bourgeoisie was its hatred of all national oppression, its longing for the freeing and self-determination of every national stock, however small. In truth, when the bourgeoisie in any country fought for the deliverance of that country from a foreign yoke, it was fighting for the establishment of its own bourgeois State; for the power of fleecing the people of its own land without any competition on the part of other exploiters; for the right to the whole of the surplus value created by the town and country workers of their own land.
The history of all capitalist countries bears witness to this truth. When the bourgeoisie is oppressed in conjunction with the working people of its own nation, it clamours for the freedom of the nations in general, and insists upon the wrongfulness of any kind of national enslavement. But as soon as the capitalist class has secured power and has expelled the foreign conquerors — be these aristocrats or bourgeois — it does its utmost to subjugate any weak nationality whose subjugation may seem profitable. The revolutionary French bourgeoisie, as represented by Danton, Robespierre, and the other noted