The Marxist conception of anti-imperialist struggle and the fact that it is not the same thing with national liberation struggle has been one of the least understood issues, resulting in many distortions. This controversial issue inevitably leads us to underline the importance of having a correct understanding of imperialism and particularly of its difference with colonialism. It has been long since first debates among Marxists over the question of imperialism took place at the beginning of twentieth century. But traces of different tendencies and some misconceptions that emerged in these debates can be felt even today despite the fact that so many events and important transformations took place in the meantime. For instance, a great majority of colonial countries that set the background for the debates on colonialism and national independence gained their national independence and established their own nation-states. However, no ideological and political clarity has been reached within Marxist ranks over these developments which occurred especially after the Second World War. The subject has been distorted in the sense that the kind of “dependence” based on unequal relationships of the imperialist system has been identified almost with the dependence of colonies to colonialist countries.

The natural outcome of that was a conception of the struggle the working class must wage against imperialism, namely anti-imperialism, as something different from the struggle for proletarian revolution. Those who hollow the Marxist content of anti-imperialist struggle reduced it to a kind of “national independence” struggle. Thus, a stage of “national independence” was erected in front of the working class even in those countries which, ceasing to be colonies, have founded their own states and begun developing on the basis of capitalism!

A Third World was invented as if to obscure the fact that imperialist capitalism is a world system consisting of capitalist countries at different levels of development. It was unfortunately not possible to accept this definition as a shortcut way of describing less developed capitalist countries (although it was also used for medium-developed ones!) as the problem was more complicated and the concept was not as innocent as it looked. Because there was a current called “third worldism”, and this current reduced the struggle for socialism to a kind of “independent national development” strategy. Those circles that adopted this version of Stalinism, promoted one section of the bourgeoisie in the so-called third world countries to the position of being anti-imperialist and busied themselves with “building” anti-imperialist fronts on this basis. And this was anti-imperialism in their view! Thus, a challenge from less-developed or medium-level capitalist countries against this or that imperialist country in order to get a better place in the table of harsh imperialist rivalry was considered as “anti-imperialism”. On the other hand, opposition of an oppressed nation’s bourgeoisie against colonialist states motivated by the desire of gaining political independence and a struggle within that scope, was promoted from the level of anti-colonialism to anti-imperialism.

Another false view put forward was as follows: “Imperialism was in fact based on colonial monopoly at the beginning of 20th century. Now that this reality has changed, we must have entered a new era of imperialism”! But expansionism of capitalism of the 20th century was already a new one compared to the preceding period. The concept of imperialism, in the sense of the highest stage of capitalism, did not define the colonialist period, but rather a new epoch characterized with incredible diffusion capability and great dominating economic power of finance capital. And this is not the whole story with the distortions! Independent nation-states which took a long way along capitalist development were declared as “semi-colonies” since they were dependent on major imperialist states. Or, even if the old colonialist era was over, since they were totally dependent on imperialism, less-developed capitalist countries were now “neo-colonies”. And imperialism was now “neo-colonialism”?!

What could be the concern of those circles that are not willing to give up this concept despite the fact that the period of colonialism ended? Why is the imperialist stage of capitalism still explained by such concepts that suggest the previous stage of capitalism despite a long way has been gone on the basis of imperialism? From the view point of Stalinism it is not difficult to find answers to these questions. Stalinist school of falsification is already notorious for its ability of fabricating every kind of stages erected on the road to the proletariat’s rule. But the worst is the lack of a sound attitude on these kinds of disputable subjects in the Trotskyist front which is expected to resist Stalinism with correct ideas. For instance, while colonialist empires were collapsing after the Second World War, the “contributions” of Ernest Mandel and some other Trotskyists alike who were trying to re-assess contemporary features of capitalism did not serve to clarify the issues. On the contrary, they fell behind even Lenin’s analyses in many issues, creating confusion on the fundamental political tasks of the working class in the imperialist epoch. So, they adapted themselves to petit-bourgeois nationalism in the so-called third world countries and national liberation struggles in these countries led by petit-bourgeois nationalist tendencies were presented as anti-imperialist struggles, just as the Stalinists did. Moreover, some of them were presented as the realization of proletarian revolution.

These are the main distortions and misconceptions created around the question of imperialism. Although they seem to be a matter of the past, these questions are still in front of us. Today, as it was in the past, the way of strengthening proletarian struggle for revolution lies in taking a correct Marxist position on every important question and clarifying our standpoint on that basis. We think that Lenin’s Imperialism analysis lays a fundamental starting point for theoretical struggle against confusions and misconceptions mentioned above. However both creators of these distortions and most of the advocates of misconceptions claim that they base themselves on Lenin! Therefore we must first lay bare clearly what we understand from Lenin’s analyses. While discussing on what the imperialist stage of capitalism exactly means, undoubtedly we cannot confine ourselves only to the facts of the past. We must not forget that Marxists in the debate on imperialism at the beginning of 20th century faced the task of foreseeing the tendencies of a new epoch which were not sufficiently mature at the time.

Colonialism was not a new phenomenon for them. Because, already in the period of mercantilist capitalism, commercial capital had coveted cheap raw material supplies of virgin lands of the world for gaining wealth. Powerful and leading states in world commerce were capturing these lands through colonialist wars, declaring these lands as their provinces of metropolitan countries and registering them with a position completely lacking political independence. On the other hand, the concept imperialism did not emerge in western languages at the beginning of 20th century. The roots of that concept went back to even Roman Empire; it was used in the sense of a general expansionism, a tendency of enlarging to a world empire. But, at the beginning of 20th century, question of imperialism which occupied Marxists’ minds and forced them to analyse it, emerged on the basis of new facts. For that reason, the difference between what the old meaning of the word imperialism suggested (tendency of forming an empire) and its new meaning (tendency of forming the empire of finance capital) had to be clarified.

However, at the beginning of this century imperialism was advancing on the basis of actual conditions determined by the facts inherited from the past. At that time, very large colonialist empires which especially arose by the conquests of colonies after 1870s were still on stage. But on the other hand, finance capital, which was a composition of monopolist banking capital and monopolist industrial capital, was gaining strength, and as a consequence of that a new kind of domination and expansionism was emerging. That was the reality of those years. It is unimaginable for Marxists of that period not to consider concrete conditions they were in, so it was inevitable for them to reflect this intermixed situation which was just the reality of that time in their analyses.

Lenin’s revolutionary Marxist theses aiming to understand the world in 20th century came to grips with complicated problems of a new historical epoch containing elements of the former. Although his imperialism analysis was developed to understand the new stage of capitalism, in some of his emphasises and formulations colonialism and imperialism appeared to intertwine. Although this may be regarded by some as faulty or causing confusion, it did not result from an essential misunderstanding of Lenin but from concrete conditions of that time. Under circumstances of an imperialist world war, in a world where colonies (countries which have not yet gained their political independence) and semi-colonies (countries which were in the process of loosing their independence) existed and expansion tendency of colonialist type was still effective, Lenin’s approach was correct.

As time passed, wars of major capitalist states for gaining new colonies or re-sharing the existing ones turned into imperialist wars waged to create new spheres of influence and to re-share them. Maturing of the imperialist stage of capitalism on the basis of its own characteristics laid bare that the essence of imperialist expansionism stands on not colonial monopoly, but establishing hegemony over less developed countries and areas. In the light of concrete facts we must emphasize that wars for national liberation of oppressed nations which have not political independence, so to say, their own nation state, are in fact a settling of accounts with the former colonialist period. As a matter of fact, after lots of colonial countries gained their political independence particularly after the Second World War, it was even clearer that the concept of liberation in imperialist epoch could not be restrained in the framework of a national independence question. In order to avoid a misunderstanding, we must add that national liberation struggles of the oppressed nations and colonies which have not gained their political independence yet still preserve their rightfulness as they were in the past periods. But in today’s world, “national question” is shaped directly on the basis of the characteristics of the imperialist stage of capitalism.

Pressure of powerful imperialist countries exerted on various nations, overthrow of governments in independent countries by military force, pitching of different countries against one another in regional imperialist wars, sharpening of national contradictions by imperialist forces are all burning realities of our epoch. Therefore it cannot be suggested that national question is now outdated or eliminated in the imperialist stage of capitalism. But on the other hand, we must not forget that here what we deal with is the national independence question of the oppressed nations without their own nation state and the wars for national liberation. If we talk about national inequalities at large, oppression, injustice, conflicts, it must be emphasized from the start that national question in that sense can only be resolved by the overthrow of capitalist system.

In imperialist epoch major capitalist forces do not need to colonize weaker nations, deprive them of political independence, of their own nation states in order to be able to subjugate them. Imperialist exploitation and hegemony mechanism fits quite well with the existence of politically independent nations with their own states. Suffice to have a look at the events in the second half of 20th century. For example, national independence obtained in former colonial countries did not disrupt imperialist system of exploitation at all. Likewise, national distinctions were stoked in regional wars incited for imperialist interests and nations once living under the same nation-state were pitched against one another, not to form new colonies in the end, but new nation-states within the spheres of influence of various imperialist states.

The justified endeavour to understand imperialist epoch in the light of all these concrete developments leads us to focus on Lenin’s works in which he tried to lay bare main tendencies of the new imperialist epoch of capitalism. Along this road we came to the basic conclusions that: 1) Imperialism is a world system based on the domination of finance capital. 2) Imperialism is not a new colonialist system, but a type of expansionism based on division and re-division of spheres of influences by international finance capital. From that point of view, it can be seen that Lenin’s analyses in regard to the essence of imperialism at the beginning of 20th century still enlightens us today.

It was the genius of revolutionary Marxist leaders like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky to identify and analyse the main tendencies of the future within the facts inherited from the past. However, it is our task to show the ability of not falling behind the point they achieved and adopt an insistent and determined position on that point. We must not forget that many set out with the intention to find out the nature of the imperialist epoch and revolutionary tasks of the working class in that epoch have lost their way in the middle of their journey and ended up being an ordinary third wordlist or sympathiser of national liberation struggles.

In order to take a Marxist attitude on questions like national independence, national self-determination, wars, and more important, anti-imperialism, we must have a correct understanding of imperialism. I believe this is also essential for examining the analyses of the Comintern Congresses on national question and colonies in Lenin’s period. For that reason, I will first deal with basic characteristics of the imperialist system and the changes in the transition period from colonialism to imperialism. And then I will deal with the points mentioned above.

Colonialist expansion and change

The word colony in European languages means place for settling in another country in order to tie it to the metropolitan country. And Colonialism means seizing new lands, colonialist expansion. Under capitalism, colonization was realized particularly in geographical discoveries and conquest of overseas lands in the period of commercial capitalism (mercantilism) between 16th and 18th century. This expansion rose above seizure of rich raw material supplies of colonized countries and settling surplus population of metropolitan countries to these new lands.

Particularly England, which managed to establish a vast colonial empire, secured a handsome accumulation of capital with this advantageous position in the free competition period of capitalism (second half of 18th century and 19th century). She performed a leap forward in industrial production and kept the superiority in world commerce for a long time. English capitalism, with no rivals throughout that period was self-confident about her position on the world market and was preparing to develop international economic relations on a new basis dependent on industrial investment. Therefore, some of the foremost English statesmen of that era began to consider expenses for opening up new colonies as unnecessary. As Lenin pointed out, as early as 1852 Disraeli had said “colonies are mill stones hanged down our necks”.

But by the last quarter of 19th century, England began to lose her superior position. Since other European countries following the English model (particularly Germany and France), developed by building their own protective tariffs and began competing with England. However, the advantages of England’s vast colonial empire enjoyed by English capitalism were at the same time great barriers to others. When other countries began to speed up in order to catch up in this capitalist competition, the world witnessed new colonial conquests in the last quarter of 19th century. Changing conditions means changing policies. As the competition among capitalist countries for obtaining new colonies became harsher, English statesmen sought different strategies that correspond to new conditions. They got away from the overconfident state of mind in which they felt themselves as the only and absolute rulers of the world. Thus they started again to give speeches on the virtue of colonization. In this context, Cecil Rhodes’ well known words in 1895 are remarkable:

… in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.[1]

When colonialist rivalry escalated, cunning English statesmen expressed their wish of “acquiring new lands” “to settle surplus population”, “to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines”. Although Rhodes said “if you want to avoid a civil war, you must become imperialist”, he used the term in the sense of expanding the old style empire of United Kingdom. This ambition was nothing but an expression of the age old colonialism.

Thus, capitalist countries feverishly divided the world by obtaining new colonies, while capitalist development enforced new needs such as capital export, new investments in colonies to enlarge the market, etc. As a matter of fact the tables[2] showing the rise of colonial conquests in the last quarter of 19th century in Lenin’s book Imperialism were very concrete indicators of how world was completely divided up territorially on the basis of colonialism. Lenin said:

For the first time the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only redivision is possible, i.e., territories can only pass from one “owner” to another, instead of passing as ownerless territory to an “owner”.[3]

Colonialist expansion required seizure and colonization of new lands beyond national borders. Colonization was based on open political annexation, i.e. eliminating the oppressed nation’s right of independent political and legal existence. This way, the colonialist country gets hold of economic, political, legal, military, and every kind of executive rights on the colonized country. And that meant an absolute monopoly right of the ruling country on the ruled one. It was impossible for any other country to claim similar rights or obtain economic advantages alike on that territory unless the colony changed its master. It was through political annexation, colonization, to have rights on other countries’ economy or politics. But expansionism of capitalism would not go on in that manner forever. As capitalism developed, by nature, relationships of ruling would also have to change.

Capitalism’s progress towards monopolization caused the geographically smaller “world” dominated by commercial relations among certain regions to leap to a new and higher dimension. Imperialist stage of capitalism meant a new epoch in which industrialization rose to a tremendous level and capitalism turned into a world system literally. Relatively one dimensional commercial relationships of the former period left their place to the complex relations of monopolist powers which performed astounding leaps in capital accumulation. In order to establish new economic relations, finance capital groups from different countries needed to cross beyond borders of not only independent nation states, but also colonies belonging to this or that ruling country and to flow into new markets. Crashing down all barriers in front of it, finance capital began to flow into every area, region and country that seemed profitable. Days were gone now when only one country ruled supreme and thus the state of absolute monopoly peculiar to colonialist period was gradually disintegrating.

In imperialism period it was no more possible for a capitalist country to preserve an absolute monopoly on all investment fields of any region or country because of the high level competition among big monopolies and the complex relationship among finance capital groups. In order to outpace others in competition, capitalist countries gaining power on the basis of imperialist relations were to gain skill in trickery to weaken or eradicate the colonialist advantages of rival countries. For instance, they would go so far as to support national independence struggles in their rivals’ colonies while continuing to claim their rights in their own colonies. In fact, it is no wonder they did that, unless it did constitute a threat for the capitalist system –that is, unless national struggles in colonial countries developed towards a workers’ uprising. They were confident that a country liberated from the colonial statute and formed its nation-state had to knock on their door when it comes to building the economy.

Of course these kinds of transformations cannot occur overnight, which is the dialectics of every transformation. Those colonialist countries standing on the advantages of the colonialist period in search of getting a powerful position on the basis of imperialist expansionism never willingly give up their advantageous position. However, no one can resist the main direction of progress in the long run. And laws of dialectics worked in the transition period from colonialism to imperialism through numerous structural turbulences and national uprisings in colonial countries.

Formation of monopolies and transition period to imperialism

Transformation of the tendency of capitalist expansionism from colonialism to imperialism involves a certain historical process. In the last period of this process a huge quantitative expansion in capitalist colonization is observed because of the reasons mentioned above. Thus, those years of formation of imperialist expansionism appear as if the peak of colonialist expansionism. This was just a transition period. Now let us briefly deal with this period.

At the end of the period called free competition capitalism, a transition era (1870-1900) took place in which competition led to monopolization and thus capitalism moved forward towards the imperialist stage. The need of leading industrialised capitalist countries rivalling each other for cheap raw material supplies was incredibly increasing in this transition period. Therefore the transition period from colonialism to imperialism was accompanied by a colonialist leap in which those capitalist countries expanded their colonial territories and divided the world on that basis.

On the other hand capital exports from developed capitalist countries to colonies and semi-colonies became important. Leading capitalist countries began to construct the necessary substructure (like railways) for reducing transportation costs for the manufactured goods they produced and the raw materials they imported from others, also in a drive to develop the world commerce as much as possible. Those years were not the imperialist period itself, in which dominance of finance capital put its remark on the world, but rather a period of preparation and fermentation for it. Lenin did not agree with those assessments presenting 1870s as the beginning of imperialism: “For Europe, the time when the new capitalism definitely superseded the old can be established with fair precision; it was the beginning of the twentieth century.”[4]

Between 1870 and 1900 when developed capitalist countries expanded their colonies, formations like monopolist associations and cartels were not widespread despite having showed an important progress. Lenin tried to expose the transformation of capitalism to imperialism with its main turning points:

Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: (1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. (2) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. (3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.[5]

After examining the formation process of the finance capital through the fusion of banking capital with industrial capital, Lenin concluded: “Thus, the twentieth century marks the turning-point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital.”[6]

However, first years of 20th century were pregnant with storms which would not allow one to concentrate on the economic analysis of this new capitalism which would continuously rise throughout this century. For instance, debates on the attitude of communists against the First World War indispensably became a matter of primary importance. In debates of the revolutionary Marxists the question of colonies gained importance which was put on the agenda by the war of re-division of the world. Because of the concrete conditions of that period, the foresights regarding the end of the war put emphasis on matters like a shift in the possession of existing colonies and complete colonization of the semi-colonies. Between 1876 and 1900, while Germany, Italy and France were gaining new colonies in order to compete against colonialist England in the same line, world became divided up territorially. The result of the competition on this basis could only be re-division of already divided lands, so to say, to covet each others’ colonies and to colonize those countries that had drifted to the position of semi-colonies. This reflects one aspect of the reality of that period, though a striking one.

These were indeed burning questions of that period and also subjects of the theoretical struggle Lenin carried out against the social-chauvinist trend in the Second International. Kautsky’s “ultra-imperialism” analysis included the lie that capitalism’s new stage might bring an end to wars and open a new epoch of a “peaceful capitalism”. Furthermore, these views were expressed by Kautsky, a man regarded as the Pope of Marxism once upon a time, just at a time when the First World War broke out, in the middle of bloody wars waged for re-dividing colonies.

Ideological struggle against those who spread dreams about “peaceful capitalism” in the middle of hot wars was crucial. Therefore, there is nothing incomprehensible in Lenin’s overemphasis on the question of “colonial conquests” which were the realities of that period. For similar reasons, answers to the burning political questions of the day and the analysis of main tendencies of the imperialist epoch are mingled in Lenin’s Imperialism. However, while stating fundamental characteristics of imperialist stage capitalism has risen with the beginning of 20th century, Lenin drew attention to the most important points. We can emphasize those as; 1) capitalist monopolist associations, 2) fusion of banking and industrial capital, 3) capital exports to foreign countries, 4) that the world has already been divided up, 5) beginning of the division of spheres of influence of the world among international economic trusts.

Imperialism and importance of capital export

Lenin drew attention to the fact that capital exports were gradually increasing their importance, in order to distinguish imperialist epoch of capitalism from the free competition period: “Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway, was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital.”[7]

Indeed, the shift in the content of the export from developed capitalist countries to underdeveloped regions and colonies in Lenin’s period was very striking. It was inevitable that this new capitalist stage –which would become evident with the export of capital– would transform the colonialist relations of the former period. It is possible for the capital to squeeze more profits in backward countries compared to the developed capitalist countries. Wages, cost of raw materials and rent are lower in backward countries. But in order to realize capital flow into these countries, a substructure has to be founded which will make industrial investments possible in colonial and semi-colonial countries. It is simply because the goal of capital exporters is not getting rid of their “surplus capital”, but rather finding out the most profitable areas for investment, turning this potential expectation into a reality.

A preliminary preparation period of that kind was experienced as early as the last quarter of 19th century especially in colonies and semi-colonies of Asia. First of all, a transportation network was created to link these colonies and semi colonies to the world market. These countries were covered with railways thanks to the exported capital from developed capitalist counties. That was not all, of course. Economic relations based on industrial export of goods from colonialist countries to their colonies and import of cheap raw materials in return from them, gradually changed and deepened. Since, it is not possible in the imperialist stage for developed industrial countries to be content with one dimensional relationships peculiar to the colonialist period. By 20th century, as exported capital accelerated the capitalist development in backward countries, these former colonial countries gradually became more favourable for integration to capitalist market.

When the huge dimensions of extended capitalist reproduction process is compared with the former periods, it is not hard to see why imperialist forces feel a passionate need to extend the area of modern capitalist production. Long time ago, based on the Indian case which was colonized by English empire Marx said that capitalist development in colonies was indispensable. In the colonialist period, major capitalist countries destroyed patriarchal manufacture industries in these countries and made them dependent on their manufactured goods, whereas in the imperialist period, they had to export some “industrialization” to some extent to the colonial countries. For new areas to join capitalist world market, simple commercial relations of the former period would by no means be sufficient any more.

Imperialist period brought about a kind of capitalist development in the colonies and semi-colonies, which proceeded on the basis of unequal interests and determined by the needs of major capitalist states. Even if they could not catch up with the developed capitalist countries, colonies and semi-colonies of the former period took a long way compared to their level of development in the colonialist period. Regions and countries where capital exports were concentrated did not go back compared to the former period. On the contrary, most of the old colonial countries which finance capital did not see as profitable and therefore did not invest in remained behind others. It is obvious that these explanations do not suit the interests of so-called anti-imperialist “national capitalism (!)” supporters who regard imperialism as insidious policies of developed countries aimed to “retard” backward countries. But this is the reality. Combined and uneven development! Thus, within the accelerating tempo of development in capitalist relations, old colonial countries -especially the ones which have important and rich sources like India- begun to be integrated into capitalist system in time. Most of African countries have gone through this process very lately; especially after the Second World War it became more evident.

Imperialism exposed itself in its full essence particularly after the Second World War in 20th century, though all clues were given in the analysis of Marx in Capital and were subject to the assessments of revolutionaries like Lenin in the following periods. Capital export is an inseparable part of imperialism today as it was in the beginning of 20th century, though of course on a much more gigantic scale. Since, huge capital accumulation, emerging as a result of the tendency of concentration and centralization in developed capitalist countries, reveals itself in a burning “surplus capital”. This “surplus capital” has to pass through national borders and be exported in order to find out a profitable area for investment. Main factor in its emergence is not exhaustion of possibilities of investment on a national scale, nor a saturation of domestic market to all kinds of goods. We know that the ambition of capitalists is not to satisfy the needs of the masses. The sole factor motivating capital is the desire of obtaining a higher profit rate. On this basis, capital tends to flow out to areas or countries which seem more profitable. Therefore the most distinctive feature of imperialism is the movement of a huge amount of capital among developed capitalist countries or from developed to semi or underdeveloped ones –or to some extent the reverse.

Imperialism is the international expansionism of finance capital

Colonialism was the tendency to seize new lands, annex them in order to yoke them completely to the metropolitan country in both political and legal sense. So to say, this concept was used in the sense of appropriation of political rights, politic annexation, and elimination of political independence of the country which is under domination. But the world empire of finance capital, in fact means economic annexation; establishment of hegemony over weaker countries, and, on this basis, creation of spheres of influence under imperialist powers’ control. Land annexation and colonialist expansion continued to survive in the beginning of finance capital epoch which we call imperialism. In the First World War which broke out in this period, powerful capitalist states forced toiling masses to slaughter one another for not only creating spheres of influence in imperialist style, but also for the sake of seizing colonies of their rivals and obtaining new ones. Both sides of this reality take their place in Lenin’s explanations on that period. Besides the tendency of subjugating weak countries through imperialist methods, colonialist annexations did also take place and this aggression of major capitalist powers characterized initial period of 20th century. But as years passed, old colonies gained their political independence one after another because of both the increasing pressure of national liberation wars and the dominant nature of finance capital which is indispensably superior to colonial monopoly on this or that country. Thus, although former glorious colonialist empires on which “the sun never set” disappeared, imperialism neither disappeared nor changed its nature.

Thus, it is not correct to equate imperialism with colonialist expansion and therefore suggest new concepts in order to describe the world after the Second World War when the colonialist empires collapsed. The reality that some try to describe with the concept “neo-colonialism” indeed has nothing new, but it is just the imperialist-capitalist system that financially subordinated underdeveloped and medium-developed capitalist countries to itself.

Lenin made it clear that it was the question of imperialism that had to be primarily dealt with and analysed during the preparatory discussions of the new party programme in October 1917. He drew attention to important points in his draft programme. He criticized Sokolnikov’s draft which defined imperialism as division of world on the basis of land. “The struggle for colonies (for "new lands"), and the struggle for "the possession of territories of weaker countries", all existed before imperialism” says Lenin and continues:

The distinguishing feature of imperialism is something quite different, something which did not exist before the twentieth century—the economic partitioning of the world among international trusts, the partitioning of countries, by agreement, into market areas. This particular point has not been expressed in Comrade Sokolnikov's draft, the power of imperialism is, therefore, represented as much weaker than it really is.[8]

What is essential in the imperialist epoch is the economic power of major capitalist states that enables them to subordinate even politically independent countries. Giant monopolies and financial groups, which are the distinguishing features of that epoch, compete with each other in order to penetrate this or that country’s market’ and share the cake according to their power. Imperialist competition is not for division of the world with respect to land as it was during the colonialist era, but for a division of spheres of influence in which finance capital will easily operate.

Debt mechanism has an important role in the operation of imperialist domination. Therefore, “unlike British colonial imperialism, French imperialism might be termed usury imperialism”[9] said Lenin. Since, the important part of French foreign capital investments was composed of state loans to European countries and especially to Russia. This is not a detail, but a striking fact characterizing imperialist period. And just for that reason, on French experience, Lenin pointed out that capitalism which had begun with small usury ended up in the biggest usury. Germany’s position in comparison with colonialist England was sufficiently exposing the essentials of imperialist epoch: “If Germany’s trade with the British colonies is developing more rapidly than Great Britain’s, it only proves that German imperialism is younger, stronger and better organised than British imperialism, is superior to it”.[10] Lenin drew attention to the fact that Germany’s colonies were less in number, and capital flowing out from Germany to foreign countries was equally balanced between Europe and America. In the imperialist epoch, strength was not to be sought in colonial invasion but in the capacity of finance capital to penetrate other regions.

This reality came out to light by the end of the First World War and began to mark the new era. A young country, the USA, where capitalism developed with lightning speed, was a new power which arose not on the basis of colonialist rivalry but directly on a new basis, that is, expansionism of finance capital on a world scale. While European countries were fighting one another for the colonies, USA embraced these European countries with the power of finance capital, began to rise among others, and thus came to the front as the hegemonic power of the imperialist world.

Although this process was not so clear at the beginning of 20th century, we can see that Lenin noted fundamental facts characterizing the new period. In the final analysis, it is the strength of capital that will determine the division of the world among imperialist states. This fact was emphasized by Lenin through a quotation from a leading news paper of American multimillionaires: “The war in Europe is being waged for world domination. To dominate the world two things are needed: dollars and banks. We have the dollars, we shall make the banks and we shall dominate the world.”[11]

Capitalism, having risen to the stage of imperialism, tries to overcome the contradiction between internationalization of the productive forces and nation-state form by expansionism of finance capital. In Bukharin’s words, “finance capital is the most penetrating form of capital in need of filling every void.” Finance capital continues to exploit the world in a more extensive and intensive way unless the imperialist-capitalist system is overthrown. Thus, even the most remote corners of the world are drawn in to imperialist-capitalist system and economic relations are deepened among imperialist states.

“Dependence” question in the imperialist epoch

The concept of colonial country refers to countries lacking political independence and directly depended on metropolitan country in political-legal terms. Metropolitan country has the complete right of sovereignty and the colonial country is absolutely dependent in politics, economy, diplomacy, military affairs, etc. And the concept semi-colony is only meaningful in comparison with the colonial status. It describes the countries which are in the middle of the road to being colonized, nearly at the point of losing political independence (for example, countries like Turkey, Iran, China at the beginning of 20th century).

But we know that in the imperialist epoch finance capital managed to take even independent countries economically under its yoke. However, in the period when Lenin made his analyses, finance capital could find the biggest “comfort” in the lack of political independence of these countries. Therefore while the First World War was still on, Lenin was right in drawing attention to this matter:

In this respect, the semi-colonial countries provide a typical example of the "middle stage". It is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries should have become particularly bitter in the epoch of finance capital, when the rest of the world has already been divided up.[1]

During the first imperialist division war, the struggle for capturing these semi-dependent countries became sharpened as Lenin mentioned. But the same period also witnessed a rise in national liberation struggles and the proletarian October revolution. In short, the course of events was not in complete accordance with the rivalry among imperialists or their plans. Imperialists were compelled to reconsider their plans at a time when Tsarist Russia collapsed, a workers’ government was founded and this government extended its hand to the oppressed nations and national liberation struggles. Imperialist forces were terrified to observe that a struggle begun as a national liberation struggle turned into a social liberation struggle under the inspiration of victorious Soviet proletariat. From then on a change in colonial countries within the confines of gaining political independence would be seen as lesser evil. In the following years decolonization tendency that already existed in the own nature of imperialist development provoked colonial countries to gain their political independence and take their places among other nation states.

It is not an absolute necessity for imperialist powers to colonise weaker countries for them to have a free hand in pursuing their economic, political, military interests across the world. As a matter of fact, Lenin did not consider the need for re-division of the world on the basis of monopolies’ cutthroat competition solely in the sphere of colonization. In Lenin’s analysis, the important aspect was his emphasis on finance capital’s octopus arms having a grip on even politically independent countries:

Capitalism has developed concentration to such a degree that entire branches of industry have been controlled by syndicates, trusts and associations of capitalist multi-millionaires, and almost the entire globe has been divided up among the “lords of capital” either in the form of colonies, or by entangling other countries in thousands of threads of financial exploitation..[2]

By the end of the First World War, main tendency of imperialist epoch began to expose itself more evidently. Countries politically independent, but economically and diplomatically dependent on imperialist countries were increasing in number. Lenin himself also pointed out this tendency of imperialist epoch. For instance, while he was telling about various forms of dependency, he mentioned financially and diplomatically dependent countries apart from colonial and semi colonial countries:

Since we are speaking of colonial policy in the epoch of capitalist imperialism, it must be observed that finance capital and its foreign policy, which is the struggle of the great powers for the economic and political division of the world, give rise to a number of transitional forms of state dependence. Not only are the two main groups of countries, those owning colonies, and the colonies themselves, but also the diverse forms of dependent countries which, politically, are formally independent, but in fact, are enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence, typical of this epoch. We have already referred to one form of dependence — the semi-colony. An example of another is provided by Argentina.[3]

Two concrete examples Lenin dealt with within this context are Argentina and Portugal. Both of these countries were politically independent, but financially dependent on England. In this case, there is no material basis to talk about a colonial status anymore. If they are still likened to a colony, this would be a groundless analogy. Finance capital is already the modern prince able to subjugate even politically independent countries, intervene in their interior affairs, secure its own oligarchic interests through various diplomatic and military impositions. The Portugal example Lenin gave in his book Imperialism, indicates that he did not only consider colonial type of dependence, but more importantly the imperialist type of dependence which would mark the 20th century:

Portugal is an independent sovereign state, but actually, for more than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), it has been a British protectorate. Great Britain has protected Portugal and her colonies in order to fortify her own positions in the fight against her rivals, Spain and France. In return Great Britain has received commercial privileges, preferential conditions for importing goods and especially capital into Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports and islands of Portugal, her telegraph cables, etc., etc. Relations of this kind have always existed between big and little states, but in the epoch of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form part of the sum total of "divide the world" relations and become links in the chain of operations of world finance capital.[4]

The tendency to colonize can in no way be a general rule in the imperialist epoch. Sometimes it can be more profitable for imperialists to recognise political independence of small nations. As a matter of fact Lenin drew attention to this fact. Intelligent leaders of imperialism think that it is a “more reliable and profitable choice to create politically independent states” for subjugating small nations. But the same leaders also emphasize plainly that: “‘We’ will of course do our best for their financial dependence!”[5] Besides the fact that the distinction between these two became much more easily comprehensible in the following years, Lenin was farsighted enough to try to explain this difference between colonialism and imperialism. He says “economic ‘annexation’ is fully ‘achievable’ without political annexation and is widely practised.” He explains the mechanism it is based on:

The American trusts are the supreme expression of the economics of imperialism or monopoly capitalism. They do not confine themselves to economic means of eliminating rivals, but constantly resort to political, even criminal, methods. It would be the greatest mistake, however, to believe that the trusts cannot establish their monopoly by purely economic methods. Reality provides ample proof that this is “achievable”: the trusts undermine their rivals' credit through the banks (the owners of the trusts become the owners of the banks: buying up shares); their supply of materials (the owners of the trusts become the owners of the railways: buying up shares); for a certain time the trusts sell below cost, spending millions on this in order to ruin a competitor and then buy up his enterprises, his sources of raw materials (mines, land, etc.)..[6]

Afterwards Lenin says, “There you have a purely economic analysis of the power of the trusts and their expansion.” These statements are also an answer to those who try to describe imperialism with false concepts like “neo-colonialism”. Those who define a system in which imperialist powers dictate their political terms and military plans to weak countries thanks to their economic power as “a kind of colonialism” blur the question to say the least, if they are not ill-intentioned. To address the question on the basis of “colonialism” is still to regard the dependency of weak nation states on powerful ones as a question of “national independence”. Yet, most of the former colonial countries have gained their political independence, which laid bare the fact that the essential dependence is the economic one. And this is just what world capitalist system is; there can be no isolated capitalist country without economic dependence on the system.

Therefore, there is no scientific ground in equating this economic dependency of imperialist epoch and political dependency of the colonialist period. Gaining political independence is not in conflict with the operation of capitalist system. On the contrary, powerful capitalist countries make all these politically independent countries dependent on themselves through every kind of economic mechanisms. This dependence, however, is an inter-dependence on unequal terms which is inherent in the operation of capitalist system as a whole. Under capitalism it is impossible to escape from this dependence. And what is more important, it is utterly false to assert that less or medium developed capitalist countries must struggle for national liberation as the colonies and the semi-colonies did once upon a time by asserting economic dependence as an excuse.

Imperialism rises above monopolist competition

Hilferding defined finance capital as “banking capital turned into industrial capital”. Lenin found this definition somewhat incomplete, and he mainly drew attention to the monopolies and their formation:

This definition is incomplete insofar as it is silent on one extremely important fact — on the increase of concentration of production and of capital to such an extent that concentration is leading, and has led, to monopoly. But throughout the whole of his work, and particularly in the two chapters preceding the one from which this definition is taken, Hilferding stresses the part played by capitalist monopolies. The concentration of production; the monopolies arising therefrom; the merging or coalescence of the banks with industry — such is the history of the rise of finance capital and such is the content of that concept.[18]

One of the most striking characteristics of capitalism, as it was proceeding towards the imperialist stage, was the concentration of industrial capital in bigger companies with a high speed. Similarly, banking capital was also being concentrated in a small number of large-scale financial institutions. Thus, banks became huge monopolies controlling an important part of a certain country’s or many countries’ raw material sources and productive forces besides the money-capital of other capitalists and small businessmen. In this process, banking capital and industrial capital fused into a growing unity. Banks turned into international associations governing finance capital. As a principal characteristic of imperialist stage of capitalism, monopolies gained a decisive importance.

As Marx pointed out a long time ago, quantitative concentration of monopolies in industrial and banking sectors caused a qualitative transformation and gave birth to a new combination of capital, i.e. finance capital. In mercantilist and free competitive periods of capitalism, revealing itself as commercial and industrial capital respectively, capital created monopolist finance capital as a consequence of competition. It is competition that creates monopolies. But existence of monopolies in no way eliminates competition. So, it is not right to deal scholastically with monopolies and competition as if they exclude each other. Within the dialectics of capitalist development, monopoly and competition form a unity in which these two contradict each other but also exist together. Competition creates monopoly; but the effort of overcoming competition through monopolization does not eliminate it. On the contrary, this carries it to a higher level, so to say, creates competition among monopolies.

If we think it through for a moment, the final point that kind of movement tends to reach in its own dialectics would be a situation of an “absolute monopoly” that excludes competition. But this means a negation of relations of capitalist production based on private property. As a matter of fact, Marxist analysis of imperialist epoch indicates this course the highest stage of capitalism heads to. Centralization and concentration of capital, that is, the quantitative development of monopolization, increasingly enforces a qualitative transformation. Capitalist production process, originally organized on the basis of private property of capitalists on the means of production, turned into a process that is organized on a world scale by huge international capital groups as a result of the growth and monopolization of joint stock companies. The dimensions of monopolization and growth of socialization of production become enormous as the epoch of imperialism proceeds, which means that capitalism rapidly moves towards a point where it negates its very essence. Undoubtedly, this Marxist analysis points to the main tendency of monopolist development of capitalism, its course and the need of replacing it with communism. But capitalism will not leave its place to communism by a natural evolution. For this qualitative transformation to take place, world capitalist system must be overthrown by proletarian revolutions.

Monopolist progress of capitalism at the same time causes organization of production to acquire a global character that cannot be confined to national borders any more. Lenin makes this point: “Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism, reached only in the twentieth century. Capitalism now finds the old nation states, without whose formation it could not have overthrown feudalism, are too cramped for it.”[19]

But we must emphasize one important point here. It was Marx himself who pointed out that capitalist mode of production has the inner characteristic of uneven and combined development; that concentration and centralization of capital in certain hands indispensably leads to monopolization; that this course of capitalism can in no way reconcile with narrow borders of nation-state form; that capitalism would find various ways out unless it is not overthrown. But is not that imperialism?

For us, of course it is. Nevertheless, according to the Stalinist school of falsification which reduces Marx’s profound analyses on capitalist mode of production to a “theory of the period of free competition capitalism” with a sleight of hand, Marx knew nothing about this course of capitalism! It was Lenin who analyzed these facts, discovered the law of uneven and combined development, and consequently established the theory of imperialism! These hollow assertions of Stalinism clouded the facts muddling the consciousness of so many people for many years in the name of a so-called Marxism. But Lenin, who took it as a virtue to try to be a good disciple of Marx, wrote in his book Imperialism:

Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a "natural law". Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. Economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that "Marxism is refuted". But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not.[20]

The concept of world economy occupies a very important place in all analyses of the founders of Marxism, starting from the early but basic works like the German Ideology or the Communist Manifesto. World economy increasingly reveals itself in the imperialist stage of capitalism. Therefore, it has been a necessity to conceive all of the elements of capitalist mode of production (forces of production, relations of production, division of labour, production and division of surplus value, markets, formation of prices) not on a national scale anymore, but on an international scale. All of the concepts such as globalization, which is quite popular nowadays, indeed describe the latest phase of capitalism that has been reached in 20th century and we still live in, that is to say, the age of finance capital rule, which we simply call imperialism.

For instance, monopolistic mergers that appear as an inevitable outcome of sharpening of competition at an increasingly higher level by the monopolist drive cannot only occur within national borders. International formation of capital is a very contradictory process pregnant with various crises. On the one hand capital cannot completely avoid the need to lean on a nation state because of both historical roots of its formation and its search for a safe shelter. But on the other hand, existence of capital groups from different countries which undertake huge investments in company is a concrete fact. Besides, it is a necessity for capital groups which face trouble during periods of big crises to seek for some more powerful “foreign” partners, vindicating the principle that capital has no fatherland. Monopoly capitalism means monopolist marriages. And in these kinds of marriages, the important matter is not the nationality of the “bride” or “groom”, but rather economic interests.

Let us assume that a more powerful American monopoly merges with a relatively weakened English monopoly in the energy sector. Even if there is an inequality in this marriage, they undersign the birth of a multi-national monopoly at a higher level. The fact that every capital group resting on a nation state in regard to their origin calls its nation state for help when they get into trouble is just a revelation of the contradictory character of capitalism in its imperialist stage. Both mergers and fights! Both the need for shelter under nation states’ wings, and mergers disregarding nationality with the efforts of overcoming restricted borders of the nation state! So, in spite of the tendency of capital to integrate, there is no abstract international capital free of national divides, flying over the clouds as if completely broken off from the states in the world. But in a contradictory process as we pointed out and as a result of multidimensional economic relations, powerful finance capital groups gain more of an international character than standing on a single nation-state.

Imperialism is the domination of finance capital

In the preface he wrote in 1920 for his book Imperialism, Lenin explained that capitalism turned into a world system in which a handful of “advanced countries” were financially strangling and oppressing a great majority of world population. Imperialism is indeed a system in which powerful capitalist countries dictate various economic terms to weaker countries and oppress them by different means. Tendency of capitalism to grow into a world economy realised itself particularly in the era of the rule of finance capital that gained an international character.

Imperialism is the empire of finance capital. Finance capital is superior to all other forms of capital and therefore a handful of major capitalist states which are powerful in finance capital are in a superior position to all other capitalist countries. In the imperialist period superiority reveals itself in the dominant and monopolist position of powerful finance capital groups in markets. However, in the foreword he wrote to Buharin’s work Imperialism and World Economy, dated 1915, Lenin defines the new ruler of 20th century as follows:

Finance capital took over as the typical “lord” of the world; it is particularly mobile and flexible, particularly interknit at home and internationally, and particularly impersonal and divorced from the production proper; it lends itself to concentration with particular ease, and has been concentrated to an unusual degree already, so that literally a few hundred multimillionaires and millionaires control the destiny of the world.[21]

Being peculiarly mobile and flexible, this contemporary emperor carried on operating as peculiarly intertwined at home and internationally even after colonies and semi-colonies once under its rule gained their political independence. Different from the former modest industrial capitalists, major banking-industrial monopolies, controlling unbelievable amounts of finance capital assets did not need to focus their interest on particular factories or enterprises in the production process. In the final analysis, it is obvious that finance capital can only expand itself by investing on the production process and extracting surplus value in this process. But finance capitalists, controlling finance capital funds, laid the path for channelling huge amounts of profits to their coffers without taking place, even as supervisors, in production process any more. “Divorced from the immediate processes of production,” as Lenin said, emperors of finance capital focused on ways and methods of developing their global domination by transferring the work of organizing and supervision to well-paid professional managers.

To sum up; imperialism is the system of capitalist exploitation which is crowned by the domination of finance capital and is essentially embodied in the international expansionism of finance capital. The quality of imperialism has not been changed by the national liberation struggles that resulted in achievement of national independence in former colonial countries during the course of imperialist stage of capitalism. On the contrary, it indicates strikingly that what is crucial is the drive for economic hegemony in imperialist epoch. At present capitalism is a world system that is realized in a single world market embracing all capitalist countries no matter big or small, including also the countries which entered the road to capitalism with the collapse of Stalinist bureaucratic regimes. It develops in an uneven but combined manner on the basis of international division of labour and reproduces the interdependence on unequal terms.

Inseparable part of imperialist epoch: Wars for hegemony

Because of capital’s need for overcoming national barriers in the imperialist epoch, monopolist competition has an international dimension. Major capitalist states compete with each other to establish their domination over sales markets, raw material markets and capital investment areas. Even if this competition is possible to carry on in a relatively peaceful manner in periods of boom, it becomes impossible in periods of big and deep crises. In such periods, struggle among imperialist states for hegemony over spheres of influence may turn into open wars for division. Imperialist wars are nothing more than continuation by military means of the policy of rivalry among imperialists. Therefore, it is false to immerse oneself in the forms of this competition among capitalist groups which may be peaceful one day and the opposite on the other, rather than trying to analyse the content of it.

Even if imperialist states and different capital groups are in intricate relations internationally, it is a unity in rivalry. Thus, in some periods when the rivalry becomes heated, a tendency towards arming and wars emerges in the imperialist countries. If important changes occur in existing economic balance of power and the hegemony crisis deepens, imperialist powers may have to carry on their world policy through arms in order to settle their accounts.  

The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits. And they divide it "in proportion to capital", "in proportion to strength", because there cannot be any other method of division under commodity production and capitalism.[22]

While laying bare the tendencies characterizing the imperialist epoch, Lenin was insistently struggling against the claims that capitalism would gradually arrive at a “peaceful” operation. For instance, acting in an attempt to be a mentor for imperialists, Kautsky (ancestor of the present day renegades) says, “The urge of capital to expand ... can be best promoted, not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by peaceful democracy”.[23] Nevertheless, imperialist wars, militarism, violent methods accompanying the re-division of the world, all these are indispensable parts of the imperialist epoch. For that reason, those like Kautsky who consider imperialism as one of the policies –only a policy of oppression and violence- of finance capital and not an inherent necessity, must be politically condemned.

Kautsky concluded that a “peaceful capitalism was possible” due to the trend of increasing international mingling among finance capital cliques. He arrived at this conclusion from his “ultra-imperialism” analysis which suggested that monopolist associations would create a single world trust preventing competition and crises. But Lenin tried to expose that competition and crises are re-created at higher levels through formation of capitalist monopolist associations. It was a dangerous dream in bare conflict with the realities to think that imperialism would be a “peaceful” epoch of expansion. Lenin defined imperialism not as a form of “policy”, but as just the modern capitalism itself. He underlined that oppression and violence were inseparable parts of imperialist capitalism.

On the other hand Kautsky regarded imperialism as the tendency of industrialized countries to annex ever wider agricultural areas. However, imperialism did not consist only of this even if imperialist wars led to land annexations in backward countries. Right at this point Lenin drew attention to a very important fact. He reminded that in a conjuncture when competition among imperialist countries becomes harsh and grows into an imperialist war, these countries would also attack industrialized capitalist countries with an eye to weakening the rivals and establishing their own hegemony. Germany’s attack to Belgium for braking England’s domination was an example for that. By that way, Belgium did not become a colony of Germany, but the arena of imperialist war was widened. In order to protect its nation state, Belgium bourgeoisie determined its side with respect to the concrete conditions between imperialist sides.

As proved by various regional wars reflecting the fight for hegemony among imperialist powers, a “peaceful capitalism” is still a dangerous dream today. This “dream” is a sophistry asserted by “modern” renegades in the example of Kautsky for undermining the revolutionary struggle of the working class. The US case –as the hegemonic power that marked the imperialist epoch -is a clear example of aggressive expansionism of finance capital. Years under hegemony of US imperialism very clearly reveal the ways of maintaining this hegemony and making various independent states accept it. Imperialism means oppression on various nations, interfering with their internal affairs, political intrigues, political gangsterism, and, most importantly, imperialist wars. And imperialism has proved that it can well maintain its damned job without colonizing other countries. If profitable, it is obvious that imperialist countries instigate national distinctions, create new national questions by pitching nations against one another. Besides, in regional wars provoked by imperialist powers, territories of the countries on the target can be occupied and therefore national question may also gain and regain importance. But when all these examples carefully examined, different from the colonialist era the result is not creation of new colonies, but establishment of new bourgeois governments or new nation states adhering to the dominating imperialist state.

Anti-imperialist struggle cannot be reduced to national liberation struggle

Kautsky and the like who consider imperialism not as modern capitalism, but merely as one of the policies of it do not oppose imperialism as a system. For example Kautsky advocates a policy of opposing its annexation policy only, not imperialist economic process as a whole. This is a completely reformist and pacifist way of thinking and lays the ground for a false “anti-imperialism” understanding. And Lenin’ criticism of Kautsky exposes such approaches:

The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) advocacy of conciliation with imperialism, because a "fight" against the policy of the trusts and banks that does not affect the economic basis of the trusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism, the benevolent and innocent expression of pious wishes.[24]

We find it necessary to highlight some important points here. A political line confining the struggle against imperialism to the recognition of national self-determination cannot go beyond bourgeois reformism. Reducing the struggle against imperialism to opposition against annexations and thus not taking sides against economic foundations of imperialism is not anti-imperialist. A struggle which starts against annexations or national oppression can gain an anti-imperialist character only when it turns into a struggle against economic foundations of imperialist system. But this change of dimension of the struggle is neither the bourgeoisie’s nor petit-bourgeoisie’s problem. It is only but only revolutionary proletariat’s problem to turn any struggle against national oppression into an anti-imperialist revolt.

As in the case of Belgium, the bourgeoisie, who oppose annexation of its land by another state and protect its right of national sovereignty, in effect pursues its own class interests. But this is not anti-imperialism. It is only an attitude within the framework of capitalism against aggressor imperialist state. Therefore, while opposing, for instance, German imperialism, the bourgeoisie of Belgium tries to develop its good relations with British imperialism on the basis of their common interests. Class interests of the bourgeoisie never bring a breakaway from the capitalist system, but need the rights of sovereignty to be recognized by the powerful ones. So, it is downright class collaboration to reduce opposition of revolutionary proletariat to imperialism to opposition to policies of this or that imperialist state or to the level of supporting the rights of sovereignty of “its own” bourgeoisie.

Many colonial countries successfully concluded their national liberation struggles in 20th century, achieved their national (political) independence and established their own nation-states. But as time passed, it turned out that these countries became inevitably dependent on imperialist system when they continued to stay in the capitalist system and be a component of it. Thus, imperialism proved to be a system capable of maintaining its domination on countries which gained their political independence. Therefore, it was wrong from the standpoint of Marxism to consider the imperialist stage of capitalism in the framework of colonialism, and, describe it, for instance, as “neo-colonialism” etc.

Nevertheless, in real life, in actual needs of politics, concepts may experience a sort of deformation or, more correctly, be distorted. For instance, it was a widespread trend to describe imperialist system as “neo-colonialism” in 1960s when national liberation struggles in colonial countries were on the rise. And this description was considered very important by those forces that were waging struggle for political independence. This is understandable: these national liberationists were waging a struggle against colonialism which was a thing of the former period surviving in the imperialist epoch. But because of this anachronism, even when they speak of “neo-colonialism”, they were targeting the actual realities of the new period, that is, imperialism.

For example, according to Nkrumah, the leader of Gana’s national liberation, neo-colonialism is “the method of giving independence to Africa with one hand and take it with the other. ... a fake independence in which the neo-colonialist state grants a sort of sovereignty to the former colony to control it through extra-political means by making it a client-state.”[25] What Nkrumah said in his attempt to define “neo-colonialism” was nothing but the fundamental characteristics of imperialist epoch. What he did by these words was actually to reveal the mere anti-colonialist character of the struggles that are confined to the aim of gaining political independence, i.e. national liberation struggles, which could not change the imperialist system and inflict a real blow to imperialism. It is true that unless there is a definite breakaway from imperialist system which is a world system one cannot be independent from imperialism, which has been proven by various experiences. Therefore, the question of independence from imperialism cannot be reduced to the question of national independence; anti-imperialism is a question of social liberation.

Imperialist counties dictate not only economic terms on weaker capitalist countries. But this situation is a general law of capitalist order. Under capitalism, he who pays the piper calls the tune! No matter how much the bourgeoisies of various capitalist states who borrowed enormous amounts from major imperialist states complain about unequal relations or interference with their “internal affairs,” this is their capitalist system as a whole. Why should the working class be concerned with these complaints? Sharing the grievance of the weaker bourgeoisie or preaching a “fully independent and national order” within capitalism to the working class suits only the petty-bourgeoisie. In fact, burning problem of the proletariat in all capitalist countries, no matter big or small, is not economic “independence(!)” of its “own” bourgeoisie, but emancipation from the capitalist order of exploitation. In short, the goal of the working class struggle against imperialism is to put an end to the bourgeois order, to seize political power, i.e. the proletarian revolution.

One can find the most important issues regarding the debates on anti-imperialism dealt with in Lenin’s book Imperialism. Anti-imperialism cannot be expected from any section of the bourgeoisie! Lenin exposes the economic reality underlying this conclusion:

The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extraordinarily dense and widespread network of relationships and connections which subordinates not only the small and medium, but also the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the increasingly intense struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other countries, on the other hand, cause the propertied classes to go over entirely to the side of imperialism.[26]

As a matter of fact, a consistent anti-imperialism cannot be expected from the petty-bourgeoisie as well! What the petty-bourgeois democrats understand from anti-imperialist struggle is also superficial; because they overlook unbreakable ties between imperialist politics and fundamentals of the capitalist economic process. By suggesting “national capitalism” against imperialism, they spread out dreams of possibility of capitalism independent from imperialism. They are incapable of conceiving imperialism as a world system comprising indispensably all capitalist countries, or they are not willing to do so. Leaving nuances aside, the very essence of “anti-imperialism” understanding prevailing in all petit-bourgeois currents is a so-called opposition to imperialism which is not directed to capitalist process in side country, and therefore lacking an anti-capitalist content, and reduced only to foreign factor! For petit-bourgeoisie, anti-imperialism is to take attitude “against the policies” of colonialism and annexation.

Nevertheless, despite all their inconsistencies petty-bourgeois currents of opposition occupy quite a wide space, which is a reality of capitalism. As financial oligarchy creates reaction in every field and an increasing national oppression, this situation brings out an opposition on the part of the petty-bourgeois democrats in various kinds of capitalist countries. Lenin gave a concrete example on this subject. He refers to the political attitude of petty-bourgeois democrats in the United States during the expansionist war the USA waged against Spain in 1898. Instead of opposing the economic essence of the war, petty-bourgeois reformists contented themselves with describing it as unlawful (because of annexation) with reference to the constitution and condemned it as a criminal war. Polishing a so-called anti-imperialist attitude with high-sounding radicalism –using adjectives like criminal- is just in accordance with petty-bourgeois temperament and deserves mockery today, as it was yesterday. And Lenin did so; “In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the ‘anti-imperialists’, the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy”.[27]

Lenin ends his Preface dated July 1920 to his book Imperialism with the following words: “Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale..” As he emphatically explained, imperialist epoch is the epoch of proletarian revolutions. Because, this highest stage of capitalism means nothing more than maturation of conditions of proletarian revolution and formation of the material basis for socialism. While rising to the level of a world system, capitalism indeed heads for its end:

Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialisation of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialisation.[28]

As the capitalist order of exploitation is embodied in the imperialist system at present age, the proletarian revolution in all capitalist countries will be an anti-imperialist revolution. What road to take in various countries in order to achieve this goal is secondary in comparison with the general character of the proletarian revolution. This is but the essence of the conception of permanent revolution advocated by Trotsky who carried the banner of revolutionary Marxism against the conception of revolution in stages which was turned into a dogma by Stalinism. In comparison with the developed capitalist countries, proletarian revolution has to overcome some extra problems which have not been solved yet in the medium or less developed capitalist countries. Revolutionary programme of the working class will include democratic tasks which this revolution will solve in passing. Last but not least: In our present world, it will only serve to cloud the revolutionary target of the working class to define proletarian revolution in all capitalist countries with not its real content but as “colonial revolution”, “revolution for national liberation”, “democratic revolution”, etc.

Imperialism and the change in colonial countries

“Finance capital has created the epoch of monopolies, and monopolies introduce everywhere monopolist principles.”[1] This is the briefest summary of 20th century. In imperialist epoch, it is possible neither to make a correct analysis of imperialism nor to develop an adequate anti-imperialism without taking into account the unequal but interdependent relations between countries at different levels of development. However, those Marxists who were carried away with the third-worldist tendency after The Second World War and especially in the 1960s sowed confusion about the inner laws of operation of the imperialist system.

Because of the sympathy and support for third-worldism, even bourgeois coquetries, whims in the guise of supporting “national” economy were applauded in the name of anti-imperialism. Medium or less developed capitalist countries of 1960s were categorised as oppressed nations under the label of “neo-colonies” or “semi-colonies”. Thus, the anti-capitalist mission of the struggle of the proletariat against capitalist system (i.e. genuine anti-imperialism) was abandoned based on the illusion that as if there was still a national question in these countries. The fact that imperialism is in fact an economic system that has its embodiment in every capitalist country’s internal functioning was obscured. A false anti-imperialism was created through hollow propagandism suggesting that there can be a “nationally independent” economic functioning even without leaving the system. Though the conscious creators of these kinds of political trends were the Stalinists, some other tendencies who called themselves Trotskyist also contributed to this confusion.

For instance, the description of “colony” which Mandel and his tendency helped popularised constitutes a typical example of this. It is not correct to insist on explaining the dependency of former colonial countries on the imperialist system with the concept of “colony” in a world where colonies have gone. In fact, this kind of attitude also comes to mean turning a deaf ear to Trotsky’s analyses. Just like Lenin, Trotsky also explained that imperialist epoch has a different quality from the colonialist period. In his article titled War and International, in 1914, he mentioned the general tendency of decolonization, caused by imperialism and the imperialist war.

But a redivision of colonies among the capitalist countries does not enlarge the foundation of capitalist development. … An additional factor of decisive importance is the capitalist awakening in the colonies themselves, to which the present War must give a mighty impetus.[2]

Mandel and others who think in a similar way tried somehow to accept only one side of Trotsky’s important considerations on the law of combined and uneven development, i.e. the “unevenness”, and obscure the other side, i.e. “the combined” development. They developed a definition of imperialist epoch that “prevents” (!), “retards” (!) the capitalist development in former colonial countries. The following quote from Mandel gives an example for hollow generalizations in contradiction to realities:

Yet, with the beginning of imperialist era, the operation of world capitalist market, let alone easing the “normal” capitalist development of less-developed countries, particularly a profound industrialisation, it constituted a factor hampering such a development. Marx’s formula that every developed country shows to the less developed the picture of their future, which preserved its significance throughout the age of free competition capitalism, has now lost its validity.[3]

As if the former colonial countries which gained their national independence in imperialist epoch would have developed more and would have been industrialized faster had they not got into economic relations with the developed capitalist countries and stayed isolated! Marx underlined an essential aspect of capitalist mode of production in saying that “every developed country shows to the less developed the picture of their future.” Capitalism would march towards being a world system incorporating every country and every region with different historical heritages and different levels of development. As a matter of fact, imperialist epoch verified Marx’s analysis of the course of capitalism. So, what is the difference between describing Marx’s important conclusions as “the formulas that make sense in the free competitive period” and saying “the law of uneven and combined development was discovered by Lenin”? To cut it short in the face of these empty muddles one should recall an important answer given to these kinds of assertions:

The export of capital influences and greatly accelerates the development of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore, the export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in the capital-exporting countries, it can only do so by expanding and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world. [4]

As Lenin indicates, the result of export of capital to colonial countries was the acceleration of capitalist development in these countries. And what happened? While these countries were driven into a staggering change because of capitalist development, their position, being a colony, could no longer be maintained. Sooner of later they had to take a seat within the family of modern nation-states as unequal elements in the face of powerful ones of the imperialist system. Was this situation the result of a somewhat easy granting of independence by the imperialist countries? Or, had the imperialist countries had to lay the material base causing this result by their own hands, no matter they like it or not, just because of the inner features of expansionism in the finance capital era?

These questions have been answered by subsequent events and national liberation struggles of the 20th century. However, Lenin drew attention to progressive tendency laying the material base for the future of colonial countries as early as 1916: “One of the main features of imperialism is that it accelerates capitalist development in the most backward countries, and thereby extends and intensifies the struggle against national oppression.”[5] Thus, the question of national independence which was created but could not be solved in the colonist expansion period of capitalism eventually became a burning question and was solved in imperialist epoch.

Imperialist epoch and national liberation struggles

From 1905 Lenin noticed that the Russian revolution gave an impetus to bourgeois democratic movements and national awakening in countries like Iran, Turkey and China. National awakening in colonial and semi-colonial countries was loaded with explosives for the world revolution. He considered the awakening in Asia and the rise in national liberation struggles in his articles at that time.[6] In the national awakening in colonial and semi-colonial countries he saw a potential of inflicting a blow to the system of colonialism. And what is more important, he tried to connect the awakening in Asia with the proletarian revolution in the West:

The social revolution can come only in the form of an epoch in which are combined civil war by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries and a whole series of democratic and revolutionary movements, including the national liberation movement, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations.[7]

As is seen, Lenin did not consider the struggles for national liberation in colonial countries as something isolated from the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat across the world, something not influencing it or being influenced by it. On the contrary, he had the view that social revolutions would proceed through interaction of worldwide revolutionary struggles going on at different levels. Taking into account the conditions of that time, he was pointing out that it would be a serious miscalculation to expect pure social revolutions:

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc. -- to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says, "We are for socialism", and another, somewhere else and says, "We are for imperialism", and that will be a social revolution![8]

Basing his analyses on the uneven development of historical process Lenin tackled the national question by dividing countries in different historical steps into mainly three groups.[9] We know that these differences are now generally left far behind considering the present conditions. But, it is important to examine Lenin’s approach on the question at stake to understand the revolutionary line extending back to the past. About those capitalist countries for which the national question was a thing of the past, Lenin said:

In the Western countries the national movement is a thing of the distant past. In England, France, Germany, etc., the "fatherland" is a dead letter, it has played its historical role, i.e., the national movement cannot yield here anything progressive, anything that will elevate new masses to a new economic and political life. History's next step here is not transition from feudalism or from patriarchal savagery to national progress, to a cultured and politically free fatherland, but transition from a "fatherland" that has outlived its day, that is capitalistically overripe, to socialism..[10]

However, the situation was different in undeveloped countries:

They embrace the whole of Eastern Europe and all the colonies and semi-colonies… In those areas, as a rule, there still exist oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression .[11]

As lessons derived by Marx from the revolutionary experience of 1848 show; the European bourgeoisie was horrified as the proletariat had entered the historical arena and it could not any more lead the bourgeois democratic transformations in a revolutionary way. From then on, this task would be fulfilled by the proletariat within the context of permanent revolution. But according to Lenin, Asia has not yet passed the way Europe had left behind and historical reality was different in various countries of Asia:

Advanced Europe is commanded by a bourgeoisie which supports everything that is backward. … Everywhere in Asia a mighty democratic movement is growing, spreading and gaining in strength. The bourgeoisie there is as yet siding with the people against reaction.[12]

Lenin thought Asian countries were even far behind Russia from the standpoint of the level of capitalism and thus of the working class. Therefore, it was possible to say that there was a bourgeoisie in these countries that may in a way play the role of the progressive bourgeoisie in Europe in the 18th century. Taking historical differences into account in national question, Lenin considered national awakening in colonies as a progressive step with bourgeois democratic character and he supported them. This way of thinking, prevalent on Lenin, would also be prevalent on national question and the question of colonies which were addressed in the Second Congress of the Comintern and would serve a base for the debates up to now.

Indeed, contrary to some arguments, this approach of Lenin towards national question is correct in general and it is not in conflict with the idea of permanence of the proletarian revolution. Therefore, those considerations that Lenin changed his approach on this subject after a certain point are kind of overstatements. Since Lenin did not divide the process of revolution which has to progress under the hegemony of the proletariat into different stages of power; but he was pointing to an inevitable historical process which would open the road for the working class in backward countries.

In historically belated colonial and semi-colonial countries, the bourgeoisie could still play a progressive role in the framework of gaining national independence; but in imperialist epoch how comprehensive or stable could it be? It must be kept in mind that Lenin never attributed the bourgeoisie of these counties an absolute or stable progressive mission; quite the contrary, he warned communists about how slippery they could be:

Not infrequently (notably in Austria and Russia) we find the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations talking of national revolt, while in practice it enters into reactionary compacts with the bourgeoisie of the oppressor nation behind the backs of, and against, its own people.[13]

In fact, national liberation struggles in various Asian and African countries sufficiently exposed the slippery and dual attitude of the bourgeoisie of the colonial and semi-colonial countries which were struggling for their own nation-state in imperialist epoch. But we must never forget that in terms of its historical and social scope a national liberation war is just what it is; and nothing more! A struggle of this kind can obviously march under the leadership of the bourgeoisie; so, it can involve various compromises with imperialists. But this does not reduce a just national uprising of masses to the level of an unjust struggle. Lenin’s warning about this is very important:

The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain conditions, be utilised by another “great” power for its own, equally imperialist, aims, is just as unlikely to make the Social Democrats refuse to recognise the right of nations to self determination…[14]

He also makes an important assessment about national movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries:

…the semi-colonial countries, such as China, Persia and Turkey, and all the colonies, which have a combined population of 1,000 million. In these countries the bourgeois-democratic movements either have hardly begun, or have still a long way to go. Socialists must not only demand the unconditional and immediate liberation of the colonies without compensation -- and this demand in its political expression signifies nothing else than the recognition of the right to self-determination; they must also render determined support to the more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements for national liberation in these countries and assist their uprising -- or revolutionary war, in the event of one -- against the imperialist powers that oppress them. [15]

Lenin did not content himself with only noting the bourgeois character of national liberation movements. He insists on the necessity of distinguishing between different tendencies within “the bourgeois democratic movement”. According to him, the more revolutionary elements (that is, the petty-bourgeois radicals and peasant masses) should be assisted in their uprisings against the imperialist states oppressing them. But what does that mean? Communists should deal with democratic demands without separating them from the aim of proletarian revolution, and wage their struggle with this approach. The support to be provided by communists to movements of national liberation on the basis of oppressed nations’ just struggle is a secondary issue from the standpoint of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. Since the primary concern for the proletariat is to make all democratic demands, including national self-determination, directly part of its struggle for power. Lenin mentioned this important issue in connection with the recognition of national self determination. He made an emphasis on “...the necessity to subordinate the struggle for the demand under discussion and for all the basic demands of political democracy directly to the revolutionary mass struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeois governments and for the achievement of socialism.”[16]

Another important point is about what must be understood from the support for national liberation struggles. First, every support only makes sense under certain concrete conditions; so, the question of who will be supported, and how, is not a matter of principle, but a conditional tactical question. Second, revolutionary proletariat gives its support to the just struggle of the oppressed nation and realization of this support depends on the level of the revolutionary organization of the proletariat. For example, a just national struggle may gain a big momentum under circumstances where the workers’ movement is calm or revolutionary political organization of the working class has swung far back for various reasons. Under such circumstances the support of the revolutionary proletariat could largely be on a principal level. But under conditions that revolutionary struggle of the proletariat is on the rise, the task is essentially to support the oppressed nation’s right to self-determination and to work to establish working class hegemony over the toiling masses revolting on the basis of the demand of national liberation. We can reiterate in a brief way that in its revolutionary struggle the proletariat defends the right to national self-determination of a nation with a view to subordinating this democratic demand to its struggle for power.

The movement of toiling masses in a country that rises on the basis of demanding national liberation can take a real anti-imperialist course only on this basis, and only under the hegemony of the proletariat. Otherwise a national liberation struggle cannot go beyond its limits. And within these limits, it must never be forgotten that its essential concern is not liberation from the imperialist-capitalist system but from being a colony. Therefore we consider national liberation struggles as anti-colonialist struggles in their essence. And this holds true even if they are waged against an imperialist state in 20th century.

Lenin’s assessments on the significance of national liberation struggles gained a new dimension with the victory of October Revolution and establishment process of the Soviet republics following it. Under the new historical setting where the proletariat rose to power in one part of the world it was correct to seek to win over the toiling masses which were struggling for national liberation. By this way, a broad front of struggle against imperialist system on a world scale could be formed under the leadership of the proletariat. Besides, it was even more important at a time when the Soviet proletariat faced an assault of the imperialist powers. The drive for winning the toiling masses of the colonial and semi-colonial countries, particularly in Asia, to the side of the October Revolution was an extension of the national worker-peasant alliance on a world scale. That is why Lenin attributed great importance to national liberation struggles. Nevertheless, looking at his close interest in revolutionary developments in Asian countries, some researchers of history asserted that Lenin was gradually getting away from a “Euro-centric” understanding of revolution. According to them, Lenin moved closer to the idea that an Eastern storm from peasant nations would overthrow capitalism. Although such interpretations have been in circulation for a long time in the name of “Marxism”, they have nothing to do with Lenin. These are exaggerated attempts to portray Lenin as a third-worldist. While noting the awakening in Asia, Lenin was very clear on his conception of the world revolution before and after the October Revolution, and during the first congresses of Comintern. He always believed that the proletarian world revolution could only march to victory through revolutionary leap forward of the proletariat of advanced European countries.

About distortions we need to underline one last point. It is true that Lenin considered national liberation struggles as an ally of the proletarian world revolution whose natural aim is to overthrow imperialist-capitalist system. But he never left the door open for anti-Marxist interpretations which amount to identifying the two or substitution of the former for the latter. With the victory of October Revolution and birth of a new political centre of power, he advocated the perspective of bringing the toiling masses of the oppressed nations and colonial countries together in a war front under the politic leadership of the Soviet proletariat. There is no similarity between his approach and the distorted understanding of “anti-imperialist struggle” which was later shaped under the dominance of Stalinism. Because, the latter is a political tendency that substitutes national liberation struggles for the proletarian revolution, and that seeks to prevent the proletariat’s political hegemony. Stalinism in fact forced the revolutionary proletariat to submit to the hegemony of the national bourgeoisie in the name of a so-called anti-imperialist front. With the pretext of defending “the interests of the Soviet state which are supreme,” it strangled revolutions that had the potential of developing towards founding a workers’ rule.

Imperialism and the question of political independence

Marxists like Bukharin and Pyatakov considered imperialism as “a system of foreign policy” and consequently took wrong political attitudes about national self-determination. In fact, they shared Lenin’s thought that the 20th century was the era of finance capital. But for Bukharin and Pyatakov, the concept of imperialism meant the “policy” pursued by finance capital. That was the point they moved away from Lenin. However, their approach was completely different from that of renegades like Kautsky who preached that a peaceful policy is well possible and favourable in the imperialist epoch. Bukharin and Pyatakov regarded imperialism as an unavoidable policy of finance capital based on oppression and violence. Bukharin said “Such a policy implies violent methods, for the expansion of the state territory means war”. [17]

In fact, the reason that propelled Bukharin to make this assessment of imperialism was his analysis of world economy based on the idea of “national capitalist trust”. According to him, despite a fierce competition on the international arena in the imperialist epoch, competition was coming to an end within national borders because of monopolization. And with active involvement of the state in the economy, one unified trust was appearing on a national scale. And this results in wars between capitalist countries on the international arena for extending their national borders. Finance capital could not do without colonies.

But Lenin analyzed and defined imperialism not as a policy of finance capital, but rather as the very international economic system which itself is just the dominance of finance capital. As a result, Lenin did not consider colonies a sine qua non for finance capital. He was right.

It is quite possible to gain the political independence within the limits of the system through struggles for national liberation in colonial countries. Yes, imperialist epoch is a reactionary period in general. But this fact does not mean that imperialist countries can only maintain their domination by colonizing other countries. Besides, the real question at stake is not whether imperialist countries would grant political independence to colonial countries or not. The question is whether it is possible to gain political independence within the operation of the laws of imperialist system without breaking with it. Lenin, considering it possible, pointed out that it was through national struggle to achieve it:

National struggle, national insurrection, national secession are fully “achievable” and are met with in practice under imperialism. They are even more pronounced, for imperialism does not halt the development of capitalism and the growth of democratic tendencies among the mass of the population. [18]

In addition, Lenin criticized Rosa Luxemburg, Pyatakov and Bukharin for being carried away by the tendency of imperialist economism. These Marxists held a view that can be summarized as self-determination of nations was impossible under capitalism, and it was unnecessary under socialism since national question would have already been solved under socialism. What lies beneath their error was the fact that they confused economic liberation with political liberation. So Rosa and co-thinkers substituted the question that if it was possible to gain political independence under capitalism for the fact that there was economic dependence. Lenin reminded them that finance capital was able to subjugate, and already did, an independent country. All theses about the “impossibility” of political independence under the domination of finance capital resulted from lack of an adequate understanding of this matter. Lenin said:

In this situation it is not only “achievable”, from the point of view of finance capital, but sometimes even profitable for the trusts, for their imperialist policy, for their imperialist war, to allow individual small nations as much democratic freedom as they can, right down to political independence, so as not to risk damaging their “own” military operations.[19]

It is indeed not correct to assert that it is impossible for national self determination to be achieved within the framework of imperialist system. But a self-determination which is merely political independence does not alter painful economic consequences of capitalist system for the working class and toiling masses. From this point of view, what is decisive in determining the fate of the oppressed and exploited masses of weak nations is whether they will emancipate from capitalism or not. Only in this context it can be said that “right of determination” is impossible under capitalism and unnecessary –because the problem will have already been solved– under socialism. But to say that does not mean that we have taken a concrete attitude on the question of the right of political independence which was a practical and actual question on the agenda of the colonial countries. Upon this was Lenin’s criticism of Rosa based. Lenin was right in pointing out that she confused two different aspects.

On the other hand, to claim that nations can be economically independent without breaking with imperialist system is a nonsense and reactionary petty-bourgeois utopia. Therefore, the point Lenin and Rosa disagreed on was only the question of “political independence”. They were in complete agreement on the other side of the question, that is, the impossibility of national independence on the level of economy. Rosa Luxemburg correctly grasped the limited side of the national liberation struggle with respect to the future –e.g. the proletarian revolution–, and drew attention to problems that can be created by petty-bourgeois nationalist tendencies. While petty-bourgeois left tendencies are obscuring the revolutionary line of the proletariat, one must definitely be alert that defending the right to national self-determination and opposing annexations should not cast a cloud over the danger of nationalism and social-chauvinism. In capitalist countries where national question has already been solved, and the proletarian revolution is on the agenda, a real danger lies in that the native bourgeoisie may try to sell their self-seeking adventures under cover of national self-determination.

Marxists whom Lenin criticized for being fallen into the erroneous imperialist economism did not take into account the different conditions between the countries that were belatedly climbing the steps of history and the countries in which national question was no more on the agenda. They did not reflect adequately on the historically progressive character –with respect to past– of political independence of colonial countries which were backward countries progressing towards capitalism and their joining in the family of modern nation states. For example, Bukharin opposed the inclusion of the principle of national self-determination to the party programme proposed in the Eight Congress of RCP(B) (1919). His reasoning was: “A nation means the bourgeoisie together with the proletariat. And are we, the proletarians, to recognize the right to self-determination of the despised bourgeoisie?”[20]

But according to Lenin, the inconsistency that disturbed Bukharin was a fact which existed in real life. Bukharin was talking about a process of separation within nations resulting from the process of capitalist development, i.e. about separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie. For backward nations this separation was not a completed fact yet. And Lenin took differences of various nations in terms of their historical conditions into consideration on the question of how the right to national self-determination would be used. For example, the following was in his draft program presented to the Eight Congress of RCP(B):

On the question of who expresses the will of the nation on the matter of secession, the R.C.P. upholds the historical class view and takes into consideration the level of historical development of the nation concerned—on the way from the Middle Ages to bourgeois democracy, or from bourgeois to Soviet or proletarian democracy, etc.[21]

In short, in order to take a correct attitude in concrete cases, those nations that are at an historical stage where separation between proletariat and bourgeoisie has not sufficiently developed should also be taken into account. Lenin pointed out an important fact: “We say that account must be taken of the stage reached by the given nation on its way from medievalism to bourgeois democracy, and from bourgeois democracy to proletarian democracy. ”And concluding: “Every nation must obtain the right to self-determination, and that will make the self-determination of the working people easier.” “Communism cannot be imposed by force.”[22]

Imperialist era and the distinction between just and unjust wars

Within the context of debates on the national question, Lenin paid great attention to the distinction between just and unjust wars. It was indeed very important because of the war conditions of that period to make this distinction and a prerequisite for communists to take the right attitude against wars. The declaration, adopted unanimously in Basel Congress of the Second International in 1912, is particularly important in this context. In this declaration, imperialists’ preparations for a war of plunder were exposed and workers were called for struggling against the threat of war. The idea that this state of war indicated a state of revolution at the same time was generally accepted. Should the war break out, the task of the parties and socialists affiliated to the Second International was to make use of this economic and social crisis for realizing socialist revolution. But when the imperialist war broke out in 1914, most of the socialists who had signed the Basel declaration, broke their word, voted for war budgets in their parliaments, and took sides with their bourgeois governments.

The renegades of the Second International, in an attempt to justify their attitude, held on to the lie that even aggressor European countries that started the imperialist division war had the right to “defend the fatherland”. Struggle against this political tendency, namely social-chauvinism in political literature, became a burning question. Therefore, it was a necessity to reassert the distinction between just and unjust wars under conditions of imperialist stage of capitalism.

In order to identify the character of a war, one must, above all, clearly identify the character of the policy causing the war. Since every war is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means. And there cannot be an abstract criterion for judging the character of a war and deciding if it is just or unjust.

However, to give an example, French socialists, whose record were remarkably stained for praising “patriotism” in the name of socialism (famous Jaurésism), acted in harmony with their “fame” during the imperialist division war. They could act on the criterion “an attacked country has the right to defence” in the war of competition and re-division of the spheres of influence among imperialist countries. In his criticism of these kinds of chauvinist approaches, Lenin pointed out the very essence of the question; “As if the question were: Who was the first to attack, and not: What are the causes of the war? What are its aims? Which classes are waging it?”[23]

While “defence of the fatherland” can have a just and progressive character only under certain historical conditions, its application to a war between imperialists is nothing but deceiving workers and siding with the reactionary bourgeoisie. To expose the deceitfulness of social-chauvinists it is necessary to remember, above all, why Marx and Engels considered national liberation wars between 1789-1871 progressive, just and supportable:

When, in speaking of the wars of such periods, socialists stressed the legitimacy of “defensive” wars, they always had these aims in mind, namely revolution against medievalism and serfdom. By a “defensive” war socialists have always understood a “just” war in this sense (Wilhelm Liebknecht once expressed himself precisely in this way). It is only in this sense that socialists have always regarded wars “for the defence of the fatherland”, or “defensive” wars, as legitimate, progressive and just.[24]

But the war that broke out in 1914 was an unjust war started by imperialist countries to re-divide the world. Striving to impose the idea of “defence of the fatherland” on the proletariat of imperialist countries meant directly aiding the imperialist powers. In Lenin’s words, “It is in this way that the peoples are being deceived with ‘national’ ideology and the term ‘defence of the fatherland’, by the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie, in the war now being waged between slave-holders with purpose of consolidating slavery.”[25]

These kinds of wars are neither just nor defensive wars for the proletariat of those capitalist countries fighting each other to share spheres of influence. For a war of that type there is no sense in asking who attacked first. Because both the “attacking” and “attacked” sides are the sides of a conflict of imperialist interests and therefore the proletariat cannot have a problem like “the defence of the fatherland” in this war. The proletariat is not part of a settling of accounts between capitalist countries challenging each other to gain a more advantageous position against others. For proletarians of capitalist countries involved in war, the question is to wish for the defeat of their “own” government and turn the imperialist war into a civil war which will end the bourgeois order. Proletarians who are armed due to war conditions must take it as their fundamental class task to point their guns to their own bourgeois governments.

Replacing this policy with the policy of “defence of the fatherland” is a naked betrayal to the proletarian revolution. Because in countries waging war for imperialist purposes, the proletariat’s involvement in this war with the illusion of “defence of the fatherland” means slaughtering other counties’ proletarians for the sake of its “own” bourgeoisie’s victory. This attitude is obviously trampling on the principle of proletarian internationalism expressed as “workers of all countries, unite”. Just as Lenin said:

Anyone who today refers to Marx’s attitude towards the wars of the epoch of the progressive bourgeoisie, and forgets Marx’s statement that “the workers have no country” – a statement that applies precisely to the period of the reactionary and outmoded bourgeoisie, to the epoch of the socialist revolution, is shamelessly distorting Marx, and is substituting the bourgeois point of view for the socialist.[26]

However, opposition to the policy of “defence of the fatherland” does not justify rejecting, or denying the possibility of, any national wars, which means swinging to another extreme. The situation about colonies and oppressed nations that are subject to division in an imperialist war is different. This is because in these countries “defence of the fatherland” contains the solution of a belated historical question, that is, of national independence question. And communists continue to consider wars for national liberation arising on this basis just and progressive. After pointing out that “the fatherland and nation” are historical categories, Lenin says; “I am not at all opposed to wars waged in defence of democracy or against national oppression, nor do I fear such words as ‘defence of the fatherland’ in reference to these wars or to insurrections.”[27] Indeed, socialists always take sides with the oppressed and do not oppose wars waged against capitalist oppression with democratic or socialist content. In order to recognise a national war as a just one, its substance must first be identified.

How, then, can we disclose and define the "substance" of a war? War is the continuation of policy. Consequently, we must examine the policy pursued prior to the war, the policy that led to and brought about the war. If it was an imperialist policy, i.e., one designed to safeguard the interests of finance capital and rob and oppress colonies and foreign countries, then the war stemming from that policy is imperialist. If it was a national liberation policy, i.e., one expressive of the mass movement against national oppression, then the war stemming from that policy is a war of national liberation.[28]

There is not much controversy on that wars waged by oppressed nations for national liberation in colonial countries are just wars. What must be discussed is the situation when a capitalist country which has political independence and is already ruled by the bourgeoisie becomes the subject of an imperialist division war, and is occupied by another one. Can we still talk about a just national war in this situation? Should communists, in the name of not sinking into social-chauvinism, be indifferent to the struggle of revolting toiling masses for “defence of the fatherland” under these conditions?

First of all, it must be made clear that in case of an occupation or annexation of the territory of a sovereign nation state, the fundamental question for the communist approach is not whether to defend the land or not. Against an attack or annexation of the land where the working class and toiling masses live, the questions to be answered are: what is to be defended, how, against whom, for what, on what basis? As expressed in Lenin’s attitude, what communists oppose in “defence of the fatherland” is that the proletariat was driven into a position of defending and supporting the bourgeois rule in its own country under the pretext of war. And what is the correct attitude then?

The Paris Commune which passed into the history of revolutionary struggle of the world working class as an early experience in the context of “seizure of power” provides us with an early example of this subject as well. While defending Paris against the Prussian army, Communards, who “were ready to storm the heavens” in Marx’ words, did not run to the service of the bourgeois Versailles government. On the contrary, while pushing back the armies of invasion, they established their own rule. The Paris proletariat was too young in terms of political experience. It did not yet win the support of the toiling masses, it was isolated. It did not know what to do, made some mistakes and was defeated in the end. But, despite everything, it showed us an example of the capability of the proletariat armed against the attack of an occupying army to put an end to the rule of its class enemy inside while fighting foreign invaders.

Politically inexperienced Paris proletariat was not yet distorted with the strategies of rotten Stalinist “leaders” of later periods, who divided working-class consciousness into endless stages (first struggle together with the bourgeoisie against foreign enemy and then comes the time for struggle against the bourgeoisie, which means never!). Yet, it was still kind of a pre-experience; its shortcomings and mistakes were not to be ignored. Thus Lenin noted the mistakes of the Paris Commune as lessons to be learned. He pointed out that part of Paris workers was plagued by “national ideology”, which was an example of petit-bourgeois illusions leading to vital mistakes.

Another example to remember is the case of “national question” that arose in Belgium when it was occupied by Germany during the First World War, which is different from the case of colonial countries. Lenin discussed whether there could be a national war even in a capitalist country like Belgium if Germany occupied it and whether then communists would consider it just or unjust? He maintained that annexations must be opposed and the right to national self-determination must be acknowledged in these kinds of situations as well. Because he was against the mindset of those who consider forceful land annexations “de-facto” situations and take the attitude of indifference in these kinds of changes of border in the name of political-economic centralization which is supposed to pave the way for socialism. That is why he criticized Polish Marxists who were saying “We are absolutely opposed to erecting new border stones in Europe and reconstruction of those destroyed by imperialism”. He considered this justification of annexations a degeneration of Marxism. Maintaining that fusion of nations could only be accomplished on the basis of freewill Lenin stood firm in his position that forceful annexations without the will of people must be opposed. He reminded that even in a country which has resolved the question of independence long time ago –as in the case of Belgium–, defence of national self-determination might come into agenda again.

It would be useful to highlight some important points to clarify the subject. Historically, a “national war” in Belgium had nothing in common with national liberation wars in colonial countries. Belgium’s conditions were completely different from colonial countries. The bourgeoisie in a country like Belgium would not suddenly stop being a reactionary class and long-time enemy of the proletariat and gain a relatively “progressive” character just because of an occupation or annexation. Therefore, for these kinds of “national questions” which may occur in capitalist countries, communists’ task is to advocate the right to self-determination in the example of Paris Commune, that is, to connect resolution of these kinds of questions to the proletarian revolution. Thus, an occupation or annexation in a capitalist country brings forth the task of the proletariat to establish its revolutionary hegemony under conditions of war. So, the proletariat must be able to make use of the circumstances that drive the toiling masses to a national revolt, gain the leadership of masses rising for the “defence of the fatherland”, and lead them to social revolution.

In today’s world, various rivalries and conflicts of interest exist between large and small capitalist countries – yet these do not fall within the framework of struggle between oppressor and oppressed nations. Let there be no misunderstanding: due to imperialist interventions and impositions upon weaker capitalist countries, the labouring masses in these nations suffer intensified oppression. However, unlike the conditions in colonial countries where the bourgeoisie could once play a progressive historical role against pre-capitalist archaic structures, we now face nations fractured by sharpened class antagonisms. What stand before us today are capitalist states with their own political institutions and bourgeois apparatuses of domination. The former prominence of the “oppressor vs oppressed nation” question has been superseded by the “oppressor vs oppressed class” contradiction under capitalist states. But the question of taking a correct attitude against wars started by imperialist countries in their competition and struggle for hegemony to re-divide spheres of influence still maintains its importance.

For instance, is it possible to remain neutral on the question of Iraq where the US, in its growing aggressiveness, is obviously getting prepared for a vicious attack before the eyes of the whole world? Although there is nothing to support in Saddam’s regime, the proletariat has to wage a struggle against imperialist war on a world scale. Without opposing the preparations of American imperialism for an evidently unjust war, it is impossible for the working class to win the toiling masses to its own revolutionary objective neither in Iraq nor in any other country. It would be a great crime not to take an attitude against imperialist war threats and imperialist wars. In the case of a possible war or an US occupation of Iraq, the war of Iraqi people against American imperialism would of course be a just national liberation war. Similarly, it goes without saying that, in the Middle East, Palestinian people’s national liberation war is just against Israel’s unjust war to repress Palestinian people ruthlessly.

True, communists advocate national self-determination, oppose military interventions and annexations by imperialist countries. They consider oppressed nations’ struggles for political independence just and support them. But in all capitalist countries, communists’ main concern is to utilise revolutionary situations caused by war in the direction of the proletarian revolution. The struggle against military interventions by imperialist states must not be waged to defend “national unity” (!) with the bourgeoisie or to strengthen bourgeois regimes, but for the realisation of social revolution. Therefore, communists must remain supremely vigilant in all countries where the bourgeoisie holds power during wartime, and must recognise as their fundamental task the liberation of the working class from the shackles of bourgeois “national ideology”. As the case of Iraq clearly reveals, the way to get rid of imperialist powers’ unjust and atrocious military interventions does not lie in supporting bourgeois governments playing the “victim”, which leads eventually to survival of their rule. In the face of an unjust imperialist attack, which brings forth the right to self-determination of the attacked country, the task of the revolutionary proletariat is in no way limited to recognising this right. On the contrary, the real task begins at that point. Because, even in just defensive wars in which the working masses, the majority of the nation, take upon the armed struggle to death to save the country from occupation, the bourgeoisie has only one goal: none but to protect its own order and consolidate it! This is what the ruling bourgeoisie understands from the right to self-determination, nothing more! So, the task of the revolutionary proletariat waging its struggle under these conditions is to win the leadership of the nation and pave the way for the toiling masses to determine their own destiny. In the heat of war, workers in all capitalist countries must advance with the aim of overthrowing their own bourgeois regimes and transforming imperialist wars into civil war.

There is one question that needs to be highlighted here: if a major imperialist state attacks a smaller capitalist state (as in the Gulf War in which the US attacked Iraq), the victory of relatively smaller capitalist state (you can read it as the victory of Saddam) is said to be a blow to imperialism. According to this approach, the position of the major capitalist state would be shaken because of the defeat, and this would create important possibilities for the struggle of the proletariat. These kinds of speculative considerations underestimate manoeuvring capabilities of imperialist powers and overlook the indispensability of international organization and struggle of the proletariat. In fact, these kinds of attitudes are extensions of a deformed understanding of anti-imperialism.

While the defeat of an imperialist power in some adventurist enterprise against a small nation might boost the morale of workers and toilers worldwide, the analysis must not be one-dimensional, nor should such possibilities ever be overstated. Without revolutionary vanguard organisation at the international level, it would be a grave error to assume such situations could spontaneously create significant opportunities for working-class struggle. In fact, there’s a crucial point overlooked in this accounting of large versus small states. Major imperialist powers possess a large manoeuvring capacity when it comes to regional wars they’ve instigated or military operations within their spheres of influence – both in extricating themselves from unfavourable outcomes and in recasting defeats as “victories”. By contrast, the bourgeois regime of a smaller capitalist country subjected to military intervention may indeed suffer genuine destabilisation from defeat. In short, those who in today’s world lapse into pseudo-anti-imperialism by proclaiming “let’s support the smaller bourgeoisie against the larger” during imperialist-provoked regional wars are simultaneously turning a blind eye to revolutionary situations emerging in the attacked countries. And in fact what fundamentally scares all imperialist states is not a small capitalist country challenging a major one; but a proletarian revolution breaking out in any capitalist country, no matter how big it is.

We can conclude this discussion by approaching the subject from a different angle. Overwhelming majority of colonial and semi-colonial countries of Lenin’s time gained their political independence, thus joining the family of capitalist states by establishing their own nation state. As with Turkey, India and other similar examples, some of these countries even made quite a long way in terms of economy compared to others. Although they are in lower ranks of the imperialist hierarchy, they set about to become regional powers and tease other countries around as they become stronger. Therefore, in order to adopt a correct attitude towards today’s wars, it is necessary to take into account the concrete conditions of the world we live in today and changing conditions in comparison with yesterday.

We should not forget that major imperialist countries are not alone in embarking on expansionist adventures. Today, the situation of capitalist countries (like Turkey, India or Iran) which strive to be an imperialist in their region, a sub-imperialist power, is striking. There are skirmishes, reactionary adventures and unjust wars provoked by these countries to create their sphere of influence in their region. The attitude of the proletariat cannot be to wage a “national” or a “fatherland” war in the same front with its “own” bourgeoisie against another one. Because of concrete conditions, Lenin’s warnings made in the context of condemning social-chauvinists of imperialist countries, must be kept in mind by communists of all capitalist countries today. It is downright nationalism and social-chauvinism to justify, under the pretext of “defence of the fatherland,” involvement in a war under bourgeois hegemony for the purpose of strengthening the armies of bourgeois states that drive their nation into unjust wars in their expansionist adventures.

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The National Question in the Comintern’s First Four Congresses

At the Comintern congresses and debates of Lenin’s era, a general approach to the liberation of oppressed nations and colonies was put forward. However, no sufficient clarity was provided regarding the path and methods to be followed by the proletarian struggles in countries that had emerged from colonialism, established nation-states, achieved political independence, but remained financially dependent on imperialism and were at a low or medium level of capitalist development. Various issues, such as what was meant by “oppressed nation”, the difference between this concept and that of “dependent country”, and similar questions, remained unresolved without sufficiently analytical explanations. Such shortcomings, combined with the distortions introduced into theory by Stalinism in the following years, created significant gaps that made it difficult to adopt the correct attitude on these issues.

The early period of the Comintern encompasses the years when numerous difficulties and colossal problems accumulated. The founding of the Third International took place under conditions where the Bolsheviks were grappling with civil war after the October Revolution, the revolution had not succeeded in Europe, there was insufficient preliminary preparation before its establishment, a program for the progress of the world revolution had not yet been designed, centrist political views in Europe had infiltrated the Comintern parties, and Asian petty-bourgeois nationalism presented itself to the working masses as “communist”. To such a cluster of problems, we can also add effectual factors such as Lenin’s illness, the loss of revolutionary Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky grappling with the problems of the civil war at the head of the Red Army, and the beginning of the maneuvers of Stalin, who seized the reins within the Bolshevik Party. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why, despite their great importance, the analyses from the first four congresses of the Comintern contain deficiencies and gaps that need to be reflected upon today.

This reality places before us the task of interpreting the documents and resolutions of that period very carefully and cautiously. If these are taken as completed, clarified resolutions on every matter, no other result can be obtained than surrendering to the deficiencies of that period. However, if a general assessment is to be made, we must clearly state that the congress resolutions of the Comintern during the Lenin and Trotsky era carried a revolutionary Marxist essence. We must certainly own this historical heritage, but by grasping its Marxist essence and knowing that there are aspects that need to be criticized and developed! In our opinion, the correct and useful approach is to find the solid links of thought that are included in the analyses of the first four congresses, that have passed the test of history, and whose consistency has been proven, and to try to complete the chain of thought by adding them together.

First Congress of the Communist International (March 1919)

The Manifesto of the Communist International, adopted at the First Congress of the Comintern, holds historical significance even today. The representatives of the world’s revolutionary proletariat who adopted this manifesto stated that they saw themselves as followers and executors of the Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels. The dominant understanding in the Comintern manifesto was to achieve the unity of workers of all countries and to escalate the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this document, the liberation of oppressed nations and colonies was also addressed in the context of the progress of the proletarian revolution in Europe.

The First Congress did not make the national liberation struggles and the colonial question in Asia a separate agenda item. These issues were touched upon in the Manifesto, and in a manner consistent with the document’s historical nature, emphasis was placed on definitive solutions. In such a period, when there was hope for the progress of the world revolution in Europe, the national liberation struggles in Asian countries or the colonial question in particular were handled within the scope of problems that the proletarian revolution would solve in passing. The assertion that the right to self-determination could only be achieved in its most comprehensive form in conjunction with the revolutionary proletariat’s struggle for power was also a significant response to bourgeois distortions on this issue. The great deception of the allied imperialist powers, who on the one hand continued their aggression against oppressed nations while on the other constantly speaking of the “right to self-determination of nations”, was also exposed. The Comintern was showing the working masses of the oppressed nations the path to genuine liberation, that is, social liberation, rather than a national liberation goal limited to gaining political independence:

“Only the proletarian revolution can secure the existence of the small nations, a revolution which frees the productive forces of all countries from the restrictions of the national states, which unites all peoples in the closest economic cooperation on the basis of a universal economic plan, and makes the smallest and weakest peoples able freely and independently to carry on their national culture without detriment to the united and centralized economy of Europe and of the whole world.”[1]

The imperialist war had accelerated the awakening in the colonial countries, and outright uprisings and revolutionary fermentations were now being seen in the colonies. Thus, the colonial question had come onto the agenda not only at the tables of diplomatic congresses in Paris, but in the colonies themselves. Moreover, putting aside the very backward colonies where the proletariat was still of little consequence, the struggle in the more developed colonies was not being waged solely under the banner of national liberation but was gradually acquiring a social character. In the context of social liberation, it was very clear that the liberation of the colonial peoples was only possible together with the liberation of the working class of the metropolises. The First Congress of the Comintern was addressing the working masses in the colonial countries with these historical words:

“If capitalist Europe forcibly dragged the backward sections of the world into the capitalist whirlpool, then socialist Europe will come to the aid of liberated colonies with its technology, its organization, its spiritual forces, in order to facilitate their transition to a planned and organized socialist economy.

“Colonial slaves of Africa and Asia! The hour of proletarian dictatorship in Europe will also be the hour of your own liberation!”[2]

Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organisations of the Eastern Peoples (November 1919)

The workers’ power established by the Great October Revolution faced very serious threats. It was essential for the Soviet proletariat, fighting against imperialist governments mobilising their forces to destroy the Soviet Republic and against internal enemies such as Kolchak, Yudenich, and Denikin, to expand its alliances on a global scale. Under conditions where the European revolution had not yet come to the rescue, the need to win the support of the working masses of the East became urgent. On the other hand, the revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East against the imperialist-capitalist system could only develop and achieve success if it united with the revolutionary struggle of the Soviet Republic.

For this reason, Lenin gave special importance to the alliance to be established between the victorious Soviet proletariat and the revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East in the context of forming a revolutionary bloc on a world scale against the imperialist system. However, just as the alliance between workers and peasants within national borders can deliver a mortal blow to the capitalist order only under the hegemony of the proletariat, the same condition is valid for alliances to be formed on a world scale. Indeed, while making significant emphasis on the national liberation struggles in the colonial and semi-colonial countries of Asia, Lenin did not approach this issue in a way that was detached from the global advance or the tasks of the proletarian revolution. In his address on November 22, 1919, he was speaking to the communists of the peoples of the East with these words:

“The socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their bourgeoisie – no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries, against international imperialism. The party programme adopted by our party in March of this year defined the approach of the world social revolution in terms of the civil war of the working people against the imperialists and exploiters in all the advanced countries. And this has been borne out by the course of the revolution, and will be still further borne out. The same thing will happen in the East.”[3]

Lenin pointed out that the majority of the peoples of the East consisted of the working and exploited peasant masses who were victims of medieval oppression, and he advised them to follow the path of the Russian Revolution. Lenin was grounding the struggle that the awakening peoples of the East would wage against international imperialism –that is, anti-imperialism– on the basis of the leadership of the proletariat:

“The Russian revolution showed how the proletarians, after defeating capitalism and uniting with the vast diffuse mass of working peasants, rose up victoriously against medieval oppression. Our Soviet Republic must now muster all the awakening peoples of the East and, together with them, wage a struggle against international imperialism.”[4]

In his speech, Lenin emphasised that definitive victory could only be achieved on the basis of the struggle of the proletariat in all the advanced countries of the world. At the same time, he also pointed out that the goal could not be achieved by the efforts of the vanguard alone. In this context, the assistance of the working people of the Eastern nations was necessary. The conditions in which the Eastern peoples found themselves were still largely medieval. For this reason, Lenin addressed the tasks facing the communists of the Eastern peoples within the framework of these concrete conditions:

“You will have to base yourselves on the bourgeois nationalism which is awakening, and must awaken, among those peoples, and which has its historical justification. At the same time, you must find your way to the working and exploited masses of every country and tell them in a language they understand that their only hope of emancipation lies in the victory of the international revolution, and that the international proletariat is the only ally of all the hundreds of millions of the working and exploited peoples of the East.”[5]

Second Congress of the Comintern (July 1920)

The victory of the October Revolution had a very positive impact on the world proletariat. As a result, the Communist International was increasingly becoming a political centre of attraction. Centrist currents that had previously been part of the Second International, or new parties formed by adding a touch of communism to petty-bourgeois socialism, were turning towards joining the Comintern.

In order to ensure and strengthen the revolutionary unity of the proletariat’s international organisation, the congress established the conditions forjoining the Comintern. Twenty-one conditions were accepted in this context. These conditions are still of great importance today in that they provide a principled framework for the revolutionary organisation of the proletariat. For example, the eighth condition defines the attitude of communists against the danger of chauvinism that emerged in European countries following the collapse of the Second International:

“Parties in countries whose bourgeoisie possess colonies and oppress other nations must pursue a most well-defined and clear-cut policy in respect of colonies and oppressed nations. Any party wishing to join the Third International must ruthlessly expose the colonial machinations of the imperialists of its «own» country, must support –in deed, not merely in word­– every colonial liberation movement, demand the expulsion of its compatriot imperialists from the colonies, inculcate in the hearts of the workers of its own country an attitude of true brotherhood with the working population of the colonies and the oppressed nations, and conduct systematic agitation among the armed forces against all oppression of the colonial peoples.”[6]

At a turning point when hopes for the European revolution were gradually fading, the national question and the colonial question occupied a very important place in the discussions of the Second Congress. There were various reasons for this. First, national liberation movements were actually on the rise in the colonial countries. Second, due to the vast territory inherited from Tsarist Russia where oppressed nations lived, the Soviet Republic was obliged to offer solutions to the national question. Third, delegates from communist organisations established in Eastern countries inevitably brought the issues of their own countries to the Comintern agenda.

For all these reasons, the Second Congress placed on its agenda both the question of how to establish the connection between national liberation movements and the world revolution in general, and how to approach the independence struggles of oppressed nations in particular. Although there were significant insights in the discussions at the Second Congress, the perspectives on how these problems could be solved on the basis of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat could not be sufficiently clarified. However, the different approaches that emerged during the discussions provided illuminating clues for evaluating the experiences that took place over the following years.

In order to evaluate in broad outlines the discussions that took place at the Second Congress, let us take up the preliminary draft that Lenin prepared for the congress. In hisPreliminary Draft ofTheses on the National Question and the Colonial Question, Lenin presented his views in twelve theses for the delegates’ consideration. These theses, which contain the most important aspects of the problem under discussion, expose the false and hypocritical nature of bourgeois democracy, criticizing its abstract and formal understanding of “national equality”. Lenin’s theses demonstrate that the road to genuine national equality passes through the rule of the proletariat, and that the true liberation of the workers of colonial and oppressed nations is also dependent on this.

We can list some important points that stand out in Lenin’s preliminary draft. It was proposed that a policy of close cooperation with the Soviet government should be pursued for the success of the liberation movements of the colonies and oppressed nations. It was emphasised that only the Soviet system could ensure the unity of the struggle of all proletarians and the working masses against the bourgeoisie. The duty of communist parties to provide direct assistance to the revolutionary movements of oppressed nations and colonies was mentioned. Lenin warned against possible misconceptions in this regard and reminded that it is the fundamental duty of communists to defend the proletariat’s internationalist perspective against petty-bourgeois nationalist prejudices.

“The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole).”[7]

Exposing petty-bourgeois nationalism, which does not take an attitude against national egoism, Lenin also reveals the two fundamental elements of proletarian internationalism:

“proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.”[8]

The issue addressed by Lenin in his theses and which caused the main debates at the Second Congress was the “support for bourgeois democratic liberation movements” in colonial and semi-colonial countries. It would be extremely wrong to evaluate this thesis out of its historical context. In order to examine certain important issues related to this topic, such as the meaning of the differences in opinion between Lenin and Roy, it is necessary to clearly understand the historical framework and concrete conditions in which these theses were defended. Let us state from the outset that Lenin’s “support for bourgeois democratic movements” initiative was limited to specific historical conditions and should never be generalised beyond that. Indeed, the opening lines of Lenin’s thesis on this issue clearly set out the specific historical framework in question:

“With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind: first, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is colonially or financially dependent on.”[9]

Secondly, another important point must be clarified. When Lenin speaks of “assisting the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement”, does he mean to frame the issue primarily in terms of assisting the bourgeoisie in the countries in question? Certainly not! It is well known from the debates that took place during the Russian revolution that Lenin’s concept of “bourgeois democratic” referred more to the broad peasant masses than to the bourgeoisie. Indeed, when Lenin speaks of assist in the context of national liberation movements, he emphasises the need to give a revolutionary character to the peasant movement in the backward countries:

“the need, in backward countries, to give special support to the peasant movement against the landowners, against landed proprietorship, and against all manifestations or survivals of feudalism, and to strive to lend the peasant movement the most revolutionary character by establishing the closest possible alliance between the West European communist proletariat and the revolutionary peasant movement in the East, in the colonies, and in the backward countries generally. It is particularly necessary to exert every effort to apply the basic principles of the Soviet system in countries where pre-capitalist relations predominate – by setting up «working people’s Soviets», etc.”[10]

It is not enough to simply state that what was essentially meant by “assist for bourgeois-democratic movements” in backward countries was revolutionary peasant movements. Furthermore, one must be extremely vigilant against the blurring of the distinction between petty-bourgeois revolutionary movements and proletarian revolutionary movements. Expecting a disproportionate role from petty-bourgeois revolutionism brings about extremely negative results for the struggle of the proletariat. For this reason, even the most radical petty-bourgeois revolutionary movements can only serve a beneficial function as allies of the proletariat when the fact that they are not communist is taken into consideration.

In his theses, Lenin emphasises the necessity of a resolute struggle against the tendency to characterise bourgeois democratic liberation movements in backward countries as communist. More importantly, he links support for bourgeois democratic liberation movements to the condition that communists never subordinate the primary tasks of the proletarian struggle. Failing to fulfil this condition, contenting oneself with a mere “supporting” position, can lead to no other political outcome than tailing bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaderships. Based on this, Lenin linked the issue of supporting bourgeois democratic liberation movements to a condition that the parties of the Third International must adhere to:

“The Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations.”[11]

This approach, which Lenin emphasised so strongly, must be taken as a basis in today’s discussions on support for national liberation struggles. And we must point out that, in conditions where the revolutionary movement of the working class is in decline, such fundamental principles can easily be forgotten, and opportunist tendencies can develop even among communists. We must never forget: Communists who prioritise the task of supporting this or that movement without fulfilling their primary duty –that is, without making the strengthening of their own independent organisation their top priority– demonstrate their allegiance not to a communist struggle but to some other struggle.

Such a political attitude means surrendering to other political currents from the very beginning and abandoning the task of creating a revolutionary organisation, which is the most fundamental requirement of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle. The fate of organisations that believe they can strengthen themselves through various alliances without prioritising the preservation of their political independence is well known. Yes, this path can also serve a “cause”; this path can also add “strength” to something. But it is very clear that this path will neither serve the revolutionary cause of the proletariat nor strengthen communist organisation. Due to the possibility of such a danger, it must never be forgotten where Lenin placed the emphasis when he introduced concepts such as “support” or “alliance”:

“The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.”[12]

In order to adopt the correct attitude towards national liberation struggles, it is also important to clarify the class dynamics that influence these struggles in different ways. For example, colonial rule hinders the free development of economic forces in colonised countries. Therefore, it is not only the oppressed nation’s working class but also its bourgeoisie that generally desires the overthrow of this rule. Faced with this reality, Lenin felt the need to further clarify the nature of the support to be given to the struggle for the overthrow of foreign rule in the colonies. The aim of communists is not to support the nationalist movement of the local bourgeoisie. On the contrary, support for national liberation movements can have only one goal: to advance the revolution in colonial countries far beyond the demands of the local bourgeoisie and to pave the way for the proletariat and the oppressed masses. On the other hand, the achievement of political independence, which means a limited and bourgeois solution to the national question, will make it much clearer to the working masses that true liberation depends on social revolution.

As demonstrated by all national struggles led by the bourgeoisie, the colonial bourgeoisie, despite its contradictions with imperial countries, does everything it can to halt the masses’ struggle at the point of establishing a nation-state. Even the bourgeoisie of an oppressed nation lacks the strength to carry out social transformations with a bourgeois-democratic content, such as an agrarian revolution. Indeed, Lenin drew attention to two increasingly divergent types of movements in oppressed nations. The first is the nationalist bourgeois-democratic movement, which aims only to achieve political independence and subsequently establish a bourgeois order. The second is the social liberation movement of the oppressed nation’s working and poor peasant masses, which seeks to be free from all forms of exploitation.

Although there were many discussions during the congress, the draft theses that Lenin submitted to the congress delegates for review determined the general direction of the congress decisions. In his report entitled “The International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International”, read at the congress on 19 July, Lenin stated that in economically backward countries (the majority of which were colonial countries), liberation from imperialist domination could only be achieved through organising a soviet movement. He viewed the liberation of the working masses in colonial countries not merely in terms of political independence (because this was the narrow perspective of bourgeois or petty-bourgeois nationalists, limited to the establishment of a nation-state), but as the question of complete liberation, i.e., social revolution.

It is also important to understand the different tendencies that emerged within the commission that prepared the Second Congress’s report on the national question. These tendencies can be grouped into three main categories. The first was the tendency symbolised by the Italian Serrati, which the congress rejected as being overly European-oriented. The second tendency was expressed by the Indian Roy and contained very important political approaches based on the reality of countries such as India. The third tendency was the approach defended by Lenin and accepted by the congress.

The Italian delegate Serrati put forward views opposing the linking of the progress of the world revolution to national liberation struggles in the East. From the perspective of the progress of the world revolution, the emphasis on the importance of the proletarian struggle in European countries was not incorrect. Additionally, it was correct that the national liberation struggles in the East could not replace the proletarian struggle in Europe. However, the issue under discussion encompassed more complex aspects beyond this. For example, Serrati was not correct in dismissing the discussion about the East as insignificant. Because the revolutionary awakening in Asian countries was a reality and deserved attention. Furthermore, Serrati and the Iranian delegate Sultanzade argued that national liberation movements in which the bourgeoisie participated were not revolutionary movements. According to them, supporting national liberation struggles led by the national bourgeoisie in colonial countries would confuse the class consciousness of the proletariat.

This approach was wrong because it did not take into account the concrete situation in a colonial country and made a generalisation independent of historical conditions. However, the question of whether national liberation movements, even under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, still have a revolutionary character compared to the past can only be answered by looking at the concrete historical conditions. For example, during Lenin’s time, in backward colonial countries, where the proletariat was not yet able to play an independent political role, the national liberation struggle was inevitably led by bourgeois or petty-bourgeois elements. In such situations, neither does the national liberation struggle lose its legitimacy, nor does a struggle confined to bourgeois leadership rise to a revolutionary character that transcends its own limits. That is the case, and what Lenin sought to clarify was the basis on which a national liberation struggle is legitimate under such concrete conditions.

Lenin’s approach is correct and aimed at determining concrete political tactics. Yes, the strategy of the proletariat must be based on the permanence of the revolution, and the real and comprehensive solution of all democratic issues, including the national question, is possible only through a social revolution led by the proletariat. However, even when the proletariat has not yet actually assumed this historical mission, national liberation wars can break out, and communists must be able to determine the correct tactics in the face of such realities. For this reason, it is wrong to develop a uniform attitude towards all countries where national liberation struggles are taking place. For example, it is necessary to approach a large colonial country like India, where capitalism is developing rapidly, and an extremely backward colonial country in Asia or Africa that is still struggling to transition from feudalism to capitalism, based on the differences between them. In the former, the national question must be addressed directly on the basis of the political tasks of the proletariat, while in the latter, as Lenin pointed out, the fact that the country is still struggling to emerge from the darkness of the Middle Ages must be taken into account.

Let us return to the discussions of the Second Congress. Roy, who did not differ much from the Italian delegate Serrati on the limited character of the national liberation struggle, differed from him and others who shared his views on the importance of Asia. Roy drew on the example of India, which was more developed than other colonial countries. He argued that there was a fundamental difference between the national independence movement of the native bourgeoisie and the movement of the working class and peasantry against exploitation, and that the two could not develop together in the same direction.

Roy based his argument on the fact that the European proletariat was silenced by the income from the colonies and argued that the European working class could not overthrow capitalism unless this source of income was dried up. For this reason, he linked the fate of the revolutionary movement in Europe entirely to the development of the revolution in the East. While giving due importance to the revolutionary awakening in the East, Lenin did not approve of Roy’s approach and, joining the European delegates, criticised Roy:

“Comrade Roy goes too far when he asserts that the fate of the West depends exclusively on the degree of development and the strength of the revolutionary movement in the Eastern countries. In spite of the fact that the proletariat in India numbers five million and there are 37 million landless peasants, the Indian Communists have not yet succeeded in creating a Communist Party in their country. This fact alone shows that Comrade Roy’s views are to a large extent unfounded.”[13]

Despite the objections of Serrati and the European delegates, Lenin had Roy’s thesis adopted with a slight modification to the following formulation:

“Extra profit gained in the colonies is the mainstay of modern capitalism, and so long as the latter is not deprived of this source of extra profit it will not be easy for the European working class to overthrow the capitalist order.”[14]

At its session on 26 July, the Congress considered the report of the Commission on National and Colonial Questions. Lenin, who was the rapporteur on this issue, referred in his opening speech to the question that had caused controversy during the commission’s work, namely the question of supporting bourgeois democratic liberation movements. Roy objected to the concept of “bourgeois democratic movement” and used the concept of “revolutionary national movement” in his own theses. Reiterating that national movements, by their historical character, possess a “bourgeois democratic” quality, Lenin accepted the proposal to change the concept for another reason. The reason was this: In the face of the imperialist bourgeoisie’s attempt to organise reformist movements alongside the native bourgeoisie of the colonies to suppress the revolutionary upsurge, it had become necessary to distinguish between “reformist” and “revolutionary” movements. Lenin stated that the commission had discussed these issues and unanimously agreed to replace the term “bourgeois democratic movement” with “revolutionary national movement”. This was intended to clarify the conditions under which liberation movements in colonial countries would be supported:

“… we, as Communists, should and will support bourgeois-liberation movements in the colonies only when they are genuinely revolutionary, and when their exponents do not hinder our work of educating and organizing in a revolutionary spirit the peasantry and the masses of the exploited. If these conditions do not exist, the Communists in these countries must combat the reformist bourgeoisie, to whom the heroes of the Second International also belong.”[15]

After some changes were agreed upon during the commission’s discussions, the congress accepted the twelve theses contained in Lenin’s draft.[16] The characterization of national movements was certainly not a simple matter of terminology, and Lenin was not fundamentally mistaken when he used the term “bourgeois-democratic movement”. This is because the truly dangerous position on such issues –whether led by a reformist bourgeois or a revolutionary petty-bourgeois leadership– is to not emphasize the inherent limitations of the national liberation struggle and to almost equate it with social revolution. Indeed, the Stalinist tradition created a great deal of theoretical confusion on this matter, reducing the strategy of proletarian revolution in colonial countries to the level of national liberation struggle. The Marxist understanding of permanent revolution, which guides the world proletariat, was discarded thanks to a “Trotskyism” bogeyman created by the Stalinist school of falsification, and replaced by a caricature of staged revolution that prioritized the interests of the ruling bureaucracy. Stalinism slyly distorted Lenin’s cautious evaluations and his conditional support for national liberation struggles, which prioritized the interests of the proletarian revolution. Thus, a “Leninism” was created in colonial or dependent capitalist countries based on building popular fronts with the national bourgeoisie. There are so many examples of this, but let us return to our main topic.

In fact, the fundamental issue underlying the debates between Lenin and Roy was the reality of colonial countries at different levels of development. Lenin, who took into account the backward countries, i.e., countries where the proletariat had not yet been able to play an independent political role, was right to take into account the progressive role of the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era and the establishment of a nation-state led by the bourgeoisie in these countries. Roy, on the other hand, was not wrong in considering such an approach insufficient in a colonial country like India. Therefore, to reach clearer conclusions in the Second Congress debates, it was not necessary to reconcile different approaches reflecting different concrete conditions, but rather to take the objective differences as the basis.

Roy argued that, given the level of capitalist development and the existence of the proletariat in countries like India, the leadership of the colonial revolution should be in the hands of the proletariat from the very beginning. Roy stated that the movement of the native bourgeoisie, which limited itself to the goal of national independence, and the struggle of the working class and peasantry against the capitalist system of exploitation were very different in scope. For this reason, he believed they could not develop together and that there was an objective contradiction between them:

“There are to be found in the dependent countries two distinct movements which every day grow further apart from each other. One is the bourgeois-democratic nationalist movement, with a programme of political independence under the bourgeois order, and the other is the mass action of the poor and ignorant peasants and workers for their liberation from all forms of exploitation. The former endeavours to control the latter, and often succeeds to a certain extent, but the Communist International and the affiliated parties must struggle against such control and help to develop class-consciousness in the working masses of the colonies.”[17]

Roy’s approach was generally correct, and his warning about the bourgeois democratic national movement in a country like India was well-founded. Although there were some differences between Lenin and Roy’s theses on the points we have mentioned, they shared a similar view on the nature of the soviets that could arise in Asian countries. Due to the concrete conditions of Asian countries, the organs created by revolutionary uprisings there could be soviets of workers and poor peasants.

At the Congress, another important issue was also discussed in this context. It was not a necessity that the backward countries of Asia would go through a stage of capitalist development, except under one condition: with the help of the proletariat of the advanced countries. Lenin’s approach was as follows:

“It would be a mistake to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through the capitalist stage of development. If the victorious revolutionary proletariat carries on systematic propaganda among them, and the Soviet governments come to their aid with all the means at their disposal, it would be a mistake to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through the capitalist stage of development.”[18]

The advancement of the proletarian revolution on an international scale could indeed change the fate of revolutions in backward and colonial countries, provided it embraces the working masses in those nations and the victorious proletariat in advanced countries comes to their aid. Thus, in his approach to the problems of oppressed peoples, Lenin incorporated the assistance of the proletariat of advanced countries and the victorious Soviet governments, offering an all-round perspective on the solution. However, we must draw attention to an important point here. It would be a highly unfortunate endeavor to try to draw a parallel between this perspective on revolution in backward and colonial countries and the later “non-capitalist path” theses, which were a product of Stalinism. This is because when Lenin spoke of a non-capitalist path to social liberation for backward countries, he was talking about a path that would be paved by the advanced proletariat who had seized power. In contrast, the Stalinist understanding of the “non-capitalist path” paved a “national developmentalist” road for the national bourgeoisie of these countries, allowing them to accelerate capitalist development through state capitalism.

First Congress of the Peoples of the East (Baku, September 1920)

The Comintern, which attached importance to the awakening in Asia and aimed to break the Eastern peoples away from the hegemony of the imperialist camp and draw them to the side of the Soviet Republic, also organised separate meetings embracing communist and national liberation organisations in Asia. The First Congress of the Peoples of the East, held in Baku in 1920, was one of these meetings, in accordance with the decision of the Second Congress. The speeches made by delegates from Eastern countries at the Congress reflected a mix of petty-bourgeois nationalism and sympathy for Soviet support, nationalist sentiments influenced by communist ideas, and, in short, an immature and confused intellectual atmosphere.

The discussions at the Baku Congress mainly covered the problems of Muslim nations that were former colonies of Tsarist Russia. During the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks were able to positively influence the political representatives of oppressed nations with their principled attitude on the right of nations to self-determination. For example, Sultan Galiyev, one of the leading figures of Muslim nationalism in Central Asia, joined the Bolsheviks in November 1917 and also organised the Muslim Communist Party.

Muslim “communists” such as Sultan Galiyev, who aimed to establish a separate Muslim state, actually represented the nationalism of oppressed nations. On the other side of the coin were “communists” such as Stalin, who represented the nationalism of the oppressor nation. Among the political leaders of the Eastern peoples, there was growing dissatisfaction with the Bolsheviks’ attitude on the national question, which was seen as resembling the practices of the former colonial state. The practices that were an extension of the great Russian chauvinism, which Lenin would also begin to feel increasingly uncomfortable with, pushed the petty-bourgeois socialists of the Muslim nations (such as Sultan Galiyev) to the point of completely exaggerating the revolutionary spirit of the oppressed nations.[19]

Lenin attached importance to the struggle for liberation of the oppressed nations of the East as an ally of the world proletarian revolution. However, the petty-bourgeois socialists of the Eastern peoples began to show their distrust of the world proletariat. For example, Sultan Galiyev interpreted the idea of assistance from the proletariat of developed countries as “coming to the colonial regions in a saviour role” and opposed this approach. This Muslim nationalist claimed that not only traditional imperialist powers such as Britain and France, but also the industrial proletariat of the Soviet Union, were pursuing the exploitation of peoples rather than their liberation. In his view, the proletariat’s seizure of power would merely mean a change of masters for the colonial peoples.

Sultan Galiyev’s ideas constitute an old but striking example of the false socialist or anti-imperialist rhetoric that underlies Muslim nationalism, which we are familiar with today. Moreover, his ideas are a typical example of the true nature of many Eastern nationalists who participated in the Baku Congress dressed in “communist” garb. Such ideas express the class reaction of petty-bourgeois nationalism, which, due to the conditions in which it finds itself, paints itself in “communist” colours, towards the proletariat and its revolution. Galiyev, who tries to sell the nationalism of the oppressed nations as “socialism”, says:

“Muslim peoples are proletarian nations. The difference between the proletarians of England and France and those of Morocco and Afghanistan is very great. It can be argued that nationalist movements in Muslim countries have a socialist revolutionary character.”[20]

Sultan Galiyev argued that the fundamental contradiction in the world lies between industrial metropolises and colonies. He stated that the only way forward for Eastern nations was for “the proletarian nations of the East to unite and establish a dictatorship over the West”. As an extension of this view, he argued for the establishment of a separate international organisation, independent of the Third International, which would defend the interests of “backward proletarian nations against developed countries”. Muslim representatives who participated in the Baku Congress displayed complex feelings of distrust toward the Soviet state and their need for its support, as well as a supposed sympathy for communism based primarily on petty-bourgeois nationalism.

At the Baku Congress, Pavlovic, the Comintern rapporteur on thenational and colonial question, reiterated in his speech the line set out in the Second Congress theses:

“The discussions at the Second Congress of the Third International led us to the conclusion that the backward peoples of the East, with the help of countries that have an advanced proletariat, can establish a Soviet-type order and, after a transitional period, can reach the communist stage without passing through the capitalist stage.”[21]

Bela Kun, President of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, presented the theses to the congress delegates on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The sixth article of the theses stated:

“The victory of the Communist Party in the West will put an end to the exploitation of the peoples of the East. (…) In order to fully liberate the East from imperialist exploitation, to give the land to the workers, and to remove the exploiters from power... it is absolutely necessary to remove the foreign colonizers from power and to establish the power of the poor classes on Soviet foundations. The interest of the working masses of the East lies in the understanding of the necessity of establishing Soviet orders in their countries.”[22]

The theses presented to the congress delegates were approved unanimously. The declaration titled “To the Peoples of the East”,published by the Baku Congress, concluded with the following words:

“We call on you for a Holy War to remove the division of the world into advanced and backward, dependent and independent, metropolitan and colonial countries.

“Peoples of the East! In this Holy War, all the revolutionary workers and oppressed peasants of the West will be with you. They will help you, fight alongside you, and give their lives.”[23]

As can be seen, the Comintern officials did not agree with the proposals put forward during the Congress discussions that centred on the East. This was the correct attitude. However, in an effort to alleviate the demoralisation caused by the retreat of the revolutionary wave in Europe, the revolutionary potential in the East would still be exaggerated to a considerable extent.

Among the decisions adopted by the Congress was an important provision concerning the national struggle in Turkey. This provision stated that the national revolutionary movement in Turkey was directed solely against foreign exploiters. It emphasised that this movement would not mean the liberation of workers and peasants from oppression and exploitation, and that even if it were successful, it would not bring about the solution to the most important problems of the Turkish working masses. Indeed, the outcome of the Turkish national struggle which was generally confined to the leadership of former Ottoman pashas fully confirmed these statements.

The Political Situation Before the Third Congress and the Turkey Question

The year 1921 marked a turning point in terms of the adverse conditions the Soviet state had entered. The fading hope for revolution in Europe had become abundantly clear. The German revolution, which was expected to end the isolation of the Soviet state, was defeated, and the March uprising of the German Communist Party was suppressed by counter-revolutionary forces. The isolated Soviet state was faced with the problem of coexisting with bourgeois states on its own. With the certainty that the European revolution would not come to the rescue, the policy of establishing “peaceful” relations with bourgeois states in order to keep the isolated Soviet state alive came to the fore. In March 1921, measures resulting from the isolation of the Soviet state followed one after another.

In order to prevent economic collapse and famine, the Soviet government signed a trade agreement with Britain on 16 March. Under this agreement, the Soviet government undertook not to engage in political activities in countries in Asia where Britain was ruling. Then, on 18 March, a peace agreement was signed with Poland. Meanwhile, the change in circumstances brought about by the agreement between the Soviet government and the United Kingdom began to manifest itself in concrete terms. While the British were paving the way for an agreement with M. Kemal, the Soviets were also signing a “friendship” agreement with Kemalist Turkey. Thus, the tension between the principled decisions taken at previous Comintern congresses and the changing political balances in practice would also be clearly felt in the approach to the “national struggle” led by M. Kemal in Turkey.

The bourgeois leader of the national struggle, M. Kemal, initially weak and lacking support, carried out actions that almost made him appear “communist” to the Soviet government. For example, in a telegram sent to Moscow on 29 November 1920, he spoke of the cooperation between the peoples of Asia and Africa and the Western proletariat to overthrow bourgeois rule. However, when conditions changed to the detriment of the Soviet Union, M. Kemal would feel more confident about the strategic importance of Turkish territory for the Soviet state. This allowed him to feel assured of Soviet aid and to use the Soviet factor as a bargaining chip to gain acceptance from the imperialists.

The Turkish bourgeoisie, which wanted to carve out a place for itself in Anatolia and establish its own nation-state against the imperialist states seeking to divide the Ottoman Empire, resorted to every means to prevent the national struggle in Anatolia from escaping its control. In January 1921, Mustafa Suphi, founder of the Turkish Communist Party, and 14 of his comrades were drowned in the Black Sea in an assassination organised by the bourgeois leadership of the national struggle. Following this massacre, the peasant struggle led by Çerkez Ethem (the Green Army movement) was suppressed. Despite these developments, the Soviet government did not sever its relations with M. Kemal; in fact, no expression of discontent was even made. While the Soviet government was struggling with major economic and military difficulties, it sent M. Kemal ten million gold rubles and a significant amount of arms in accordance with the Treaty of Brotherhood signed in March 1921.

The emergence of a genuine anti-imperialist popular movement in Anatolia, right under the nose of the Soviet Union, inspired by the October Revolution, was a nightmare for both the Turkish bourgeoisie and the Western imperialist states. On one side was the Turkish bourgeoisie, eager to establish its own bourgeois order and Westernise and become capitalist; on the other side were the imperialists, terrified of the spread of the Soviet Revolution to Anatolia. These forces were in fact united by a common interest. This situation was a fundamental factor in determining the extent to which M. Kemal could defy imperialist states, as well as in prompting imperialist governments to come to their senses and extend an olive branch to bourgeois leaders like Kemal. The concessions made by the Soviet government to the Turkish bourgeoisie with the goal of “protecting the Soviet state” also played an important role in this process.

This situation pushed the Turkish communist movement into a very weak position from the outset. The assassination of its founding leaders by the bourgeoisie and the systematic repression that followed cut off the path of the communist movement in Turkey, allowing the Kemalist bourgeois leadership to easily establish its hegemony over the working masses. And thus, it succeeded in confining the national liberation struggle within bourgeois limits, stopping it at the point of achieving national independence and establishing a modern bourgeois nation-state. In short, the “national liberation struggle” in Turkey remained within the boundaries of the bourgeois leadership’s hegemony and, as the leadership itself called it, the “national struggle”, without turning into a workers’ and peasants’ uprising. It was up to the Turkish bourgeoisie to write this struggle into its official history as a “glorious anti-imperialist struggle that set an example for oppressed nations”. Unfortunately, however, due in part to the weaknesses of the Comintern at the outset and subsequently to the influence of Stalinist degeneration, communists in Turkey also sang the same tune for many years.

As we recall, the decisions of the Second Congress, which mentioned the possibility of temporary cooperation with bourgeois democrats in the national liberation struggles of colonial and semi-colonial countries, also specified the conditions for such cooperation. Communists were obliged, above all, to put the interests of the proletarian struggle first and determine tactics accordingly. Whether called an alliance or cooperation, the term “temporary” refers to a unity in action based on a concrete problem with clearly defined boundaries. Undoubtedly, the fundamental principle of communists in such cooperation is succinctly expressed in the words, “march separately, strike together; keep the flags separate”. Therefore, the fundamental criterion was to never compromise on independent political organisation, regardless of the name given to it. For this reason, maintaining vigilance and refusing to collaborate with those who harm the organisation under conditions that undermine it were indispensable conditions for communists.

Yes, it is not a correct attitude in political struggle to remain rigidly committed to principles without taking concrete conditions into account. However, tolerating the violation of principles in the name of “fulfilling the requirements of concrete conditions” lays the groundwork for greater mistakes and deviations over time. There is no harm in losing a small battle in order to win a larger war; or, in order to avoid losing the war, it may sometimes be necessary to make a bad peace. An example of this is the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty signed by the Soviet government with the Germans in 1918. In such a situation, the rule is not to present a negative decision as a positive example, but to reveal the necessities and contradictions with all their clarity. It is also an element of learning from experience to clearly understand that not every political stance in practice can be an exemplary one, and that, on the contrary, the difficulties encountered can sometimes force communist leaders to make decisions that are far from pleasant.

The Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, for instance, was a comprehensible example in that a decision forced by adverse yet objective circumstances was proclaimed without distortion. However, there was no justification for the Turkey question being covered up instead of being openly discussed within the Comintern. This mistaken attitude led to numerous illusions about the nature of the national struggle and M. Kemal’s leadership in Turkey, creating ambiguities to exploit. This situation would later pave the way for the class-conciliatory line, which would be imposed on the Turkish communist movement in Stalin’s time, to be accepted without question. In this environment, Stalinism would seize on the existing weaknesses, causing a tendency to tail-end Kemalism, a nationalism of oppressor nation, and a shameful conception of “front” or “anti-imperialism” that meant a deep intermingling with its own bourgeoisie to dominate the Turkish communist movement for many years.

In order to draw lessons from past periods, it is still meaningful today to question whether the Soviet government’s support for the bourgeois leadership in Turkey was correct. Undoubtedly, a revolutionary struggle can confront revolutionaries with the necessity of making many unpleasant sacrifices. In the context of the “part-whole” relationship, it may be necessary to prioritise the interests of the “whole”. However, in order to learn the right lesson from history in our example, we must never lose sight of the fact that the “whole” is the interests of the world revolution. The success of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle depends not on the confinement of revolutions within the borders of individual workers’ states, but on the contrary, on the permanency of the revolution on a global scale. However, if this principle is not to be reduced to a mere slogan, it is undoubtedly necessary to correctly assess what is possible or impossible under the concrete conditions of the moment.

For example, in a situation where the gains of the October Revolution were still a reality, it was a revolutionary attitude to seek to defend this position in order to regroup and prepare for a new offensive of the world revolution. To avoid misunderstanding this point, let us recall the irreconcilable contradiction between the concern for defence based on correct foundations during Lenin’s period and the “defensive” instinct of the Stalin period. The fundamental problem during the Stalin period was the desire to protect a “Soviet Union” that had become a state ruled by the dominant bureaucracy, at the expense of strangling the world revolution. Returning to our examination of the Lenin period after this necessary reminder, we can summarise the outcome as follows: even if the Soviet government’s stance on theTurkey question could be based on an acceptable foundation within the framework of the “part-whole” relationship, the path followed was still incorrect for two reasons. First, the failure to clearly state the facts; second, while making certain concessions to the bourgeois leadership of the national struggle, the lack of vigilance in protecting the political independence and the lives of the leaders of a communist movement that had only just opened its eyes to the world.

Third Congress of the Communist International (June-July 1921)

This congress coincided with the beginning of an adverse period in which the revolutionary wave in Europe was receding, the October Revolution was isolated, and the Soviets were facing enormous economic difficulties. The Comintern had begun to struggle with the problem of regaining strength rather than organising a new advance of the world revolution. It was under these conditions that the united workers’ front, which would lead to very important debates and polarisations in the future, was brought to the agenda. The aim was to find a way out to strengthen the class movement under the conditions of a serious worldwide regression of the working-class movement. This front approach, approved during Lenin’s time, is a correct political tactic that aims to form a unity of forces and a united action among the various organizations of the working class.

The Third Congress did not dwell at length on the question of the colonies. Trotsky delivered the main speech, titled “The World Economic Crisis and the New Tasks of the Communist International”, at the session on 27 June. His speech included a comprehensive analysis of the capitalist world economy and took into account the economic recovery that had occurred in the three years following the end of the war. Stating that “capital still reigns over almost the entire world”, Trotsky noted that the balance of power had shifted after the war and that the bourgeoisie was beginning to feel stronger. Comparing the current situation to the conditions of the previous period, Trotsky said, “now, during the Third World Congress of the Communist International, the situation is not the same as it was during the First and Second Congresses”.[24] Likewise, in his speech on the tactics of the International at the June 30th session, Radek also pointed to the conditions of the receding revolutionary wave:

“If there is a lengthy breathing spell in capitalist society, we simply have different tasks than we do in a situation in which we perceive a general rising tendency of revolution. It would then not have the task of preparing proletarians to confront all the eventualities of civil war. Its principal task would then be to carry out organisation and agitation and to build armies for the coming battles”.[25]

The Third Congress also failed to give sufficient attention to the important developments taking place in Asian countries at that time. Reflecting the agreement reached with M. Kemal, the Congress remained silent on Turkey and made no mention of the repression of communists in that country. Yes, unfortunately, not a single word was uttered in the congress decisions to protest the massacre of Turkish communists. The Third Congress did not address the colonial question, due generally to the retreat of the revolutionary wave and particularly to the pressure of the Soviet government’s agreement with Britain. During the discussions, this issue was passed over with a few sentences. For example, the speaking time for delegates from colonial countries was limited to five minutes by the congress presidency. Roy, condemning this attitude, used his five-minute speaking time to voice his protest:

“I have been given five minutes for my report. Since the topic could not be exhausted even in an hour, I will use these five minutes to launch an energetic protest. The way that the Eastern question has been handled at this congress is purely opportunistic and more appropriate for a congress of the Second International. It is impossible to reach any specific conclusions in the few comments that delegates from the East are permitted to make”.[26]

An important point to mention in the context of the congress debates and decisions is Lenin’s Reporton the Tactics of the Russian Communist Party, presented to the congress delegates on 5 July. The report includes a section on the issue of national liberation struggles. Lenin points out that these struggles have the potential to transform into an anti-imperialist struggle under conditions where the world revolution enters a new phase of upsurge.

“It is clear that in the future decisive battles of the world revolution, the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism and will, perhaps, play a much more revolutionary role than we anticipate. It is important to emphasize the fact that we have for the first time in our International taken up the problem of preparing for this struggle. Of course, there are many more difficulties here than in other fields, but in spite of everything, the movement is advancing. And the oppressed masses –the peasants in the colonial countries– in spite of their backwardness, will play a very important revolutionary role in the future stages of the world revolution”.[27]

Under conditions where the world revolution is in retreat, national liberation struggles cannot, on their own, deal serious blows to the imperialist-capitalist system. Lenin himself questioned under what conditions the movement of the oppressed masses in the colonial countries, which was still a national liberation war, could truly become an anti-imperialist struggle. On the one hand, he highlights the difference in scope between these two struggles; on the other hand, he links such a transformation to the conditions of the rise of the world revolution.

First Congress of the Communist and Revolutionary Organisations of the Far East (January 1922)

The congress evaluated the struggle developing within the oppressed nations of Asia on the basis of achieving a worldwide unity of the proletariat and oppressed peoples. The Congress Manifesto expresses the perspective of forming a unity of Far Eastern workers under the banner of the Communist International. The struggle in Asian countries is not limited to a purely national liberation struggle, but is instead framed within the broader struggle against capital and imperialism. The manifesto declares the goals of overthrowing the tyrants, establishing a just order for the working people, expelling the parasites, and establishing the power of those who will rise from the ranks of the workers and peasants. The manifesto concludes with an appeal to the working masses of the Asian countries: “Organize! Join our fighting ranks! Form workers’ and peasants’ organizations to fight against capital and imperialism! Prepare for war!”[28]

The most significant development in the Manifesto is that the demand for the unity of the world proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world against world imperialists is expressed for the first time in the form of an explicit war slogan. Marx and Engels’ famous call has been expanded into the following war slogan: “The Communist International has raised the great slogan: Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!”[29] Thus, the “united workers’ front” tactic raised at the Third Congress of the Communist International was expanded, and a conception ofanti-imperialist front that the working class would form together with the oppressed nations’ working masses in the struggle against the imperialist system was reached.

It is correct to apply such tactics provided that the core of the united struggle is formed by workers’ organisations and that the principle of the independent organisation of the proletariat is strictly adhered to. However, such issues are actually very sensitive and require complete clarity. For example, while the historical goal expressed in the slogan “Workers of all countries, unite!” was meaningful at the time when it was first articulated, the addition of “oppressed peoples” to broaden its scope should not create any ambiguity on this issue. The main thing in the anti-imperialist struggle is to make sure the working class is united. But the front tactics based on this foundation can give life to the proletariat’s alliance politics in the right way and help the revolutionary proletariat’s struggle move forward in a healthy way. Unfortunately, the question of the front was not discussed at length at the Comintern meetings during Lenin’s time and was not clarified sufficiently. Trotsky later tried to continue the line defended by Lenin, but due to the dominance of Stalinism in the Comintern and the Soviet Union, a completely distorted conception of the front was made prevalent in the world communist movement as a whole.

Fourth Congress of the Comintern (November-December 1922)

The Fourth Congress was the last Comintern congress attended by Lenin. Due to his illness, Lenin was only able to present a single report, Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution. Meanwhile, the diplomatic environment that had prevented the colonial question from being addressed at the previous congress had changed as a result of new developments. For example, Britain had opposed the Soviet government’s participation in the Lausanne Conference, where the Turkish question was to be discussed. Thus, the factor of the Soviet government’s submission to the pressure of the diplomatic agreement reached with Britain in the previous period had been eliminated. The Fourth Congress allocated a significant portion of its agenda to the colonial issue. The draft resolution on the national question and the colonial issue was prepared by delegations from Eastern countries with the assistance of Comintern leaders.

The issue of nationalism raised during the Congress discussions, like in the Second Congress, revealed differences in tendencies. Among the Eastern delegates, there were nationalist delegates from Muslim countries who advocated Pan-Islamism, as well as delegates such as Roy, a communist from India, who addressed the national and colonial issues on the basis of the revolutionary mission of the proletariat. And it was neither possible nor correct for these different views to be reconciled.

For example, Tan Malaka, an Indonesian delegate and representative of Muslim nationalists, sought to promote and defend Pan-Islamism as the progressive and anti-imperialist political movement of the Muslim peoples of the East. From this standpoint, he argued that all national movements should be supported. Malaka was a typical example of some Eastern delegates who had not yet freed themselves from the influence of religion and taken shape on the basis of primitive nationalism.

Roy, however, approached the national question from the perspective of advancing the struggle of the working class. He brought very important and comprehensive views to the congress’s discussion agenda. For this reason, Roy’s theses require a brief review. Roy pointed out that the experiences gained after the Second Congress of the Comintern made it possible to determine much more comprehensive principles on the national and colonial question. The Second Congress, in evaluating the revolutionary national movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries, had specifically assigned the communist parties of imperialist countries the task of supporting these movements. Reminding the congress delegates of this point, Roy also pointed out a significant shortcoming:

“Only a few then understood that the inclusive term «colonial and semi-colonial countries» embraced quite different regions and peoples. Furthermore, these regions and peoples included every form of social development and of political and industrial backwardness. We thought that since all these countries were politically, economically and socially backward, we could put them all in the same basket and solve the problem as a general one. This was a wrong view”.[30]

It was not correct to follow a political line that could only be valid in a more backward country in a colony like India, where capitalism was quite developed. The experiences of Turkey, China, and India after the Second Congress proved the fallacy of a wholesale approach to Eastern countries. For this reason, Roy divided these countries into three main groups:

“We can divide Eastern countries into three groups. First, we see countries where capitalism has reached a fairly high level of development. In these countries, industry has not developed solely through capital imported from large capital centres; alongside this, a local capitalism has also emerged. This capitalism has led to the formation of a bourgeoisie with developed class consciousness and, as its opposite, a proletariat. Similarly, this proletariat is developing its own class consciousness and engaging in economic struggles that are gradually moving towards the political stage. Second, we can include countries where capitalist development has begun but remains at a backward stage, with feudalism still forming the backbone of society. Thirdly, there are countries where primitive relations prevail and the feudal patriarchal order has left its mark on society.

“(…) in all of these countries we are dealing with a revolutionary movement. Yet since their social structures are dissimilar, so too is the nature of their revolutionary movements. To the degree that their social character differs, so too must these movements’ programme vary, and so too must their tactics”.[31]

The first category of Eastern countries was exemplified by India. In such a colonial country where capitalism was more developed, it was clear that the native bourgeoisie would find it more beneficial to be under the protection of imperialism. For this reason, Roy rightly believed that the possibility of a national liberation struggle turning into a social revolution in such countries would frighten not only the imperialists but also the native bourgeoisie from the very outset, prompting them to determine their stance accordingly. Correctly grasping the fundamental characteristic of the era of imperialism, Roy, just like Lenin and Trotsky, also stated that imperialism signified a new method of exploitation: “Today it has found it necessary to reject the old methods of exploitation, and it has made certain political and economic concessions to a sector of the native bourgeoisie”.[32]

In countries like Turkey, which fall into the second category, Roy said that the national struggle was deepening in parallel with the development of the bourgeoisie. In these countries, too, there was a danger of the bourgeoisie coming to terms with imperialism; but it was also true that bourgeois nationalist movements objectively had a certain progressive function. In fact, in order to say whether the bourgeoisie was a revolutionary factor or not, specific historical reasons had to be taken into account. In short, it was necessary to evaluate the concrete situation, and Roy generally provided a correct criterion: “The bourgeoisie becomes a revolutionary force when it directs the rebellion against the backward and outworn social forms, that is, when the struggle is directed fundamentally against feudalism, and the bourgeoisie leads the people. In such conditions the bourgeoisie is the vanguard of revolution”.[33]

During the era of imperialism, the bourgeoisie’s fear of radical changes that would benefit the broad peasant masses was a significant reality. Therefore, the bourgeoisie of colonial countries generally acted in a way that would gain political independence but also prevent social movements from advancing towards more radical goals. In other words, the bourgeoisie of colonial countries could fight to be liberated from colonial status, but could also easily switch to the counter-revolutionary side on issues like agrarian revolution that were in the interests of the working masses. Aware of these realities, Roy stated that the native bourgeoisie was open to compromise with imperialism at any moment, and that one could not expect comprehensive revolutionary action or anti-imperialism from this bourgeoisie. Thus, he also explained his hesitations about the national struggle in Turkey: “It leads the struggle of the weak and undeveloped and oppressed bourgeoisie against a strong and developed bourgeoisie. Instead of a class struggle, this is so to speak a conflict within a single class, and as such, it presents a basis for compromise”.[34]

In both India and Turkey, it had become clear that the local ruling elements were seeking ways to compromise with imperialist capitalism. Therefore, in such countries, it was a necessary condition for the proletariat to take over the leadership for the national liberation struggle of the working masses to be elevated to the level of a struggle against the imperialist capitalist system. And this was possible in all countries where capitalism had developed to a certain extent. As Roy pointed out, when the movement in the colonies acquired a revolutionary character, it not only threatened imperialist capital but also turned against the local ruling classes: “We see a dual struggle in the colonial countries, directed simultaneously against foreign imperialism and the native privileged classes, which indirectly or directly reinforce and support foreign imperialism”.[35]

The struggle against imperialist Britain in Egypt and India had stalled due to the cowardice and vacillation of the bourgeoisie: “And a great revolutionary movement that embraced the broad masses of peasants and the working class and seriously threatened imperialism was unable to cause it serious damage for the simple reason that its leadership lay in the hands of the bourgeoisie”.[36] Taking into account the limited content of the national struggle in Turkey, Roy also made an important assessment on this issue:

“You are aware that the significant victory of the Turkish people has not been carried through to its logical conclusion thanks to the feudal military clique that at present heads the movement. Whether the Turkish people can achieve a complete victory and the full political and economic liberation of the Turkish nation has been put in question, in order to serve the interests of a small feudal military clique who consider it more advantageous to sell out to a group of imperialists. This clique preferred to link up with one group of imperialists against another. That could lead to the enrichment of this group and to Mustafa Kemal Pasha ascending the throne in place of the sultan, who was mainly a tool of British imperialism. But that does not in any way resolve the Turkish national question. And we know that during the two or three months that revolutionary forces around the world were celebrating the victories of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, they received word that in free Turkey, liberated by the revolutionary power of workers and peasants, Kemal is now brutally persecuting all those who strive for the welfare of workers and peasants”.[37]

Roy’s assessments are very different from the attitude that was elevated to a general trend during the Stalin period, which was to praise bourgeois nationalist leaders. Experience has proven that the bourgeoisie is quite capable of leading a national struggle limited to the achievement of political independence. However, when it comes to a genuine anti-imperialist struggle, the situation is completely different. In such cases, expecting progressive, revolutionary functions from the bourgeoisie is a very dangerous illusion. Indeed, this is the main issue Roy is trying to explain. As will be recalled, the revolutionary Marxist attitude onthe united front is entirely different from the class collaborationism established during the Stalinist period, which resulted in the dissolution of communists within the “national struggle” fronts led by the bourgeoisie. On the issue ofthe united front against imperialism, Roy has again taken a correct political approach:

“Shoulder to shoulder with the united front of the working class in the Western countries, we must organise an anti-imperialist united front in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. (…) The experience of the last two years has proven that this front cannot be achieved under the leadership of the bourgeois parties. We must develop our parties in these countries, in order to take over the leadership and organisation of this front”.[38]

Roy essentially understood the issue on the basis of securing the fighting unity of the workers. However, among the congress delegates, there were also views that championed the future Stalinist line. For example, despite Roy having said that “revolutionary national movements will not succeed under the leadership of the bourgeoisie”, the Chinese delegate Lin Yen Chin explained that they had decided to form an anti-imperialist front together with the bourgeoisie:

“On the assumption that an anti-imperialist united front is necessary in order to drive imperialism out of China, our party decided to form a national front with the national-revolutionary Kuomintang Party. The members of the Communist Party have joined the Kuomintang as individuals... If we do not enter this party, we will undoubtedly remain isolated, preaching a communism that is a great and noble ideal but which the masses do not follow... If we enter the Kuomintang, we will be able to show the masses that we are also for revolutionary democracy, but that for us, revolutionary democracy is only a tool, even though we do not disregard the daily demands of the masses... We can gather the masses around us and split the Kuomintang party”.[39]

The consequences of the communists sacrificing their political independence and joining an organisation (the Kuomintang) under the hegemony of the bourgeoisie in the name of “unity of the front” became clear in the Chinese Revolution that followed. However, it was not necessary for a negative experience to occur for these truths to emerge. The ideas expressed by the Chinese delegate were conciliatory positions that were inconsistent with the issues Lenin had warned about at the Second Congress of the Comintern and with the general framework of the congress theses. However, the Fourth Congress did not explicitly criticise the approach of the Chinese communists.

The important assessments made by Roy during the Fourth Congress discussions were reflected in the congress theses. The theses contain more comprehensive approaches to the colonial question than the decisions of the Second Congress. Especially when we remember that the Third Congress did not discuss this issue sufficiently, the importance of the Fourth Congress’s analysis of the colonial question increases even more. Although the content of the congress theses generally reflects a correct perspective, there are still some problems. The congress decisions display an eclecticism in the form of juxtaposing ideas that are incompatible with each other. For example, in the introductory section of the Congress decisions, the views of some delegates (including Roy’s) are briefly summarised, while very different assessments are presented side by side without any commentary. In short, although we believe that there are some shortcomings and points open to debate, the theses and decisions of the Fourth Congress constitute an important starting point for the issues in question. The approach to the national independence struggle in the Fourth Congress theses is, in general terms, the same as that outlined in the Second Congress decisions:

“The fundamental task applicable to all national revolutionary movements is to achieve political independence and establish national unity. The real and logically appropriate solution to this problem depends on the extent to which such a national movement can separate itself from reactionary feudal elements, win over the broad working masses to its goals, and incorporate the social demands of these masses into its programme”.[40]

The theses emphasised the necessity of the participation of the peasant masses and a revolutionary agricultural programme for the national liberation struggle to advance into an anti-imperialist struggle. While bourgeois nationalists sought to limit the goals of the struggle to the attainment of political independence and the establishment of the nation-state, communists were obliged to take the struggle further. In this context, the importance of the agrarian revolution was great in colonial and semi-colonial countries where the peasantry was predominant. Once again, the congress theses, as noted in the decisions of the Second Congress, pointed to the danger of bourgeois nationalists disguising themselves as “communists” and thereby diverting the proletarian unity from its path:

“Taking advantage of the political authority of Soviet Russia and adapting themselves to the class instincts of the workers, the representatives of bourgeois nationalism –sometimes without being fully conscious of it themselves– have given their bourgeois-democratic aspirations a «socialist» or «communist» guise (for example, the Green Army party in Turkey, which gave a communist coloration to its Pan-Turanism, and the «state socialism» advocated by some leaders of the Kuomintang party in China) with the aim of diverting the nascent proletarian organisations from the direct tasks of class organisation”.[41]

The thesis that addressed the liberation of backward countries on the basis of an alliance with the proletariat of developed countries and the transition to the Soviet system stated the following:

“The alliance with the western proletariat opens the road to an international federation of Soviet republics. For backward peoples, the Soviet order represents the least painful transition from primitive conditions of existence to the advanced culture of communism, which is destined to replace capitalist production and distribution in the entire world economy. This is shown by the experience of Soviet construction in the liberated colonies of the Russian empire”.[42]

It was stated that the Comintern had a dual task in colonial and semi-colonial countries. The first task was to create the core of communist parties that represent the interests of the proletariat as a whole. The second task was to support the national revolutionary movement directed against imperialism to the maximum extent, to act as its vanguard, and to emphasise and expand the social movement within the national movement. The Fourth Congress, in a timely assessment, highlighted the social transformation dimension of the revolution in colonial countries that could not be limited to the establishment of the nation-state:

“The objective tasks of the colonial revolution are extending beyond the framework of bourgeois democracy, simply because a decisive victory of this revolution is incompatible with the rule of world imperialism. Initially, the native bourgeois intelligentsia forms the vanguard of the colonial revolutionary movements. But as the proletarian and semi-proletarian peasant masses are drawn into these movements, and to the degree that the social interests of these lower layers come to the fore, the big-bourgeois and agrarian bourgeois forces begin to turn away from the movement. The young proletariat in the colonies faces a lengthy struggle during an entire historical epoch – a struggle against imperialist exploitation and against its own ruling classes, who hold exclusive possession of all the advantages of industrial and cultural development and seek to keep the broad working masses in their earlier «prehistoric» condition”.[43]

The theses warned communists against incorrect approaches to the struggle in the colonies. It was pointed out that refusing to participate in the struggle against imperialist oppression in the colonies, in the name of defending the independent interests of the working class, would serve no purpose other than to undermine the proletarian revolution in the East. This accurate assessment was complemented by even more important warnings:

“No less damaging is the attempt to remain aloof from the struggle for the immediate interests of the working class in order to pursue ‘national unity’ or ‘civil peace’ with the bourgeois democrats. The Communist workers’ parties of the colonial and semi-colonial countries have a double task: both to fight for the most radical possible resolution of the tasks of a bourgeois-democratic revolution, aimed at winning political independence, and also to organise the worker and peasant masses in struggle for their particular class interests, profiting from all the contradictions in the nationalist bourgeois-democratic camp. By putting forward social demands, Communists provide an outlet for revolutionary energy that cannot be expressed in bourgeois-liberal demands, and spur on its development”.[44]

The formation ofan anti-imperialist united front has nothing to do with the participation of the proletariat in the organisation or political line of another class. On the contrary, from the point of view of revolutionary Marxism, the essence of front activity is to win the working masses to the revolutionary struggle of the working class. The Fourth Congress theses make the following assessment on this issue:

“The suitability of this slogan flows from the perspective of an extended, lengthy struggle against world imperialism, demanding the mobilisation of all revolutionary forces. This mobilisation is all the more necessary, since the native ruling classes tend to make compromises with foreign capitalism that are directed against the interests of the popular masses. And just as the slogan of proletarian united front in the West contributes to exposing Social Democratic betrayal of proletarian interests, so too the slogan of anti-imperialist united front serves to expose the vacillation of different bourgeois nationalist currents. This slogan will also promote the development of a revolutionary will and of class consciousness among the working masses, placing them in the front ranks of fighters not only against imperialism but also against survivals of feudalism”.[45]

It is clear that the struggle does not end with the achievement of political independence in the colonies; on the contrary, the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat becomes easier to grasp. Taking this reality into account, the congress theses state: “Even in independent Turkey, the working class enjoys no freedom of association, a telling indication of the bourgeois nationalists’ attitude to the proletariat”. The theses emphasise that temporary agreements with bourgeois democracy can only be made on the condition that the proletariat does not compromise on its independent political organisation:

“The workers’ movement in the colonial and semi-colonial countries must strive above all to achieve the role of an independent revolutionary force in the overall anti-imperialist front. Only when its autonomous weight is acknowledged and its political independence is thus safeguarded is it permissible and necessary to conclude temporary agreements with bourgeois democracy”.[46]

One of the most important points in the Congress theses is that the struggle for an anti-imperialist united front must be conducted on the basis of a close alliance with the proletarian Soviet republics. However, this is not enough; the platform of struggle must also include the other transitional demands of the working class. The Fourth Congress also reflects the correct stance in assigning tasks to the communists of the metropolitan countries regarding the colonies:

“Every Communist party in countries that possess colonies must take on the task of organising systematic ideological and material assistance for the proletarian and revolutionary movement in the colonies. (…) The European Communist workers in the colonies must seek to organise the indigenous proletarians and win their trust through specific economic demands (raising the level of native workers’ pay to that of European workers, laws to protect labour, insurance, and so on). The creation of separate European Communist organisations in the colonies (Egypt, Algeria) is a hidden form of colonialism and furthers only the interests of imperialism. Any attempt to build Communist organisations on the basis of national characteristics contradicts the principles of proletarian internationalism”.[47]

CONCLUSION

Thus, we have outlined the main developments and decisions of the first four congresses of the Comintern on the national question, the colonial question, and the anti-imperialist struggle. Our aim was to draw a clear line between ourselves and the ideas and political attitudes that were imposed on us for many years under the hegemony of Stalinism in the name of “Marxism-Leninism”. Setting aside a few issues that we find problematic, we believe that the Comintern documents from Lenin’s period generally offer an internationalist communist approach. For this reason, we accept the congress decisions of this period as an important starting point, provided that they are not dogmatised as complete recipes offering final solutions to the issues discussed, and that the shortcomings and errors they contain are not overlooked.

In the years following the Fourth Congress, with the death of Lenin and the establishment of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s power in the Soviet Union, the line and character of the Comintern completely changed. The Comintern, under Stalin’s dominance, became adept at not only failing to adhere to the principles established during the Lenin era, but systematically evaporating and destroying them one by one. Petty-bourgeois nationalist forces were actively helped in their attempts to paint themselves with “communist” colours. Communist forces were dissolved within national fronts under the hegemony of the bourgeoisie. The Kuomintang experience during the Chinese revolution is a striking example in itself. On the issue of anti-imperialism, as with all other issues, Stalinism completely departed from Marxism and established a petty-bourgeois socialist mindset that opened the door to bourgeois reformism. In short, the Stalinist Comintern was a complete break from Marxist internationalism and the Comintern’s line in Lenin’s time. We will not attempt to detail how this break occurred or how the Comintern’s line gradually moved away from that of the Lenin era. Trotsky’s struggle on this matter and his historical assessments criticizing the post-Lenin Comintern line stand before us as a monumental source of reference.

During the Stalinist Comintern period, the struggle to advance the world revolution was branded as “sectarian”, “adventurist”, and “Trotskyist” and condemned. An official communism reflecting the interests of the Soviet ruling bureaucracy was created. And this “communism” won its war against revolutionary Marxism thanks to the official authority of the Stalinist Comintern, which liquidated the October Revolution but presented itself as its heir. Unfortunately, for many years, both revolution and reformism were sought and found within this Stalinist political framework! Within this framework, if reformism was a political tendency that sought to evolve towards “socialism” by prioritising bourgeois parliamentary struggle, then revolutionism would not go beyond a petty-bourgeois radicalism based on “national socialism”.

When we scraped away the various colours of paint covering the Stalinist politics that presented themselves as “Marxist-Leninist” or the “European communism” presented as a break with Stalinism, a common essence emerged. This essence was the replacement of the goal of overthrowing the imperialist-capitalist world system with a pseudo-socialist ideology based on a statism within national borders. In this context, the common feature of the “anti-monopoly” and “advanced democracy” programmes of the official communist parties in European countries and the “national revolutionary” and “national democratic” programmes in countries classified as “dependent on imperialism” was the explicit violation of the principle of proletarian hegemony. All of these were “front strategies” formed with “friendly” sections singled out from within the bourgeoisie. The front tactic, which during Lenin’s time aimed to enable the proletariat to regroup, defend itself, and move from a defensive to an offensive position, had been completely destroyed under Stalinist rule.

In the aftermath of the First World War, imperialist governments viewed the possibility of national liberation struggles transforming into social revolutions as a serious threat due to the appeal created by the October Revolution. In order to prevent the struggle in the colonies from reaching more advanced stages, they accepted the right of nations to determine their own destiny.[48] From the imperialists’ point of view, any way of preventing genuine proletarian revolutions was, in a sense, a tolerable situation. From the point of view of the Soviet Union, which had turned into a despotic-bureaucratic dictatorship, the great national chauvinism laid down by Stalin would be the main determinant of the world policy pursued by the Soviet leaders. Because the protection and preservation of the interests of this great nation-state was a matter of life and death for the bureaucratic dictatorship that continued to present itself as the centre of the world revolution.

The official communist world revolved around the lie that “serving the interests of the Soviet state is serving the world revolution”. Real progress in the world revolution could have meant the end of the world of lies created by Stalinism. Therefore, even though there was no unity of purpose between the imperialists and the Stalinist rulers, a consensus had nevertheless emerged based on their fear of the progress of the world revolution. Although the Second World War appeared to be the breakdown of this consensus, the war conjuncture was actually a period of heated division that also shattered the compromises between imperialist powers. The heated competition between imperialist countries prevented them from closing the book on the Soviet Union, which presented itself to the world as socialist, even if only falsely. Stalinist hegemony, which took a stance to protect the existence and interests of its own nation-state in the face of global developments, refrained from transforming the years of the Second World War, which brought death to the working masses, into a revolutionary uprising that would destroy the capitalist order. Resistance movements in European countries were dissolved within common “anti-fascist” fronts with the bourgeoisie.

At the end of the Second World War, with the direct intervention of the victorious Soviet Union, new “socialist” states were established, and the world now had a “socialist bloc” in addition to the bloc of capitalist countries. The world was now a two-bloc system, and the competitive struggles between imperialist countries were hidden behind a Cold War that would continue between these two blocs. Throughout this period, national liberation movements generally appeared to side with the Soviet bloc, using this as a threat and a bargaining chip against imperialist powers.

In the years following the Second World War, the Soviet bureaucracy’s approach to the revolutions that began with those in Yugoslavia, Albania and China and continued with examples such as Cuba and Vietnam was always determined by the protection of the Soviet state’s interests.[49] There is a reason why we single out these revolutions among various national liberation struggles. Because these examples, where hegemony was seized by the official Communist Parties during the national liberation struggle process, had a different dimension from national liberation struggles that ended under the leadership of the bourgeoisie.

If the Soviet bureaucracy had been left to its own devices, these experiences might have resulted in the establishment of “national developmentalist” bourgeois governments based on secret agreements with imperialist countries. However, these revolutions progressed under the hegemony of so-called communist leaderships that did not accept such an outcome but also did not embrace the revolutionary hegemony of the proletariat. These leaderships, despite having opposed the Soviet bureaucracy to one degree or another, ultimately established themselves on the basis of a Stalinist “national developmentalist” conception of socialism. They envied the power of the ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and took as their model the Soviet state, which under Stalinism had turned into a despotic-bureaucratic dictatorship. They were able to steer the revolutionary process developing in their countries in a direction suited to their own sectarian interests and established their own nation-states modelled on the bureaucratic Soviet state.

In short, although the revolutions in these countries achieved a break with the imperialist system and an exit from capitalism, unlike other national liberation struggles, this change was never similar to the October Revolution. The advance of the revolution was halted under the hegemony of leaderships that opposed the genuine communist line aimed at world revolution. In these countries, the revolutionary process gave birth to copies of the Stalinist bureaucratic regime before reaching the October peak, that is, without ever bringing the proletariat to power. The socio-economic system in these countries was structured as a despotic-bureaucratic regime from its inception. Unlike in the Soviet Union, where a counter-revolutionary process based on the liquidation of the genuine workers’ power established by the workers’ revolution was carried out by the bureaucracy that later came to dominate, no such process occurred in these countries.

The ability of these countries to break free from capitalist operations undoubtedly stemmed from the Soviet Union’s status as a separate power centre against the imperialist system. Although the Soviet state was a bureaucratic dictatorship, it also needed to spread and consolidate its power, stand up to imperialist countries, and draw as many states as possible to its side in order to maintain its own existence. Thus, when the establishment of new nation-states modelled on the bureaucratic Soviet regime came to the fore in the countries in question, it became imperative for the Soviet bureaucracy to offer assistance that would draw these states into the Soviet bloc. The condition for this assistance was submission to the authority of the Soviet ruling bureaucracy, and as long as this condition was met, the assistance continued; when it was not, it was cut off.

Essentially, the supreme goal of nation-states similar to the despotic-bureaucratic regime in the Soviet Union was to find and implement ways to best protect the interests of their own nation-states. Therefore, conflicts of interest among these bureaucratic dictatorships were inevitable. Indeed, the world witnessed not only the rivalry between the imperialist bloc and the Soviet bloc, but also conflicts and hegemonic struggles between countries that called themselves socialist. The Soviet-Chinese rivalry was the most typical example of this situation.

The strengthening of the Soviet bloc did not have a positive meaning in terms of the interests of the world revolution, but it meant everything in terms of the survival of the Soviet ruling bureaucracy. Therefore, the national liberation struggles that developed during the Cold War years were not a goal that conflicted with the interests of the Stalinist ruling bureaucracy. However, the uprisings that began with the demand for national liberation did not stop at the point of achieving political independence but advanced toward social revolution under proletarian hegemony, which posed a real threat to bureaucratic dictatorship. And such threats had to be neutralised.

There were also different national liberation struggles, generally resulting in the establishment of bourgeois nation-states and, therefore, not breaking away from the capitalist system. Regardless of how they once labelled themselves, the common thread in all these examples –Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, etc.– was the bourgeois democratic character of their national struggles, which were limited to achieving political independence. The fact that the leaderships of these national struggles presented themselves as more revolutionary or pro-socialist due to the geopolitical balance of the era did not change the ultimate outcome.

Most of these countries followed the path of integration into the imperialist system under bourgeois governments and through state capitalism, where the state played a direct role in economic life. However, they were presented by the Soviet bureaucracy as countries that had embarked on a “non-capitalist path”, i.e., advancing toward socialism. A bloc was also invented for countries that did not belong to the “socialist bloc” but maintained good relations with the Soviet Union on the basis of mutual interests, and these were called the “Non-Aligned Movement”. Thus, as in the case of India, the bourgeoisie’s reliance on the support of the Soviet bureaucracy and its defiance of this or that imperialist state was elevated to the level of “anti-imperialism”.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “socialist bloc” and the end of the Cold War, we have entered a new period in which there is no longer a “socialist” state that directly supports these distorted “anti-imperialist” currents. However, even if the material basis on which an ideology rests has disappeared, that ideology can continue to exist for a long time. We know that deeply rooted ideas are resilient. Indeed, orthodox Stalinist or centrist political currents still exist in various parts of the world. And after all the experiences we have gone through, it is now very clear that an “anti-imperialism” that is not rooted in the working class will be of no use to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.

Today, we are at a crucial historical turning point, with imperialist war drums beating due to the crisis of the capitalist system on the one hand, and the workers’ movement beginning to make its voice heard again in various parts of the world on the other. Without waging a systematic struggle against the entrenched misconceptions of the old era, it is impossible to meet the tasks of the new era. A new breakthrough is necessary, and for this, a resolute struggle must be waged in every respect. If a new organisation signifying a breakthrough is not grounded in a clear and comprehensive reckoning with the entrenched but distorted conceptions of the old era, then what is the point of all this effort?