Proletarian nation was a term used by 20th centuryItalian nationalist intellectuals such asEnrico Corradini to refer toItaly and other nations that they regarded as beingproductive, morally vigorous, and inclined to bold action, which they considered to be characteristics associated with theproletariat.[1] Corradini admired revolutionary proletarian movements such assyndicalism for their tactics, although he opposed their goals, and he wanted to inspire a radical nationalist movement that would use similar tactics in service of different goals: a movement that would advocateimperialist war in place ofclass revolution, while maintaining the same methods of "maximum cohesion, concentration of forces, iron discipline and utter ruthlessness."[2] Corradini associated the concept of proletariat with the economic function ofproduction, arguing that all producers are in a moral senseproletarian (not only the workers, but also productive owners and entrepreneurs), and he believed that all producers should be at the forefront of a new imperialist proletarian nation.[3]
The concept of a "proletarian nation" was later adopted byfascists afterWorld War I, and it was used to attempt to draw the working class away fromsocialism andcommunism by arguing that the struggle between classes could be replaced by a struggle between nations, specifically between "proletarian nations" andplutocracies.[4]
Enrico Corradini coined the term "proletarian nation" in 1910, as part of an argument for a new type of radical nationalism that would take inspiration from "the fire, the nerve, the decisiveness" of the revolutionary left, but promotewar instead ofrevolution and territorial conquest instead of overthrowing the ruling class.[5] Corradini opposedrevolutionary socialism and syndicalism in Italy for theiranti-patriotism,anti-militarism,internationalism and advocacy ofclass conflict, but he and other nationalists admired the revolutionary and conquering spirit of these proletarian movements. At a meeting of theItalian Nationalist Association in 1910, Corradini said:
We are the proletarian people in respect to the rest of the world. Nationalism is our socialism. This established, nationalism must be founded on the truth that Italy is morally and materially a proletarian nation
— Manifesto of the Italian Nationalist Association, December 1910[5]
The newly developed concept, proletarian nation, was advocated in a weekly magazine,La Lupa, which was founded byPaolo Orano in October 1910 and of which Corradini was among the leading contributors.[6]
The concept was occasionally used byBenito Mussolini from beforeWorld War II until his death. The term indicated not only the difference betweenfascism andcapitalism, but also betweencommunism and fascism.
In one of his last interviews before his death in 1945, Mussolini told journalist Ivanoe Fossani that "we are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats" and that "I am more convinced than ever that the world can not get out of the dilemma: either Rome or Moscow."[7]
The term "proletarian nation" was also used inGermany in the 1920s by theStrasserite wing of theNazi Party, who were critical of Adolf Hitler's leadership and sought to give their party a greater appeal to German workers.Gregor Strasser and his brotherOtto Strasser, together with associates including Joseph Goebbels, responded to socialists with an appeal for proletarian nationalism. They argued that there should not be a "call of the proletarian class but of proletarian nations." Regarding Germany as having been humiliated, betrayed and plundered after World War I, the Strasser faction saw the "world as divided into oppressing and oppressed people" and supported the idea of an alliance between Germany and other oppressed nations, which Hitler branded "political nonsense".[8] Much later,Nazi official and head of theGerman Labour FrontRobert Ley described Germany as a proletarian nation in 1940.[9]
A similar term was also used inChina.Li Dazhao, one of the founders of theChinese Communist Party, identified China as a whole as a proletarian nation and the white races as the world ruling class.[10] LaterMaoist movements, such as theMaoist Internationalist Movement, have also used the term to refer to oppressed nations of theThird World in contrast tobourgeois (First World) nations.[11] In the 1970s, the MaoistRevolutionary Communist Party, USA used the term "dispersed proletarian nation of a new type" to refer exclusively to African-Americans as a nation of mostly wage laborers and industrial workers (with no significant black bourgeoisie or peasantry as in other nations), dispersed across the territory of the United States.[12]
