Imperialist War

Formation of the Concept

In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (written January-June 1916, published 1917), Lenin defined imperialism as the highest stage of monopoly capitalism, arguing that the rule of finance capital and a new colonial policy centered on raw materials and capital export connected necessarily to wars for the redivision of the world. In A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism (1916) he added that the present imperialist war stemmed from the general conditions of the imperialist era: it was not accidental, not an exception, not a deviation from the typical. The concept is a theoretical category formulated in 1916, not an event dated to a single year.

Historical Development

At its Berne Conference in March 1915, Lenin's party adopted a resolution 'On the Defence of the Fatherland Slogan' defining the present war as imperialist in substance, together with a resolution on pacifism stating that Social-Democrats did not deny the positive significance of revolutionary, non-imperialist wars such as those waged between 1789 and 1871. In August 1915 the pamphlet Socialism and War, written by Lenin and Zinoviev, presented 'turn the imperialist war into civil war' as the only correct expression of the task. Lenin failed at the Zimmerwald Conference (1915) and the Kienthal Conference (1916) to win his comrades to that slogan; the conferences adopted instead the more moderate formula of 'an immediate peace without annexations or indemnities and the right of the peoples to self-determination.' The October Revolution of 1917 was the revolutionary outcome Lenin linked to the anti-imperialist-war line, and he sought to realize the theory through the Third International, founded in 1919 and dissolved in 1943. Lenin cited the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) and the Treaty of Versailles (1919) as proofs that empire and hegemony, not nationalism, were the economic motivations of the First World War.

Distinctions

Lenin distinguished 'genuinely national wars,' especially frequent between 1789 and 1871, from imperialist wars. The former rested on a long process of mass national movements and the overthrow of national oppression, and socialist support for just, defensive wars applied to the overthrow of alien oppression. In the present war, by contrast, 'defense of the fatherland' was a deception: social-chauvinism, which upheld that slogan, meant in practice supporting the bourgeoisie's right to plunder colonies and oppress other peoples, a betrayal of socialist conviction. Lenin likewise attacked Kautsky's 'ultra-imperialism,' which claimed that international cartels would lessen the unevenness and contradictions of world capitalism. Finance capital and trusts, Lenin countered, actually increase uneven development and drive the imperialist powers toward war.

Examples

The First World War of 1914-1918 is the central example. Lenin demonstrated that it was a war of conquest, plunder, and robbery over the partition of the world, that is, the division and redivision of colonies and spheres of influence of finance capital. He argued that upholding 'defense of the fatherland' by any of the belligerent powers in such a war deceived the people.

Related Categories

In Lenin's theory imperialism is bound up with parasitism and militarism. Imperialist countries devoted ever larger parts of national income to armies whose objective was to conduct imperialist wars, and imperialist war was among the main means of maintaining high monopoly profits. Super-profits from colonial exploitation were used to bribe a labour aristocracy that supported opportunism. Lenin further held that imperialism divides the world into a handful of oppressing nations and the vast majority of dependent nations, connecting the struggle against imperialist war to anti-colonial and national-liberation struggle, and expected revolution to extend from the weak points of the imperial system, such as Russia, to the advanced countries. Contemporary expositions of the theory, such as the Hamptonthink commentary, are polemical interpretations and should be read as attributed readings rather than neutral fact.