Lenin's “Own Words”(Part Four: On Economic Theory)

13. On Imperialism

Definition of Imperialism

“If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is bank capital of a few big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist combines of manufacturers; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unoccupied by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolistic possession of the territory of the world which has been completely divided up…

“Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed.” (Imperialism, International Publishers, pp. 88-9)

Imperialism has been defined in all sorts of ways. It can be seen, in the manner of Kautsky, for example, as a policy that finance capital is “fond of employing,” as a “colonial policy,” as a “policy of invasion” (as the JCP often says), as a system to oppress and exploit other nations, or as “a struggle between the great powers to divide and repartition the world.” Imperialism can also be defined in the manner of bourgeois liberalism as some dark impulse that has existed within human nature since the distant past which atavistically appears, or in the manner of Plekhanov as the ugly characteristic of a particular nation. Lenin, himself, at times, called imperialism a struggle between the senile and rotten bourgeoisie facing extinction to divide the word and enslave smaller nations, and he also called imperialism “moribund capitalism” and “capitalism on the eve of socialism.”

Certainly, imperialism can be a colonialist policy, a policy of aggression, war and militarism, the exploitation of other countries as well as the increase of oppression of the working class, the crushing of the democratic socialist movement, and all sorts of other things. There is no such thing as imperialism that does not oppress and exploit another country or is not militaristic. However, to define imperialism as the oppression of other countries would be an external definition of imperialism in general, and would not be a definition of the particular issue at hand which is capitalistic imperialism, nor would it indicate the necessity for imperialism under capitalism. This would not elucidate the issue of why imperialism emerges and what characteristic or specific stage of capitalism it is connected to. It was precisely the task of responding to such questions that Lenin took up in writing Imperialism.

Lenin saw the economic essence of capitalistic imperialism in the shift from free competition to monopoly. However, the term monopoly should not be understood in a narrow sense. This is not limited to the establishment of hegemony for monopoly capital within a given country. Rather, this is the establishment of a monopolistic system of capital in the global sphere as well. In other words, the global expansion of monopoly capital’s rule and exploitation through the export of monopoly capital, the monopoly and division (international trusts) of the world market by groups of monopoly capitalists, as well as the divided rule of the world by a number of bourgeois imperialist states, among other things.

Five Forms of Imperialism

“The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts -- the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks -- three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves -- until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.” (“Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 105-6)

Monopoly is seen [by Lenin] as the economic essence of imperialism as monopoly, and this is an overview of the five forms of monopoly. This monopoly of capital, groups of capitalists, and their state, is the economic content of imperialism.

A debate over these five forms has been carried out for many years between scholars affiliated with the JCP and the Structural Reformist faction over whether present-day [1969] Japanese capitalism is imperialistic or not. The Structural Reformist scholars, pointing to the complete revival of Japanese monopoly capital, refer to Japan as an independent imperialist country or an “incomplete.” imperialist state. They view monopoly capital as identical to imperialism, but this does not necessarily mean that they understand imperialism. The JCP scholars, on the other hand, say that the situation in Japan today cannot be defined as imperialism because Japan, as a dependency of the United States, does not yet have its own independent “sphere of force” and the export of capital has yet to reach full scale. In other words, the five forms of imperialism are not yet complete.

However, this debate is completely scholastic and sterile. For the proletariat, the main question is the fight against capital, not whether capitalism has fully ripened as imperialism. No one can deny that, on the whole, world capitalism has reached the stage of imperialism. However, individual states, while monopoly capitalist states, may for some reason -- such as defeat in an imperialist war -- temporarily appear as non-imperialist states (e.g. Germany in the 1920s after the First World War). However, this would not negate the fact that the non-imperialist country is a major bourgeois state, with great productive and industrial power, nor negate the fact that it exploits millions of workers within its territory. Moreover, these non-imperialist countries would inevitably shift towards becoming imperialist countries. Therefore, the most important thing for the proletariat is not whether the bourgeoisie and its state are imperialistic or not (this distinction does become significant in terms of the consideration of concrete tactics in the fight against the bourgeoisie), but the fact that they exploit and oppress the proletariat. To say that the bourgeoisie in Japan should not be overthrown because the “forms” of imperialism are not fully present, would only result in assisting the rule of the bourgeoisie

Relationship Between Imperialism and Capitalism in General

“Imperialism is a continuation of the development of capitalism, its highest stage -- in a sense, a transition stage to socialism.

“I cannot therefore see how the addition of an analysis of imperialism to the general analysis of the basic features of capitalism can be regarded as ‘mechanical.’ Imperialism, in fact, does not and cannot transform capitalism from top to bottom. Imperialism complicates and sharpens the contradictions of capitalism, it ‘ties up’ monopoly with free competition, but it cannot do away with exchange, the market, competition, crises, etc. 

“Imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism which is dying but not dead. The essential feature of imperialism, by and large, is not monopolies pure and simple, but monopolies in conjunction with exchange, markets, competition, crises.” (“Materials Related to the Revision of the Party Program,” Collected Works Vol. 24 p. 464)

This is Lenin’s argument against those who said, when the question of the revision of the old program arose in 1917, that to simply add an analysis of imperialism to the old program would be “mechanical,” and that it was necessary to rewrite the program. Lenin said that there was no necessity to rewrite the general introductory parts of the old program, including the description and analysis of capitalism in general, and that it would be sufficient to add an analysis of imperialism. At the Eighth Bolshevik Party Congress in 1919, Bukharin “politely hinted” that Lenin was being nostalgic and reverent towards the past

This question, however, had nothing to do with a nostalgia for the past, as Bukharin had imagined. The question concerned an understanding of the relationship between imperialism and capitalism in general; the question of whether imperialism (or monopoly capitalism) is something unrelated and totally distinct from capitalism in general and its contradictions, or is rather a stage of capitalism. The economic content of imperialism is monopoly, but this emerges as an inevitable outcome of free competition. Monopoly is born out of free competition, as its opposite, but this does not -- and cannot -- eliminate free competition. Generally speaking, monopoly is unable to supercede the most essential laws of capitalism -- for example competition, the law of value, law of the equalization of profit, crisis, etc. The principal characteristic of imperialism, indeed, is the contradiction of the combination of monopoly and these laws. In this regard, Stalin severs the newest stage of capitalism from the older capitalism, thereby turning monopoly capitalism into something mystical, by saying that the law of value no longer applies under the laws of monopoly capital, and that the law of “maximum profit” replaces the law of the equalization of profit.

Imperialism and its Connection to Opportunism

“The opportunists (social chauvinists) are working hand in glove with the imperialist bourgeoisie precisely towards creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa, and that objectively the opportunists are a section of the petty bourgeoisie and of certain strata of the working class who have been bribed out of imperialist superprofits and converted into watchdogs of capitalism and corrupters of the labour movement.” (“Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Collected Works Vol. 23, p. 110)

With capitalism entering the monopoly stage, there emerged within the workers movement the powerful currents of Bernsteinism, revisionism, and reformism. During the First World War, these opportunistic currents supported imperialist war, and openly moved away from and betrayed the proletariat. They became defencists, chauvinists, and xenophobes. What was the economic basis of this opportunism that was (temporarily) victorious within the workers movement? -- This is the question that Lenin raised. Marx and Engels had already pointed out how England monopolized the world market and exploited the world, and the workers, who received some tiny piece of this wealth, became conservative and bourgeois. Lenin, drawing on this idea, located the source of the victory of opportunism in the fact that a number of advanced capitalist countries were able to exploit the entire world through imperialism, and make use of their monopoly super-profits to buy off the upper layers of the working class.

However, Lenin concluded that it would be impossible for the victory of opportunism within the workers movement to last long because several countries, not just one, were pillaging the world, and these countries were engaged in a life and death struggle among each other over their prey, meaning that imperialism would increasingly exploit, torment, and drive a wide stratum of the population into a corner. Under imperialism opportunism is inevitable, but the victory of the proletarian revolution has even deeper necessity -- this is the crux of Lenin’s view.

Criticism of Kautsky

“Kautsky’s reply to Cunow is as follows: imperialism is not modern capitalism. It is only one of the forms of the policy of modern capitalism. This policy we can and should fight; we can and should fight against imperialism, annexations, etc.

“The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) propaganda of conciliation with imperialism; for unless it strikes at the economic basis of the trusts and banks, the ‘struggle’ against the policy of the trusts and banks reduces itself to bourgeois reformism and pacifism, to an innocent and benevolent expression of pious hopes. Kautsky’s theory means refraining from mentioning the existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them, instead of revealing them in their full depth; it is a theory that has nothing in common with Marxism.” (Imperialism, p. 93)

Kautsky’s definition of imperialism as a policy chosen by finance capital, as an intention of industrial countries to annex agricultural countries, as just one form policy form of modern capitalism, his discussion of “ultra-imperialism,” all of this inevitably set Kautsky on the path to bourgeois reformism. Defining imperialism as a policy and severing it from its economic base leads in a direction away from the call for revolutionary struggle against the basis of monopoly capital, towards a struggle against individual policies of imperialism -- including policies regarding war, colonies, invasions, tariffs, and anti-working class policies -- and this unavoidably results in the petty-bourgeois fantasy that changing these policies is sufficient in itself. This is indeed the prototype of struggles over changing policies.

Kautskyism is not a dead phenomenon of half a century ago. This same sort of Kautskyism now appears in the standpoint of the JCP and Socialist Party. Around 1960, Ueda Koichiro developed the theory that Japan, politically speaking, is not an imperialist state, and therefore by democratizing the superstructure and “structurally reforming” the base of monopoly capital, Japan could peacefully shift from being a non-imperialist country to being a socialist country.

To justify this reformist fantasy, Ueda challenged Lenin openly. He called his own theory “a distinctive, peaceful path that only exists in Japan,” whereas Lenin’s theory of imperialism was outdated. Ueda said that, “although it may be misconstrued as Kautskyism, even in the case of the politics of imperialism (= militaristic structure as well as policies), what can be their basis emerges within modern imperialism” and “it was only in Lenin’s era that the idea that, even upon the same basis of finance capital, the possibility exists for non-imperialistic policies rather than imperialistic ones, could be criticized as Kautskyism.”

This shows that the “Kautskyist idea that in addition to imperialistic policies there is the possibility of non-imperialistic policies (even without altering the monopoly foundation)” is the semi-official view of the JCP. On this fundamental point, they have moved away from Lenin to side with Kautsky.

Kautsky’s theory of “ultra-imperialism” is the idea that with the further development of international cartels, the connection between international capital would be further strengthened, leading perhaps to the birth of a single, world-wide and “peaceful” imperialist state, and that this would not bring about the joint exploitation of the world by globally integrated finance capital. By calling the international cartel, which was actually dividing up the world, the embryo of ultra-imperialism, this theory glossed over the severity of actual contradictions, and coaxed the masses into believing in a peaceful imperialism in the future. This is why Lenin harshly criticized Kautsky’s theory, saying that its only purpose was to deceive the masses.

Imperialism and Neutral Countries

“But what do all Comrade Greulich’s four articles show if not that he, too, blindly ‘trusts’ the Swiss ‘bourgeois government’?? He even overlooks the fact that the Swiss ‘bourgeois government,’ because of the numerous ties of Swiss banking capital, is not merely a ‘bourgeois government,’ but an imperialist bourgeois government.” (“Twelve Brief Theses on H. Greulich’s Defense of Fatherland Defense,” Collected Works Vol. 23, p. 254)

Switzerland, which is often hailed as the standard for a neutral country, is also a state ruled by the imperialistic bourgeoisie. The extremely rich country Switzerland cannot be separated from the line of imperialism. Lenin exposed the fact that Switzerland exported at least three billion francs of capital, imperialistically exploited developing countries, and that the defense of neutrality was essentially the same as the imperialists’ “defense of the homeland,” since underlying the national mobilization in Switzerland, carried out in the name of defending neutrality, was the intention to participate in the bourgeois war. Lenin wrote that, “Revolutionary struggle against all bourgeois governments -- that, and that alone, and not participation in the imperialist war, or in national mobilisation allegedly to defend the country’s neutrality, can lead to socialism, and without socialism there is no guarantee of democracy.” (Ibid.) Swiss neutrality, which provides cover for the Swiss imperialistic bourgeoisie, is a means for them to obtain a special profit by taking advantage of the struggle between imperialistic blocs. But the advocates of neutrality among the JCP do not mention this fact, and say that the future for Japan lies in the proletariat advancing a Swiss-style neutrality. In fact, however, following such a strategy would chain the proletariat eternally to the bourgeoisie, or more specifically, the imperialistic bourgeoisie. The approach of ignoring the revolutionary transformation of capitalism and spreading illusions about bourgeois neutrality only serves to corrupt the proletariat.

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