The
Classics, Strategy and Tactics, Part 8b
1890s cartoon of Cecil
Rhodes
Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism
Lenin’s “Imperialism,
the Highest Stage of Capitalism” (a downloadable file of the final
chapter is linked below) takes its rightful place here as one of the classics
of the Marxist canon.
Lenin’s classic works of the early years of the RSDLP (What is to be Done?, One Step Forward, Two
Steps Back, and Two
Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution) established
the revolutionary posture and methods of that party, in the face of the
Menshevik, “economist”, reformist opposition within its ranks.
Marxists Internet Archive has a page of links to Selected Works of Lenin, which
contains a number of other candidates for any collection of classics. There is
also Lenin’s 1909 book on philosophy, called “Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism”. But for us, because space and time constrain us, we
will leave most of these titles aside for the purposes of this brief course of
“Classics”. The total number of documents authored by Lenin available on the
Marxists Internet Archive is 4170. They are listed and hyperlinked by date, and alphabetically.
After a few years of attenuated bourgeois democracy, what
confronted the RSDLP in 1914 was an international intra-Imperialist struggle
that suddenly metastasized into the most terrible war that the world had ever
seen. The split that it caused in the Second International was more than a
problem. It was a catastrophe for the working-class movement. But even more
than that, the phenomenon called Imperialism was a problem for the world.
Lenin was constantly studying. From 1896 to 1899 he studied
prodigiously to produce the large work called “The
Development of Capitalism in Russia”. In the first decade of the new
century he began to study philosophy intensively. Then he began to study
Imperialism.
In those days the term “Imperialism” was not impossible for
any bourgeois to utter, as is practically the case today. The term was common
in daily journalism. It was an English liberal, J A Hobson, who wrote the first
definitive book on the subject, published in 1902 as “Imperialism, a study”.
This followed immediately after the Anglo-Boer War had come to an end. It was
the Anglo-Boer War that most clearly in
its beginning defined modern Imperialism, as a world system distinct from plain
colonialism. Here was a metropolitan power (Britain) demanding profits without
taking responsibilities, and securing its demand by force of arms. Lenin
deliberately used Hobson’s work and that of other bourgeois writers, as he
frankly admits:
“To enable the reader to obtain the most
well-grounded idea of imperialism, I deliberately tried to quote as extensively
as possible bourgeois economists
who have to admit the particularly incontrovertible facts concerning the latest
stage of capitalist economy.”
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 actually 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.”
Thus, capitalism is a system dominated by monopoly.
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 the same year.
Theodore Roosevelt (US President 1901-1909) and the “Great White Fleet”
The system of state-monopoly capital and dominance of the
mineral-energy complex over the South African productive economy dates from
that time. This system has never been fundamentally changed, and it has never
brought full employment. It has failed. 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 111 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. In Africa, Imperialism itself is forcing the
confrontation at an increasing speed.
Please download and read the text via the following
link:
Further
reading:
Two
Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Selection, 1905,
Lenin (10804
words) The Mass Strike, 1906,
Rosa Luxemburg (13883 words)
No comments:
Post a Comment