In a message dated 1/2/2011 12:12:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, _intangib...@aphenomenal.com_ (mailto:intangib...@aphenomenal.com) writes: Continuing on WL - HOWLER #2
Reply part C III. The era Lenin describes is part of the epoch of the industrial revolution; the continuation, expansion and quantitative growth of the industrial revolution as completion of the leap from agriculture to industry. In describing imperialism Lenin writes that "colonial policy and imperialism existed before this latest stage of capitalism, and even before capitalism." That is to say Karl Marx did in fact have a theory of imperialism based on his era, or rather a distinct economic juncture in the industrial revolution and the evolution of captial. This theory is expressed in his and Engels writings on Ireland and India and coining the "bourgeoisfication of the English working class." Marx theory of imperialism is of a new form of imperialism based on bourgeois property and driven by capital reproduction, which ushers in social revolution or a new mode of production. Quote "England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was unconscious tool of history in bringing about the revolution. .. . . England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia." (End quote) Marx's views - theory, on imperialism and the non-European world was published in the New York Daily Tribune (including the above). Lenin built upon Marx view in his description of the labor aristocracy. Lenin writes and speaks of a historically specific form of capital - financial-industrial capital and its political domination of the world. This form of capital arose in American 50 years before Lenin's "Imperialism." Lenin outlines his meaning in "Imperialism the last stage of capitalism." This financial-industrial capital Lenin outlines ultimately brought to an end the old world system of colonialism. This world that Lenin describes and defines no longer exists. This does not mean there is no longer a labor aristocracy but rather the financial-industrial imperialism has been sublated by modern finance capital dominated by speculative capital. Today's finance capital is not simply the export of finance capital, or rather the export of the capital relations based on financial instruments and financial architecture characterized as the buying up of raw material, government loans and productive capacity. Today finance capital is dominated by speculative finance buttressed by a new - post 1970's non-banking financial architecture. The flow of capital - money, through this new institution eclipses anything Lenin could have imagined. This does not means production no longer takes place on earth. Nor does it imply productive capital is not at work. Surplus value is still produced but the form of financial industrial capital has given way to speculative finance and a politically dominant form of capital increasingly detached from surplus value production. Nor does changes in the form of finance capital destroy the capital relation. Changes in the form of capital and finance occur in the context of growth of the productive forces. What destroys the capital relation or the system of bourgeois production of commodities is economic development or revolution in the means of production. Such is the case with all social systems. Our world is qualitatively different from the era of which Lenin writes and defines. The difference is qualitatively different means of production and the new emerging organization of labor corresponding to new means of production. IV. Goodbye Leninism as a doctrine means Good bye to the peasant question, most certainly in America and basically world wide as a salient feature of the class struggle. In defining Leninism and Lenin's contribution to Marxism and its development, Stalin devoid a chapter to the peasant question. American communists have no need for a doctrine of revolutionary combat based on the existence of a peasantry or as it is called the small producer or middle strata. This of course does not means there exists no peasants on earth. There is also the further evolution of the national question in its economic content, as presented by Lenin and summed up by Stalin. "The question is as follows: Are the revolutionary potentialities latent in the revolutionary liberation movement of the oppressed countries already exhausted, or not; and if not, is there any hope, any basis, for utilizing these potentialities for the proletarian revolution, for transforming the dependent and colonial countries from a reserve of the imperialist bourgeoisie into a reserve of the revolutionary proletariat, into an ally of the latter? Leninism replies to this question in the affirmative, i.e., it recognizes the existence of revolutionary capacities in the national liberation movement of the oppressed countries, and the possibility of using these for overthrowing the common enemy, for overthrowing imperialism. The mechanics of the development of imperialism, the imperialist war and the revolution in Russia wholly confirm the conclusions of Leninism on this score. Hence the necessity for the proletariat of the "dominant" nations to support-resolutely and actively to support-the national liberation movement of the oppressed and dependent peoples." (End quote) When Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin wrote of oppressed peoples and colonial countries they did not simply mean imperial entrapment, dependence of a political state or inequality within a system, but a specific system of direct colonialism. The national liberation movement has run their course as the salient feature of the revolutionary process. This social process called national liberation is an epochal movement with a prelude, first phase, middle and ending. In every area of earth today what directly face the proletarian masses is social revolution and the overthrow of bourgeois property. The first American Revolution opened this economic and political epoch, running 200 years. The liberation and unification of Vietnam fundamentally completes this epoch of history as a social motion. For instance the struggle of the masses in the historic black belt nation of America is not that of a middle strata or small producers but that of the proletariat and directly a struggle for the overthrown of bourgeois property rather than one for self determination or secession. Today the struggle for equality, or rather against inequality as nations and political states is directly a struggle for proletarian revolution and completing the leap to a new mode of production. This does not mean that the equality form of struggle has been exhausted on earth. The proletariat is not equal with itself and hence equality remains a very important and sharp form of struggle. Actually, the equality struggle - more THAN less IS the class struggle of the proletariat. Imperialist wars based on the existence of imperialist states or imperialist blocks in rivalry for colonies, at a specific stage of development of means of production and economic classes, is part and parcel of Lenin's description of the era of "imperialism and proletarian revolution." WWII was the last great imperialist war described by Lenin, with Germany seeking to recreate the closed colonial system in political antagonism to Soviet Power and American led financial imperialism. The imperialist states Lenin describes were locked into a struggle for redivision of an already divided world. Attached to these imperialist states and blocks were the hundred and millions of NON PROLETARIAN slaves of imperialism. This ECONOMIC characterization as a non-proletarian mass, the small producer as this small producer or middle strata - peasantry, develops from lingering economic, social and political feudal relations is gone. The wiping out of the small producer is the condition for the two great classes to stand face to face with nothing between them. Hence, the ECONOMIC CONTENT of the peasant question and national question. Quote "The October Revolution undoubtedly represented that happy combination of a "peasant war" and a "proletarian revolution" of which Marx wrote, despite all the "highly principled" chatterboxes. The October Revolution proved that such a combination is possible and can be brought about. The October Revolution proved that the proletariat can seize power and retain it, if it succeeds in wresting the middle strata, primarily the peasantry, from the capitalist class, if it succeeds in converting these strata from reserves of capital into reserves of the proletariat. In brief: the October Revolution was the first of all the revolutions in the world to bring into the forefront the question of the middle strata, and primarily of the peasantry, and the first to solve it successfully, despite all the "theories" and lamentations of the heroes of the Second International. That is the first merit of the October Revolution, if one may speak of merit in such a connection." The October Revolution and the Question of the Middle Strata November 7, 1923. J.V. Stalin The doctrine of combat based on the existence of the small producer - the peasantry, has been rendered fundamentally obsolete, most certainly in AMERICA. Where is the peasant population today that the proletariat at the front seeks to detach from imperialism as a reserve? This specific economic relation no longer exists as a defining attribute of the social revolution. Further, these imperialist blocks were organized based on the closed colonial system or the direct colony. The salient political feature corresponding to the economic features of the era Lenin characterizes was the colonial revolutions and national movements; their converging with and morphing into national liberation movements, and attempts at revolt and political revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. The doctrine of combat based on the closed colonial system has been rendered obsolete. Whether regional blocks emerge in the new era and wars take place based on these regional blocks is a wholly different question. These wars will not and cannot be riveted to a colonial world defined as the closed colonial system. Not the abolition of wars but the abolition of wars for the re-division of the world based on imperialist blocks constituted on the closed colonial system. I fundamentally disagree that we are still in the era Lenin describes as "imperialism and proletarian revolution." Such is my "revisionism." 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