4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
greatness consists precisely in the fact that he openly and honestly, without any hesitation, raised the question of the necessity for a new formula about the possibility of the victory of the proletarian revolution in individual countries, undeterred by the fact that the opportunists of all countries would cling to the old formula and try to use the names of Marx and Engels as a screen for their opportunist activity."2 Thus we can see while this approach is not academic, the principle it is based on—"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways;
the point, however, is to change it"3—is no less rigorous than academic standards. It is, in fact, more so, as logical coherence alone is not enough but the actual transformation of reality is part and parcel of the argument itself.
The Marxist Approach to the National Question
For Marx -and Rngels, and for those who developed Marxism-Leninism in their lifetime, there is nothing like abstract "nationalism" applicable equally to religious groups, linguistic groups or even regional conglomerates. Nationalism is seen as emerging under definite conditions, developing under precise relations and dying when they became obsolete. Nor is there a blanket application of principles such as 'secession', 'self-determination' etc for all nationalities at all levels of development for all time. Such metaphysical exercises would reduce the precise science of Marxism to the level of a dogma.
Marx and Engels in The German Ideology distinguish clearly between 'nationlism' at the level of a social consciousness and nationalism as the basis of a form of social organisation—the nation-state. They point out how nationalism as a form of conciousness could only emerge with the division of labour, and especially that between mental and physical labour, and class formation. They state: "The contradiction between town and country begins with the transition from barbarism to civilisation, from tribe to state, from locality to nation, and runs through the whole history of civilisation to the present day.5'4
The emergence of nationalities is related to specific socio-economic conditions, on the basis of which Marx and Engels distinguish between "ancient peoples" and "modern nations" or "nations which grew out of the Middle Ages",5 and point out how under bourgeois development nationalism takes on a specific organisational form, a process which they describe as follows: "By the mere fact that it is a class and no longer an estate, the bourgeoisie is forced to organize itself no longer locally, but nationally, to give a general form to its average interests.'56
The consciousness, therefore, must be seen in relation not only to the class interests that it represents at a given stage in history, but the relation of that class to progress or its opposition to it at any given stage. This comes out very clearly in their opposition to the demand that German-speaking Alsace be detached from France and be included in German-speaking Prussia, their attitude te the Ur-Swiss revolt against