Nation > Class in Lenin on Imperialism.

One reason why J.A. Hobson’s (1902) Imperialism: A Study and Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) had such high status throughout the twentieth century — leaving aside influence due to Lenin (who cites Hobson generously) as a successful New Prince—, despite the passing of imperial state system they analyzed, is that they can both be read fruitfully as predicting (subaltern) decolonization. And, in particular, that decolonization would take on a nationalist tenor.

In Hobson this prediction is couched with some ambivalence. He explicitly embraces racial hierarchy; and he advocates a form of international federalism among the purportedly higher races. But he recognizes imperialism as an “attack upon the liberties and the existence of weaker or lower races [sic] stimulates in them a corresponding excess of national self-consciousness.” (p. 9) Now, this can be read as a warning against imperialism by predicting an unintended consequence of it not an advocacy of decolonial national independence. (Notice that use of ‘excess.’) That may be true, although Hobson sincerely thought (based on an environmental theory of human nature) that Europeans simply had no business settling in the tropics. Either way, his prediction was pretty clear: eventually European imperialism would unintentionally produce subaltern nationalism (no different in the way Napoleon had induced a reaction by way 19th century European nationalism).

In Chapter 9 of Lenin’s Imperialism, in the context of his polemic with Kautsky, Lenin reminds his reader of his own defense of the right of national self-determination. (I may have blogged about Lenin’s defense of this right in the distant past.) And it is quite clear that he, too, thinks that imperialism violates it: as he writes, “Particularly intensified [became] the yoke of national oppression and the striving for annexations, i.e., the violation of national independence (for [imperial] annexation is nothing but the violation of the right of nations to self-determination).” Lenin then adds, “Hilferding rightly notes the connection between imperialism and the intensification of national oppression.” Since in context, Hilferding is one of Lenin’s foils, this statement is especially notable. Lenin then quotes Hilferding approvingly more at length as follows:

In the newly opened-up countries…the capital imported into them intensifies antagonisms and excites against the intruders the constantly growing resistance of the peoples who are awakening to national consciousness; this resistance can easily develop into dangerous measures against foreign capital. The old social relations become completely revolutionised, the age-long agrarian isolation of ‘nations without history’ is destroyed and they are drawn into the capitalist whirlpool. Capitalism itself gradually provides the subjugated with the means and resources for their emancipation and they set out to achieve the goal which once seemed highest to the European nations: the creation of a united national state as a means to economic and cultural freedom. This movement for national independence threatens European capital in its most valuable and most promising fields of exploitation, and European capital can maintain its domination only by continually increasing its military forces.

So, for Lenin, then, imperialism/financial oligarch/monopoly capitalism causes both an intensification of local disagreements and nationalism in subjugated peoples. These, in turn, generate a revolutionary (or decolonial) process. And, strikingly, the decolonial process is aided by the presence of tools that are themselves the effect of imperialism. Think of the presence of military capability due to foreign Legions or the British Indian Army; the presence of an infrastructure that allows for national resistance, etc. The Master’s Tools threaten to take down his house. And as an effect of this, imperial rule becomes itself less profitable to imperial elites and the opportunity costs (in money and talent) greater.

In the next sentence, Lenin then makes a move that seems to be absent in Hobson: “To this must be added that it is not only in newly opened-up countries, but also in the old, that imperialism is leading to annexation, to increased national oppression, and, consequently, also to increasing resistance.” This seems to suggest that imperialism also rebounds on the imperial center where there are minorities who are renewed in their self-consciousness as nations. Presumably Lenin has in mind minority peoples in the Russian empire, but also in Austro-Hungarian (the many Slav peoples, etc.), the British (think of Irish), the French (Algeria), etc.

In the final tenth chapter, Lenin returns to this very theme. And, perhaps, expands on it. Here’s what he writes:

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.

Lenin is intimating here the possibility of a domestic revolution toward socialism as an effect of imperialism. This is a theme he has hinted at throughout the book. Now presumably this intensification involves class conflict. But it is notable he does not say that.

So, here’s where we are. It’s pretty clear that in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin foresees that decolonization will be nationalist (and centrifugal) in character. This is true of oversees empires and the great land-empire of Russia. But even where imperialism might lead to domestic/internal revolution it looks as if Lenin thinks nationalism has more (ahh) affective/unifying pull, that is, revolutionary potential, than class. This despite the fact that class conflict may well be one of the sparks that leads to revolt.