In Defense of Nationality

Chapter 4 : Nobility, bourgeoisie and people in Poznan province
When the Social Democrats where the first to support religious education in Polish in Poznan, which Mr. Studt had abolished, and called a large popular assembly, where they called all working people to defend their rights, what did the other parties of our society do? The “cream of the nation,” the aristocrats, the landowners, did not even speak. They, who always and everywhere are called the leaders, the head of the nation, who allegedly manage national interests, who always and everywhere blare their patriotism – where were they, when the people, its mother tongue, needed defending? They are not here! When it comes to grabbing mandates for the national or state parliaments, those like Kwilecki, Chlapowski, Czartoryski, Radziwill, Koscielski, stand in line and hold “civil” or “patriotic” speeches. Representative duties in the capital, in Berlin – they can handle that! But where is their whole stock of “civic consciousness&rdqu... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 3 : Our Allies
Among the German people there is just one party, which honestly supports us and raises not just its voice against Germanization and any injustice, but also the clenched fist. This party is Social Democracy, the party of the German workers. They draw no benefit from the persecution of Poles, as those higher classes of German society, who hunt for profits and good positions among us. The German worker, just as our Polish worker or tradesman, in general never lives off injustice he inflicts on others, but from his own hard, but honest labor. He is not the oppressor of others, but indeed oppressed himself, and therefore he feels and understands our oppression, because he is oppressed by the same ones who torment us Poles – by the German government and the parties we listed earlier. So, just as one ordinance after the other has been decreed against Poland for the last twenty years, the German government has been on a witch hunt against the German workers for d... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 2 : Whose Fault?
Most of all: Who are the true perpetrators of this oppression, which the Poles must suffer by the Germans? Who should we make responsible for this violent Germanization? The usual answer is: “It’s the fault of the Germans. The Germans are oppressing us.” This is what Polish papers in the Poznan province always write. But is it possible to blame the entire German people, 50 million Germans? This would be a great injustice and a great error, which we would suffer most from. To get a clear picture of the situation, to see where is the actual cause of our oppression, is absolutely necessary, if we want to seriously and successfully start to defend our endangered nationality. It is crystal-clear that the Prussian government is the foremost author of Germanization. It has been single-handedly pushing a policy of oppression against the Poles for decades. The Prussian ministers of education issue one ordinance after the other, to banish the Polish lang... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 1 : The System of Denationalization
Written: 1900. Originally published: Roza Luksemburg, W obronie narodowolci, Poznan 1900. Published in German: Rosa Luxemburg, Zur Verteidigung der Nationalität, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1, Part 1, Berlin 1982, pp. 810–28. Translated from German: Emal Ghamsharick for the Marxists’ Internet Archive in October 2014. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive. Public Domain: This work is in the under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists’ Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the translators, transcribers, editors, proofreaders etc. above. 1. The system of denationalization The Prussian government has per... (From : Marxists.org.)