>>> Jim heartfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/13/00 02:26AM >>>
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chris
Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>"Imperialism is as much our 'mortal' enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No
>Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with
>feudalism and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly
>capitalism."
And by the same token presumably, fascism is progressive compared with
democracy?!
If progression were merely the passage of time then everything that came
later would be superior to what went before. But Lenin's whole point is
that imperialism is a reactionary phase in which the advances of the
previous period are put into reverse. He calls it the era of 'stagnation
and decay', and while he allows that there will be some advances in
technology, he maintains that on balance it will be an epoch marked by
the reversal of democratic gains, principally consequent on the
subordination of small nations to the mature powers - like Sierra Leone.
______________
CBrown: In the world situation in the period of 1916 and following, imperialism had
reactionary and liberal sectors. Fascism was , generally, the dominant influence of
the reactionary sectors of imperialism.
We do have to update the analysis from 1916 based on many historical developments. But
it may still be valid to consider that imperialism has different wings and sectors.
Now there are special splits between more-national and more-transnational bourgeoisie.
Charles Brown
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