Lenin aimed to build the international

That is to understand the thought and practices of Marx and Lenin rather than learning by rote what at first glance appears a self-evident truth.

Lenin argued that those Marxists who follow "national-bolshevism" and "sectarian dogma" show themselves to be "un-dialectic" and incapable of reckoning with historical and geographic changes.

He argued in his pamphlet Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder that this was ''bringing the most serious harm'' to the cause of socialism.

Unlike his writings in 1913, in 1920 Lenin was writing with particular reference to the question of communists and socialists in Britain and western Europe.

The same argument with regard to nationalism and patriotism applies to British, English, Scottish and Welsh independence and the question of the EU.

The working class should be developing in the context of globalisation (the higher stage of capitalism) rather than nationally.

It needs to develop an international class consciousness in order to resist the effects of the crisis of capitalism, which is itself international.

Andrew Robinson

Peterborough