect between the national struggle and the class struggle.
It is literally "are the national movements helping to place the nation above others in the imperial order or about escaping the imperial order in general". 'Global South' is not definable outside of the relationship that they have to imperialism, so parties pushing to gain imperial power or gain benefits from it are bad nationalists.
This is an overly simplified way of looking at it, but as a socialist, I am pretty much always going to read a nationalist movement against a socialist country as reactionary. It is unlikely that separatism from Yugoslavia, USSR, or China would get much support from me. On the other hand, those countries have a responsibility to offer all of their citizens a dignified existence.
But yeah, it's overly simplified once again, but if you are trying to defect from a socialist project I have real questions about your motives. It is usually liberalism/a desire to preserve an existing level of wealth inequality that the socialist country hasn't yet overcome. I'm open to there being other reasons but I can't think of a movement where that would apply.
So, is leaving a socialist project necessarily a bourgeois desire to preserve inequality or restore capitalism? I don't think that follows. A movement can be motivated by other principles: democratic self-determination, opposition to political centralization, protection of cultural identity, or dissatisfaction with the way power is organized. Rejecting a specific socialist state does not automatically mean rejecting every idea associated with socialism or wanting a return to a class hierarchy. A project can fail not only because people want more economic inequality, but also because people disagree with how that project is implemented.
Moreover, if a state claiming to be socialist becomes highly authoritarian or totalitarian, one could argue that it has moved away from the fundamental principles it claims to represent. If political power is concentrated in the hands of a single party rather than being exercised by workers or society as a whole, then the question is not simply whether people are rejecting socialism, but whether they are rejecting a system that no longer reflects their understanding of socialism. People can oppose such a state while still being committed socialists themselves.
Like I said my statement was overly simplified (for discussion purposes), so I don't appreciate the loaded question.
I otherwise somewhat agree that a socialist faction could break away from a socialist project under a national banner, but I can't think of one. Also bring up the question "you want it socialism to be more nationalist? What's up with that?". Not exactly how Nazi type movements develop, but anytime someone wants to do "national socialism" we gotta ask.
I'm curious whether you can think of a nationalist movement that sought to break away from an existing socialist movement to do better socialism. Usually socialists who disagree with their socialist countries politics do not rally under a nationalist movement, by my observation.
First of all, I am honestly not answering the question of whether I consider nationalism inherently good or bad. Those are value judgments, and therefore I am not even trying to combine left-wing movements with nationalism. I am only asking myself whether nationalism is, by its nature, a left-wing ideology.
Secondly, regarding the question of whether there are examples of movements that broke away from an existing socialist project under a national banner without becoming fascist or capitalist — there are. The clearest example is Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1948, which broke with the Cominform and Stalin while insisting on its own “national” path to socialism, independent from external dictates coming from Moscow.
There are also examples of this kind of separation within a state itself. The most illustrative case is the Croatian Spring (MASPOK) in Yugoslavia in 1971. It was a movement within the Croatian Communist Party: the reformist wing of local communists demanded greater economic and political autonomy for Croatia within the federation, criticized the redistribution of resources in favor of Belgrade, and advocated a “Croatian path” to socialism. Tito suppressed the movement, its leaders were removed from their positions, and some were imprisoned, but the movement itself was formed as a socialist, nationally oriented movement rather than an attempt to restore capitalism.
And ideologically, one can also split from an existing socialist project, as Trotskyists did, although this does not need much explanation since you already know the example.
I think this brings us closer to the crux of the issue, but I probably am not gonna be able to take things much farther from here due to my lack of personal knowledge.
This is interesting, but beyond my knowledge of Yugoslavian history, so we'll have to get into it someday when ive done the reading. It may be a rare occasion where there is a properly socialist split from a socialist country under a nationalist banner.
All I was looking to bring to the discussion is that there are far more counterexamples of reactionary opposition to socialism that utilize nationalism. As discussed in the other thread, there are decolonial/anti-imperial/socialist movements that use nationalism in opposition to capitalism, and that's all well and good.
Definitely, yes, but that falls outside discussions about nationalism, so I wasnt trying to go there.