Course on Anti-Imperialism,
War and Peace, Part 2
Lord Kitchener poster, 1914
Imperialism
This is the second part of a
series on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace. We are not only concerned to
discover Imperialism, but to see it in its particular aspect of war-mongering.
[Image: Lord Kitchener, master of war and lying face of Imperialism]
In Chapter 7 of “Imperialism,
The Highest Stage of Capitalism” (attached) Lenin “sums up” in a highly
compressed way as to what capitalist imperialism is. In the first paragraph,
among other things, he says:
“…the
monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the
latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number
of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts.”
A little later on Lenin
writes: “… politically, imperialism is,
in general, a striving towards violence and reaction.” The truth of this
statement has never been more apparent than it is today.
South Africa has seen
Imperialism in all its aspects, but especially in war. It was the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 that
announced Imperialism’s intentions to the world, as much as the Spanish-American War of 1898
did, or the defeat of the Khalifa Abdallahi's forces at Omdurman in Sudan by the British
under Kitchener in that same year of 1898. The system of state-monopoly capital
and dominance of the mineral-energy complex over the South African productive
economy dates from that time, and it has never been fundamentally changed. To
change it will mean a new confrontation with Imperialism.
Imperialism is a system of
war. Lenin pours scorn on “Kautsky's
silly little fable about "peaceful" ultra-imperialism,” calling
it “the reactionary attempt of a
frightened philistine to hide from stern reality.”
Lenin concludes:
“The question
is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the
disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of
capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence
for finance capital on the other?”
The age of Imperialism, for
more than 110 years, has been an age of war, just as Lenin predicted it would
be. From Lenin’s work to that of William Blum’s “Killing Hope”
it is clear that Imperialism is an aggressive force which at some stage will
have to be confronted. One cannot hope to be exempt from this confrontation
forever.
·
The above is to introduce
the original reading-text:
Imperialism,
The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Chapter 7, 1916, Lenin.
