Nationalism: a Higher Phase of Imperialism
What Lenin failed to understand - and it was a fateful, disastrous failure - is that nationalism is a higher phase of imperialism. Thus, by supporting the right of nations to self-determination, he was supporting imperialism. The Leninist error is undialectical, and thus presents one-sided interpretation of imperialism, which pits the struggle for national self-determination (good guys) against imperialists (bad guys). A more dialectical approach to history recognizes nationalism not as simply opposed to imperialism, but as raising the contradictions of imperialism to a higher level. Nationalism was and is a project of imperialism. In the 19th Century, the British Empire, and to a lesser extent others such as the French Empire, set out to cartograph the world, to map it, to assign clear boundaries, capitals, flags, etc.. A place for everything and everything in its place. Collect them all. Vexillologists - flag enthusiasts - em...