"Lenin and the National Question" (12/07 Panel, Melbourne)

Re-uploaded with improved audio. On July 12, 2025, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a public forum on "Lenin and the National Question." Hosted as part of the 1st Platypus Oceania conference, a collaborative effort of Australia and New Zealand.

Panelists:
Amal Samaha (International Bolshevik Tendency)
Isaac (Eureka Collective)
Anthony Furia (Revolutionary Communist Organisation)
Arthur Dent [Albert Langer] (Red Eureka Movement)

Description:
The figure of Lenin has haunted historical discussions surrounding the national question. Lenin saw self-determination as strategic, being prompted by the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat. Nations' self-determination was part of the democratic struggle and one that the proletariat had a responsibility to lead. It has been in the absence of this leadership — i.e., the Party — that recent generations on the Left have appropriated slogans that Lenin would have perceived as not proletarian, but democratic.

Do these historical positions and discussions matter for the Left in the 21st century — and, if so, how? What role did the nation play in the bourgeois revolutions and how did this change in capitalism and imperialism? How does the nationalism of the oppressed relate to socialism? What obstacles does nationalism pose for the same task?

10:00am, 12 July 2025 (Melbourne, Australia)
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The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research, and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the "Old" (1920s-30s), "New" (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left, for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.