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Imperialism is not a policy

Submitted by mic (editor) on Tue, 2007-01-16 08:58

For the comrades of EKS, in particular.

Thank you very much for your leaflet, which was translated very well.

A discussion has arisen about a sentence where you say, approximately: “Imperialism is the natural policy adopted by any national state”. The discussion is about this “definition”, which is different from Lenin’s “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”. Pietrotskij and others argued imperialism is not a policy.

I argued that maybe it is a slight formal imprecision, in the context of a right position about the imperialist nature of all the actors in the region.

Can you precise a little bit your position?

Thanks again Leo. Continue with your political work in Turkey! We know it’s not easy.

‹ Comunismo Night Notes: New Monthly Workers Bulletin of the EKS ›

Comments

EKS leaflet

Submitted by devrim on Tue, 2007-01-16 09:46.

Hi mic,

We discussed this with the CWO via e-mail. In that correspondence we wrote:

“This said, we think it is also necessary to explain the description we used in our leaflet further detail. It is indeed very true that imperialist imperatives cannot be

changed, and perhaps “policy” might not be the best word (or the best translation as a matter of fact) we could have used. Policy seemed like the best word, but what we are actually saying, is that imperialism is capitalism, in a sense. After all, the economical infrastructure of the society determines every aspects of the socio-political superstructure of the ruling class. In that sense “policy” sounds right, but it is not a changeable policy, it is the nature of the socio-political superstructure of the ruling class, and every nation state, and even proto-states are imperialistic by their nature because their the economical infrastructure they have is capitalism. This is why we call it the “natural policy” instead of just calling it a policy.”

Just to add to this that the word used in the original Turkish does not have exactly the word, and that this leaflet has then been translated to Italian (I don’t know who by. You would have to ask Leo, but it certainly wasn’t by us-none of us speak Italian). I think that when you read our reply, and consider that this leaflet has been through two translation, the comrades may consider that it is more of a difference of expresion than a difference of opinion.

In solidarity,

Devrim

There is one point I would

Submitted by Leo Uilleann on Tue, 2007-01-16 19:18.

There is one point I would like to add to further clarify our position on whether imperialism is a “stage” or a “natural policy” / “natural political framework” of capitalism.

I think the fundamental point here is to see that if we are going to call imperialism a “stage” of capitalism, then we have to acknowledge that it is a global stage of which the bourgeoisie of the entire world is in and if we are going to call imperialism a “natural policy” or “natural political framework” we have to acknowledge that this policy or framework can’t be changed or broken by any bourgeois nation-state or proto nation-state and after this point, the whole thing becomes a semantics issue; more of a difference of expression than a difference of opinion as comrade Devrim said.

I understand very little Italian, from what I understood Pietrotskij says if any nation-state is imperialist and has always been, then there would not be a point in speaking of imperialism as a “stage” and the definition would contradict Lenin’s. Again, I may have misunderstood what he said, but I would like to suggest that this is a rather dogmatic conclusion. Capitalism has been changing since its emergence, and if we define imperialism as the nature of the capitalist economical infrastructure’s socio-political superstructure, then it would be obvious that with the infrastructure, the superstructure was also changing. Yet if we define imperialism as the nature of the capitalist economical infrastructure’s socio-political superstructure after a specific time, then it becomes a stage of capitalism. Therefore the difference is really semantical.