[Blaut's paper, published in Science & Society, December 1997, retains its
relevance]
EVALUATING IMPERIALISM
J. M. Blaut
I.
John Willoughby's essay, "Evaluating the Leninist Theory
of Imperialism" (1995), is the latest in a long series of
unfriendly critiques of that theory by academic Marxists
who are hostile to the modern theories which mainly
descend from Lenin's theory of imperialism. The critical
procedure has by now become routinized. First: just one
of Lenin's many writings on imperialism is discussed,
this being his pamphlet Imperialism, The Highest Stage of
Capitalism (1916a), an important work but one which
discusses only the economic part of the theory, and
which, significantly, bears the subtitle, "A Popular
Outline." Second: the claim is made (or implied) that
this economic part is the whole theory, and everything
else -- politics, geopolitics, society, culture, etc. --
is irrelevant, except as a deduction from the theory, or
as a form of practice somehow sanctioned by the theory.
Third: Lenin's argument in Imperialism, The Highest Stage
of Capitalism is shown to be heavily dependent on earlier
writings on the economics of imperialism by Hobson,
Hilferding, and others, and Lenin's work is therefore
judged to be rather unoriginal and (intellectually, at
least) unimportant. Finally: it is shown that the
economic theory presented in the Imperialism pamphlet
does not prove, as Lenin supposedly thought it did, that
imperialism is the final, catastrophic stage of capital-
ism and will lead to socialist revolution. Capitalism,
these academic Marxists assure us, has passed beyond the
stage of bellicose imperialism and is now a relatively
peaceful system, still somewhat progressive, though of
course imperfect.
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism is not
the best place to begin an analysis of Lenin's theory.
Or, if we start here, we should start with the preface to
that work and read the preface very carefully. The work
was written in 1916 and published only after the fall of
the tsarist government in early 1917. In the preface
Lenin says:
This pamphlet was written with an eye to the tsar-
ist censorship. Hence, I was not only forced to
confine myself strictly to an exclusively
theoretical, specifically economic analysis of
facts, but to formulate the few necessary
observations on politics with extreme caution, by
hints...It is painful, in these days of liberty, to
re-read the passages of the pamphlet which have
been distorted, cramped, compressed in an iron vice
on account of the censor. That the period of
imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution;
that social-chauvinism...is the utter betrayal of
socialism; that [the] split in the working-class
movement is bound up with the objective conditions
of imperialism, etc. -- on these matters I had to
speak in a slavish tongue, and I must refer the
reader who is interested in the subject to the
articles I wrote abroad in 1914-17 (1916a, 18;
emphasis added).
These articles are not often referred to, much less
analyzed. Willoughby mentions none of them in his S&S
essay. The only work which he evaluates is the
Imperialism pamphlet. (He is hardly alone in this
practice. See, for instance, Arrighi, 1978; Barone, 1985;
Brewer, 1980; Warren, 1980; Weeks,1983.) As a result,
Willoughby (like these other scholars) attributes to
Lenin a theory of imperialism that is not Lenin's and is
in some ways antithetical to Lenin's; a theory that is
economistic, Eurocentric, unoriginal, and bland.
II.
Lenin developed his theory of imperialism mainly in
1915 and 1916, when he was in exile in Switzerland. This
was a time of profound crisis for socialists. Lenin and
other revolutionaries were trying to prevent socialists
from supporting a war in which workers killed other
workers on behalf of capitalism. Most socialist leaders
and parties were succumbing to national chauvinism, and
were trying to justify their position by appeals to
Marxist theory, including the arguments about the new
stage of capitalism which had been developed by
Hilferding, Kautsky, and other theoreticians, arguments
which seemed to suggest the likelihood of a quick and
fair peace and a future in which capitalism would
peacefully develop into socialism. The core of these
arguments was the economistic thesis that, since
capitalism as an economic system "has become fully
international," "has transcended the bounds of the
national state" (much-used expressions at the time), wars
between states no longer are functional for capitalism.
Lenin set out to demonstrate that this thesis was false.
At the same time, Lenin had to counter a strangely
similar argument that was being propounded by some
revolutionaries, including Bukharin: Since capitalism has
become fully international as an economic system, has
transcended the bounds of the national state, merely
national issues no longer are important, and
revolutionaries should discard the "minimum program" of
struggles for democracy and self-determination within the
capitalist state. Lenin (1916b, 18) described this as
"imperialist economism": economism of a type that is
peculiar to the imperialist epoch. ("The same old
fundamental mistake of the same old Economism: inability
to pose political questions.")
The essential argument against the first of these
two contrasting economistic positions is given in Lenin's
essays "The Collapse of the Second International"
(1915a), "Socialism and War" (1915b), and "Imperialism
and the Split in Socialism" (1916d). His argument against
the second is developed most fully in "The Nascent Trend
of Imperialist Economism" (1916b), "A Caricature of
Marxism and Imperialist Economism" (1916c), and "The
Discussion on Self-determination Summed Up" (1916e) .
These articles, together with Imperialism, present a
coherent theory of capitalist society, and the capitalist
world, in the era dominated -- politically and socially
as well as economically -- by monopoly capitalism. But
this theory grew out of earlier theoretical work by
Lenin, and later, after the revolution, was modified in
significant ways into what can be thought of as Lenin's
mature theory of imperialism. It is best, I think, to
examine the theory-building process as a whole.
Lenin's earliest writings displayed a strongly
diffusionist view of social evolution, a view that was
held in common by all Marxists in that period and was a
legacy from classical Marxism.1 At the center of the
world system, capitalism had matured, and the conditions
for its transformation into socialism were ripening. In
the periphery, capitalism was advancing outward,
effectuating the bourgeois revolution as it proceeded.
Most Marxists viewed this as a smooth outward flow of
basically economic forces (Bernstein, 1961; Bauer, 1907;
Luxemburg, 1907-1908). Most of them (though not
Bernstein) deplored colonialism, but they rejected the
idea that state-formation in the periphery would be
important enough to perturb the essentially steady
diffusion of a center-dominated capitalism that was
becoming fully international.
Lenin's book, The Development of Capitalism in
Russia (1899), is routinely cited as the classic
description of this diffusion process, but this is a
serious error. In The Development of Capitalism in Russia
Lenin was describing a diffusion process within a state,
a process of uneven economic development across a
politically undifferentiated landscape, quite unlike a
landscape of multiple states on which political
boundaries and social forces modify, obstruct, and
redirect economic flows (a process not reducible to
"uneven development"). In various writings between 1903
and 1914, Lenin developed a strikingly different theory
of economic and political tendencies at the world scale;
this was the germ of his theory of imperialism. The
spread of capitalism ignites bourgeois-national
movements, producing a tendency toward the proliferation
of independent national states. While these movements are
primarily anti-feudal, they are also struggles against
colonialism and semi-colonialism, hence counters to the
spreading power and the accumulation strategy of
metropolitan capitalism. Marxists who disagreed with
Lenin argued the economistic, diffusionist position:
against an inexorably expanding metropolitan-capitalist
dominance, national movements generally are nonviable and
unprogressive, and the "law of concentration" -- that
economies grow larger as capitalism matures -- implies
that states and their empires also will grow larger,
moving toward the future world-wide socialist state.
Lenin at first replied that Russia ("the prison-house of
nations") was an exception to these tendencies, but he
moved to the view that many national movements were
likely to win out in all parts of the world except the
advanced-capitalist states and thus were a significant
force in the struggle against world capitalism, which
thereby becomes not merely an in situ struggle between
classes but one in which peripheral bourgeois states
confront the advanced-capitalist states. And he came to
reject the idea that big states are progressive:
"Everyone would laugh...if, parallel with the law that
small-scale production is ousted by large-scale
production, there were presented another 'law'...of small
states being ousted by big ones" (Lenin 1916c, 49-50).
The notion that a qualitatively new stage of capitalism
has arrived is still largely implicit in Lenin's writings
before the beginning of the World War (but see Lenin,
1895-1896, 109; 1907, 75-81; 1908, 192). This is not yet
a theory of imperialism but it contains most of the
elements for such a theory.
Some time around October, 1915, Lenin developed the
central propositions of his theory (see Lenin, 1915c,
735-743). Monopoly capitalism no longer can survive
without continuously increasing investment and
exploitation of labor in colonies and other peripheral
regions. This enables it to resolve, temporarily, the
contradictions at the center, because very high returns,
"superprofits," are obtained under colonial and semi-
colonial political regimes which enforce low wages and
suppress local competition. (Note here the intertwining
of politics and economics.) These superprofits not only
maintain the rate of return on investment overall, but
they provide a fund with which the upper stratum of the
working class can be "bribed" into quiescence, thus
holding back the development of economic and political
struggles against capitalism at home. But all of this
merely set the stage for the great crisis of monopoly
capitalism: the World War. The world is finite in extent,
and the "partitioning" of the peripheral regions into
colonies and semi-colonies has been completed. This means
that the imperialist countries no longer can expand their
territories for superexploitation and superprofits unless
they make war on one another in order to "repartition"
these territories -- steal away one another's colonies
and spheres of domination. This, said Lenin (1915a), made
a World War inevitable and indeed was the primary cause
of the war. Why did the workers agree to fight in the
war? One reason was ideological obfuscation, which Lenin
blamed partly on the working-class leadership, now
bribed, submissive, and dutifully chauvinist. But Lenin
argued that, in addition to the bribes to the labor
aristocracy, enough "crumbs" from imperialist
superprofits were passed to the broad working class to
gain its temporary support for the war (1916c; 1916d).
The root cause was monopoly capitalism, but Lenin viewed
this as a political and social as well as economic system
in the advanced-capitalist countries. At the world scale
it was imperialism.
This analysis led Lenin to argue that the most
important feature of world-scale imperialism -- "the
essence of imperialism" -- is the division of the world
into "oppressor" and "oppressed" countries, the former
being the imperialist powers, the latter including all of
the colonial and semi-colonial periphery as well as many
small countries in Europe (Lenin, 1915d, 409). This seems
to be the origin of the core-periphery model which
underlies modern theories of underdevelopment,
dependency, and imperialism, both Marxist and non-
Marxist. It stands in direct opposition to the
diffusionist model, or rather it posits that, in the era
of monopoly capitalism or imperialism, the primary force
no longer is the world-scale diffusion of capitalism
(though this continues in various ways) but rather the
fixing in place of a two-sector world, a world divided
into oppressor and oppressed regions. Lenin did not
belittle the significance of working class struggles in
the oppressor or imperialist countries, and he did not at
this time question the principle that the workers of the
advanced countries would lead the world revolution. He
did argue, as (I believe) no Marxist before him had
argued, that workers and peasants in the oppressed
countries were an essential part of the struggle against
world capitalism. And that struggle now assumed a
somewhat new form. The period before imperialism had
seemed to be a relatively peaceful time, as capitalism
"rose" and then "matured" into a world system. But
capitalism had not "matured," said Lenin: it had become
imperialist. This new era was one in which political
struggles were becoming more intense, not less intense.
The old view that nationalism declines as capitalism
matures into an international system turns out to be
erroneous. Nationalism and national struggles increase in
the era of imperialism. The oppressor countries fight one
another in efforts to annex more territories, and they
impose ever harsher oppression in the peripheral
countries in efforts to increase or maintain the flow of
the needed superprofits: "Imperialism is the era of the
oppression of nations on a new historical basis" (Lenin,
1915c, 739). In the oppressed countries, there is great
intensification of the struggle for liberation.2
Theory-building continued after the Bolshevik
revolution. In 1919, Lenin argued against the view that
imperialism has completed the differentiation of social
classes and therefore national and other democratic
struggles within the state are now purely bourgeois and
reactionary -- of no interest to the proletariat. Even in
the imperialist countries, he said, social
differentiation is far from complete, and so these
struggles remain progressive and important. Even in post-
revolutionary Russia, self-determination and other
democratic rights must still be upheld, because imperial-
ism is a superstructure on capitalism, the defeat of the
one does not automatically eliminate the other, and
therefore popular struggles of the former era are now
part of the socialist revolution (Lenin, 1919, 168).
Two additional propositions remained to be added to
the theory. At the Second Congress of the Communist
International, in 1920, Lenin interacted with
revolutionaries from colonial and semi-colonial
countries, and as a result (I believe) of this
interaction he came to the conclusion that struggles in
the peripheral sector are no less essential and no less
important for the world revolution than are struggles
within the imperialist countries (see Adhikari, 1971,
156-205). Later, as he contemplated the sad state of the
working-class movement in Western Europe and the
resilience of monopoly capitalism, he went so far as to
speculate that the periphery might play a greater role
than the center in the world revolution, simply because
so many more oppressed people lived in the colonial and
semi-colonial world than in Europe (Lenin, 1923, 500).
Here we have a theoretical proposition within the
Leninist theory of imperialism -- the significance of
anti-colonial and other struggles in the periphery --
that has been very influential in Third World liberation
movements, Marxist and non-Marxist.
Lenin's theory posits that imperialism is the final
stage of capitalism, and that, unlike the prior era of
competitive capitalism, it will be an era of turmoil. But
Lenin's views on this matter of prognostication are often
misunderstood, partly because so many of his statements
are hortatory or polemical, exaggerating this or that
argument in ways appropriate to the context but confusing
when read many years later. During the World War Lenin
predicted a long period of intermittent wars, including
a second World War. Toward the end of his life he
speculated that capitalism might actually survive for
another 50 years. In opposing Kautsky's theory of "ultra-
imperialism," the view that rival powers might eventually
settle their differences and begin a peaceful era of
collective exploitation across the entire world -- a view
that Lenin argued against vehemently, mainly because it
implied that acquiescence in chauvinism in the short run
might be rewarded with lasting peace in the long run --
Lenin did not insist that peaceful capitalism was an
impossibility; rather, this was highly unlikely as a
permanent condition and was in any case a matter
concerning the distant future, with no relevance to the
present struggle (Lenin, 1915d). Thus the theory of
imperialism did not, as some think, predict a quick
downfall of capitalism. It predicted an entire epoch of
strikes, wars, revolts, and other such tumultuous
happenings, followed sooner or later by socialism. Note
that this previsions a second World War, a great
depression, the rise and fall of fascism, the Chinese
revolution, the Korean War, the two Vietnam wars, the
other wars of liberation, the "police actions," the
bloody civil wars fomented and assisted by imperial
powers, the massacres carried out by neocolonial elites
in defense of local and multinational capitalism, etc.
Lenin's prediction that the period of imperialism would
be a period of turmoil appears to be holding up well.
III.
John Willoughby describes the Leninist theory of
imperialism, then asserts that the theory has no
relevance today. But it has no relevance today because it
leads us to view the present-day world, and the future,
in a way that Willoughby dislikes. Lenin's theory, he
says, fails to stress "the progressive features
of...'modernization'" (Willoughby, 1995, 329). It is "not
true that global capital accumulation must coerce the
Third World into a position of permanent economic
backwardness" (p.331), and there is no "inevitable
necessity of the North-South divide" (p.332).
Protectionism and "opposition to the continued
globalization of the world economy," such as Ross Perot's
"attempt to halt trade agreements" -- meaning NAFTA --
are ill-considered (p.332). And apparently there will be
no "ultimate breakdown of liberal capitalism" (p.332).
Willoughby believes that capitalism, now fully
international, is still quite progressive and free trade
is diffusing its fruits to the Third World. Someone who
holds such views cannot possibly consider Lenin's theory
to be of any relevance today, however it may be
described. And Willoughby's description is a caricature.
Remember that it is based exclusively on Imperialism, The
Highest Stage of Capitalism (plus a passing reference to
two 1920 articles). I will take up Willoughby's major
assertions one by one.
(1) Willoughby quotes Lenin's statement in
Imperialism that, "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" (p.323). Willoughby comments on this "famous"
statement as follows:
To suggest that imperialism is a stage of
capitalism obviously implies that eliminating
imperialism requires the elimination of capitalism,
since imperialism is capitalism. But this verbal
sleight of hand can inhibit a study of the
connection between two distinct social
institutions: a mode of production...and a system
of political domination...Perhaps imperialism grows
out of "monopoly capitalism," but this should [not]
be treated as...an axiomatic statement which must
be true." (p. 324)
Here the "verbal sleight of hand" is Willoughby's, not
Lenin's. In this essay, Lenin (with an eye to the censor)
was trying to make the point that political imperialism
is inherent in monopoly capitalism. The word
"imperialism" at that time was on everyone's lips as a
term meaning colonial expansionism, military annexations,
the enemy's "imperialism" (as against our "defence of the
fatherland"), etc. If such policies and actions were
indeed inherent in monopoly capitalism -- which Lenin saw
as a total social system, not just a "mode of production"
-- then it would be perfectly proper, and politically
helpful, to use the word "imperialism" as a synonym for
"monopoly capitalism": a matter of usage, not axioms. (In
fact Lenin also used the word in the other, more common
ways.) Another verbal sleight of hand: if "imperialism is
a stage of capitalism" then "imperialism is capitalism"
and "eliminating imperialism requires the elimination of
capitalism." As we saw, Lenin viewed imperialism as a
superstructure on capitalism and expected the latter to
persist after monopoly capitalism had collapsed; also, he
advocated some alliances with the bourgeoisie of
oppressed nations, introduced the New Economic Policy in
Russia, etc. Willoughby wants to argue that imperialistic
politics no longer characterize capitalism; but instead
of saying that Lenin's theory predicts otherwise, he
caricatures the theory and ridicules it as "verbal
sleight of hand."
(2) Willoughby argues that Lenin's theory is little
more than "a succinct, synthetic popularization of the
newly developed Marxian theory of imperialism" (p.322).
The main author of the latter theory, he says, was
Hilferding, whose Finance Capital became "the consensus
statement for most of the high priests of Marxism's
'golden age'" (p.324). The principal error here comes
from the fact that Willoughby reads Lenin only from the
Imperialism pamphlet. As we noted above, this work was
indeed a popularization, and was "a specifically economic
analysis." Much of this economic analysis did indeed come
from Hilferding, Hobson, and (prewar) Kautsky. But the
originality, and importance, of Lenin's work stems mostly
from the fact that it gave a comprehensive analysis of
imperialism as a total social system.
(3) Willoughby reads Lenin's theory from the
Imperialism pamphlet, then attacks the theory as
"reductionist" -- as explaining everything in terms of
economics. Well, economics is the topic of the pamphlet.
Recall Lenin's preface: "...forced to confine myself
strictly to an...economic analysis...to formulate the few
necessary observations on politics with extreme
caution...I must refer the reader...to the articles I
wrote abroad..." Willoughby, who does not refer to these
articles, interprets "the few necessary observations on
politics" as deductions from the theory: "Every
[Leninist] argument about imperial politics rests on an
economic law. The link between economic tendencies and
political outcome is unproblematic" (p.325). The illogic
here is self-evident. You look only at the economic part
of a complex social theory, then you attack the whole
theory for reducing everything to economics. Ironically,
Willoughby's argument is itself redolent of economic
reductionism. To modern economists, economic theory tends
to focus on money, value, etc. To Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Luxemburg, Trotsky, Bukharin, et al., economics meant
"economic base," comprising environment, resources,
tools, labor, social relations of production, class
struggle, and more; even politics and ideology crept in.
Willoughby appeals to economics of the narrower sort
rather more than Lenin does.
(4) Willoughby, however, makes one argument about
economic reductionism which has substance, though not
validity. He asserts (unoriginally) that the state is
partially autonomous, and accuses, not just Lenin but
"the early Marxian tradition" in general, of
"inability...to account theoretically for the autonomous
coercive power of the state" (p.334). They reduce
everything to economics. He does not argue, as many
Marxists today do, that the capitalist state (in its
various forms) is mostly responsive to the needs and
demands of ruling classes though many other social and
cultural forces are at work. He suggests that capitalism
has only a limited relation to political power, citing
the importance of state officials' interests, domestic
political sentiments, the global balance of power, even
personality, as major factors helping to explain
politics. He may or may not be right, but this argument
strays very far from the traditions of Marxism, Leninist
and non-Leninist. Firstly, Marxists assert only one
determinism, which is normative, not economic: capitalism
must give way either to socialism or to barbarism.
Secondly, Marxists argue that the economic base, broadly
defined (to include, for instance, class struggle and
therefore the ideas and acts of humans), is more
important as a causal force in history than is any other
major part of culture. If Willoughby denies these
propositions, which he may or may not be doing -- I
cannot tell from this text or his earlier study
(Willoughby, 1986) -- then he is offering, not a form of
Marxism but an alternative to Marxism.
IV.
Marx and Engels were diffusionists. They believed,
as did every thinker of their time, that capitalism and
modernity were spreading out over the world. But unlike
mainstream thinkers, they believed that this was the
spread of a plague, not a blessing, and that capitalism
was under siege at the center: the proletariat would
overthrow it in Europe, then would march, victorious, to
the gates of Peking and beyond, spreading socialism
across the world. Socialist theorists of the Second
International saw things somewhat differently. Either
before the World War (Bernstein) or later (Kautsky,
Hilferding, Bauer), they came to believe, not only that
capitalism is maturing into a fully international system
(etc.), is diffusing progress and civilization to the
periphery, but that capitalism at the center is not under
siege: with the help of the proletariat (acting through
the socialist parties in power, trade unions, Fabian
societies, academic Marxists), capitalism was gradually
ascending toward socialism. This is a classically
diffusionist belief: progress at the center; diffusion of
progress to the periphery.
Lenin did not share these views. His theory of
imperialism was an alternative, non-diffusionist model of
the world. It was uniformitarian (Blaut, 1993) in the
sense that it ascribed revolutionary activism to the
people of the periphery as well as the center. The
exploiters in the center were now confronting the
exploited masses in the periphery as well as in their own
countries. The world as a whole was now divided into two
sectors, the monopoly-capitalist countries and the
oppressed countries. Capitalism could only survive at the
center, maintaining profit levels and pacifying the
workers with minimally acceptable wages, working
conditions, job security, and living conditions, by
intensifying the exploitation of workers in the
periphery, even translocating masses of workers from the
periphery to the center with its sweatshops, ghettos,
secondary labor markets (Lenin, 1917, 168). This theory
was the first strong challenge to the Eurocentric world
models which dominated European thought, Marxist and non-
Marxist, in the early years of the 20th century.
Willoughby believes that capitalism is progressive,
the Third World is developing, and imperialism no longer
really exists. Thus he takes his stand with other
diffusionist Marxists, like Brenner (1977), Brewer
(1980), and Warren (1980); and with many non-Marxist
supporters of liberal capitalism, NAFTA, and the New
World Order. Of course, we do not have to stand with
Willoughby or with Lenin: there are alternative views. We
choose for ourselves.
University of Illinois at Chicago
NOTES
1 Diffusionism is discussed in Blaut 1987a, 1987b,
1989, 1993, 1994.
2 These matters are treated in Blaut 1982 and 1987b.
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