ABSTRACT
A decade after the International had, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist, Engels was to write to Kautsky of the common destiny of Poland and Ireland. These, he declared, were two nations which had ‘not only the right but even the duty to be nationalistic before they became internationalistic’, adding that ‘they are most internionalistic when they are genuinely nationalistic’. The parallels between Russia's position vis-a-vis Poland and that of England vis-a-vis Ireland had long been established in Marx's and Engels’ thinking. Indeed, they considered the two great oppressor nations, England and Russia, not just to be acting similarly in exercising domination over a resentful neighbour, but as being even more directly linked. Marx's and Engels’ evaluation of Ireland's role in the wider European revolutionary process was based on their observations of developments in that country over several decades.
