  This attention to the global dynamic of capitalist expansion and the analysis of imperialism as an integral part of the development of capital are important to explain Luxemburg’s distinctive stance on one of the most important questions that concerned the Marxist movement: the desirability of national self-determination. The mutual dependence between economic and political power in the presence of globalization and the continous drive to exploit remote areas of the world made Luxemburg a skeptic of theories of political emancipation through national self-determination.  Here she differed from the mainstream Marxist position on national self-determination (including Vladimir Lenin’s) who had argued in favour of national liberation movements when these helped advance socialist goals. For Luxemburg, national liberation movements ended up playing into the hands of domestic liberal ruling elites and weakening the international workers’ movement. Taking as an example a question closer to home – whether Poland ought to gain independence from imperial Russia – she drew on her knowledge and experience to defend strict international proletarianism and suggested that it was against the interests of the Polish working classes to become a self-determining nation. Her argument was that national self-determination cannot serve an emancipatory purpose if it is divorced from the international labour movement.  That labour movement however ought to take a transnational form and not limit itself to a formal request for national self-determination since, on the face of capitalist development, the formal defence of sovereignty would simply limit the struggle.