THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY
We have seen that in its economic essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This in itself determines its place in history, for monopoly that grows out of the soil of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher social-economic order. We must take special note of the four principal types of monopoly, or principal manifestations monopoly capitalism, which are characteristic of the epoch we are examining.
Firstly, monopoly arose out of a very high stage of development of the concentration of production. This refers to the monopolist capitalist combines, cartels, syndicates and trusts. We have seen the important part these play in present-day economic life. At the beginning of the twentieth century, monopolies had acquired complete supremacy in the advanced countries, and although the first steps towards the formation of the cartels were first taken by countries enjoying the protection of high tariffs (Germany, America), Great Britain, with her system of free trade, revealed the same basic phenomenon, only a little later, namely, the birth of monopoly out of the concentration of production.
Secondly, monopolies have stimulated the seizure of the most important sources of raw materials, especially for the basic and most highly cartelized industries in capitalist society: the coal and iron industries. The monopoly of the most important sources of raw materials has enormously increased the power of big capital, and has sharpened the antagonism between cartelized and non-cartelized industry.
Thirdly, monopoly has sprung from the banks. The banks have developed from humble middlemen enterprises into the monopolists of finance capital. Some three to five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost capitalist countries have achieved the "personal union" of industrial and bank capital, and have concentrated in their hands the control of thousands upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and income of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close network of dependence relationships over all the economic and political institutions of present-day bourgeois society without exception -- such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly.
Fourthly, monopoly has grown out of colonial policy. To the numerous old motives of colonial policy, finance capitaI has added the struggle for the sources of raw materials, for the export of capital, for "spheres of influence," i.e., for spheres for profitable deals, concessions, monopolist profits and so on, and finally, for economic territory in general. When the colonies of the European powers in Africa, for instance, comprised only one-tenth of that territory (as was the case in 1876), colonial policy was able to develop by methods other than those of monopoly -- by the "free grabbing" of territories, so to speak. But when nine-tenths of Africa had been seized (by 1900), when the whole world had been divided up, there was inevitably ushered in the era of monopoly ownership of colonies and, consequently, of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redivision of the world.
The extent to which monopolist capital has intensified all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the high cost of living and the tyranny of the cartels. This intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the final victory of world finance capital.
Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination instead of striving for liberty, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations -- all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more prominently there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the "rentier state," the usuer state, in which the bourgeoisie to an ever increasing degree lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by "clipping coupons." It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before, but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (England).
In regard to the rapidity of Germany's economic development, Riesser, the author of the book on the big German banks, states: "The progress of the preceding period (1848-70), which had not been exactly slow, stood in about the same ratio to the rapidity with which the whole of Germany's national economy, and with it German banking, progressed during this period (1870-1905) as the speed of the mail coach in the good old days stood to the speed of the present-day automobile . . . which is whizzing past so fast that it endangers not only innocent pedestrians in its path, but also the occupants of the car." In its turn, this finance capital which has grown with such extraordinary rapidity is not unwilling, precisely because it has grown so quickly, to pass on to a more "tranquil" possession of colonies which have to be seized -- and not only by peaceful methods -- from richer nations. In the United States economic development in the last decades has been even more rapid than in Germany, and for this very reason, the parasitic features of modern American capitalism have stood out with particular prominence. On the other hand, a comparison of, say, the republican American bourgeoisie with the monarchist Japanese or German bourgeoisie shows that the most pronounced political distinction diminishes to an extreme degree in the epoch of imperialism -- not because it is unimportant in general, but because in all these cases we are discussing a bourgeoisie which has definite features of parasitism.
The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this striving. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in England, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries. Some writers, L. Martov, for example, are prone to wave aside the connection between imperialism and opportunism in the working-class movement -- a particularly glaring fact at the present time -- by resorting to "official optimism" (a la Kautsky and Huysmans) like the following: the cause of the opponents of capitalism would be hopeless if it were precisely progressive capitalism that led to the increase of opportunism, or, if it were precisely the best paid workers who were inclined towards opportunism, etc. We must have no illusions about "optimism" of this kind. It is optimism in regard to opportunism; it is optimism which serves to conceal opportunism. As a matter of fact the extraordinary rapidity and the particularly revolting character of the development of opportunism is by no means a guarantee that its victory will be durable: the rapid growth of a malignant abscess on a healthy body can only cause it to burst more quickly and thus relieve the body of it. The most dangerous of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.
From all that has been said in this book on the economic essence of imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely, as moribund capitalism. It is very instructive in this respect to note that the bourgeois economists, in describing modern capitalism, frequently employ catchwords and phrases like "interlocking," "absence of isolation," etc.; "in conformity with their functions and course of development," banks are "not purely private business enterprises; they are more and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private business regulation." And this very Riesser, who uttered the words just quoted, declares with all seriousness that the "prophecy" of the Marxists concerning "socialization" has "not come true"!
What then does this catchword "interlocking" express? It merely expresses the most striking feature of the process going on before our eyes. It shows that the observer counts the separate trees, but cannot see the wood. It slavishly copies the superficial, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals the observer as one who is overwhelmed by the mass of raw material and is utterly incapable of appreciating its meaning and importance. Ownership of shares, the relations between owners of private property "interlock in a haphazard way." But underlying this interlocking, its very base, is the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an exact computation of mass data, organizes according to plan the supply of primary raw materials to the extent of two-thirds, or three-fourths of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people; when the raw materials are transported in a systematic and organized manner to the most suitable place of production, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles, when a single centre directs all the consecutive stages of work right up to the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished articles; when these products are distributed according to a single plan among tens and hundreds of millions of consumers (the distribution of oil in America and Germany by the American "oil trust") -- then it becomes evident that we have socialization of production and not mere "interlocking"; that private economic and private property relations constitute a shell which no longer fits it contents, a shell which must inevitably decay if its removal by artificial means be delayed; a shell which may continue in a state of decay for a fairly long period (if, at the worst, the cure of the opportunist abscess is protracted), but which will inevitably be removed.
The enthusiastic admirer of German imperialism, Schulze-Gaevernitz exclaims:
"Once the supreme management of the German banks has been entrusted to the hands of a dozen persons, their activity is even today more significant for the public good than that of the majority of the Ministers of State." (The "interlocking" of bankers, ministers, magnates of industry and rentiers is here conveniently forgotten.) . . . "If we conceive of the development of those tendencies which we have noted carried to their logical conclusion we will have: the money capital of the nation united in the banks, the banks themselves combined into cartels; the investment capital of the nation cast in the shape of securities. Then the forecast of that genius Saint-Simon will be fulfilled:
'The present anarchy of production, which corresponds to the fact that economic relations are developing without uniform regulation, must make way for organization in production. Production will no longer be directed by isolated manufacturers, independent of each other and ignorant of man's economic needs; that will be done by a certain public institution. A central committee of management, being able to survey the large field of social economy from a more elevated point of view, will regulate it for the benefit of the whole of society, will put the means of production into suitable hands, and above all will take care that there be constant harmony between production and consumption. Institutions already exist which have assumed as part of their functions a certain organization of economic labour: the banks.' We are still a long way from the fulfillment of Saint-Simon's forecast, but we are on the way towards it: Marxism, different from what Marx imagined, but different only in form."*
A crushing "refutation" of Marx, indeed, which retreats a step from Marx's precise, scientific analysis to Saint-Simon's guesswork, the guesswork of a genius, but guesswork all the same. Written January-June 1916
Published in pamphlet form in Petrograd, April 1917 * Grundriss der Sozialökonomik, p. 146.
NOTES
[1] Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism was written in the first half of 1916. While Lenin was in Berne during 1915 he began to study various works on imperialism that had been published in many countries. He started work on this book in January 1916 and at the end of the month he moved to Zurich, where he continued his work at the Zurich Cantonal Library. From hundreds of books, periodicals, newspapers and statistical abstracts published in different languages he made numerous extracts, summaries, notes and tables, which make up more than 40 printing sheets. These materials were published as a separate pamphlet in 1939 under the title of Notebooks on Imperialism.
On June 19 (July 2) 1916 Lenin sent his completed manuscript on imperialism to the Parus Publishers. Menshevik elements among the management deleted from the book parts sharply criticizing the opportunist theories of Kautsky and the Russian Mensheviks (Martov and Co.). Lenin's terms pererastaniye (capitalism growing into capitalist imperialism) was altered to prevrashcheniye (transformation ); reaktsionny kharakter(reactionary nature of the theory of Ultraimperialism) to otstaly kharakter (backward character ), etc. In early 1917 the book was printed under the title Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism, by the Parus Publishers in Petrograd.
After returning to Russia, Lenin wrote a preface to the book, which finally saw the light of day in September 1917.
On the significance of the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, see the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, Eng. ed., Moscow, 1950, pp. 207-09. [p.1]
[2] See pp. 146-48 of this book.
[3] This preface was first published under the title "Imperialism and Capitalism" in Communist Internanonal, No. 18, dated October 1921.
[4] The Manifesto is omitted in the present edition.
[5] A Centrist party set up in April 1917. The bulk of the party consisted of the Kautskyite Labour Commonwealth. The Independents preached "unity" with the open social-chauvinists, justified and defended them and demanded the rejection of the class struggle.
In October 1920, a split took place at the congress of the I.S.D.P.G. in Halle. In December a considerable part of the party merged with the Communist Party of Germany. The Right-wing elements formed a separate party and took the old name of I.S.D.P.G., which existed until 1922.
[6] The Spartacists -- members of the Spartacus League, a revolutionary organization of German Left-Wing Social-Democrats, formed in the early period of World War I under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Clara Zetkin and others. It was also known as the Internationale group. The Spartacists conducted revolutionary propaganda among the masses against the imperialist war and exposed the predatory policy of German imperialism and the treachery of the opportunist Social-Democratic leaders. But the Spartacists failed to free themselves from semi-Menshevik fallacies on cardinal questions of theory and policy. They propagated a semi-Menshevik theory of imperialism, rejected the Marxist interpretation of the principle of self-determination of nations (i.e., up to and including secession and the formation of independent states), denied the possibility of national liberation wars in the imperialist epoch, underestimated the role of the revolutionary party and bowed to the spontaneity in the working-class movement (see the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, Eng. ed., Moscow, 1950, pp. 42-45). A criticism of the mistakes of the German Lefts is given in Lenin's "The Junius Pamphlet" (Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. XXII, pp. 291-305), "A Caricature of Marxism and 'Imperialist Economism' " (ibid., Vol. XXIII, pp. 16-64), and other works, and in Stalin's letter "Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism" (Works, Eng. ed., Moscow, 1955, Vol. XIII, pp. 86-104). In 1917 the Spartacists joined the Centrist Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, but remained organizationally independent. After the revolution in Germany in November 1918, they broke with the Independents and in December of the same year founded the Communist Party of Germany.
[7] In the present edition the author's references and notes are given as footnotes.
[8] Karl Marx, Capital, Ger. ed., Berlin, 1959, Vol. III, p. 655.
[9] These occurred during the widespread establishment of joint-stock companies in the early seventies ot the nineteenth century, which was accompanied by all manner of fraudulent operations by bourgeois businessmen, who were making a great deal of money, and by wild speculation in real estate and securities.
[10] Frankfurter Zeitung (Frankfort Newspaper) -- a German bourgeois newspaper published in Frankfort-on-Main from 1856.
[11] Lenin meant G. V. Plekhanov.
[12] Produgol -- an abbreviation for the Russian Society for Trade in Mineral Puel of the Donets Basin, founded in l906. Prodamet -- the Society for Marketing Russian Metallurgical Goods, founded in 1901.
[13] The exposure in France in 1892-93 of incredible abuses, corruption of politicians, officials and the press bribed by the French Panama Canal Company.
[14] See pp. 93-94 of this book.
[15] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence, Ger. ed., Berlin, 1953, pp. 131-32.
[16] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Correspondence, Ger. ed., Berlin, 1950, Vol. IV, pp. 608-09.
[17] The Menshevik S. M. Nakhimson.
[18] Karl Marx, Capital, Ger. ed., Berlin, 1959, Vol. III, p. 142.
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