Marxism and the National Question

Marxism and the National Question (Russian: Марксизм и национальный вопрос, romanized: Marksizm i natsionalniy vopros) is a short work of Marxist theory written by Joseph Stalin in January 1913 while living in Vienna.

First published as a pamphlet and frequently reprinted, the essay by the ethnic Georgian Stalin was regarded as a seminal contribution to Marxist analysis of the nature of nationality and helped to establish his reputation as an expert on the topic.

[11] Jughashvili did not just admire the exiled Lenin from afar through correspondence but had even met him personally, with the pair jointly attending the 1907 Congress of the RSDLP held in London as part of a 92-member Bolshevik delegation.

[13] Prior to 1910, Jughashvili's main political activity took place in the Transcaucasian region of the Russian empire,[14] making a home in the Azerbaijani oil city of Baku from 1907.

[17] This first effort at writing a generalized work of Marxist theory in serial form was incomplete, as it was interrupted early in 1907 by Jughashvili's departure from Tiflis to London for the Bolshevik Congress there and by his subsequent move to Baku.

[18] The actual writing of Marxism and the National Question began in November 1912, when Stalin traveled to Kraków (then under Austrian rule), to confer with Lenin on Bolshevik party business.

[20] Lenin had published an article earlier that same month condemning nationalist fragmentation of the revolutionary movement, holding up as the disintegration of the Social Democratic Party of Austria into autonomous German, Czech, Polish, Ruthenian, Italian and Slovene groupings as a grim example.

Stalin was set on the task of writing a lengthy article for publication in the Bolshevik theoretical monthly Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment) detailing an official position on the matter.

[22] Regarding Stalin's assignment to write such an article, Lenin wrote to novelist Maxim Gorky in February 1913:[23] About nationalism, I fully agree with you that we have to bear down harder.

However, the work was reprinted as the lead essay in a 1934 Russian topical collection, Marksizm i natsional'no-kolonial'nyi vopros, and its English translations in the following year, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question.