Nationalism in Bolshevik and Fanonist Ideologies
Nationalism in Bolshevik and Fanonist Ideologies Both Bolshevik and Fanonist ideologies focus on the ways in which societies can overthrow existing economic, political, and societal structures that serve as means of oppression and subsequently bring about new systems that are egalitarian and socialist. While both ideologies share this common goal of creating these new socialist orders, the two ideologies vary both in their views on what should be the means to this end, as well as with regards to the question of the role that nationalism should play in this process. In this essay I argue that, while both ideologies may be striving towards the same end goal, their views with regards to nationalism and its place in socialist revolution render these two ideologies fundamentally very different. Marxist ideology, I will maintain, is, at its core, opposed to the concept of nationalism, allowing for the acceptance and mobilization of certain nationalist sentiments only in specific instances when it is viewed as beneficial to the communist cause. Fanon’s ideology, on the other hand, is heavily based in and reliant on the idea that nationalism and national identity are crucial unifying and mobilizing forces without which the transformation to socialist egalitarianism could not take place. Excellent intro! Modern nations and nationalisms, according to Marx are essentially economic units that are instrumental constructs of the bourgeoisie. Nationalisms, he believed, are byproducts of the capitalist era and as the world progressed through capitalism towards socialism, he believed, nationalisms would begin to devolve and fade away. As nationalisms and national distinctions were, according to Marxist ideology, artificial constructions brought about by the bourgeoisie during the age of capitalism, the only real societal division was that of class and economic status. Marx believed that nationalism was purely a bourgeois ideology designed to prevent the