If we examine the manner in which the bourgeoisie propounded and solved the problem of nationality (or, as mostly happened, complicated the issue), we see that in the days of its youth the capitalist class dealt with questions of nationality in one fashion, and that in the days of its old age and decay it is dealing with them quite differently.
When the bourgeoisie was an oppressed class, when the aristocracy headed by a king or a tsar held the reins of power, when kings and tsars gave away whole peoples as their daughters’ dowries, then the bourgeoisie was not merely accustomed to say fine things about the freedom of the nations, but actually attempted to realise such freedoms in practice — or at least the bourgeoisie of each nation did so as far as its own case was concerned. For example, when Italy was ruled by the Austrian crown, the Italian bourgeoisie headed the movement for national independence, endeavouring to secure the deliverance of Italy from the foreign yoke and its union to form a single state. When Germany was split up into a large number of petty princedoms and was crushed beneath the heel of Napoleon, the German bourgeoisie endeavoured to promote the union of Germany into a single great State, and it fought for the deliverance of the country from the French enslavers. When France, having overthrown the autocracy of Louis XVI, was attacked by the monarchical States of the rest of Europe, the revolutionary French bourgeoisie led the defence of the country and composed the national anthem known as the Marseillaise. In a word, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations always took the van in the struggle for deliverance; it created a rich national literature; it produced numerous men of genius — painters, prose writers, poets, and philosophers. This is what happened in earlier days, when the bourgeoisie was an oppressed class.
Why did the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations strive on behalf of national freedom? If we are to listen to bourgeois poets, if we are to heed the works of bourgeois artists, the motive which animated the