Tom Nairn: the SNP’s favourite Marxist
The SNP was never revolutionary, but it loved The Break Up of Britain
The celebrated Scottish political theorist, Tom Nairn, who died last month at the age of 90, showed how an entire career can be built on one book. Indeed, not even a book - just a title. The Break Up of Britain, which he forecast in 1978, made his name. He wrote many noteworthy books on nationalism and the constitution but none had anything like the impact of the original.
The break up he foretold never happened of course. But Scotland came near enough in 2014 for this footloose academic, who ranged between Fife, Pisa and Melbourne, to feel that he had been vindicated in his advocacy of Scottish nationalism. Though whether it represents “a detour” to socialist revolution, as he argued in his book, is another matter.
Nairn was a Marxist but he was excoriated by most Marxists back in the day. I recall writing a critical review myself in a left wing journal, claiming that he had “totally” misunderstood Lenin’s “The Right of Nations to Self Determination”. The Russian revolutionary did not approve of this right in all circumstances, I insisted with all the certainty of a 20 year old. Nationalist movements should only be supported when they are “objectively progressive” and unite the international working class. This did not mean that socialists should support the petit bourgeois Scottish National Party, only interested in grasping North Sea Oil.
For shame!
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