It is a worthwhile project to examine, detail, and prove the leftist nature of nationalism, its core aspects, its history, and the effect it has played in history. This article will be about the beginning of nationalism and on exactly which group created it. It seeks to demonstrate that there is no such thing as leftist nationalism since all nationalism is leftist by nature.
Origins of Nationalism
In the modern political context, many associate racial or ethnic nationalism with the “right wing” as opposed to the cosmopolitanism, internationalism and universalism of the “left.” This, however, is very much mistaken, as racial and ethnic nationalism can only be considered “right wing” if in the context of being the “right wing” of the Left—much like how neoliberals and neoconservatives are thought of (by many) as being on the left wing of the right.
Why is this? Nationalism, in all its variations (maybe except some that are more “proto or pseudo-nationalist,” rather than “nationalist”) are products of the leftist French Revolution. (Why the Revolution was “leftist” shouldn’t need debating.) To be more particular, nationalism was the product of the Jacobins (“Republican Revolutionaries”) and not a product of the reformers (non-revolutionaries) who were constitutional monarchists who wanted a monarchy, restrained by a representative body much like the English style.
The constitutional monarchists, by the very fact that they were monarchists (who supported the Bourbons), is enough to show that they were not nationalists. The Bourbon monarchy was an international or at least pan-European institution.
Evidence
Marie Antoinette, Queen Consort of France, was born in Vienna. Her parents Francis Stephen or Francis I and Maria Theresa, who were foreign rulers. They were also the Holy Roman Emperor and Holy Roman Empress, and Duke and Duchess of many more foreign lands. Furthermore, Marie Antoinette is of House Habsburg-Lorraine (her mother Habsburg and her father Lorraine). The Habsburgs were a German family who ruled over many different territories and held many titles, most notably in Austria, Spain, Holy Roman Empire. The Habsburgs also went to war with France. The 30-year war began as a religious war between Catholics and Protestants, but turned into a war between Bourbons and Habsburgs, two catholic families. The relationship between Habsburg and Bourbon is anything but friendly. Yet the two families arranged the marriage between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—a great example of the pan-European and anti-nationalist nature of monarchies and of European dynastic politics.
What nationalist would support a queen who was born to a family of foreign rulers, especially from a House that has gone to war with their country?
Augustus III—King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Elector of Saxony (electors were nobles with the right to vote in choosing the Holy Roman Emperor)—was the grandfather to Louis XVI on his mother’s side. Augustus’s daughter and mother to the king being Maria Josepha of Saxony.
This evidence shows that no nationalist would support the Bourbon monarchy. The nationalists were the Jacobins, thus, nationalism is the product of Jacobinism.
How the Jacobins made Nationalism
Here we will detail how the original theory of nationalism was made and what exactly is meant by nationalism. Additionally, we will see how it was Jacobin politics that sparked this ideology.
The first tenet is the belief in the organicist myth of society, that the “people” or a certain group of “people,” are an organically interconnected whole. Criteria needed to be counted as part of this collectivity could be ethnic, linguistic, religious, territorial, cultural, and civic. In the case of the Jacobins, their nationalism was mainly linguistic and territorial, which is why they tried to standardize French into Parisian French across France. Jacobins also came up with the idea of “natural borders.” They felt that areas like the Rhine and the Alps belonged to France and her people.
As said above, these “natural borders” belonged to France and her “People.” This is important in that it is to the French “People” and not to the French monarch. Hence, the idea that the “nation” is not territory ruled over by a king, but the homeland to a people, and that this people has a collective metaphysical ownership of this homeland, should be credited to the Jacobins.
The third point is the equating of the state and “the People”—a tragic invention, a tool for dictators, the philosophical foundation and justification for totalitarianism. This all is to be credited to the Jacobins. During the War of the First Coalition between 1792-1797, the main party in the coalition the Holy Roman Empire—led by the brother of Marie Antoinette, Francis II—was trying to topple the Revolutionary government, but the Jacobins, in a genius use of rhetoric, painted the picture that the invaders were attacking the French “People,” not just their government. This idea of “People” vs. “People” rather than state vs. state, is the root of mass mobilizations by force and the targeting of civilians by opposing armies. After all, in these “national” wars it is not just the enemy militaries you have to defeat, but the enemy “nation” itself—“nation,” of course, meaning “People.”
Conclusion
Patriotism—love for your homeland and your people—is not nationalism. Nationalism is a metaphysical theory of organic collectivity. The theory of metaphysical collective ownership by a certain “People” over a territory, along with the notions of “natural borders” has caused many wars since 1789. The notion of war between people’s, not just militaries, is alongside the notion of “class war” in its destructivity. The false identification between loyalty to your homeland/people and loyalty to the state provides great justification for dictatorships.
Nationalism, just like Marxism, is a destructive ideology that seeks to mobilize the masses in favor of the state. Nationalism’s romanticism, collectivism, its focus on mass participation in government campaigns (like war), its desire for uniformity within the collective and metaphysical identity group, leads to the now-obvious conclusion that nationalism is a leftist ideology born of Jacobinism.
