Basic milestones of the bourgeois revolutions that enable the development of national capital and the consolidation of its dominance through a national state of its own.
Among the national tasks of the bourgeois revolutions, the most important is the achievement of the unity of the national market that enables the bourgeoisie to undertake mass production. This implies the abolition of the legal obstacles to the commodification of social relations (the conversion of land and labor power into commodities) and of the obstacles to trade (internal customs, language barriers, etc.), as well as the replacement of feudal state structures based on seigneurial rights and privileges by a state apparatus centered on the defense of the interests of national capital both within and beyond its borders.
The "democratic" dimension of the national tasks
In carrying out its revolutionary, national tasks, the bourgeoisie needs to constitute the nation, to lead the social whole against the classes and the estate-based state that had dominated until then. Where, besides an autonomous peasantry, there existed a petty bourgeoisie and an incipient proletariat, it included concessions to these classes in its program, offering them legal possibilities of representation in the state and of self-organization in pursuit of their interests.
These programmatic elements, which form part of what the bourgeoisie needs in order to constitute a nation, are what are known as the "democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution". They will later be taken up by the petty bourgeoisie in its always fruitless attempts to reinvent the nation from the people, that is, in its attempt to lead the non-exploiting classes as a whole in their own resistance to the consequences of capitalist concentration.
Did the proletariat have "national" or "democratic" tasks?
The proletariat, during rising capitalism, supported the rise of the bourgeoisie to the position of ruling class as a phase of its own extension and development as a world class. But as early as 1847, on the eve of the revolution of '48, the communists warned the workers of the danger of believing that the tasks of the bourgeoisie were their own, or of harboring illusions about the content of the concessions wrested from the class that was destined to become the new ruling class.
In Germany the decisive struggle between the bourgeoisie and the absolute monarchy still lies ahead. But since the Communists cannot count on a decisive struggle with the bourgeoisie before the latter comes to power, it is in the interest of the Communists to help it conquer domination as soon as possible, in order to overthrow it, in turn, as soon as possible.
Therefore, in the struggle of the liberal bourgeoisie against the [absolutist] governments, the Communists must always be on the side of the former, guarding themselves, however, against the self-deception into which the bourgeoisie falls and not trusting its seductive assurances about the beneficial consequences which, according to it, the victory of the bourgeoisie will bring to the proletariat.
The only advantages that the victory of the bourgeoisie will offer the Communists will be: 1) various concessions that will make it easier for the Communists to defend, discuss and spread their principles and, therefore, will make easier the cohesion of the proletariat into an organized class, closely united and ready for struggle; and 2) the certainty that on the day the absolutist governments fall, the hour of struggle between bourgeois and proletarians will come. From that day on, the policy of the Communist party here will be the same as in the countries where the bourgeoisie already rules.
Frederick Engels. Principles of Communism, 1847
Does the proletariat have "national" or "democratic" tasks today?
No. After capitalism entered its imperialist phase, the proletariat ceased to support any bourgeois faction, even one whose banner is the achievement of the national or democratic tasks.
Imperialism arises from the chronic lack of sufficient extra-capitalist markets in which to realize the whole of the surplus value produced. Extra-capitalist markets are those formed by artisans, independent peasants and, in general, by producers of commodity value who do not take part in the expanded reproduction of capital. Imperialism therefore means the passage to a stage in which an independent development of national capital is impossible: from the very moment it comes to power, national capital is bound to behave as an imperialist capital, with over-accumulation, over-concentration around finance capital and the state, speculative development, militarism, expansionism, etc.
This was already seen in the process of Turkish national liberation before the First World War, and from that moment on there is not a single historical case to the contrary. On the contrary, the balance sheet of national liberation since the world wars is the appearance of monstrous state capitalisms, caught up in the imperialist battle from the very first moment, when the "wars of national liberation" immediately turn into inter-imperialist wars. These wars culminated not in real national independence in the terms in which it had been understood until then, but in the formation of states enrolled in blocs ordered by the great powers of the moment.
In other words, the passage to the imperialist stage, after a twenty-year transition culminating in the First World War, turns the national state into a universally reactionary social form. It is the consequence of the passage of capitalism, and of the bourgeoisie as a whole, into its historical decadence. This historical leap eliminates the possibility of any "democratic task" or any "national task" of the proletariat in the struggles for state power of any bourgeois faction, however "anti-imperialist" or "democratic" it may claim to be.