Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part
2
Lord Kitchener poster, 1914
Imperialism
This is the second part of a series on Anti-Imperialism, War
and Peace. We are not only concerned to discover Imperialism, but to see it in
its particular aspect of war-mongering. [Image: Lord Kitchener, master of war
and lying face of Imperialism]
In Chapter 7 of “Imperialism,
The Highest Stage of Capitalism” (download linked below) Lenin “sums
up” in a highly compressed way as to what capitalist imperialism is. In the
first paragraph, among other things, he says:
“…the monopolies,
which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but
exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very
acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts.”
A little later on Lenin writes: “… politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence
and reaction.”
South Africa has seen Imperialism in all its aspects, but
especially in war. It was the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 that
announced Imperialism’s intentions to the world, as much as the Spanish-American War of 1898
did, or the defeat of the Khalifa Abdallahi's forces at Omdurman in Sudan by the British
under Kitchener in that same year. The system of state-monopoly capital and
dominance of the mineral-energy complex over the South African productive
economy dates from that time, and it has never been fundamentally changed. To
change it will mean a new confrontation with Imperialism.
Imperialism is a system of war. Lenin pours scorn on “Kautsky's silly little fable about
"peaceful" ultra-imperialism,” calling it “the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern
reality.”
Lenin concludes:
“The question is: what
means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity
between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on
the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance
capital on the other?”
The age of Imperialism, for more than 110 years, has been an
age of war, as Lenin predicted it would be. From Lenin’s work to that of
William Blum’s “Killing
Hope” it is clear that Imperialism is an aggressive force which at some
stage will have to be confronted. One cannot hope to be exempt from this
confrontation forever.
Please download and read the text via the following
link:
Further
reading:
The Right of Nations to
Self-Determination, 1916, Lenin (14196 words)
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