[OPE-L:2146] Re: imperialism, wars and revolutions

["clyder" <wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Paul C wrote in [OPE-L:2128]:
>
> > Its just the bias of my Leninism - epoch of wars and revolutions etc -
> > showing through.
>
> Isn't the basis for Lenin's perspective on a "epoch of wars and revolution
> etc" to be found in his analysis of imperialism?  Yet, I thought you were
> critical of Lenin's theory of imperialism, including his conception of the
> importance of the export of capital. I hope I am not mis-interpreting you
> here. Without a theory of imperialism, what would be the basis for the
> understanding that we have long been in an "epoch of wars and revolutions
> etc."?

Imperialism was real and was the cause of the two world wars. I just think
that
Lenins presentation of the question at the economic level was too
simplistic.
I go along with may of Bill Warrens criticisms.

>From the middle of the century though, the principal contradiction ceased to
be inter-imperialist and became socialist/imperialist and then from about
the
60s became socialist/capitalist with the dissolution of the empires.

The crucial observation however is that revolutions always occur in close
proximities to wars. Either wars cause revolutions or revolutions cause
wars. To expect revolutions in the 21st century to depart from this trend
seems millenarian.