Abstract

The Irish national question is located on a turning point in the evolution of Marx's and Engels' thought with respect to national and colonial issues. Discussing the Irish national question, Marx and Engels succeeded in escaping from their earlier Eurocentric view. Rudimentary recognition of imperialism as the new historical reality helped them to overcome the Eurocentric and capitalocentric view inherent in the earlier historical materialist conception of the nation. It presaged Lenin's theory of national self-determination, which formalizes the dialectical relationship between nationalism and proletarian internationalism in the era of imperialism. The Irish question thus involves a matter of principle in the Marxist theory of nationalism, bridging the gap between the founders of Marxism in the classical era of capitalism and Lenin in the era of imperialism.