APPENDIX II
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APPENDIX II. 2
Brief Introduction:
Lenin
established that: “Imperialism is, among other things, the export of
capital. Capitalist production is being transplanted with increasing speed
to the colonies. It is impossible to free them from dependence on European
financial capital.” “In our days a system of a handful of “great”
imperialist powers (5 or 4) has been formed, each of which oppresses other
nations. This oppression is one of the sources of the artificial delay in the
collapse of capitalism and of the artificial support for the opportunism and
social-chauvinism of the imperialist nations that dominate the world.”
The LOD
cannot explain its alleged “evolution of semi-coloniality” through political
analysis, so, in order to confuse the issue, they jump from the political to
the economic when establishing their characterization of the country, which,
one could say, is a copy of the characterization of the country made by the
revisionist tenseopignists of “Patria Roja” in their “VII Conference” (1972).
For us, as
Lenin establishes and Chairman Mao develops, the difference is not in economic
dependence (economic analysis), but in political analysis, that is, whether or
not they have formal sovereignty, which requires answering the question of
whether the oppressed country in question is controlled by one or several
imperialist states?
2. In his
work ON THE CARTOON OF MARXISM, Lenin, in order to avoid the economic analysis
that he had promised on the question of the self-determination of nations, went
over to the political foundation, and in order to avoid the political
foundation of his “evolution of the semi-colonial situation” of the country to
“capitalist Peru”, as we have seen, he went over to the political foundation to
try an economic foundation, abruptly colliding with Marxist theory and reality.
Lenin says in this regard:
“P.
Kievsky does not even try to undertake an economic analysis! He confuses the
economic essence of imperialism with its political tendencies, as can be
seen already in the first sentence of the first paragraph of his article. Here
is the sentence: “Industrial capital is the synthesis of pre-capitalist
production and commercial and loan capital. Loan capital has become the servant
of industrial capital. Capitalism has now superseded the various types of
capital and its highest, unified type, finance capital, has emerged, and the
whole epoch can therefore be called the epoch of finance capital, the
appropriate foreign policy system of which is imperialism.”
This whole
definition is completely useless from an economic point of view: instead of
precise economic categories, it contains only phrases. But it is impossible to
dwell on this question here. The important thing is that P. Kievsky defines
imperialism as a “foreign policy system.”
First, this
is, in essence, a mistaken repetition of Kautsky's mistaken idea.
Second, it is a political, purely
political, definition of imperialism. By defining imperialism as a
"system of politics" P. Kievsky wants to avoid the economic analysis
he had promised by declaring that self-determination is "just as"
unrealizable, that is, economically unrealizable, in imperialism as labour
vouchers are in commodity production!*
In his
argument with the Lefts, Kautsky declared that imperialism is
"only a system of foreign policy" (namely, of annexation) and
that a certain economic phase, a certain stage of development of capitalism,
cannot be called imperialism. Kautsky is wrong. It is certainly not wise to
argue about words. It is impossible to forbid the use of the "word"
imperialism in one way or another. But if one wants to argue, one must clarify
the concepts precisely.
From the
economic point of view, imperialism (or the "epoch" of
finance capital - these are not words) is the highest stage of
development of capitalism, precisely the stage at which production becomes
so large and gigantic that free competition is replaced by monopoly.
This is the economic essence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself
in trusts, consortia, etc.; in the omnipotence of gigantic banks, in the
monopolization of sources of raw materials, etc.; in the concentration of bank
capital, etc. The whole crux of the matter is in economic monopoly.
The
shift from democracy to political reaction is the political superstructure of the new
economy, of monopoly capitalism (imperialism is monopoly capitalism).
Democracy corresponds to free competition. Political reaction
corresponds to monopoly. "Finance capital tends towards domination
and not towards freedom," says R. Hilferding rightly in his book Finance
Capital. The idea of separating "foreign policy" from politics in
general, or even of contrasting foreign policy with domestic policy, is
profoundly mistaken, un-Marxist, unscientific.
In foreign
policy as well as in domestic policy, imperialism equally tends to trample on
democracy, it tends to reaction. In this sense, it is indisputable that
imperialism is the "negation" of democracy in general, of all
democracy, and not, by any means, only of one of the demands of democracy,
namely, the self-determination of nations.
Being such
a "negation" of democracy, imperialism also "negates"
democracy in the same way in the national question (i.e., the
self-determination of nations): "in the same way," that is, it
tends to trample on it; its realization is to the same extent and in the
same sense more difficult under imperialism than the realization (in comparison
with pre-monopoly capitalism) of the republic, the people's militia, the
election of officials by the people, etc. There can be no question of their
being unrealizable from the "economic" point of view.
It is
probable that P. Kievsky was misled in this case by another circumstance (apart
from the general incomprehension of the requirements of economic analysis): the
circumstance that, from the philistine point of view, annexation (i.e., the
incorporation of territories of a foreign nation against the will of its
inhabitants, i.e., the violation of self-determination) is equated with the
"Expansion" (expansion) of financial capital into a larger economic
territory.
But it is
inappropriate to approach theoretical questions with philistine concepts.
From the
economic point of view, imperialism is monopolistic capitalism. In order
for the monopoly to be complete, competitors must be eliminated not only
from the internal market (the market of the State), but also from the external
market, from the entire world. Is there an economic possibility "in
the era of financial capital" of suppressing competition even in a
foreign State? Indeed there is: the means for this are financial
dependence and the monopolization of the sources of raw materials and, later,
of all the enterprises of the competitor.
The
American trusts are the highest expression of the economy of imperialism or
monopolistic capitalism. In order to eliminate the competitor, they do not
limit themselves to economic means, but constantly resort to political and even
criminal means. But it would be a very serious error to consider that the
monopoly of the trusts is not economically feasible by purely economic methods
of struggle.
On the
contrary, reality shows at every step that it is "feasible": the
trusts undermine the credit of their competitors through the banks (the owners
of the trusts are the owners of the banks: hoarding of shares); the trusts
torpedo the supply of materials to their competitors (the owners of the
trusts are the owners of the railways: hoarding of shares); the trusts
lower prices, for a certain time, below the cost of production, spending
millions in order to ruin the competitor and buy up his enterprises, his
sources of raw materials (mines, land, etc.).
This is a
purely economic analysis of the strength of the trusts and their expansion.
This is the purely economic way of their expansion: the hoarding of
enterprises, establishments and sources of raw materials.
The big
financial capital of a country can always buy up the competitors of a foreign, politically independent
country, and always does so. This is entirely feasible from the economic point
of view. Economic "annexation" is entirely "feasible"
without political annexation and is taking place at all times. In the works
on imperialism, one finds at every step indications that, for example,
Argentina is in reality a "commercial colony" of England, Portugal
is in fact a "vassal" of England, etc. It is true: economic
dependence on English banks, debts to England, and the purchase by England of
railways, mines, lands, etc., make such countries "annexations" of
England in the economic sense, without violating their political independence.
The name
self-determination of nations is given to their political independence. Imperialism tries to undermine it
- just as it tries to replace democracy in general with oligarchy - because
with political annexation, economic annexation is often more convenient,
cheaper (it is easier to bribe officials, obtain concessions, have advantageous
laws passed, etc.), more feasible and more peaceful. But to speak of the
economic "impossibility" of realizing self-determination under
imperialism is simply gibberish.
(…)
Let us
continue. What is the character of this contradiction between imperialism
and democracy? Is it logical or illogical? P. Kievsky uses the word
"logical" thoughtlessly, and does not realize that this word is used
in this case to conceal (both from the eyes and intelligence of the reader and
from the eyes and intelligence of the author) the very problem he intended to
deal with! This problem is the relationship of economics to politics, the
relationship of the economic conditions and economic content of imperialism to
one of its political forms. Every "contradiction" observed in human
reasoning is a logical contradiction; this is a vain tautology. And P. Kievsky
uses it to evade the essence of the problem: is it a "logical"
contradiction between two economic theses or phenomena (1) or between two
political theses or phenomena (2), or is one of them economic and the other
political? That is the crux of the matter, since the question of
economic impossibility or possibility, given one or another political form, has
been raised!
(…)
* * *
The reader
will see, from what has been said, that to unravel and explain in popular
language a confusion that occupies ten lines requires about ten pages of print.
It is impossible for us to analyse in the same detail each of P. Kievsky's
arguments - literally not a single one of them is free from confusion! - and,
moreover, it is not necessary, since we have analysed the main thing. We will
speak briefly about the rest.
APPENDIX II. 3
3. “
NOTEBOOK "x" (''KAPPA") J. A. HOBSON. IMPERIALISM
"Imperialism." A study by J. A. Hobson (London, 1902).
p. 4. A
true colonization occurs when inhabitants of the mother country move to an
uncultivated and depopulated country and bring their civilization with them;
but the subjugation of other peoples is already a debasement of this genuine
nationalism ("spuriosus colonialism"), it is already an imperialist
phenomenon. Examples of true colonies are Canada and the self-governing islands
of Australasia.
NB p. 6.
"What is new in present-day imperialism, if it is taken in its political
aspect, consists mainly in that it has been adopted by several nations. The
idea of a series of rival empires is essentially modern.”
p. 9.
" (…) imperialism, under which (...) a bandit contest between rival
empires.”
NB \\ p.
60. “It is no exaggeration to say that Britain’s present foreign policy is,
first and foremost, a struggle for advantageous markets for capital
investment.”
p. 78. The
industrialist and the merchant are content to negotiate with other nations;
investors put all their efforts into “the political annexation of the countries
where their most speculative investments are based.”
Capital
investment is profitable for a country, it opens new markets for trade “and
work for English business.” To renounce “imperial expansion” means to hand over
the world to other nations. “From which it follows that imperialism is not a
voluntary option, but a necessity” (= reasoning of the imperialists) …
pp. 82-4.
The internal market of North America is saturated: there is nowhere left to
invest capital.
"It
was precisely this sudden demand for foreign markets for industrial goods and
investments that was the obvious reason why imperialism was adopted as a
political principle and political practice of the Republican Party, to which
the big industrialists belong. NB
And the
kings of finance and that it belongs to them. The adventurous enthusiasm of
President Roosevelt and his party of 'clear destiny' and 'civilizing mission'
should not mislead us. Those who need imperialism, and those who carry it on
the shoulders of the great republic of the West, are Messrs. Rockefeller,
Pierpont Margan, Hanna, Schwab and company. They need it because they want to
take advantage of the public resources of their country to find a lucrative use
for their capital, which would otherwise be surplus.
(circumstances
of two orders have weakened the old empires: (1) "economic
parasitism"; (2) the use of armies with soldiers from the subjugated
peoples*).
* See V. l.
Lenin. O. C., t. 27, p. 420.-Ed.
p. 205.
“The first is the custom of economic parasitism, whereby the dominant State
uses its provinces, colonies, and dependent countries to enrich its ruling
class and to bribe the lower classes into acquiescence.” NB
pp.
205-206. “This fatal combination of folly and vice has always contributed in
the past to the downfall of empires. Will it also be fatal to a federation of
European nations?
(NB: the difference between the new and the old
imperialism) p. 324.
“The new
imperialism is distinguished from the old, first, in that, instead of the aspiration
of a single growing empire, it supports the theory and practical action of
rival empires, each of them guided by identical appetites for political
expansion and commercial benefit; second, in that financial or capital
investment interests predominate over commercial ones.”*
p. 337.
"But the economic aim of imperialism which wishes to open a way to China
is, as we see, quite different from that of maintaining ordinary trade: it
consists in creating a vast new market for Western investors, the profits of
which will be for the benefit of a layer of capitalists who invest capital and
not for the benefit of the entire people. The normal and healthy process of
assimilation by the peoples of the growing world wealth is hampered by the
nature of this imperialism, whose essence consists in developing markets for
the investment of capital and for trade, and in using the economic superiority
of cheap foreign production to displace industries from its own country and to
maintain the political and economic domination of a class."
Politics
of Finance Capital
// pp. 378-179. “The recent custom of investing capital in foreign countries
has developed to such an extent that the propertied and politically powerful
classes of Great Britain now derive an enormous and ever-increasing part of
their income from capital invested outside the British Empire. This growing
interest of our propertied classes in countries over which they exercise no
political control is a revolutionary force in present-day politics; it means an
ever-intensifying tendency to use their own political power as citizens of that
State to interfere in the political life of the States in whose industry they
have a material interest.”
“p. 389.
“The new imperialism differs in no essential way from this old model” (the
Roman Empire). It is just as parasitic as it was. But the laws of nature, which
condemn parasites to destruction, apply not only to individuals, but also to
nations.
The complexity
of the process and the concealment of its background may delay, but not
prevent, the collapse. "The claim that an imperialist state that forcibly
subjugates other peoples and seizes their lands does so in order to provide the
subjugated peoples with services equal to those it itself demands is clearly
false: it has no intention of providing equivalent services, nor is it capable
of providing them" (Lenin, NOTEBOOKS ON IMPERIALISM).
As we have
just seen, according to Lenin, as well as for Chairman Mao and Chairman
Gonzalo, semi-colonies are those countries that are economically dependent but
enjoy formal independence, which is a transitory situation, because imperialism
will always prefer colonial domination, which is why we see that in the dispute
of imperialisms for oppressed nations, they, through a series of mechanisms,
try to subject them more and more to their thick network of domination, for
example, as written in our Notes on the World Crisis No. 37 on USAID. In Peru,
from the 1990s until The domination of Yankee imperialism is greater and the
presence of other imperialisms is also growing, which makes our country an
arena of contention between imperialists (see the inter-imperialist conflict in
Latin America in Notes on the world crisis No. 35 On sanctions…).
In our
following annex, we will see how imperialist investment in Peru became much
more diversified - at the end of the 60s and the decade of the 70s -, but the
semi-colonial condition of the country not only remained but deepened, since
the economic dependence of the country was reinforced with new knots. The same
thing has happened in the country since the 90s of the last century until
today, growth of foreign investment in our country, etc. Its economic
dependence grows, the colonial condition of its economy deepens and, therefore,
its semi-colonial character.
The LOD
also seeks to sow confusion about the analogies and differences between two
periods of colonial domination, the one that corresponds to the previous
empires with the current imperialist era. Lenin. What the LOD does by seeking
to revise Gonzalo thought is to make people believe that they have not
renounced Gonzalo thought and capitulated, but that as the situation has
changed they have also changed. In other words, they say that Peruvian society
has evolved from semi-colonial to “dependent capitalist” “especially” due to
“the concurrence of foreign investment from various powers.” What they intend
is to deny the imperialist oppression that weighs on our country, its character
of semi-colony, changing it for a softer form of “dependent capitalist,”
following the theorists at the service of imperialism of the CEPAL, as
denounced by Chairman Gonzalo, as we have cited at the beginning of these
appendices (Line of the Democratic Revolution I Congress of the PCP, 1988).
The old
society is in the midst of its death throes in its process of , the three
mountains have not yet been swept away by the democratic revolution through the
people's war. Bureaucratic capitalism is in a general crisis and our critical
economic situation is getting worse, at the root of which, no one doubts, is
our condition as a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, on which bureaucratic
capitalism evolves and is being preserved, despite everything that is said to
the contrary. With the greater imperialist penetration, which the rats
themselves consign when they say, "with the concurrence of foreign
investment from various powers," contrary to what these revisionists
affirm, the semi-colonial character of our economy must be accentuated.
ANNEX II. 4
4. In VOZ
POPULAR, which we have previously cited in these notes, from February-March
1972, regarding the concurrence of foreign investment from the superpowers, at
that time from the USA and the revisionist Soviet Union and from other powers,
it says: