ABSTRACT
For Karl Marx, social classes are the proper actors in the historical process. Local and national developments form only a part, and an admittedly insignificant one, unless a nation happens to find itself at the head of the progress of all humanity during a certain turning point in world history. This is a crucial issue in understanding why Marx pays so little attention to nationalism. In Marx’s view, bluntly stated, nationalism is an expression of bourgeois interests. Marx writes: The bourgeoisie conveniently assumed that the “nation” consisted only of capitalists. Some of the main differences between nationalism and Marxism are: while nationalism places primary emphasis on culture, Marxism traces back every phenomenon to its economic roots. Emile Durkheim distinguishes between ‘nationality’, ‘state’ and ‘nation’. Durkheim uses the word ‘nationality’ to refer to large groups of individuals who do not constitute political societies, but who possess a unity.
