‘National states and nationalism’, wrote Rosa Luxemburg, ‘are empty vessels into which each epoch and the class relations in each particular country pour their particular material content.’ Hence, she laid greater stress on the alliance between Polish and Russian workers than on the principle of self-determination for Poland. Lenin, on the other hand, understood that the revolutionary forces within the Russian Empire could be united only if each people were guaranteed a right of self-determination. Neither of them approved of the effects of German nationalism, which allied itself with the militarism of Bismarck. It is perhaps significant that Lenin, while appreciating that Rosa Luxemburg was right to avoid an alliance with nationalism in Poland, declared that in her article (in Polish) ‘The National Question and Autonomy’ she had over-generalized from her Polish experience, and had consequently underestimated the importance of Ukrainian national aspirations.
— Ivan Dziuba, Internationalism or Russification? (1965)