re: #161 Kenneth

Under Stalin, Russia pursued a ruthless policy of Russification of the USSR., even against his own ethnic group, the Georgians. His was indeed a form of nationalism.

That is the whole problem of ‘Internationalism’ versus ‘Nationalism’. Stalin’s goal of ‘making the world Russia’ as an Internationalist wasn’t distinct from Hitler’s nationalist notions of ‘making the world Aryan’, except that latter view depended more on lineage and biology (although not by much considering Stalin’s own attempts at ethnic cleansing).

I single, world-wide culture, government and people was the rallying cry of the early Internationalists, so Stalin’s efforts were hardly very far off of the path that Marx and his intellectual offspring had tread before him.

I suspect the conundrum over distinguishing the two gave us our current muddled multiculturalism where everyone is free to be a member of their own culture as long as they loathe themselves for doing it.