Re: Central political questions: imperialism

[Rubyg580@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 96-07-21 16:32:19 EDT, Chris writes:

<< I would welcome among the l'st of central political
 questions,  imperialism, Kautksy's concept of
 ultra-imperialism, neo-liberalism and the globalisation of
 finance capital.>>>

>>>But there are issues not only of whom you are working with, but
 whether Lenin's formulas on Imperialism need updating or were in
 some respects wrong, as has been argued periodically on this l'st
 by some people including Paul Cockshott. >>>

I think these are good questions. I don't think Lenin's  thesis on
Imperialism is at all outdated.  Clearly the world has changed since
his time, but the basic contradictions of imperialism remain with us,
and shape the relationships between countries, and the class
relationships within individual countries.

The "highest stage of capitalism" is still with us.  Capital is
still profoundly rooted in single countries, while searching the
world for the highest rate of profit for investment.  Today that
investment can be the old-fashioned kind: a corporation setting
up a wholly owned shop in another country, or it can be in a new
form: a joint venture between a corporation from an imperialist
country and some private or public sector investors from the
"host" country.  Or it can be capitalist investment by the
government of the imperialist country.

Wars are still fought to keep the world safe for imperialist
investment.  We haven't seen an all-out world war for 50 years
now, but we certainly have seen plenty of wars with the same
objective as the two world wars. What has changed is the level
of development of the resistance of the masses of people.

Today there are so many places where resistance is taking
armed form that we don't even hear about.  Who ever heard
of Bourgainville before those updates were posted here?  Who
hears about the armed struggle (or the political struggle by
the masses at all) in Turkey?  Or even in Peru, from the
mainstream English language media?  When was the last
time you read an article in the mainstream press about the
armed struggle in the Philippines?

But these things are going on constantly.  The Bourgeois
press mainly concentrates on publicising the armed struggles
in places where bourgeois forces have managed to pit one
section of the masses against another.  Thus we hear about
ex-Yugoslavia ad nauseam; Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia,
communal violence in India, "Black on Black" violence in
South Africa (where the hand of the apartheid, or ex-apartheid,
state was directly involved), and so on.

It's very easy to look around the world and see no hope; to
say, like someone did a short while ago, that "socialism is
not on the agenda" for the working class (or something like
that).  But nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact what
we are seeing unfold before our eyes is the proof that ONLY
socialism can save the planet.  How to get there from here is
the problem that needs to be solved.

And if you look back on when it LOOKED like there was a
solution -- in the 60s, what you see is that there was a focus
in the world: a socialist country that was transforming itself
into the image of the proletariat, that is, China with its cultural
revolution, and drastically influencing everything else in the
world.  The Vietnamese, profoundly influenced by China and
Mao's leadership, was on its way to defeating the most
powerful imperialist in the world.

In the belly of that beast, the Black liberation struggle, led
by the Black Panther Party, was promoting study of Mao's
writings.  The anti-war movement among the youth was
studying Marxism and its later developments as Leninism
and mao Tsetung Thought.

In other imperialist countries, like France, these types of
things were happening too; and in other oppressed countries,
notably in Africa, leaders were emerging who, while not
adopting Mao's theories, were nevertheless influenced by
them and were looking to revolutionary China as a staunch
ally in their fight against imperialism.

Today, there is no country like China in a position to influence
events in the world to a similar extent.  In fact there is no
socialist country at all (sorry, Cuba lovers, but Cuba has
never been on the road to communism, in spite of some
very visible reforms, financed largely by the now defunct
USSR).  But there is the legacy of the socialist countries
that have existed; there is the accumulated experience of
proletarian revolution in the world.

And that experience is being applied and developed in a
particularly sharp way in Peru.  The PCP's analysis of
imperialism in the late 20th century should be studied by
EVERYONE who considers themselves a Marxist.  It
comes from the experience of fighting imperialism on all
fronts: political, military, ideological.

That's not an in-depth analysis, but I think we should be
discussing these types of questions, more urgently than
re-hashing the Russian revolution (although that experience
is not unimportant by any means).

>>>Logically this theme should be one of the most central questions
 of  an international marxism l'st.

  Chris Burford>>>

 Gina/Detroit




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