The Dilemma of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism in the Current Era
Qiu Weidong; Hu Bocheng, December 2016
School of Marxism, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai
[Abstract] Based on the substantial opposition between “accumulation of capital” and “accumulation of poverty” within the capitalist countries and the fact that this opposition is spreading to non-capitalist countries with the export of capital to form the imperialist model, Lenin put forward the core theses that “imperialism is moribund capitalism” and “the eve of the proletarian social revolution”. However, after Lenin’s death, with the deepening of the global expansion of capital, the “accumulation of capital” mainly concentrated in capitalist countries, the “accumulation of poverty” mainly concentrated in the historical situation of the backward countries in the East, and the resulting separation of the “material conditions” and “subjective conditions” required for the socialist revolution in the East and the West, made the development of capitalism and the practice of socialism in reality and the relationship between the two major systems significantly different from Lenin’s thesis, which has triggered a series of questions and debates. Contemporary Marxists must, at the height of the historical materialist critique of capital, clarify the theoretical and practical consciousness required to transmit the essence of the theory of imperialism in the era of the globalisation of capital by revealing the generation mechanism of Lenin’s theory of imperialism.
[Keywords] Lenin, imperialism, accumulation of capital, accumulation of poverty, globalization
2016 marks the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s popular book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (hereafter called Imperialism). The core of the text is the proposition that imperialism is the “highest and last stage of capitalism” and the “eve of the proletarian social revolution”[1] and therefore “moribund capitalism”[2], and other core theses, by revealing the substantial antagonism between the labour-capital relationship within the capitalist state and the “parasitic and decadent” nature of the global expansion of capital. But in the more than 70 years since Lenin’s death, and especially since the end of the Second World War, the realities of the capitalist countries have not, on the whole, been characterised by “moribund capitalism”, despite the occasional contradictions and crises. On the contrary, political stability, steady economic development, rising living standards, improving working and living conditions, increasing freedom and successive entry into the welfare state or progress towards that goal are typical of the major contemporary developed capitalist countries.
In stark contrast to the above situation was that since the October Revolution created the first substantial form of socialist society in human history, although the proletarian socialist revolutions once experienced the grand trend of the East overwhelming the West, the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europa in the 1980s and 1990s and the “greatest twists and turns”[3] that socialist China encountered before the reform and opening up, as well as the fact that contemporary China has taken the initiative to integrate into the globalization system objectively led by developed capitalist countries under the prediction of the theme of the era of “peace and development”, and has made great achievements… these social realities that differ greatly from the classical thesis led to the constant questioning of Lenin’s core thesis—some Russian scholars argued that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism is parasitic, decadent and moribund capitalism is too far removed from the current state of contemporary capitalism to be applicable to social reality.[4] The British philosopher Karl Popper, who proposed ‘falsificationism’, just argued that the practice of socialism has been falsified based on the obvious deviations between socialism with Chinese characteristics and the socialism envisioned by Marx and Lenin.
These historical circumstances make it necessary for contemporary Marxists to revisit this thesis from the perspective of historical materialist critique of capital and to reflect deeply on the following logically linked and intrinsically coherent questions: First, was Lenin’s core thesis in the historical circumstances of his time a historical misjudgement or a scientific syllogism? Secondly, if it was a scientific syllogism in the then circumstances, can we find the root cause of the dilemma encountered after Lenin’s death?
Thirdly, based on the above study, can we clarify the theoretical and practical consciousness of Marxists in the age of globalisation of capital in transmitting the essence of the theory of imperialism?
Part I. The generation mechanism of imperialism: the scientific syllogism of the principle of the critique of capital under concrete circumstances
To take a broad view of the theory of imperialism, as Lenin says in his preface about the limitations of the work: there is “a shortage of French and English literature and a serious dearth of Russian literature”. In addition, “with an eye to the Tsarist censorship”, Lenin had to “confine himself strictly to an exclusively theoretical, specifically economic analysis of facts”. When speaking of imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution, and analysing of the complete betrayal of socialism by social chauvinism, of the complete shift to the bourgeois side, and of this split in the workers’ movement, Lenin had to use a “an allegorical language—in that accursed Aesopian language” and particularly refers the interested reader to his own “the articles I wrote abroad in 1914-17, a new edition of which is soon to appear”[5].
But taking an overview of Lenin’s notes, his other texts and articles, we find that in his series of expositions on imperialism, Lenin always had a consistent internal logic – namely starting from the present state of production in the capitalist countries and summarising the total characteristics of capitalist relations of production at the present time, i.e. “monopoly” in the context of highly socialized production, and then the actual domination of this monopoly over the proletariat and the colonial and semi-colonial countries in the process of global expansion of the prominent representatives of this monopoly at the time (i.e. the “finance capital and finance oligarchy”), led to the parasitic and decadent nature of imperialism and the consequent historical status of imperialism and its development trend. It can be said that Lenin’s attempt to reveal the intrinsic nature of imperialism and its future direction from the “specific stage”[6] in the field of capitalist production was fundamentally in line with Marx’s consistent historical materialist research and judgment based on the critique of capital.
Marx pointed out from the height of the historical materialist critique of capital that the capitalist economic system, with private ownership as its mainstay, dominated by the logic of capital, which regards the development of the productive forces and the emancipation of man as a means rather than an end of capital expansion, must form a situation in which the process of capital expansion sucks the maximum amount of “natural forces” from man and the objective material world, and thus forms a polar opposition of “accumulation of capital” and “accumulation of poverty”.
This “accumulation of poverty” and its crisis are manifested in three main ways:
Firstly, private capital competitively absorbs the “natural forces of man” of workers and converts them into capital to the maximum extent possible, and in the process of maximizing accumulation of capital, private capital inevitably maximizes the squeeze on the income of workers, thus generating an accumulation of poverty. In the process of realizing the maximization of the accumulation of capital, it will inevitably reduce the income of workers to the maximum extent in general, thus produce an accumulation of poverty, while the opposition between such accumulation of poverty and the accumulation of capital generates a surplus economic crisis due to under-consumption. Secondly, capital competitively absorbs the “natural forces of nature” to maximise its own accumulation, which inevitably leads to an overall excessive depletion of public resources and the environment, resulting in resource and ecological crisis.
Thirdly, capital competitively absorbs the “natural forces of social labour” of social labour organisations to maximise its own accumulation, thus making the worker an instrument of capital valorisation and leading to an ecological crisis. This leads to the ‘accumulation of poverty’ in the social development space of human life, and thus to a crisis of human development.[7]
This explicitly endless and competitive “accumulation of capital”, inherent in the capitalist mode of production and the resulting inner contradiction with the “accumulation of poverty”, will inevitably make the capitalist society, in one crisis of capital expansion after another, constantly give birth to “material conditions” (i.e. highly developed and socialised productive forces) required for a higher stage of social formation and the “subjective conditions” (i.e. social revolutionaries) for the sublation of this social formation.
Since the second half of the 19th century, these trends and conditions had become so clear to Marx that when the economic crisis broke out in Germany and the United States in 1873, Marx saw it as “the signs of its decrease are so palpable as to augur ill for the survival of the bourgeois world”[8]. It was on the basis of the strategic research and judgement that socialist revolutions were bound to break out in the major capitalist countries of the West, if not imminent, that when Marx was confronted in the same period with the fact that Russia had a “contemporaneity of capitalist production” but “has not fallen prey, like the East Indies, to a conquering foreign power”, and that in this state of independence a “unique situation without any precedent in history” such as “Russian communal land ownership”[9] had been partially preserved, on the premise that the “victory of the West European proletariat over the bourgeoisie, and, linked to this, the replacement of capitalist production by socially managed production” was “the necessary precondition for raising the Russian commune to the same level”[10], he was extremely adamant that Russia could even cross the “Caudine Forks” [harsh tribute] of capitalism and go straight to socialism.
After Marx, Lenin, through a political economy perspective of the “monopolistic alliances of capitalists” and their possession of “large amounts of ‘surplus capital’ that were widely present within the major developed capitalist countries “towards the end of the 20th century”[11] ‘excess capital'”[12], it is essentially recognised that within the developed capitalist countries, “as long as capitalism remains capitalism”, the monopolistic alliances of capitalists will not use the excess capital “
The surplus capital would be “exported abroad to the backward countries”[13], thus enjoying a capital feast of low land prices, low wages and cheap raw materials in a valueless field of competitors. This led Lenin, when understanding and analysing “imperialism”[14] whose fundamental characteristic was the “monopolistic phase of capitalism”, to encounter, albeit more strongly than Marx, the increasing aristocratisation of the working class and even classism that had been occurring since the end of the 19th century as a result of high wages and benefits within the capitalist state.
The aristocratisation of the working class, and even the fading of class consciousness since the end of the 19th century due to high wages and benefits in the capitalist countries, and the gradual overpowering of revolutionary demands by the voices of reform, were still as convinced as Marx: “The particularly rapid and odious development of opportunism in no way guarantees a consolidated victory for opportunism”[15].
For the advent of the age of capitalist monopoly has not only left the contradiction between the “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty” in the capitalist countries unresolved; it is now accompanied by the export of industrial capital (i.e. financial capital) in the form of money, making the “accumulation of poverty” in the capitalist countries “more and more difficult”.
This contradiction is now accompanied by the export of industrial capital in the form of money (i.e. financial capital), so that the contradiction between the compulsory value-added logic of “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty” in capitalist countries has begun to be reproduced on all fronts and extended to the backward countries and regions, where it has taken the pathological form of brutal plunder and colonial wars.
It was on the basis of this in-depth analysis of the nature of the opposition between “accumulation of capital” and “accumulation of poverty” within the capitalist countries and between the capitalist countries and the regions of the backward countries in the process of capital export that Lenin, in his “full application of the logic of Capital to the present problem, arrived at his theory of imperialism” The theory of imperialism, which Lenin arrived at in his “full application of the logic of Capital to the problems of the day”[16], was firmly based on the view that the present stage of imperialism, in which “capitalism has become the colonial oppression and financial strangulation of the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants by a very small number of ‘advanced’ countries, has become the most important of all factors.
Lenin wrote: “parasitic and decadent” nature of the present imperialist stage, which “has become a world system of colonial oppression and financial strangulation of the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants”[17], clearly demonstrates that the imperialist stage is “the highest historical stage of capitalism” and “the social revolution of the proletariat”. “It is also “moribund capitalism”. The “October Revolution” that followed reinforced Lenin’s conviction that from 1917 onwards the above core thesis “has been confirmed all over the world”.[18]
Part II. The separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism: the historical roots of the actual dilemma of the theory of imperialism
There is no doubt that Lenin’s theory of imperialism is a scientific syllogism of the principles of the critique of capital in a specific historical context. But for a whole century after that work, and especially since the end of the Second World War, the reality of capitalism has not been characterised by moribund capitalism. On the contrary, the core elements of capital civilisation, such as markets, contracts, property rights, professionalism, innovation, efficiency, credit, actuarial science, freedom, equality and the rule of law, which underpin its economic and social development, have led to significant progress in the major capitalist countries over a period of more than 70 years – with stable political operations and legal guarantees of liberal and democratic rights. Political stability and the legal guarantee of liberal and democratic rights; steady economic development and a growing standard of living for the population; improving working and living conditions and increasing freedom and having entered the welfare state or moving towards it. …… A harmonious landscape of contemporary capitalist society seems to be emerging. Francis Fukuyama even went so far as to draw the “end of history”.
The subversive failure of socialist practices in countries such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 20th century, the “biggest setback” for socialist China before the reform and opening up, and the great achievements of socialism with Chinese characteristics through friendly economic and trade relations with major capitalist countries in the course of its active integration into globalisation, have led some people to think that these theories of proletarian revolution and imperialism put forward by Marx and Lenin are unscientific.
Some people feel that the theories of proletarian revolution and imperialism put forward by Marx and Lenin are not scientific. Karl Popper, for example, argues that Marxism has been falsified and is no longer a science, based on the obvious deviation of socialism with Chinese characteristics from the socialism envisaged by Marx and Lenin. It is therefore a fundamental task for contemporary Marxists to investigate the historical roots of the dilemma that the theory of imperialism – as a scientific syllogism – encountered after Lenin’s death in line with Marx’s thesis that “everything depends on the historical circumstances in which it is situated”[19].
In the author’s view, if we refer to Marx’s two “never” theories on the evolution of social development and combine them with Lenin’s revelation of the characteristics of the development of imperialism at that time in the context of the critique of capital, we can be sure that with the expansion of the logic of capital on a global scale and the consequent contradiction between the “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty”, the “material conditions” and the “accumulation of poverty” necessary for the socialist revolution were fully covered within the capitalist countries and to the backward countries and regions and were constantly reaching their limits. and the resulting contradiction between the “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty” within the capitalist countries and to the backward countries and regions, the “material conditions” and “subjective conditions” necessary for a socialist revolution were bound to be The “material conditions” and the “subjective conditions” necessary for a socialist revolution must be fulfilled simultaneously, and imperialism must therefore be replaced by a socialist system as the highest stage of capitalism.
Marx’s two “never” theories: No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.
It is in this sense that the “communist emphasis on and adherence to the common, non-national interests of the proletariat”, as formulated by Marx and firmly accepted by Lenin[20], as well as theses such as that workers have no homeland and that the proletariat of the world must unite to overthrow bourgeois rule, are fully valid in the present situation.
However, an objective examination of the real historical process since Lenin’s theory of imperialism must also note that while the major capitalist countries have continued to expand globally through the export of capital, they have also been able to overcome a series of economic, political and social crises at home, which are essentially the result of the opposition between the “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty”, through various means (initially the eight-hour working day and the safeguarding of rights and interests related to ensuring the production and reproduction of labour, and later, gradually, from point to point, the so-called “cradle to grave” system of high social welfare.
In the Marxist and Leninist era, the economic, political and social crises of the country, which were essentially the result of the opposition between the “accumulation of capital” and the “accumulation of poverty”, were overcome in various ways. At the time of Marx and Lenin, the capitalist state was still generally characterised by a state of tension, rigidity and antagonism between labour and capital. The “external détente”, which was still hazy at the time, was not as profound as it is today in the developed capitalist countries, both in terms of its coverage and its degree of civilisation. This, I believe, is the fundamental reason why neither Marx nor Lenin changed their core theses, even though they had noticed this phenomenon at the time.
Both high wages and high benefits are predicated on a high cost. But in the dynamics of the global expansion of capital, this cost is not to be paid by the bourgeoisie of the capitalist countries, but by the colonial semi-colonies and subsequently the developing countries. Thus, while labour-capital relations within the major capitalist countries have become more and more moderate after Marx and Lenin in the imperialist phase, as Lenin had revealed, there were many examples of marginal and backward countries being dominated and divided up by the capitalist powers, and thus constantly moving towards the “accumulation of poverty”. This is the only way to fundamentally support the “accumulation of capital” and the enormous costs of social reforms in the countries of the centre.
The basic situation is that “the two ends of the chain are inside (i.e., we take control of high value-added research and development and marketing to build welfare and consumer societies, and to open up new space for the cultivation and development of our own high-end industries) and the middle is outside (i.e., we transfer the basic low-value-added processing industries at the lower end of the chain to developing countries and regions)”.[21] The contemporary world thus undoubtedly had the conditions for the birth of socialism in the sense of the critique of capital proposed by Marx and carried on by Lenin, but it is clear that this birth condition began to undergo a serious separation after Lenin.[22] And it was this separation that has led directly to the criticism of Lenin’s theory of imperialism after his death.
In the case of the contemporary developed capitalist countries, although the highly socialised productive forces within the country have necessitated the adoption of joint-stock and state capitalism, thus providing the material conditions for the move towards socialism, the one-way deprivation of labour by capital and the resulting perverse labour relations, which were revealed in Marx’s time, have been followed by the emergence of high wages and benefits within the capitalist countries, which have led to the aristocratisation of the working class as the subject of revolution, from ‘absolute poverty’ to ‘relative poverty’.
The emergence of high wages and benefits in the capitalist state has led to the aristocratisation of the working class which is the main subject of revolution, and to the dilution of class consciousness and the overriding of revolutionary demands in the process of moving from ‘absolute poverty’ to ‘relative poverty’.
This has led to the aristocratisation of the class and the diminishing of class consciousness. While the conditions for socialist revolution are present in the contemporary developed capitalist countries in terms of the ‘material conditions’ of the socialised productive forces, the accumulation of poverty among the domestic proletariat, which is the ‘main condition’ for revolution, has not yet reached its peak, so these countries do not have the conditions for immediate socialist revolution.
The conditions for socialist revolution are not immediately present in these capitalist countries because the accumulation of poverty in the proletariat, which is the “main condition” of revolution, has not yet reached its peak.
Moreover, we can logically foresee that there is room for the capitalist system of the contemporary developed countries to continue to develop on a global scale, as long as there are unexploited spaces for capital throughout the world, and as long as the logic of capital is able to find surplus, create surplus and then appropriate surplus in these spaces. Thus, while it is true that imperialism is the highest and final stage of capitalism, it is also true that these developed capitalist countries have increasingly used the platform of the globalisation of capital in the course of subsequent history to transfer the fundamental limits to their own development imposed by the “accumulation of poverty” to the backward countries and regions which, for a considerable period of time All this has contributed to the fact that post-Leninist “imperialism” has become increasingly “corruptible”.
In the case of the backward countries, which are marginalised in the global expansion of capital, the conditions for a socialist revolution are also present on a global scale, although they tend to be impoverished (including ecological poverty) in the logical chain of ‘accumulation of capital’.
However, since the development of productive forces and the resulting socialised mass production are far from having reached their peak, the conditions for the birth of socialism are not complete within these backward countries themselves. Moreover, the inherent lack of the “material conditions” necessary for these countries and regions to move towards a socialist form inevitably puts the practice of socialism in these countries in a dilemma from the outset.
On the one hand, the historical homogeneity of the path of modernisation that these countries had to undergo in the process of becoming rich and powerful and the path of socialism that emerged in the context of the global expansion of capital made it necessary for these countries to enter the international capitalist system, both in order to modernise and to practise socialism, otherwise they would not be able to fully and effectively appropriate the advanced production and management experience created by capital civilisation and effectively develop the “material conditions” required for socialism.
On the other hand, once these countries have entered the world system dominated by the developed capitalist countries as weak countries, the already powerful international capitalist forces will certainly use their advantages in market competition to keep these backward countries in a marginal position in the industrial, commercial and financial chains. This will keep them at the end of what is, on the whole, a low to medium level of development, and thus, as always, the ultimate bearer of the contradictions inherent in international capitalism. In this way, not only does the practice of socialism in these countries become an empty word, but their development is bound to fall into the trap of a low to medium level of development.
Lenin’s theory of imperialism and the principles of socialist practice derived from it in the historical context of the time are no longer applicable to the requirements of socialist practice in the real historical process. In reality, the huge setbacks and even subversive failures of socialist practice in the backward countries of the East, and the resulting doubts about the rationality and inevitability of the socialist revolution (which also directly involved the questioning of Lenin’s theory of imperialism), were fundamentally linked to the failure to develop in time a theoretical and practical consciousness to match the “separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism”.
Part III. A few insights into the actual dilemma Lenin’s theory encountered
The scientific nature of Lenin’s theses that “imperialism is the highest and final stage of capitalism” and therefore “imperialism is the eve of the proletarian social revolution”, and the contradictions that these theses have encountered in the subsequent historical process due to the separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism, in the context of globalisation, capitalisation and marketisation, make it necessary for us to sharpen our thinking in the following ways when we read Lenin’s theory of imperialism again in the context of globalisation, capitalisation and marketisation.
The contradictions encountered in the subsequent historical process due to the separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism make it necessary for us, when studying Lenin’s theory of imperialism again in the context of globalisation, capitalisation and marketisation, to reflect on the following aspects and to move forward.
First, the essence of Lenin’s imperialism must not be perceived doctrinally, instead we should develop the theory. The new situation of the separation of the conditions of the birth of socialism, which has become increasingly clear after Lenin, requires that in our present thinking on Lenin’s theory of imperialism, we must free ourselves from the previous practice of sticking to words, from the controversy of understanding, regulating and defining real society by drawing specific conclusions about capitalism and socialism against the background of the times, and truly take the mechanism of the generation of the theory of imperialism as the starting point. We should reveal the novelty and value of the theory in the era of the separation of the conditions of socialism’s birth.
If we avoid this theoretical task, or if we are aware of the problem but fail to innovate in time, two major dilemmas will result: firstly, we will fall into a cognitive trap of “subjective thought” and its “external reflection”.
It is this external reflection that completely obscures “reality”. What is often referred to as “dogmatism” is the most intuitive expression of external reflection.
Secondly, as a consequence of this perception of reality, the historical materialist judgements made by Marx and Lenin during their lifetime, based on specific historical situations, are in danger of being unjustified and even falsified by the creation of new historical situations, and by the mutual divergence between theory and reality, logic and history.
Secondly, it is necessary to acknowledge the basic fact that imperialism, the highest and final stage of capitalism, as predicted by Lenin, is developing in the midst of the crisis, and to reveal the roots and essence of its increasing civilisation. It is true that the “accumulation of capital”, which is increasingly taking place in the course of the deepening global expansion of capital, is concentrated in the developed capitalist countries, and through this “accumulation of capital” supports the high wages and benefits of their domestic proletariat and thus the formation of the fact that the conditions of the “revolutionary subject” are increasingly extinguished by the easing of the pressure of the “accumulation of poverty” does make many people’s doubts historically justified.
Moreover, in this reality, capitalism at its highest stage of imperialism can indeed “hang on, rot and decay”; Lenin’s initial view that capitalism had reached its highest stage was indeed premature in view of the inherent dynamics of the separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism.
Nevertheless, we must be aware of the historical materialism of Marx’s critique of capital: the high cost of the accumulation of capital within the developed capitalist countries in the age of imperialism, and of the easing of labour relations on this basis, is now being paid by the colonial semi-colonies and subsequently by the developing countries.
In other words, it is precisely on the basis of such an industrial layout as “two heads inside, middle outside” that the contemporary developed capitalist countries have achieved their own “harmony and prosperity” in the course of the “accumulation of poverty” in the backward countries of the East.
In contrast to the harmonious prosperity of the ideal social form of the future, the present harmonious landscape, which is fundamentally based on the antagonistic model of “accumulation of capital” and “accumulation of poverty”, has, on the whole, evolved “without transcending the framework of the contemporary capitalism is still in the phase of state monopoly capitalism, and the essence of monopoly capitalism remains unchanged”[23].
Therefore, it cannot be effectively replicated, extended and covered to the vast number of backward or developing countries.[24] Therefore, the harmonious landscape of contemporary developed capitalism, which Fukuyama and others have tried so hard to whitewash, is fundamentally an “illusion” derived from the logic of capital, and cannot obscure the “parasitic and decadent” nature of the capitalist system.
Thirdly, the historical roots of the serious setbacks in practice and the resulting cognitive dissonance in the backward countries of the East, despite the outbreak of socialist revolutions as predicted by Lenin, must be understood correctly.
On the contrary, it must be a new social system designed to overcome and resolve the paradox of capitalist expansion in the process of resolving the contradictions inherent in capitalism (once internal to the capitalist countries, but now evolving between the developed and the backward countries in the context of the global expansion of capital). Socialism will only occur when this internal contradiction in a country or region has developed to the point where it must be resolved by a socialist system.
It is in this sense that the socialist revolution in the backward countries of the East is essentially a historical qualification of the backward countries by the developed capitalist countries. If we leave the expression of the contradictions inherent in the global expansion of capital in the backward countries of the East, then they do not have within themselves the capitalist contradictions that need to be urgently resolved and therefore have no possibility of generating socialism.
Thus, although the conditions for the birth of socialism were indeed present in the backward countries of the East, they could no longer be defined in accordance with the classical model of development derived from the abandonment of capital, i.e. “public ownership + planned economy + public ownership”. The material conditions necessary for the development of socialism in a relatively closed state, in order to lay the foundations for its presence in the international capitalist system and to overcome the logic of capital, can only be established in accordance with the rhythm appropriate to the historical situation at the time, i.e. the creation of an advanced party organisation that matches the conditions of the main actor of the revolution and the seizure of state power under working-class leadership. Once the accumulation of these material conditions is nearly complete, it is necessary to enter the international system immediately and really practise the intrinsic requirements of socialism in the world system.
Then, we can soberly recognize that, although the socialist revolution as predicted by Lenin did break out in the backward countries of the East, and this revolution was also very historically justified and inevitable, under the historical conditions at that time, because the socialist countries, including the former Soviet Union and China, had not yet developed the theoretical and practical self-consciousness in the context of the separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism.
In practice, as Comrade Mao Zedong put it, “After liberation, during the three-year recovery period, we were ignorant of the construction process. We could only basically copy the Soviet approach, but we always felt unsatisfied and uncomfortable”[25]. Therefore, “we still have a great deal of blindness in socialist construction. The socialist economy, for us, still has many unrecognised inevitable kingdoms”[26]. So much so that even Comrade Deng Xiaoping lamented at the beginning of reform and opening up that “the Soviet Union did not have a clear idea of what socialism was really like even after many years of work. Perhaps Lenin had better ideas and came up with NEP (new economic policy), but then the Soviet model became ossified.”[27]
It is in this sense that we can firmly believe that the tremendous achievements of socialist construction with Chinese characteristics over the 30 years of reform and opening up are not a falsification of Marx’s theory of socialism, as Karl Popper suggests, but a fundamental confirmation of Marx’s theory of socialism based on the critique of capital.
Therefore, the historical practices of the “two decades” before and after the new China are objectively coherent in nature and are in no way mutually exclusive.
Fourthly, the interrelationship between capitalism and socialism in the current era of globalisation, marketisation and capitalisation, and the consequent historical mission of contemporary Marxist theorists, must be fully recognised.
Against the background of the separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism, the rising civilisation that has emerged in the developed capitalist countries because the moment has not yet arrived when the capital logic on which they depend can expand, the socialist countries that emerge in this process must both make full use of capital civilisation in the world economic system in order to carry out the socialist “material conditions accumulation” in the world economy, while at the same time constantly overcoming the fundamental fact of resolving the paradox of domestic and international capital.
On the one hand, the long-term coexistence of the capitalist and socialist systems will continue for a long period of history; on the other hand, with the great change in the way capital is exported and profited, from naked colonial wars to a more “civilised” plundering of the surplus value created by the people of many developing countries, including socialist countries, through the division of industrial chains, the world system as a whole has become more “civilised” in this “civilised” form of production.
On the other hand, with the huge shift in the way capital is exported and made profitable, from naked colonial wars to a more “civilised” plundering of the surplus value created by the people of many developing countries, including socialist countries, through the division of industrial chains, the world system as a whole, in this more “civilised” form of production, has generated a new generation of “accumulation of capital” for the developed capitalist countries and as well as the “material conditions” for socialism.
In this more “civilised” form of production, the world system as a whole generates the historical possibilities of “peace and development” that are common to the “accumulation of capital” in the developed capitalist countries and the accumulation of “material conditions” in socialism.[28]
In reality, of course, this ‘peace and development’ is still, in essence, rather a ‘peace and development’ subordinated to the internal logic of ‘accumulation of capital’ in the developed capitalist countries. Once the situation becomes unfavourable to the equilibrium limits of developed capitalist “accumulation of capital”, there will inevitably be “currency wars”, “financial wars” and “trade wars” led by the developed capitalist countries. The “war without gun powder smoke “, such as “financial wars” and “trade wars”, will emerge. What is more, there will be some local wars. In the period 1916-2008, the United States, for example, waged and participated in 220 wars, an average of 2.5 times per year.[29]
Lessons:
It is on the basis of the above-mentioned interrelationship between capitalism and socialism in the era of globalization, marketization and capitalization and their intrinsic limits that contemporary Chinese Marxists must be historically conscious of the following aspects when understanding and dealing with the relationship between the two major systems of contemporary capitalism and socialism:
Firstly, it is necessary to always adhere to the firm belief in socialism and fully understand that the process of realizing socialism with contemporary Chinese characteristics is essentially the process of overcoming and resolving the paradox of capital in the world capitalist world system that has been formed since the recent times. Therefore, one must always have the historical materialist mind of “eliminating capital by using capital itself”[30] engraved lines “within the context of the entire wealth of past development”.
Secondly, it is necessary to “tell the Chinese story” within the historical limits of the established “peace and development” and through the understanding and mastery of the established international rules to achieve “cooperation and win-win” with the developed capitalist countries. We should minimise or avoid the neglect or rejection of a cooperative approach to development through ideology in an idealistic sense.
Thirdly, it is important to recognise that for contemporary China, it is an indisputable fact that the problem of capital exists to a certain extent in general and on a permanent basis.
Therefore, in the face of the ensuing overlap between the capitalistic nature of “no surplus, no pursuit” and the negative effects of “imperfect institutional mechanisms and inadequate reforms” in economic and social development[31], we must, while rejoicing in the great achievements of socialist construction, also face up to the contradictions that have emerged and are emerging in the use of capital in our society as a whole with an objective and tolerant attitude. We must also face up to the contradictions and paradoxes that have emerged and are emerging in the use of capital in Chinese society as a whole with an objective and inclusive attitude, and realistically acknowledge the huge historical price paid for this.
Fourthly, as far as socialism with Chinese characteristics is concerned, the essential difference between it and parallel capitalism will not be whether it is market or planned, but whether it can develop better and faster than capitalism by effectively overcoming the double pressure of the domestic and international capital paradox on the premise of the “three favourable conditions”.
Fifthly, in order to realise the essential requirements of socialism under the above objective circumstances, how to “look at the big picture, look at the world and look at the future”[32], continuously absorb the production and management experiences that have been proved to be correct and excellent by capital civilisation, and we should adopt the five major development concepts of innovation, coordination, openness, greenness and sharing. It should be the fundamental and constant mission of socialist China to form an economic, political, social, cultural and ecological system that matches the essential requirements of socialism.
[1] Lenin’s Thematic Collected Works. On Capitalism, p. 105.
[2] Lenin’s Thematic Collected Works. On Capitalism, p. 211.
[3] Deng Xiaoping, Selected Writings, vol. 3, pp. 298, 333.
[4] See Liu Shuchun, ‘The views of Soviet academics on several issues of Lenin’s theory of imperialism’, in Marxism and Reality, 1994(1).
[5] Lenin’s Thematic Collected Works. On Capitalism, p. 98.
[6] Ibid., p. 174.
[7] Marx proposed three natural forces: the ‘natural force of man’ as a labour force, the ‘natural force of nature’ and the ‘natural force of social labour’. See Marx Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 5, People’s Press, 2009, pp. 208, 702, 443, 387.
[8] Marx & Engels Collected Works, Vol. 45, L&W, p. 78.
[9] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, 2009 edition, pp. 578-580, 586.
[10] 1894 Afterword to On Social Relations In Russia by Engels (architexturez.net)
[11] Lenin’s Thematic Collected Works. On Capitalism, p. 150.
[12] Ibid., p. 150.
[13] Ibid., p. 151.
[14] Ibid., p. 151.
[15] Ibid., p. 211.
[16] Quoted in Hou Huiqin, ed. The Sharpening of a Correct Worldview on Life – A Study of the Essence of Marxist Writings, Nanjing University Press, 2002 edition, p. 389.
[17] Lenin’s Thematic Collected Works. On Capitalism, p. 102.
[18] Ibid., p. 105.
[19] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, 2009 edition, pp., 586.
[20] The Communist Manifesto, People’s Publishing House, 2006 edition, p. 40.
[21] For a discussion of the spatial distribution of the developed capitalist countries and the developing countries in the era of capital globalisation and the operations surrounding it, see Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat, Oriental Press, 2006.
[22] For a discussion of the term ‘separation of the conditions for the birth of socialism’, see mainly Lu Pingyue’s article ‘The Separation of the Conditions for the Birth of Socialism and the Basic Characteristics of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ (in Marxist Studies, 2013(8)). 鲁品越《社会主义诞生条件的分离与中国特色社会主义基本特征》( 载于《马克思主义研究》2013 年第8 期)
[23] See Liu Ru, ‘The International Financial Crisis and the New Development of State Monopoly Capitalism’, in Red Flag Manuscript, No. 5, 2016.
[24] To paraphrase US President Barack Obama’s speech before his visit to Australia in May 2010, if more than a billion Chinese were to live the same way as Americans and Australians, it would be a tragedy and a disaster for humanity that the planet would not be able to bear and the world would be plunged into a very miserable situation. It can be said that the inherent limits of China’s modernisation are innately and structurally set against the backdrop of capital’s global expansion, demonstrating once again that the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, with its central aim of overcoming the paradox of capital, is the only option for China’s modernisation and thus for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, as well as the future direction of human society.
[25] Collected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 8, People’s Publishing House, 1999 edition, p. 117, pp. 300.
[26] Collected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 8, People’s Publishing House, 1999 edition, p. 117, pp., 302.
[27] Deng Xiaoping, Selected Writings, vol. 3, pp. 139,.
[28] In this regard, we have to admit that Deng Xiaoping’s judgement in the 1980s that “peace and development” are the two main themes of the world today has a more than adequate historical basis.
[29] Quoted in Xin Xiangyang, ‘Lenin’s Theory of Imperialist Decadence and Contemporary Capitalism’, Theoretical Research Dynamics, No. 2, 2009.
[30] Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 2nd edition, vol. 3, pp. 390-391.
[31] Selected Important Documents since the 16th National Congress (in Chinese), People’s Publishing House, 2006 edition, p. 456.
[32] Deng Xiaoping, Selected Writings, vol. 3, pp. 266.