The conceptual history approach is Koselleck’s innovative method. In describing historical developments, he takes the explanation of concepts as the starting point of his method to uncover the accumulated temporal layers.
Kabul 24: He distinguishes between “vocabulary” and “concepts”: vocabulary can be defined, but concepts require interpretation.
According to Koselleck, concepts derive their meaning from their use in historical contexts. Among his various perspectives, the concepts of “diachrony” and “synchrony” are particularly rich. To put it succinctly, the fallacy between these two dimensions is the lack of attention to historical memory.
Those who lack attention to the historical memory of concepts or events are devoid of “historical consciousness.” With this perspective, in the understanding of orthodox leftism, the national question is equivalent to the National Question.
Apart from the difference between Question and Problem, the national question is an ideological concept. Without an epistemological perspective, applying instances or generalizing it leads to ambiguity and a lack of “historical consciousness.”My claim is this: The national question is a construct of 19th/20th-century orthodox leftism, raised in response to the expansion of Western nationalism.
Moreover, the national question was not aimed at recognizing the political rights of nations-ethnicities but was used instrumentally to achieve political goals.
This claim requires a deep and extensive description: First, from the orthodox leftist perspective, the national question does not align with the common understanding of nation and nationalism.
They called any ethnic-minority group without a state a nation. These were ethnic groups left wandering outside nation-states within European and Tsarist empires, and leftists exploited their potential to advance their revolutionary goals.
Second, the founders or custodians of Marxism never presented national self-determination as a foundational principle arising from a liberation movement.
Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto: “The workers have no country. We cannot take from them what they do not have.” Like Durkheim, Marx considered nationalism in any form a destructive attitude.
He opposed capitalism, and thus rejected anything produced by it. He viewed the nation-state as a fundamental variable of the capitalist system, an instrument used by one class to oppress another.
Marx and Engels, in their Eleventh Thesis, wrote: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world; the point is to change it.” Therefore, in their political and social solutions, they adopted a transnational or global outlook rather than a national or ethnicity-based one.
Marx and Engels prioritized the unit of “class” and considered it more stable than nationality, nation, or other social categorizations.
They believed that in every ethnic struggle, a hidden class struggle exists; once the pure communist society is realized, class differences will vanish, and ethnicity and nationality—sources of social enmity—will disappear.✓ But how did the national question become an instrumental tool for Lenin and Stalin?
The answer lies in the fear of the rise of the bourgeoisie and the formation of nationalism. Nationalism was a Western product that, beyond Europe, later swept through the Ottoman Caliphate’s territories and extended to America and Africa.
Lenin, in containing this wave and defeating Tsarist Russia, raised the national question instrumentally. Before the October Revolution, by emphasizing the rights of ethnic minorities and calling them nations, he sought to use their power in the struggle against the Tsarist government and to seize power.
He recognized their right to self-determination and forming a state as the right to secede from non-native nations.
On Lenin’s recommendation, Stalin wrote an article in 1913 titled “The National Question and Social Democracy.” This was one of the key sources on minorities, describing Tsarist rule as a “prison” for them and referring to them as oppressed and captive nationalities. However, after the October Revolution—specifically from late 1917 to 1920—the main principles of the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia underwent many changes. Lenin’s key views were as follows: First, although the party supports the right to self-determination, it is not obligated to support separatist demands.
Second, the party is interested in the right to self-determination for the proletariat but does not value it for all minorities. Third, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of self-determination depends on its utility for the interests of the proletariat and class struggles.
This is why Ernest Gellner criticized it, calling this understanding the “wrong address theory.” He said that instead of delivering an enlightening message to the classes in line with Marxist principles, they were addressing nations-ethnicities. Crane Brinton also sarcastically remarked: “Soviet leaders can also create a new opium of the masses by mixing Marxist beliefs with the national question.”
But the reality of Soviet national question policy was that it initially recognized Ukraine’s independence and later brought it under Soviet influence and colonization. Similarly, the classic film Alexander Nevsky, which evoked patriotic and nationalistic fervor, was widely screened at the start of World War II during Germany’s attack on Russia, but its distribution was banned after the peace treaty and cessation of hostilities.
With this concise examination, the national question was not a scientific concept or knowledge but an instrumental and ideological one. Its ultimate validity was conditional on the will of the proletariat, not tied to land and territory like nationalism.
Even if you consider Stalin’s instrumental and short-term understanding of the national question’s construct—which defined four criteria (language, territory, economy, and culture)—it remains incomplete in the context of the claims made by Afghanistan’s custodians. I will not delve into Afghanistan because instead of scholarly dialogue, one ends up facing curses.
But if I finally rely on Koselleck, those who expect synchrony from concepts lack historical consciousness. In short, the late Badakhshi was not a martyr of the soil but a victim of ideology.
What is praised about him is not himself but a construct that has been made of him. The platform of this movement, in my view, is hatred-selling rather than awareness-raising. Its literature is also incomplete and wasteful with concepts.
