Negation and Synthesis: Cultural Identity as an Obstacle to National Class Solidarity

This paper explores the argument that cultural identity, while historically rooted and emotionally resonant, acts as an obstacle to national class solidarity in capitalist societies. Using the example of the Sindhi community in India, who, despite lacking a geographic homeland, maintain strong linguistic, religious, and economic cohesion, the paper demonstrates how cultural preservation can lead to socio-economic fragmentation. The Sindhis' emphasis on intra-community networks and entrepreneurial self-sufficiency has often aligned them with bourgeois interests rather than integrating them into broader class-based national movements. Drawing on dialectical materialism, the paper argues for the negation of such cultural particularisms, not as cultural erasure, but as a necessary transformation to forge a unified national consciousness grounded in class solidarity. Through historical examples such as the Paris Commune, the Soviet Union, and revolutionary Cuba, the paper illustrates how a redefined identity centered on labor and collective struggle can replace divisive cultural affiliations. Ultimately, it contends that without this dialectical shift, the working class remains fractured and vulnerable to bourgeois capitalist domination. The paper concludes that revolutionary change requires cultural identity to be reimagined, not preserved, in service of national unity and cohesion.