A critique to propaganda against Lenin’s theory of imperialism
Recently, in the name of denying the current denial of imperialism, an acute and intense propaganda has emerged by a number of powerful Left ideologues (within and outside the Communist and Left Parties), which is a new form of development of anti-Leninist (and thus inherently anti-Marxist) framework that can dismantle the entire revolutionary struggle around the world. John Bellamy Foster’s recent article entitled “The New Denial of Imperialism on the Left” is an ideal example of such theories [1]. Similar notions have been developed, even more profoundly, by the theoreticians such Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, Samir Amin, Irfan Habib and others [2-6]. Interestingly, the same kind of denial of the core concept of Leninism has been built up from a different aspect by Yanis Varoufakis [7]. Further, Thomas Piketty’s contribution [8] has widely been utilized for such anti-Leninist construct as an empirical evidence of their model.
It does not require any justification that we need not deal with those who are denying even the very apparent presence and the everyday (if not considered every minute) actions of imperialism, at least in the present context of wars at Ukraine or Palestine, NATO’s global activities, as well as the trade-wars and political blockades around the world by great powers like G7 countries. Rather, our attention is toward those, who, despite their ‘announced’ upholding of Lenin’s concept of imperialism and the ‘announced’ counter-arguments against the former ones, are attempting Leninism (or one can say Marxism in general) to demolish it fundamentally from its base, by denying the historical causal evolution of imperialism, and capitalism in general. Provided that it is out of the scope of this present short article to discuss such masqueraded concepts in detail (which will be elaborated in our next articles), we will highlight here our principal argument to expose how they are denying Leninism by obliterating its principal revolutionary elements, particularly the ‘historical stages of capitalist development’, only on the basis of which Lenin identified our time to be the ‘era of proletarian Revolution’. Such masqueraded anti-Leninist concepts of imperialism, if we look closely, are again fundamentally based upon the denial of historical evolution of capitalism itself as described by Marx through the theory of value-to-price transformation. And finally such concepts are indeed aligned with the post-modern theory of denying causality.
Some of the above-mentioned ideologues such as Samir Amin had considered that “historical capitalism has always been imperialist, in the sense that it has led to a polarization between centers and peripheries since its origin”; and he also had directly contradicted Lenin’s analysis of imperialism as a newly evolved stage of capitalism to its monopoly level [5]. On the other hand, Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik have identified imperialism on the basis of the “two typical instruments”: 1) “the siphoning off without any quid pro quo of the surplus produced in the periphery”, and 2) “the destruction of petty production there through imports from the capitalist metropolis” [2]. Although they have not denied Lenin’s historical stage theory directly in such articles and books (which Prabhat Patnaik has done elsewhere terming it as “historicism” and claimed that a revolution can take place even discarding the so-called “historicism” in the Karl Popper’s sense of critique to the Marxist patterns of history [9]), they put forward that the “entire arrangement, encompassing the world outside of capitalism proper, constitutes “imperialism.”” [2]. In simpler words, this, indeed, shows in an indirect way, that according to them, imperialism (i.e. the so-called global north) is fundamentally dependent on the pre-capitalist modes of production at the periphery (i.e. the so-called global south) to siphon surplus from them, which reverberates with Samir Amin’s concept of anti-Leninist imperialism as well as with Karl Popper’s theory that has close resemblance with the anti-causal (and anti-Marxist in general) concept of post-modernism. In fact, such economic model is indeed borrowed from Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of capitalist accumulation (although that bears many substantial ingredients), the difference being that the Patnaiks’ model is much poorer and vulgar in its framing. We would remind that even on Luxemburg’s point that “Accumulation is more than an internal relationship between the branches of capitalist economy; it is primarily a relationship between capital and a non-capitalist environment…”, which Patnaiks’ model completely lines up with, Lenin’s note was “Rubbish”!
In a similar fashion, Bellamy Foster, while highlighting many important elements of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, has evidently suppressed its principal founding-stone, i.e. historical evolution of capitalism. He has described that “Kautsky’s view of imperialism as a policy has been shown to be immeasurably weaker than Lenin’s view of it as a system”. If it is not intended to deny Leninism in a sophisticated manner, then not that it should be, but it must be, written that “… Lenin’s view of it as a historical evolution of capitalist system”. Otherwise, his defence of Lenin’s concept that “the exploitation of oppressed nations… and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of Great Powers” will do nothing but align in the same line with that of Patnaiks, where a capitalist economy siphons the surplus from pre-capitalist modes from its periphery. However, Lenin showed such exploitation of the colonies by the imperialist nations and imperialist powers to be carried out by appropriating extra-surplus through the export of capital to them. Firstly, such export of capital is an obvious result of the monopoly capital (leading to the development of finance capital), and such monopoly is an obvious result of the historical evolution of capitalism; thus, it was not possible in the previous stages of capitalism. Alongside the existing export of commodities, such export of capital to the colonies has been the new characteristic feature of this newly evolved imperialist stage of capitalism, and its contradictions have now started determining all the obvious outcomes including the World-Wars and the Socialist Revolutions. Secondly, it is imperative to note that such export of capital to the colonies implies the extra-surplus to be appropriated from a capitalist mode of production, not from a pre-capitalist mode. Thus, in fact through such export of capital, imperialism started developing capitalism in the colonies, in contrast to how capitalism was spontaneously developed from the crises of feudalism in the Europe or on the basis of revolutionary agro-farming in the US without a so-called feudal past. Interestingly, in the course of such development of capitalism in the colonies under imperialism, acute contradictions could not but emerge so that imperialism itself became obstacle to the capitalist development that led us to the new path toward Socialism only through the Democratic Revolutions. It was the set of three new central contradictions that had come up with this historical evolution of capitalism to its monopoly stage: 1) inter-imperialist rivalry to redistribute colonies under finance capital, 2) the contradiction between capital and labour in the advanced capitalist countries, and 3) the collective antagonism between the newly developing capitalism in the colonies and imperialism.
Being tuned with Prabhat Patnaik, Bellamy Foster highlighted his view that “Lenin’s Imperialism lay in the fact that it totally revolutionised the perception of the revolution”, which may seem that they are upholding Leninism, but the case is not so at all. Is it a question of “perception of the revolution” that Lenin revolutionized? Thus, is the revolution just a matter of perception! The fact, on the other hand, is that the stage of capitalism had indeed evolved to that of monopoly that already entirely changed the conditions and possibilities of revolution, which Lenin discovered on the basis of historical causality. Revolution is a matter of hardcore causal or historical materialism, and not a matter of perception like Hegel’s idealism.
Further, Bellamy Foster has equalized Lenin’s theory of “bribed labourers” with Frederick Engels’ report on the ‘aristocrat labourers’. However, he has forgotten to mention (which actually to be upheld) how Lenin distinguished it from the earlier stage of capitalism: “The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed; … Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of “social-chauvinism””. The historical evolution of such bribe-based opportunism to date can factually explain the current uncontrollable opportunism of the existing Communist Parties along with the other Left Parties. This has been cautiously hided by Bellamy Foster, the intend behind being their denial of the historical evolution of value-to-price transformation explained by Marx in ‘Capital-III’. This has already been elaborated in our previous article [10].
Bellamy Foster has then pointed out that “After the Second World War, the imperialist world system had historically evolved beyond the geopolitical conditions in Lenin’s time”. It seems that now he is accepting the historical evolution. However, has such evolution suddenly started and was there no evolution taking place before the Second World War? Then how can one explain, on the basis of Leninism, the emergence of Fascism that did not come about during the First World War?
It is the great October Revolution and the formation of Soviet Union that itself added one more central contradiction to the previously mentioned three: 4) the contradiction between Socialism and imperialism. Since then globally the foremost of all four central contradictions has been the antagonism between the Socialist camp and the imperialist camp, especially until the collapse of Soviet Union.
We do agree with Bellamy Foster that in such course of time “the imperialist world system had historically evolved beyond the geopolitical conditions in Lenin’s time” (because historical evolution, be it before WW-2 or be it after, is obvious), however, we cannot see any relevant objective description of such evolution to be proposed. It is not mentioned by him how he is interpreting the emergence of Neoliberal Globalization: as a Kautskian policy (as described by majority of the Left ideologues) or as an evolved phase of imperialism? Why in the present world of overwhelming commodities, austerity measures are being adopted? Just a policy? Why the ultra-right wing upsurges with fascist tendencies are again being emergent? Is it just an abstract ideological act? Or, is history repeating?
The empirical facts, as shown by Piketty [8], reveal a number of ‘U’-shaped curves that the majority of the economic parameters are exhibiting with time since last 100 years. Are they then refereeing to a repetition of history? Varoufakis is claiming that capitalism is dead and now it is the era of “Techno-Feudalism” [7]. Then not only that we are regressing to the period of Second World War but rather to pre-capitalist age using modern technology that has been developed under imperialism!
Then it concludes to a pattern: feudalism→capitalism→imperialism→feudalism: a time machine that violates causality; a complete denial of Leninism, and in general the Marxist concept of historical materialism!
Recent References
- “The New Denial of Imperialism on the Left” by John Bellamy Foster.
- “Imperialism in the Era of Globalization” by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik.
- “A Theory of Imperialism” by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik.
- “Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present” by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik.
- “Contemporary Imperialism” by Samir Amin.
- “What Makes the World Change: The Long View” by Irphan Habib.
- “Techno-Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism” by Yanis Varoufakis.
- “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty.
- “Historicism and Revolution” by Prabhat Patnaik.
- “The Crucified Part of Marx’s Economic Doctrine” by Basudev Nag Chowdhury.
