Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism

Imperialism has been at the center of Marxist and leftist dialogues throughout the radical decades of the twentieth century. Since the 1970s, the prominence of such topics started to wane. Readers who are familiar with the history of leftist politics would recognize that waves of scholars and activists have declared the death of the idea of "imperialism". Despite the various academic disciplines in which these critiques were situated, they often share a fundamental political understanding that capitalism is almost undefeatable for now, and the best progressive politics is to spread better versions of capitalism worldwide and end all sorts of "authoritarian" or "repressive" regimes. I will briefly engage with such critiques on two levels.

First, is the concept of imperialism still relevant to understanding world capitalism today? We have for sure moved beyond the era of world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. Thanks exactly to the anti-imperialist struggles both in the West and the Third World, the Western powers lost most of their grip of world territories. In Lenin's time, imperialism referred to at least two main themes: inter-capitalist competition and war, as well as the hierarchical relationship between a handful of Western states and the rest of the world. And since the end of WW2, the Russian and the Chinese revolutions, and the independence movement, the old political map has changed profoundly, and much of Lenin's analysis ceased to be meaningful. For example, the existence of monopoly, or centralization of production, finance, and trade became prevalent in much of the third world following national liberation struggles. So, it is no longer a useful method to divide imperialist from non-imperialist states. And in that sense, I am also against the use of inter-imperialist rivalry in cases of US-China, or US-Russia relationships.

However, world capitalism remains a system where a small number of countries control the others, and thus imperialism remains a crucial concept. Imperialism was not and is not a purely "class-based" phenomenon. The emergence of imperialism in the capitalist era involved much of the nation-building and welfare state policies in the imperialist nations. The capacity of capitalists to rule their imperialist nations (primarily the working people) often depended on how much they could nurture the labor aristocracy based on the surplus that they stole, robbed, or expropriated "peacefully" from the non-imperialist nations. Marx and Engels have repeatedly talked about the corruption of the British working class by imperialism. In Lenin's words, a defining feature of imperialism is "the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations". Despite many changes in the details, the hierarchy of world capitalism has changed very little. For example, the ranking of country-level per capita incomes was relatively stable from the late 19th century to the present.

Globalization in the last few decades was in essence based on the extension of world capitalism to the third world and former socialist states. For a while, under the so-called “rules-based”/US-centered global order, world capitalism functioned rather smoothly with the participation of capitalists from all over the world. But even during the honeymoon phase of the post-Cold War era, the hierarchy of world capitalism was evident, as the West, the so-called transition and emerging markets including China, and the rest of the third world occupied distinct positions in the world division of labor. It still makes sense to use the terms such as imperialists and compradors, considering the striking similarities between the 21st century and the pre-independence era capitalist world orders.

Such an order, however, was based on the specific historical conjunction with unquestionable US hegemony. With the crises of capitalism within the West and the rest of the capitalist world, the conditions where globalization once prospered started to crumble. We just need to note the ongoing conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America as signs of the weakening of Pax Americana. Particularly, Russia gave up on its post-Cold war effort to rejoin the West and was even able to gain an upper hand against the West militarily and economically. The world is changing fast, and when ideas of trade wars, de-risking, and decoupling are explicitly circulating among the Western elites, we know the days of “transnational capitalist class” being an important force in world capitalism are very likely numbered.

Now we can move on to the socialist strategy part. A strategy is related to, but quite distinct from scholarly inquiries. Unless we are talking about purely intellectual exercises for the few, an effective socialist movement would not be possible when world capitalism still runs normally with the usually dominant capitalist ideology, market, and violence.

To formulate such a strategy, at least for the initial spark, we need a thorough and sober understanding of the dynamics of world capitalism. Not all contradictions are of the same strategic importance in the transition from capitalism to socialism. There are myriads of problems in every corner of capitalism. But comparatively speaking, the advanced capitalist states have more bargaining chips (due to their position in world capitalism) in their hands and can afford much better material conditions for class compromises. Therefore, if we just focus on concrete problems in capitalism, we will simply be exhausted by reformism and easily embrace Eurocentric accusations of tyrants, authoritarianism, despotism, and other common features of the periphery in the third world. Exposing and fighting all the inherent problems in capitalism is never wrong, but by itself, that is not a socialist strategy.

We still face the same question that Lenin and Mao faced a century ago, namely, to locate the weak links in world capitalism. In both Russia and China, socialists made unprecedented advances, in much-weakened states with relatively backward economies. The ruling classes were often paralyzed by wars and were not strong enough to lead meaningful struggles and/or to bribe the working people. In colonies and semi-colonies such as China, anti-imperialism had wide appeal and mobilized millions. A significant weakening of the imperialist powers and their compradors were often important preconditions for initial progressive social changes in such cases. As an important example, the Chinese communists greatly strengthened their political and military power under the united front with the nationalist government during the long and successful struggle against Japanese imperialism.

Even though they worked with different historical conditions, both Lenin and Mao supported the revolutions in the third world as well as national independence movements not led by communists. They for sure knew the general existence of exploitation and oppression in the third world, but they saw the overall tide against imperialism as of strategic importance in building the momentum of the world revolution.

Today's world capitalism is safeguarded by the US-led Western countries militarily and ideologically, while economically supported by the global capital with contributions from the so-called transition and emerging economies such as China. The anti-imperialist forces that target the US hegemony on various levels are an indispensable part of any socialist strategy to ending capitalism in the world. Compared to that, I would argue the many conflicts and contradictions that we see every day in the Third World are not always of the same magnitude of significance.

To end capitalism on earth also necessarily requires conscious and unconscious collaborative efforts on a worldwide scale. People can debate whether such collaborations should be framed as a united front or a division of labor within the left. Nevertheless, I do see the urgency of a common understanding of anti-imperialism (particularly the US hegemony) as a core of today’s socialist struggles. People still can and should have important disagreements, but we can respectfully work with a constellation of practices. Let a hundred flowers bloom!

Zhun Xu is a member of AISC.

This post is based on a contribution to a 2024 symposium issue on William Robinson's work for Science & Society. Xu, Z. (2024). Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in the 21st Century. Science & Society, 88(3), 357-361.