this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question (~1913) was probably his best work.
Lenin loved it so much that he proclaimed it to be “the Bolshevik Party’s definitive declaration on the national question”.
Even Trotsky, his arch-nemesis, considered it a great work and had to throw in the jabs “hmm… why has Stalin never published another work of such quality before and after this? very suspicious… don’t you think… was it really written by Stalin himself??” lol.
Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question also became the theoretical foundation of the People’s Republic of China’s classification of its 56 ethnic nationalities, based on the criteria that Stalin had laid out.
Having said that, the Comintern did make a lot of mistakes when it comes to advising anti-colonial struggle in the third world. Mao’s theses were far more applicable to poorly developed colonies in this regard.
Marxism and the National Question is up there for one of my favorite pieces of Marxist literature. I'm also a big fan of Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Stalin was quite good at breaking down Marxist concepts into language that is more accessible and easier to understand. I had a hard grasping dialectical materialism until I read Stalin's work on it.
completely agree, i even advocate for recommending Dialectical and Historical Materialism to beginners. It is an essential read for anyone serious about reading theory.