Left-wing nationalism, or leftist nationalism, describes a form of nationalism based upon social equality, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination. It has its origins in the Jacobinism of the French Revolution. Left-wing nationalism typically espouses anti-imperialism. It stands in contrast to right-wing nationalism, and often rejects ethno-nationalism and fascism, although some forms of left-wing nationalism have included a platform of racialism and rejection of minorities.
Notable left-wing nationalist movements in history have included Mahatma Gandhi's Indian National Congress, which promoted independence of India; Sinn Féin, the main Irish republican party; the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru in Wales; and the African National Congress of South Africa under Nelson Mandela, which successfully ended apartheid.
Marxism identifies the nation as a socioeconomic construction created after the collapse of the feudal system, which was utilized to create the capitalist economic system.Classical Marxists have unanimously claimed that nationalism is a "bourgeois phenomenon" that is not associated with Marxism. Marxism, in certain instances, has supported nationalist movements if they are in the interest of class struggle, but rejects other nationalist movements deemed to distract workers from their necessary goal of defeating the bourgeoisie. Marxists have evaluated certain nations to be "progressive" and other nations to be "reactionary".Joseph Stalin supported interpretations of Marx tolerating the use of proletarian nationalism that promoted class struggle within an internationalist framework.