Capitalism- a socio-economic formation based on private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of wage labor by capital, replaces feudalism, precedes - the first phase.
Etymology
Term capitalist in meaning capital owner appeared before the term capitalism, as early as the middle of the 17th century. Term capitalism first used in 1854 in the novel The Newcomes. The term was first used in its modern sense and. In the work of Karl Marx "Capital" the word is used only twice; instead, Marx uses the terms "capitalist system", "capitalist mode of production", "capitalist", which occur in the text more than 2600 times.
Essence of capitalism
The main features of capitalism
- Domination of commodity-money relations and private ownership of the means of production;
- The presence of a developed social division of labor, the growth of the socialization of production, the transformation of labor power into a commodity;
- Exploitation of wage-workers by capitalists.
The main contradiction of capitalism
The aim of capitalist production is the appropriation of the surplus value created by the labor of hired workers. As the relations of capitalist exploitation become the dominant type of production relations and the pre-capitalist forms of the superstructure are replaced by bourgeois political, legal, ideological and other social institutions, capitalism turns into a socio-economic formation that includes the capitalist mode of production and its corresponding superstructure. Capitalism goes through several stages in its development, but its most characteristic features remain essentially unchanged. Capitalism is characterized by antagonistic contradictions. The main contradiction of capitalism between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of its results gives rise to anarchy of production, unemployment, economic crises, an irreconcilable struggle between the main classes of capitalist society - and the bourgeoisie - and determines the historical doom of the capitalist system.
The rise of capitalism
The emergence of capitalism was prepared by the social division of labor and the development of a commodity economy in the womb of feudalism. In the process of the emergence of capitalism, at one pole of society a class of capitalists was formed, concentrating money capital and means of production in their hands, and at the other, a mass of people deprived of the means of production and therefore forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists.
Stages of development of pre-monopoly capitalism
initial accumulation of capital
Developed capitalism was preceded by a period of so-called primitive accumulation of capital, the essence of which was to rob peasants, small artisans and seize colonies. The transformation of labor power into a commodity and the means of production into capital signified the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production. The primitive accumulation of capital was at the same time a process of rapid expansion of the domestic market. Peasants and artisans, who previously existed on their own farms, turned into hired workers and were forced to live by selling their labor power, buying the necessary consumer goods. The means of production, which were concentrated in the hands of a minority, turned into capital. Created domestic market means of production necessary for the resumption and expansion of production. The great geographical discoveries and the capture of colonies provided the emerging European bourgeoisie with new sources of capital accumulation and led to the growth of international economic ties. The development of commodity production and exchange, accompanied by the differentiation of commodity producers, served as the basis for the further development of capitalism. The fragmented commodity production could no longer satisfy the growing demand for goods.
Simple capitalist cooperation
The starting point of capitalist production was simple capitalist cooperation, that is, the joint labor of many people performing separate production operations under the control of the capitalist. The source of cheap labor power for the first capitalist entrepreneurs was the mass ruin of artisans and peasants as a result of property differentiation, as well as land "enclosures", the adoption of laws on the poor, ruinous taxes, and other measures of non-economic coercion. The gradual strengthening of the economic and political positions of the bourgeoisie prepared the conditions for bourgeois revolutions in a number of Western European countries: in the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century, in Great Britain in the middle of the 17th century, in France at the end of the 18th century, and in a number of other European countries in the middle of the 19th century. Bourgeois revolutions, having carried out a revolution in the political superstructure, accelerated the process of replacing feudal production relations with capitalist ones, cleared the ground for the capitalist system, which had matured in the depths of feudalism, to replace feudal property with capitalist property.
Manufacturing production. capitalist factory
A major step in the development of the productive forces of bourgeois society was made with the advent of manufactory in the middle of the 16th century. However, by the middle of the 18th century, the further development of capitalism in the advanced bourgeois countries of Western Europe ran into the narrowness of its technical base. The need has ripened for a transition to large-scale factory production using machines. The transition from manufactory to the factory system was carried out during the industrial revolution, which began in Great Britain in the 2nd half of the 18th century and ended by the middle of the 19th century. The invention of the steam engine led to a number of machines. The growing demand for machines and mechanisms led to a change in the technical base of mechanical engineering and a transition to the production of machines by machines. The emergence of the factory system meant the establishment of capitalism as the dominant mode of production, the creation of a corresponding material and technical base. The transition to the machine stage of production contributed to the development of productive forces, the emergence of new industries and the involvement of new resources in the economic turnover, the rapid growth of the population of cities and the activation of foreign economic relations. It was accompanied by a further intensification of the exploitation of wage-workers: a wider use of female and child labor, a lengthening of the working day, an intensification of labor, the transformation of the worker into an appendage of the machine, an increase in unemployment, a deepening of the opposition between mental and physical labor and the opposition between town and country. The basic laws governing the development of capitalism are characteristic of all countries. However, different countries had their own characteristics of its genesis, which were determined by the specific historical conditions of each of these countries.
The development of capitalism in individual countries
Great Britain
The classical path of development of capitalism - the primitive accumulation of capital, simple cooperation, manufactory production, the capitalist factory - is characteristic of a small number of Western European countries, mainly Great Britain and the Netherlands. In Great Britain, earlier than in other countries, the industrial revolution was completed, the factory system of industry arose, and the advantages and contradictions of the new, capitalist mode of production were fully manifested. The extremely rapid growth of industrial output compared to other European countries was accompanied by the proletarianization of a significant part of the population, the deepening social conflicts, regularly recurring since 1825 cyclical crises of overproduction. Great Britain became the classical country of bourgeois parliamentarianism and at the same time the birthplace of the modern labor movement. By the middle of the 19th century, it had achieved world industrial, commercial and financial hegemony and was the country where capitalism reached its highest development. It is no coincidence that the theoretical analysis of the capitalist mode of production, given by , was based mainly on English material. pointed out that the most important hallmarks English capitalism in the second half of the 19th century. had "huge colonial possessions and a monopoly position in the world market"
France
The formation of capitalist relations in France - the largest Western European power of the era of absolutism - was slower than in Great Britain and the Netherlands. This was due mainly to the stability of the absolutist state, the relative strength of the social positions of the nobility and petty peasant economy. The landlessness of the peasants took place not by means of "enclosures", but through tax system. An important role in the formation of the bourgeois class was played by the tax farming system and public debt, and later the protectionist policy of the government in relation to the emerging manufacturing industry. The bourgeois revolution took place in France almost a century and a half later than in Great Britain, and the process of primitive accumulation stretched over three centuries. The Great French Revolution, having radically eliminated the feudal absolutist system that hindered the growth of capitalism, at the same time led to the emergence of a stable system of small peasant landownership, which left its mark on the entire further development of capitalist production relations in the country. The widespread introduction of machines began in France only in the 30s of the 19th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, it became an industrial developed state. The main feature of French capitalism of those years was its usurious character. The growth of loan capital, based on the exploitation of colonies and profitable credit operations abroad, turned France into a rentier country.
USA
The United States entered the path of capitalist development later than Great Britain, but by the end of the 19th century they were among the advanced capitalist countries. In the United States, feudalism did not exist as a comprehensive economic system. A major role in the development of American capitalism was played by the displacement of the indigenous population into reservations and the development by farmers of the vacated lands in the west of the country. This process determined the so-called American path of development of capitalism in agriculture, the basis of which was the growth of capitalist farming. The rapid development of American capitalism after civil war 1861-65 led to the fact that by 1894 the United States in terms of industrial output took first place in the world.
Germany
In Germany, the liquidation of the system of serfdom was carried out "from above". The redemption of feudal duties, on the one hand, led to the mass proletarianization of the population, and on the other hand, gave the landlords the capital necessary to turn the Junker estates into large capitalist farms using hired labor. This created the prerequisites for the so-called Prussian path of development of capitalism in agriculture. The unification of the German states into a single customs union and the bourgeois Revolution of 1848-49 accelerated the development of industrial capital. An exceptional role in the industrial upsurge in the middle of the 19th century in Germany was played by railways, which contributed to the economic and political unification of the country and the rapid growth of heavy industry. The political unification of Germany and the military indemnity received by it after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 became a powerful stimulus for the further development of capitalism. In the 70s of the 19th century, a process of rapid creation of new industries and re-equipment of old ones on the basis of the latest achievements of science and technology took place. Taking advantage of the technical achievements of Great Britain and other countries, Germany was able to catch up with France in terms of economic development by 1870, and by the end of the 19th century, come closer to Great Britain.
In the East
In the East, capitalism was most developed in Japan, where, as in Western European countries, it arose on the basis of the disintegration of feudalism. Within three decades after the bourgeois revolution of 1867-68, Japan turned into one of the industrial capitalist powers.
pre-monopoly capitalism
A comprehensive analysis of capitalism and the specific forms of its economic structure at the pre-monopoly stage was given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in a number of works and, above all, in Capital, where the economic law of the movement of capitalism is revealed. The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of the Marxist political economy- revealed the secret of capitalist exploitation. The appropriation of surplus value by capitalists occurs because the means of production and the means of subsistence are owned by a small class of capitalists. The worker, in order to live, is forced to sell his labor power. By his labor he creates more value than his labour-power is worth. Surplus value is appropriated by the capitalists and serves as a source of their enrichment and further growth of capital. The reproduction of capital is at the same time the reproduction of capitalist production relations based on the exploitation of the labor of others.
The pursuit of profit, which is a modified form of surplus value, determines the entire movement of the capitalist mode of production, including the expansion of production, the development of technology, and the increased exploitation of workers. At the stage of pre-monopoly capitalism, the competition of non-cooperative fragmented commodity producers is replaced by capitalist competition, which leads to the formation of an average rate of profit, that is, equal profit for equal capital. The value of goods produced takes a modified form of the price of production, including the cost of production and the average profit. The process of profit averaging is carried out in the course of intra-industry and inter-industry competition, through the mechanism of market prices and the flow of capital from one industry to another, through the intensification of the competitive struggle between capitalists.
Improving technology at individual enterprises, using the achievements of science, developing the means of transport and communications, improving the organization of production and commodity exchange, the capitalists spontaneously develop the social productive forces. The concentration and centralization of capital contribute to the emergence of large enterprises, where thousands of workers are concentrated, and lead to the growing socialization of production. However, huge, ever-increasing wealth is appropriated by individual capitalists, which leads to a deepening of the basic contradiction of capitalism. The deeper the process of capitalist socialization, the wider the gap between the direct producers and the means of production owned by private capitalists. The contradiction between the social character of production and capitalist appropriation takes the form of an antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It also manifests itself in the contradiction between production and consumption. The contradictions of the capitalist mode of production are most acutely manifested in periodically recurring economic crises. There are two interpretations of their cause. One is related to the general. There is also an opposite opinion, that the profit of the capitalist is so high that the workers do not have enough purchasing power to buy all the goods. Being an objective form of forcible overcoming of the contradictions of capitalism, economic crises do not resolve them, but lead to further deepening and aggravation, which indicates the inevitability of the death of capitalism. Thus, capitalism itself creates the objective prerequisites for a new system based on social ownership of the means of production.
The antagonistic contradictions and the historical doom of capitalism are reflected in the sphere of the superstructure of bourgeois society. The bourgeois state, in whatever form it may exist, always remains an instrument of the class rule of the bourgeoisie, an organ for the suppression of the working masses. Bourgeois democracy is limited and formal. In addition to the two main classes of bourgeois society (bourgeoisie and ), capitalism retains the classes inherited from feudalism: the peasantry and landowners. With the development of industry, science and technology, and culture in capitalist society, the social stratum of the intelligentsia, people of mental labor, is growing. The main trend in the development of the class structure of capitalist society is the polarization of society into two main classes as a result of the erosion of the peasantry and intermediate strata. The main class contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the workers and the bourgeoisie, which is expressed in the sharp class struggle between them. In the course of this struggle, a revolutionary ideology is developed, political parties of the working class are created, and the subjective prerequisites for a socialist revolution are prepared.
monopoly capitalism. Imperialism
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, capitalism entered the highest and last stage of its development - imperialism, monopoly capitalism. Free competition at a certain stage led to such a high level of concentration and centralization of capital, which naturally led to the emergence of monopolies. They define the essence of imperialism. Denying free competition in certain industries, monopolies do not eliminate competition as such, "... but exist above it and next to it, thereby giving rise to a number of especially sharp and steep contradictions, frictions, conflicts." The scientific theory of monopoly capitalism was developed by V.I. Lenin in his work “Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism”. He defined imperialism as "... capitalism at that stage of development when the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape, the export of capital has acquired outstanding importance, the division of the world by international trusts has begun, and the division of the entire territory of the earth by the largest capitalist countries has ended." At the monopoly stage of capitalism, the exploitation of labor by financial capital leads to a redistribution in favor of the monopolies of a part of the total surplus value that falls to the share of the non-monopoly bourgeoisie and the necessary product of wage workers through the mechanism of monopoly prices. There are certain shifts in the class structure of society. The dominance of finance capital is personified in the financial oligarchy, the big monopoly bourgeoisie, which subdues to its control the vast majority of the national wealth of the capitalist countries. Under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism, the top of the big bourgeoisie, which exerts a decisive influence on economic policy bourgeois state. The economic and political weight of the non-monopoly middle and petty bourgeoisie is decreasing. Substantial changes are taking place in the composition and size of the working class. In all developed capitalist countries, with the growth of the entire active population over 70 years of the 20th century by 91%, the number of wage earners increased almost 3 times, and their share in the total number of employed increased over the same period from 53.3 to 79.5%. In the conditions of modern technological progress, with the expansion of the service sector and the growth of the bureaucratic state apparatus, the number and proportion of employees, converging in their own way, have increased. social position with the industrial proletariat. Under the leadership of the working class, the most revolutionary forces of capitalist society, all the working classes and social strata, are waging a struggle against the oppression of the monopolies.
State monopoly capitalism
In the process of its development, monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly capitalism, characterized by the merging of the financial oligarchy with the bureaucratic elite, the strengthening of the role of the state in all areas of public life, the growth of the public sector in the economy and the intensification of policies aimed at mitigating the socio-economic contradictions of capitalism. Imperialism, especially at the state-monopoly stage, means a deep crisis of bourgeois democracy, an intensification of reactionary tendencies and the role of violence in domestic and foreign policy. It is inseparable from the growth of militarism and military spending, the arms race and the tendency to unleash aggressive wars.
Imperialism extremely sharpens the basic contradiction of capitalism and all the contradictions of the bourgeois system based on it, which can only be resolved by a socialist revolution. V.I. Lenin gave a deep analysis of the law of uneven economic and political development of capitalism in the era of imperialism and came to the conclusion that the victory of the socialist revolution was possible initially in one single capitalist country.
The historical significance of capitalism
As a natural stage in the historical development of society, capitalism played a progressive role in its time. He destroyed the patriarchal and feudal relations between people, based on personal dependence, and replaced them with monetary relations. capitalism created big cities, sharply increased the urban population at the expense of the rural population, destroyed feudal fragmentation, which led to the formation of bourgeois nations and centralized states, and raised the productivity of social labor to a higher level. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:
“The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and more grandiose productive forces than all previous generations put together. Conquest of the forces of nature, machine production, the use of chemistry in industry and agriculture, the shipping industry, railways, the electric telegraph, the development of entire parts of the world for agriculture, the adaptation of rivers for navigation, entire masses of the population, as if summoned from underground - which of the previous centuries could suspect that such the productive forces lie dormant in the depths of social labor!”
Since then, the development of the productive forces, despite the unevenness and periodic crises, has continued at an even more accelerated pace. The capitalism of the 20th century was able to put at its service many of the achievements of modern scientific and technological revolution: atomic energy, electronics, automation, jet technology, chemical synthesis and so on. But social progress under capitalism is carried out at the price of a sharp aggravation of social contradictions, the waste of productive forces, and the suffering of the masses of the people all over the globe. The era of primitive accumulation and capitalist "development" of the outskirts of the world was accompanied by the destruction of entire tribes and nationalities. Colonialism, which served as a source of enrichment for the imperialist bourgeoisie and the so-called labor aristocracy in the metropolitan countries, led to a prolonged stagnation of the productive forces in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and contributed to the preservation of pre-capitalist production relations in them. Capitalism used the progress of science and technology to create destructive means of mass destruction. He is responsible for the huge human and material losses in the increasingly destructive wars. In the two world wars unleashed by imperialism alone, more than 60 million people died and 110 million were wounded or disabled. At the stage of imperialism, economic crises became even more acute.
Capitalism cannot cope with the productive forces it has created, which have outgrown the capitalist relations of production, which have become fetters on their further unhindered growth. In the depths of bourgeois society, in the course of the development of capitalist production, objective material prerequisites for the transition to socialism have been created. Under capitalism, the working class grows, unites and organizes, which, in alliance with the peasantry, at the head of all the working people, constitutes a mighty social force capable of overthrowing the obsolete capitalist system and replacing it with socialism.
Bourgeois ideologists, with the help of apologetic theories, are trying to assert that modern capitalism is a system devoid of class antagonisms, that in highly developed capitalist countries there are allegedly no factors that give rise to a social revolution at all. However, reality shatters such theories, more and more exposing the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism.
Russia, which entered the path of capitalist development later than the leading countries of the West, belonged to the "second echelon" of capitalist states. But over the post-reform forty years, thanks to high growth rates, primarily in industry, it has traveled a path that took the West centuries. This was facilitated by a number of factors and, above all, the opportunity to use the experience and assistance of developed capitalist countries, as well as the economic policy of the government, aimed at the accelerated development of certain industries and railway construction. As a result, Russian capitalism entered the imperialist stage almost simultaneously with the advanced countries of the West. It was characterized by all the main features characteristic of this stage, although there were also its own characteristics. In this case, we can refer to the characteristics of the main features of the monopoly stage of development of capitalism in general and Russian capitalism - in particular, proposed by V.I. Lenin, which has not lost its relevance today. Developing the theory of Marxism on the evolution of the capitalist mode of production and the proletarian revolution, Lenin created the doctrine of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism and the eve of the socialist revolution. He named five signs of imperialism: 1) the concentration of production and capital, the creation of monopolies; 2) the merging of banking capital with industrial capital, the formation of a financial oligarchy; 3) the export of goods gives way to the export of capital; 4) international unions of capitalists are created, dividing the world among themselves; 5) the territorial division of the world (in terms of economic influence) is over, the struggle for its redistribution begins. However, later, in substantiating the conclusion about the possibility of the victory of the proletarian revolution in Russia, Lenin came to the conclusion that it could most likely be achieved not in a highly developed, but in a poorly developed capitalist country - "a weak link in the chain of imperialism", which, according to him According to estimates, Russia was: in particular, the concentration of production had not yet reached the required size, banking and industrial monopolies were poorly developed, the export of capital was not significant, and feudal remnants in agriculture remained.
Reforms of S.Yu. Witte
In the history of Russia late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. S.Yu. Witte occupies exclusively important place. The head of the Ministry of Railways, the long-term Minister of Finance, the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, the first head of the Council of Ministers, a member of the State Council - these are the official posts of this political figure, who has become a symbol of the possibility and at the same time the helplessness of the state system.
In 1892, Witte took over as Minister of Finance. Witte's most important task was to encourage the development of domestic industry. He considered industry to be the locomotive of the national economy. In his work, he relied on the concept of Friedrich List - “ theory of national economy”, the essence of which was that “poor countries” need to achieve a balance of imports and exports with the help of customs protection.
Industrialization required significant capital investments from the budget, which was supposed to ensure the implementation of the developed policy. One of the directions of the reform he carried out was the introduction in 1894 of state wine monopoly, which became the main revenue item of the budget (365 million rubles per year). have been increased taxes, primarily indirect (they increased by 42.7% in the 1990s). The gold standard was introduced, i.e. free exchange of the ruble for gold.
The latter made it possible to attract foreign capital into the Russian economy, because foreign investors could now take gold rubles out of Russia. customs tariff protected domestic industry from foreign competition, the government encouraged private enterprise. In the years economic crisis 1900 - 1903 the government generously subsidized both public and private enterprises. Gets spread concession system, the issuance of government orders to entrepreneurs for a long time at inflated prices. All this was a good stimulus for domestic industry.
However, the process of industrialization in Russia was contradictory. Capitalist methods of management (profit, cost, etc.) did not affect the public sector of the economy - the largest in the world. These were defense plants. And this created a certain imbalance in the capitalist development of the country.
In his reform activities, Witte had to experience resistance from the aristocracy and higher officials, who had big influence on royalty. The most active opponent of Witte was the Minister of the Interior VK. Plehve. His course of social policy is opposition to reforms, upholding conservative principle of development, retaining invariably the privileges of the nobility to power, and, consequently, the preservation of feudal remnants. This trend of confrontation between reforms and counter-reforms at the turn of the two centuries ended not in Witte's favor.
Changes in the world economic situation at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. led to a crisis in industries that developed intensively in the 90s. - metallurgy, mechanical engineering, oil and coal mining industry. Opponents of the minister blamed him for the recession Russian production, called his policy adventurous and disastrous for Russia. Dissatisfaction with Witte's policy led to his resignation in 1903.
He returned to the political arena in the autumn 1905 as heads of the Council of Ministers. In August 1905, he managed to conclude the Peace of Portsmouth with Japan, for this diplomatic success, Nicholas II granted him the title of count. The Russian reformer was again in demand in the political life of the country.
30.
A. The international position of Russia after the Crimean War (1856-1875) 1. In 1856, Russia suffered a heavy defeat in the Crimean War, its international position worsened. After the war, Alexander II began to carry out fundamental reforms in the country. Their success to a large extent depended on foreign policy. Prince A. M. Gorchakov, a talented diplomat, was appointed the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. He led a cautious policy, avoided entering into military alliances and conflicts. 2. The main tasks of Russia's foreign policy in the 60-70s of the XIX century. were: > exit from international isolation; > restoration of great power status; > the abolition of the humiliating articles of the Treaty of Paris (1856); > securing borders with states in Central Asia and on Far East. These tasks were solved largely thanks to Gorchakov's diplomatic talent, his ability to use the contradictions between the European powers, to intuitively determine unfriendly steps directed against Russia. 3. Russian diplomacy was looking for allies in Europe, trying to break up the anti-Russian bloc, which included France, England, Austria. Taking advantage of the aggravation of relations between France and Austria on the Italian question, in 1859 Russia signed a secret cooperation protocol with France. After the Polish uprising in 1863, Russia began to rapprochement with Prussia and Austria, who feared that the uprising would spread to their lands inhabited by Poles. In 1871, France was defeated in the war with Prussia. Taking advantage of the moment, Gorchakov sent out a circular to all countries that signed the Paris Treaty, in which he announced that Russia was refusing to comply with certain articles of this treaty. Russia again received the right to build fortresses on the Black Sea and have a navy there. In 1873, the so-called "Union of the Three Emperors" arose - Russia, Austria and Prussia. But the contradictions between these countries persisted. Russia anxiously followed the strengthening of the military power of the reunited Germany, and therefore the "Union of the Three Emperors" was fragile and short-lived. But it was of great importance for Russia: it meant her exit from international isolation, the restoration of her influence on European politics. In the 60s, the Caucasian War (1864) was completed, the mountain peoples became part of Russia. B. Accession of Central Asia and Kazakhstan to Russia 1. The territory of Central Asia was inhabited by numerous peoples - Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Kirghiz, Kazakhs, who were at a relatively low stage of historical development, many of them moved from the primitive communal system to feudalism. The population was engaged in nomadic cattle breeding, irrigated agriculture in oases and handicrafts. In the second half of the XIX century. The largest state formations on the territory of Central Asia were the Kokand, Bukhara and Khiva khanates. The cities of Tashkent, Khiva, Samarkand were fortresses, centers of crafts and trade. Since ancient times, trade routes from Europe and the Middle East to Iran, India, and Eastai ran through the Central Asian khanates. 2. The Central Asian khanates were the object of foreign policy and trade rivalry between England and Russia. For Russia, this region was of particular interest. These states were fragmented, waged frequent wars among themselves, made raids within the borders of Russia, capturing people into slavery. The development of capitalism forced Russian entrepreneurs to look for new markets and sources of raw materials. Through Central Asia, it was possible to expand and strengthen trade ties with Iran, Afghanistan, India, and China. It was possible to resettle Russian peasants in these territories, which became especially important after the reform of 1861. It was necessary to limit the penetration of England into Central Asia. 3. Russian military leaders skillfully used the contradictions between the rulers of the khanates, and thanks to this they managed to annex these lands to Russia one by one. In the 60s, a conflict arose with the ruler of the Kokand Khanate, who demanded the return of South Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus. In 1864, Russian troops entered the territory of Kokand, and Tashkent was taken. In 1876, the Kokand Khanate was abolished, on the territory from the Aral Sea to Lake Issyk-Kul, the Fergana region was formed, which became part of the Turkestan Governor-General. In the 70s, the Khanate of Khiva and the Emirate of Bukhara recognized vassal dependence on Russia, while maintaining wide internal autonomy. In the 80s, Turkmenistan was annexed. 4. The accession of Central Asia as a whole was a positive development for its peoples. The bloody feudal strife ceased, slavery was abolished. Peasants mastered higher farming techniques. Russian scientists discovered here deposits of coal, oil, copper, lead; factories began to be built, the flow of Russian immigrants increased. In the 1980s, a railway was built from Krasnovod-skado Samarkand, which greatly contributed to the economic integration of the region into Russia. V. Siberia and the Far East. Treaties with China (1858 and 1860) 1. In the XIX century. development of the Far East continued. At the end of the 50s, the Russian government received the latest maps of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, and the question arose of clarifying the border between Russia and China. 2. In 1858, the first treaty with China was signed in the city of Aytun. According to this agreement, the left bank of the Amur went to Russia, the right bank to China, and the Ussuri region was transferred to the common possession of the two parties. 3. In 1860, the Beijing Treaty was concluded, according to which China renounced its claims to the Amur and Primorye, the Ussuri Territory was declared a Russian possession, the final (still operating) border between China and Russia was established. 4. In 1855, in the Japanese city of Shimoda, an agreement was concluded according to which the Kuril Islands, with the exception of the southern group, were recognized as Russian, and Sakhalin Island as a joint possession. According to the treaty of 1875, the Kuril Islands passed to Japan for its refusal of claims to Sakhalin. 5. In the middle of the XIX century. the issue of the sale of US American possessions to Russia (Alaska and the Aleutian Islands) was also resolved. It became increasingly difficult to maintain and protect these remote territories. Russia's position in the Pacific was weak, and besides, the country was experiencing financial difficulties. Wanting to enlist the support of the United States against its rival England, Russia decided to cede these territories to the United States. In 1867, Alaska was sold for a small sum - 7.2 million dollars (14 million rubles). D. Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878 1. In the mid-70s, the contradictions in the Balkans between Russia and Turkey escalated, the rivalry between the European powers intensified. 2. In the 70s, the national liberation movement of the peoples against the Turkish yoke grew in the Balkans. There were uprisings in Bosnia, Herzegovina. The Turkish government did not agree to carry out reforms for the Balkan peoples proposed by Russia, Germany, Austria and Hungary. In 1876, an even more powerful uprising broke out in Bulgaria, which was suppressed with unprecedented cruelty: the Turks slaughtered 30,000 people. Serbia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey, but were defeated. In Russia, a public movement began in defense of the Slavs, volunteer detachments were formed, donations were collected. Alexander II contributed 10 thousand rubles in favor of the rebels. 3. The Serbian Prince Milan appealed to the Russian Tsar for help. Alexander II diplomatically forced Turkey to make concessions: the Turks were forced to conclude a truce with Serbia; Austria-Hungary pledged to observe neutrality. At the insistence of Russia, a conference was convened in Constantinople, where the European powers demanded that Turkey grant autonomy to Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Sultan did not actually comply with this requirement. In the spring of 1877, another attempt was made in London to peacefully force Turkey to carry out reforms in the Christian countries in the Balkans. Turkey refused. 4. After the rejection of the London Protocol on April 12, 1877, Russia declared war on Turkey, Romania joined it. The Russian army in the Balkans numbered 185 thousand people against the 160 thousandth Turkish army. In June 1877, Russian troops crossed the Danube and entered northern Bulgaria; they were joined by the Romanian corps and 70 thousand Bulgarian militias. 5. The offensive of the Russian troops in the central direction (the city of Tarnovo and the Shipka Pass) was successful. General I.V. Gurko occupied Tarnovo, the Shipka Pass, from where, through the Balkan Range, the path to Southern Bulgaria opened, other Russian units captured the city of Stara Zagora and the fortress of Nikopol. But suddenly, the Turkish troops of Suleiman Pasha were transferred to Shipka in order to return this strategically important area. The famous Battle of Shipka began. The defense of Shipka was led by General N. G. Stoletov. The onslaught of the Turks was very strong. I had to fight off 14 attacks a day. On the fourth day, the Shipka positions remained in the hands of the Russians, but the path to the south was closed. 6. Unsuccessfully deployed Russian actions near Plevna in Northern Bulgaria. Due to the gross mistakes of the Russian command, the three assaults on Plevna, the defense of which was led by the talented Turkish general Osman Pasha, were unsuccessful, 32 thousand Russian soldiers died. Only a detachment of General N. G. Stoletov managed to break through the Turkish fortifications, but he eventually retreated. Only on November 28, 1877, after a long siege, did the Turkish garrison capitulate. 7. After that, a turning point came in the course of the war. The Russian command decided to go through the Balkans. The main forces, led by General Gurko, entered Sofia at the end of December. A detachment of General M.F. Skobelev at the Sheinovo military camp surrounded a 20,000-strong Turkish group and, after bloody battles, won. Serbia and Montenegro again came out against Turkey, the war of all the Balkan peoples against the Turks began. In January 1878, the Russian army under the command of General Skobelev reached the Sea of Marmara, Gurko captured Andrianopol, and the suburb of Istanbul, San Stefano, was occupied. But the emperor forbade taking the Turkish capital, as he was afraid of international complications. 8. Over Turkey there was a threat of complete defeat. This frightened England, which brought its fleet into the Sea of Marmara, and Austria-Hungary began to create an anti-Russian coalition. The Russian emperor offered the Turkish sultan a truce, which was accepted. In February 1878, a preliminary peace treaty between Russia and Turkey was signed in San Stefano. Turkey recognized the independence of Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, after a 500-year Turkish yoke, a new state was created - the autonomous principality of Bulgaria. Russia returned part of Bessarabia, fortresses in Transcaucasia retreated to it - Ardagan, Kare, Batum, Bayazet. Turkey paid 310 million rubles in indemnity and promised to improve the position of Christians in the empire. The treaty strengthened Russian influence in the Balkans. 9. But England and Austria-Hungary refused to sign the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano. At their insistence, in the summer of 1878, the Berlin Congress was held with the participation of six powers, chaired by Chancellor Bismarck, with the aim of revising the terms of the San Stefano Treaty. Gorchakov was forced to make concessions. The territory of Bulgaria was reduced and divided into 2 parts, its southern part, as well as Macedonia, went under Turkish rule. The territories of Serbia and Montenegro have been significantly curtailed. Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina for an indefinite period, and England occupied Cyprus. 10. Of course, the decisions of the Berlin Congress dealt a heavy blow to Russian diplomacy. And the envy and petty calculations of the Western powers extended the Turkish yoke in the Balkan countries. But in general, the Russian-Turkish war led to positive results: some countries gained independence, Turkish dominance in the Balkans was undermined. The victory in the war demonstrated the effectiveness of the military reform carried out in the country, contributed to the growth of Russia's authority in the Slavic world.
Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905)
At the end of the XIX century. The Far East has become a place of attraction for the interests of all the great powers. Japan claimed a leading role in the Pacific region. Russia also counted on zones of influence.
Even earlier, the tsarist government forced China to transfer the Liaodong Peninsula with a fortress to Russia. Port Arthur. Russia won the right to build railways on Chinese territory. A railway was built in Northern Manchuria - the Chinese Eastern Railway ( CER), and Russian troops were brought in to protect it. Northern Manchuria subjected to military occupation by tsarist Russia.
In the course of implementing tasks in the east, Russia encountered not only Japan, but also Great Britain, France, and Germany. Nevertheless, Japan was the direct force that openly opposed Russia in the east.
Russo-Japanese negotiations in 1903 on the fate of Manchuria and Korea reached an impasse. The Russo-Japanese War has begun in January 1904., when Japan unexpectedly attacked the Russian fortress Port Arthur.
In February - April 1904, Japanese troops landed on the Liaodong Peninsula and in South Manchuria, which, after a series of successful operations, cut off Port Arthur from the main Russian forces.
Residents and the garrison of the city of Port Arthur heroically defended the fortress for 11 months. Japan lost over 110 thousand people killed and wounded here, as well as a large number of warships. But in December 1904, the commander of the garrison of the fortress, General Stessel, ordered Port Arthur to be surrendered to the Japanese.
After the capitulation of Port Arthur in February 1905, the battle was lost under the command of General Kuropatkin under Mukden, and in May Tsushima Islands followed by the defeat by the Japanese of the second Russian Pacific squadron. These defeats meant that the war was finally lost. The tsarist government was forced September 5, 1905 in an American town Portsmouth conclude a shameful peace with the winner. Japan captured Korea and Manchuria, the southern part of Sakhalin, Port Arthur.
Russia's influence in the Far East was undermined as a result of this war. This war served as a powerful catalyst for the growth of opposition sentiment in the country.
Monopoly capitalism does not and cannot eliminate the foundations of the old capitalism. He is in a sense superstructure over the old, pre-monopoly capitalism, which is everywhere combined with pre-capitalist forms of economy. Just as there is not and cannot be "pure capitalism", the existence of "pure imperialism" is inconceivable. Even in the most developed countries In addition to the monopolies, there are many small and medium enterprises, especially in light industry, agriculture, trade and other branches of the economy. In almost all capitalist countries, a significant part of the population is made up of the peasantry, which for the most part leads a simple commodity economy. The vast majority of humanity lives in colonial and semi-colonial countries, where imperialist oppression is intertwined with pre-capitalist, especially feudal, forms of exploitation.
An essential feature of imperialism is that monopolies exist side by side with exchange, the market, competition, and crises. It follows from this that at the monopoly stage of capitalism, the economic laws of capitalism in general remain in full force, but their actions are determined by the basic economic law of modern capitalism - the law of ensuring the maximum capitalist profit. Therefore, they act with increased destructive power. This is how things stand with the laws of value and surplus value, with the law of competition and anarchy of production, with the general law of capitalist accumulation, which causes the relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class and dooms the bulk of the working peasantry to impoverishment and ruin, with the contradictions of capitalist reproduction, economic crises.
The monopolies bring the socialization of production to the limit possible under capitalism. Large and largest enterprises, each employing thousands of people, produce a significant share of all products in the most important industries. The monopolies tie gigantic enterprises together, take into account markets, sources of raw materials, seize scientific personnel, inventions and improvements. Big banks control almost everything cash countries. The ties between the various sectors of the economy and their interdependence are growing enormously. Industry, with gigantic production facilities capable of rapidly increasing the mass of goods produced.
At the same time, the means of production remain the private property of the capitalists. The decisive part of the means of production is at the disposal of the monopolies. In the pursuit of maximum profit, the monopolies in every way increase the degree of exploitation of the working class, which leads to a sharp increase in the impoverishment of the working masses and a decrease in their purchasing power.
Thus, the domination of monopolies to the strongest degree exacerbates the basic contradiction of capitalism - the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production. It is increasingly becoming apparent that the social character of the production process requires social ownership of the means of production.
In the era of imperialism, the productive forces of society have reached such a level of development that they do not fit within the narrow framework of capitalist production relations. Capitalism, which replaced feudalism as a more progressive way production, turned into a reactionary force at the imperialist stage, holding back the development of human society. The economic law of the obligatory correspondence of production relations to the nature of the productive forces requires the replacement of capitalist production relations by new, socialist ones. This law meets with the strongest opposition from the ruling classes, and above all from the monopoly bourgeoisie and big landowners, who seek to prevent the working class from forming an alliance with the peasantry and overthrowing the bourgeois system.
Thus, monopolies tend to stagnate and decay, and under certain conditions this tendency prevails. This circumstance, however, by no means excluded the relatively rapid growth of capitalism before the Second World War. But this growth was extremely uneven, falling further and further behind the enormous possibilities opened up by modern science and technology.
Modern highly developed technology puts forward grandiose tasks, the fulfillment of which is beyond the capacity of decaying capitalism. Not a single capitalist country, for example, can make extensive use of its hydropower resources because of the obstacles posed by private ownership of land and the dominance of monopolies. The capitalist countries are not in a position to use the possibilities of modern science and technology to carry out extensive work to improve soil fertility. The interests of the capitalist monopolies hinder the use of atomic energy i for peaceful purposes.
“Wherever you turn,” V. I. Lenin wrote back in 1913, “at every step you meet tasks that humanity is quite capable of solving immediately. Prevents capitalism. He amassed heaps of wealth - and made people slaves this wealth. He solved the most difficult problems of technology - and stalled the implementation of technical improvements due to the poverty and ignorance of millions of the population, due to the stupid stinginess of a handful of millionaires.
The capital placed abroad in 1929 was in relation to the national wealth: in England - 18%, in France - 15%, in Holland - about 20%, in Belgium and Switzerland - 12% each. In 1929, the income from capital invested abroad exceeded the income from foreign trade: in England - more than 7 times, in the United States - 5 times.
The decay of capitalism is further manifested in the fact that the imperialist bourgeoisie, using its profits from the exploitation of the colonies and dependent countries, systematically bribes, by means of higher wages and other handouts, a small elite of skilled workers, the so-called labor aristocracy. With the support of the bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy seizes command posts in the trade unions; along with the petty-bourgeois elements, it constitutes the active core of right-wing socialist parties and poses a serious danger to the working-class movement. This stratum of bourgeoisized workers is the social basis of opportunism.
Opportunism in the labor movement is the adaptation of the labor movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie by undermining the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for liberation from capitalist slavery. The opportunists poison the minds of the workers by preaching the reformist way of "improving" capitalism, they demand from the workers the support of the bourgeois governments in all their domestic and foreign imperialist policies.
The opportunists are bourgeois agents in the labor movement. By splitting the ranks of the working class, the opportunists prevent the workers from joining forces to overthrow capitalism. This is one of the most important reasons why the bourgeoisie is still in power in many countries.
Pre-monopoly capitalism, with its free competition, was matched by limited bourgeois democracy. Imperialism, with its dominance of monopolies, is characterized by a turn from democracy to political reactions in the domestic and foreign policy of the bourgeois states. Political reaction all lines are a property of imperialism. The leaders of the monopolies or their henchmen occupy the most important posts in the governments and in the entire state apparatus. Under imperialism, governments are not set up by the people, but by the magnates of finance capital. The reactionary monopoly cliques, in order to consolidate their power, seek to nullify the democratic rights of the working people won by the stubborn struggle of many generations. This makes it necessary to intensify in every possible way the struggle of the masses for democracy, against imperialism and reaction. “Capitalism in general and imperialism in particular turns democracy into an illusion – and at the same time capitalism gives rise to democratic aspirations among the masses, creates democratic institutions, sharpens the antagonism between imperialism that denies democracy and the masses striving for democracy.”
In the epoch of imperialism, the struggle of the broad masses of the people, led by the working class, against the reaction generated by the monopolies is of tremendous historical significance. It is precisely on the activity, organization and determination of the masses that the misanthropic plans of the aggressive forces of imperialism, which are constantly preparing new hard trials and military catastrophes, depend.
Imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution.
Imperialism is dying capitalism. The action of the main economic law modern capitalism sharpens all the contradictions of capitalism, brings them to the last line, to the extreme limits beyond which the revolution begins. The most important of these contradictions are the following three contradictions.
First of all, conflict between labor and capital. The domination of the monopolies and the financial oligarchy in the capitalist countries leads to intensified exploitation of the working classes. The sharp deterioration in the material situation and the intensification of the political oppression of the working class cause the growth of its indignation and lead to an intensification of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Under these conditions, the former methods of the economic and parliamentary struggle of the working class turn out to be completely inadequate. Imperialism is leading the working class to the socialist revolution as the only salvation.
Secondly, contradiction between the imperialist powers. In the struggle for maximum profits, the monopolies of various countries clash, and each of the groups of capitalists seeks to secure predominance for itself by capturing markets, sources of raw materials, and spheres of investment of capital. The fierce struggle between the imperialist countries for spheres of influence inevitably leads to imperialist wars, which weaken the position of capitalism in general and bring the socialist revolution closer.
Thirdly, the contradiction between the oppressed peoples of the colonies and dependent countries and the imperialist powers that exploit them, As a result of the development of capitalism in the colonies and semi-colonies, the national liberation movement against imperialism is intensifying. The colonies and dependent countries are being transformed from reserves of imperialism into reserves of the proletarian revolution.
These main contradictions characterize imperialism as dying capitalism. This does not mean that capitalism can die out on its own, in the order of "automatic collapse", without the most resolute struggle of the masses of the people, led by the working class, to abolish the rule of the bourgeoisie. It only means that imperialism is that stage in the development of capitalism at which the proletarian revolution has become a practical inevitability and favorable conditions have ripened for a direct assault on the strongholds of capitalism. Therefore, Lenin characterized imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution.
State monopoly capitalism.
In the era of imperialism, the bourgeois state, representing the dictatorship of the financial oligarchy, carries out all its activities in the interests of the ruling monopolies.
As the contradictions of imperialism sharpen, the ruling monopolies strengthen their direct leadership of the state apparatus. Increasingly, the largest magnates of capital are personally acting as heads of the state apparatus. There is a process of transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. Already the First World War accelerated and intensified this process tremendously.
State monopoly capitalism lies in subordination state apparatus to capitalist monopolies and using it to interfere in the country's economy (especially in connection with its militarization) in order to ensure maximum profits for the monopolies and strengthen the omnipotence of finance capital. At the same time, individual enterprises, industries and economic functions are transferred into the hands of the state (providing labor, supplying scarce raw materials, a rationing system for distributing products, building military enterprises, financing the militarization of the economy, etc.) while maintaining the dominance of private ownership of funds in the country. production.
The monopolies use state power to actively promote the concentration and centralization of capital, to increase the power and influence of the largest monopolies: the state, by special measures, compels independent entrepreneurs to submit to monopoly associations, and in time of war it carries out a forced concentration of production, closing many small and medium-sized enterprises. In the interests of the monopolies, the state, on the one hand, establishes high customs duties on imported goods, and on the other hand, encourages the export of goods by paying export duties to the monopolies and making it easier for them to conquer new markets through dumping.
Monopolies use the state budget to rob the population of their country through taxes and receive orders from the state that bring huge profits. Under the pretext of "encouragement of economic initiative", the bourgeois state pays huge sums in the form of subsidies to the largest entrepreneurs. If the monopolies are threatened with bankruptcy, they receive funds from the state to cover their losses, and their tax debts to the state are written off.
The development of state-monopoly capitalism especially intensifies during the period of preparation and conduct of imperialist wars. Lenin called state-monopoly capitalism hard labor for the workers, a paradise for the capitalists. The governments of the imperialist countries give huge orders to the monopolies for the supply of armaments, equipment and foodstuffs, build military factories at the expense of the treasury and put them at the disposal of the monopolies, and issue war loans. At the same time, the bourgeois states shift all the burdens of war onto the working people. All this provides the monopolies with enormous profits.
The development of state-monopoly capitalism leads, firstly, to a further acceleration of the capitalist socialization of production, which creates the material preconditions for the replacement of capitalism by socialism. Lenin pointed out that state-monopoly capitalism is the most complete material preparation for socialism.
The development of state-monopoly capitalism leads, secondly, to the intensification of the relative and absolute impoverishment of the proletariat. With the help of state power, the monopolies in every possible way increase the degree of exploitation of the working class, the peasantry, and broad sections of the intelligentsia, which inevitably causes a sharp aggravation of the contradictions between the exploited and the exploiters, and an intensification of the struggle of the proletariat and other sections of the working people for the abolition of capitalism.
The defenders of capitalism, concealing the subordination of the bourgeois state to the capitalist monopolies, assert that the state has become the decisive force in the economy of the capitalist countries and is capable of ensuring planned management of the national economy. In reality, however, the bourgeois state cannot manage the economy in a planned manner, since the economy is not at its disposal, but in the hands of the monopolies. All attempts at state "regulation" of the economy under capitalism are powerless in the face of the spontaneous laws of economic life.
The law of uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries in the period of imperialism and the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country.
Under capitalism, individual enterprises and branches of the country's economy cannot develop evenly. In conditions of competition and anarchy of production, uneven development of the capitalist economy is inevitable. But in the pre-monopoly era, capitalism as a whole was still on the rise. Production was fragmented among a large number of enterprises, free competition reigned, there were no monopolies. Capitalism could still develop relatively smoothly. Some countries outperformed others for a long period of time. On the globe then there were vast, unoccupied territories. The case did without military clashes on a global scale.
The correlation of the economic forces of the imperialist powers is changing with unprecedented rapidity. The growth of the military forces of the imperialist states is also uneven. The changed balance of economic and military forces inevitably clashes with the old distribution of colonies and spheres of influence. A struggle for the redistribution of the already divided world is brewing. The real might of one imperialist group or another is tested by means of bloody and devastating wars.
In 1860, England occupied the first place in world industrial production; France followed suit. Germany and the United States of America were just emerging on the world stage. A decade has passed, and the rapidly growing country of young capitalism - the United States of America - has overtaken France and switched places with it. A decade later, the United States of America overtook England and firmly took first place in world industrial production, and Germany overtook France and took third place after the USA and England. By the beginning of the 20th century, Germany had pushed aside England, taking second place after the United States. As a result of changes in the correlation of forces in the capitalist countries, the capitalist world splits into two hostile imperialist camps and world wars arise.
Due to the uneven development of the capitalist countries during the period of imperialism, world capitalism cannot develop otherwise than through crises and military catastrophes. The sharpening of contradictions in the camp of imperialism and the inevitability of military clashes lead to the mutual weakening of the imperialists. The world front of imperialism becomes easily vulnerable to the proletarian revolution. On this basis, a breakthrough of the front can take place at the link where the chain of the imperialist front is weakest, at the point where the most favorable conditions for the victory of the proletariat develop.
The unevenness of economic development in the era of imperialism also determines the unevenness of political development, which means that the political prerequisites for the victory of the proletarian revolution in different countries Oh. These prerequisites include, above all, the sharpness of class contradictions and the degree of development of the class struggle, the level of class consciousness, political organization and revolutionary determination of the proletariat, its ability to lead the bulk of the peasantry.
The law of the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries during the period of imperialism constitutes the starting point of Lenin's teaching on the possibility of the victory of socialism initially in several countries or even in one country taken separately.
Marx and Engels in the middle of the 19th century, studying pre-monopoly capitalism, came to the conclusion that the socialist revolution can win only simultaneously in all or most of the civilized countries. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, especially during the First World War, the situation changed radically. Pre-monopoly capitalism has grown into monopoly capitalism. Ascending capitalism has turned into descending, dying capitalism. The war exposed the incurable weaknesses of the world imperialist front. At the same time, the law of uneven development predetermined the different timing of the maturation of the proletarian revolution in different countries. Proceeding from the law of the uneven development of capitalism in the era of imperialism, Lenin came to the conclusion that the old formula of Marx and Engels no longer corresponds to the new historical conditions, that under the new conditions the socialist revolution may well win in one country taken separately, that the simultaneous victory of the socialist revolution in all countries or in the majority of civilized countries is impossible due to the uneven maturation of the revolution in these countries.
“The unevenness of economic and political development,” wrote Lenin, “is the unconditional law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of socialism is possible initially in a few or even in one single capitalist country.
It was a new, complete theory of the socialist revolution created by Lenin. It enriched Marxism and moved it forward, opened up a revolutionary perspective to the proletarians of individual countries, unleashed the initiative in attacking its own bourgeoisie, strengthened their faith in the victory of the proletarian revolution.
During the period of imperialism, the formation of the capitalist system of the world economy is completed, in connection with which individual countries become links in a single chain. Leninism teaches that under the conditions of imperialism, the socialist revolution first wins not necessarily in those countries where capitalism is most developed and the proletariat constitutes the majority of the population, but primarily in those countries that are a weak link in the chain of world imperialism. The objective conditions for a socialist revolution have matured in the entire system of the world capitalist economy. Under such conditions, the presence in this system of countries that are insufficiently developed industrially cannot serve as an obstacle to revolution. The victory of the socialist revolution requires the existence of a revolutionary proletariat and the proletarian vanguard, united in a political party, the existence in a given country of a serious ally of the proletariat in the person of the peasantry, capable of following the proletariat in a determined struggle against imperialism.
In the era of imperialism, when the revolutionary movement is growing all over the world, the imperialist bourgeoisie enters into alliance with all reactionary forces without exception and makes every possible use of the survivals of serfdom to increase profits. Because of this, the liquidation of the feudal-serf system is impossible without a determined struggle against imperialism. Under these conditions, the proletariat becomes the hegemon of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, rallying the masses of the peasantry around itself to fight against serfdom and imperialist colonial oppression. As the anti-feudal and national liberation tasks are solved, the bourgeois-democratic revolution develops into a socialist revolution.
During the period of imperialism, the indignation of the proletariat grows in the capitalist countries, elements of a revolutionary explosion accumulate, and a liberation war against imperialism develops in the colonial and dependent countries. Imperialist wars for the redivision of the world weaken the system of imperialism and intensify the tendency to unite the proletarian revolutions in the capitalist countries with the national liberation movement in the colonies.
The proletarian revolution, victorious in one country, is at the same time the beginning of the world socialist revolution and a powerful base for its further development. Lenin scientifically foresaw that the world revolution would develop through the revolutionary falling away of a number of new countries from the system of imperialism with the support given to the proletarians of these countries by the proletariat of the imperialist states. The very process of falling away from imperialism in a number of new countries will proceed the faster and more thoroughly, the more thoroughly socialism is strengthened in the first country of the victorious proletarian revolution.
“The outcome of the struggle,” Lenin wrote in 1923, “depends, in the final analysis, on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc. constitute the vast majority of the population. Namely, it is this majority of the population that is drawn with extraordinary speed into last years in the struggle for their liberation, so that in this sense there can be no shadow of doubt as to what the final solution of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the final victory of socialism is completely and unconditionally assured.
SUMMARY
3. As a result of the operation of the basic economic law of modern capitalism, the three main contradictions of imperialism are sharply exacerbated: 1) the contradiction between labor and capital, 2) the contradiction between the imperialist powers fighting for predominance, in the final analysis, for world domination, and 3) the contradiction between metropolises and colonies. Imperialism is bringing the proletariat close to the socialist revolution.
4. State-monopoly capitalism is the subordination of the state apparatus to capitalist monopolies in order to ensure maximum profits and strengthen the dominance of the financial oligarchy. Meaning the highest stage of the capitalist socialization of production, state-monopoly capitalism brings with it a further intensification of the exploitation of the working class, the impoverishment and ruin of the broad working masses.
5. The law of uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries during the period of imperialism weakens the united front of world imperialism. The uneven maturation of the revolution excludes the possibility of a simultaneous victory of socialism in all countries or in most countries. It creates the possibility of breaking through the imperialist chain at its weakest link, the possibility of the victory of the socialist revolution initially in a few or even in one country taken separately.
The term imperialism appeared in the late 60s (Hobbson & Hilferding).
Toyenby writes not about imperialism, but about imperialism (as a state of the state). Not all countries that entered the imperialist stage were imperial
(Germany, USA)
Imp-th outlines the relationship of the mother country against the colony. In Russia, for example, there
empire but no colony. Imperialism, from the point of view of the ek-ki, is not a general system, but a special stage of capitalism (not necessarily the highest!) Imperialism is very clearly defined in history from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 19th century. until the end of World War II.
Imperialism is a concept that characterizes the internal economic structure of the most developed powers and the corresponding forms of international economic and political relations. The stage (stage) of imperialism is singled out by scientists (J. Hobson, V. I. Lenin) in relation to the capitalist formation, when the dominance of monopolies and financial capital develops, the economic division of the world into spheres of interests of international (transnational) corporations (trusts) takes place, and on this basis a struggle unfolds between them, in which the states are included.
If it were necessary to give the shortest possible definition of imperialism, then it would be necessary to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.
It is necessary to give a complete definition and single out five main features of imperialism: 1) the concentration of production and capital, which has reached such a high stage of development that it has created monopolies that play a decisive role in economic life; 2) the merging of banking capital with industrial capital and the creation, on the basis of this "financial capital", of a financial oligarchy; 3) the export of capital, in contrast to the export of goods, is of particular importance; 4) international monopoly alliances of capitalists are formed, dividing the world, and 5) the territorial division of the land by the major capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development when the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape, the export of capital has acquired outstanding significance, the division of the world by international trusts has begun, and the division of the entire territory of the earth by the largest capitalist countries has been completed.
Understood in this sense, imperialism undoubtedly represents a special stage in the development of capitalism.
Three areas with highly developed capitalism (strong development of both communications and trade and industry): Central European, British and American. Among them are three states dominating the world: Germany, England, the United States. The imperialist emulation and struggle between them is extremely intensified by the fact that Germany has an insignificant area and few colonies; the creation of "middle Europe" is still in the future, and it is born in a desperate struggle. So far, political fragmentation is a sign of all of Europe. In the British and American regions, on the contrary, political concentration is very high, but there is a huge discrepancy between the vast colonies of the former and the insignificant colonies of the latter. And in the colonies, capitalism is just beginning to develop. The struggle for South America is intensifying.
Two areas - the weak development of capitalism, Russian and East Asian. The first has an extremely weak population density, the second has an extremely high one; in the first the political concentration is great, in the second it is absent. China has only just begun to be divided, and the struggle for it between Japan, the United States, etc., is becoming more and more acute.
Finance capital and trusts do not weaken but increase the differences between the rates of growth of different parts of the world economy.
The fastest development of railways was in the colonies and in the independent states of Asia and America. It is known that the finance capital of the 4-5 largest capitalist states reigns and rules here entirely. Two hundred thousand kilometers of new railroads in the colonies and in other countries of Asia and America, that means over 40 billion marks of new investments in a special favorable conditions, with special guarantees of profitability, with profitable orders for steel mills, etc., etc.
Capitalism is growing most rapidly in the colonies and in overseas countries. New imperialist powers (Japan) are emerging among them. The struggle of world imperialisms is intensifying. The tribute that finance capital takes from especially profitable colonial and overseas enterprises is growing. When this "booty" is divided, an exceptionally high proportion falls into the hands of countries that do not always occupy the first place in terms of the speed of development of productive forces.
So, about 80% of the total number of railways is concentrated in the 5 largest powers.
Thanks to her colonies, England increased "her" railway network by 100,000 kilometers, four times more than Germany. Meanwhile, it is well known that the development of the productive forces of Germany during this time, and especially the development of coal and iron production, proceeded incomparably faster than in England, not to mention France and Russia. In 1892, Germany produced 4.9 million tons of pig iron, against 6.8 in England; and in 1912 it was already 17.6 against 9.0, that is, a gigantic advantage over England!
49. The main signs of imperialism (according to Lenin) 5 signs:
1) the concentration of production and capital, which has reached such a high stage of development that it has created monopolies that play a decisive role in economic life; 2) the merging of banking capital with industrial capital and the creation, on the basis of this "financial capital", of a financial oligarchy;
3) the export of capital, in contrast to the export of goods, is of particular importance;
4) international monopoly unions of capitalists are formed, dividing the world
5) the territorial division of the land by the major capitalist powers has been completed.
Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development when the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape, the export of capital has acquired outstanding significance, the division of the world by international trusts has begun, and the division of the entire territory of the earth by the largest capitalist countries has been completed. 1) For example, in America, almost half of the total production of all enterprises in the country is in the hands of one hundredth of the total number of enterprises -> that concentration, at a certain stage of its development, by itself leads, one might say, right up to monopoly. For it is easy for several dozen gigantic enterprises to come to an agreement among themselves, and on the other hand, the difficulty of competition, the tendency to monopoly, is generated precisely by the large size of the enterprises. 2) Among the few banks, which, by virtue of the process of concentration, remain at the head of the entire capitalist economy, there naturally emerges and intensifies the striving for a monopoly agreement, for a banking trust. In America, not nine, but two largest bank, the billionaires Rockefeller and Morgan, rule over a capital of 11 billion marks 3) For the old capitalism, with the complete domination of free competition, the export of goods was typical. For the newest capitalism, with the dominance of monopolies, the export of capital has become typical. But the internal market, under capitalism, is inevitably connected with the external one.
Capitalism created the world market a long time ago. And as the export of capital grew and foreign and colonial ties and the "spheres of influence" of the largest monopoly unions expanded in every possible way, things "naturally" approached a worldwide agreement between them, to the formation of international cartels. This is a new stage in the worldwide concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher than the previous ones. Let's see how this supermonopoly grows. 5) We are, consequently, living through a peculiar era of world colonial policy, which is most closely connected with the "latest stage in the development of capitalism", with finance capital. Therefore, it is necessary to dwell in more detail, first of all, on the actual data, in order to clarify as accurately as possible both the difference between this era and previous ones, and the state of affairs at the present time. In the first place, two factual questions arise here: is there an intensification of colonial policy, an intensification of the struggle for colonies precisely in the era of finance capital, and how exactly the world is divided in this respect at the present time.
imperialist wars.
An imperialist war is a war for the redivision of an already divided world.
Imperialist wars became inevitable when capitalism at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century finally developed into the highest and last stage of its development - imperialism Under imperialism, powerful associations (monopolies) of capitalists and banks acquired a decisive role in the life of capitalist states.
But already at the end of the nineteenth century, the entire territory of the globe was divided among the capitalist states. Meanwhile. The development of capitalism in the epoch of imperialism proceeds extremely unevenly and spasmodically: some countries, formerly in first place, develop their industry relatively slowly, while others, formerly backward, quickly overtake and overtake them. The balance of economic and military forces of the imperialist states changed. There was a desire for a new redistribution of the world. The struggle for a new redistribution of the world caused the inevitability of an imperialist war. The war of 1914 was a war for the redivision of the world and spheres of influence.
While preparing for an imperialist war, Germany sought to take away the colonies from England and France, and the Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states from Russia. Germany threatened British dominance in the Middle East by building the Baghdad Railway. England was afraid of the growth of German naval armaments.
Tsarist Russia sought to divide Turkey, dreamed of conquering the straits from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean (Dardanelles), of capturing Constantinople. The plans of the tsarist government also included the capture of Galicia - part of Austria-Hungary.
England sought to smash her dangerous competitor, Germany, by means of war, whose goods before the war began to increasingly crowd out British goods on the world market. In addition, England intended to seize Mesopotamia and Palestine from Turkey and firmly establish itself in Egypt.
French capitalists sought to seize from Germany the Saar Basin and Alsace-Lorraine, rich in coal and iron, which Germany had taken from France in the war of 1870-1871.
Thus, the biggest contradictions between the two groups of capitalist states led to the imperialist war.
This predatory war for the redivision of the world affected the interests of all imperialist countries, and therefore Japan, the United States of America and a number of other states were subsequently drawn into it.
Imperialism of England.
1) Loss of industrial monopoly.
1870s were the peak of England's economic power in the international arena. It accounted for half of the world's coal mining, iron smelting and cotton processing. The share of England in world trade was 65%. The monopoly position of this country as the "workshop of the world" made possible the policy of free trade. It was believed that British goods, due to their quality and cheapness, did not need protectionism and bans on the import of foreign goods. However, since 1880, the United States and Germany have come to the fore.
For almost 100 years, English manufacturers enjoyed an undivided industrial monopoly on the world market, without the need for constant technical renovation of production. For many years they received monopoly profits already by virtue of their exclusive position. When it disappeared, they preferred not to make large investments associated with competitive struggle in the markets of Europe and the USA, but to use the opportunities of colonial trade.
2) The growth of the colonial empire.
Since the 1870s the importance of the colonial empire for the English bourgeoisie grew greatly. Colonies have become vital both to ensure superprofits and to alleviate, at their expense, the growing class contradictions in the mother country.
Therefore, in the years 1860-1880. there is a rapid expansion of the British colonial possessions.
3) Agrarian crisis.
Had an adverse effect on economic development England, which erupted from 1874 and lasted 20 years, the world agrarian crisis. Its prerequisites were created by the end of the American Civil War and the development of vast areas of the Midwest, which caused an influx of a large number cheap American bread.
4) Industrial development.
The peculiarities of the British monopolies were their comparatively late appearance, as well as their relative weakness. The root causes of the weakness of the British industrial monopolies are the following: 1) the colonial empire allowed the industrialists to make super profits without destroying competition; 2) the industrial backwardness of England was expressed in the relative decline of her old industries, in particular the extractive industry, from which monopolization in other countries usually began; 3) British industry was, more than German and American, export-oriented.
Imperialism of France.
By volume industrial production France retreats to 4th place in the world. The reason for the backlog was the same - a significant part of the French industry still produced fashionable goods, luxury goods.
France dictated fashion, and its fashionable goods, despite high prices, were out of competition. Rich people of all countries considered it obligatory to wear clothes of Parisian tailors, to buy French furniture. But these products were valued because they were made in a handicraft way.
However, heavy industry also began to develop successfully in France. So, in the production of cars, France took second place in the world and first in Europe. In terms of the capacity of hydroelectric power plants, it also went ahead of other European countries.
It was in heavy industry that the first monopolies arose. One of them was the Comite de Forge cartel, which united almost all ferrous metallurgy enterprises.
Made great progress military industry France. She was one of the first to manufacture machine guns, rapid-fire cannons and submarines.
France's agriculture still employed 40% of the population. And as before, the small peasant remained the main figure in agriculture: 40% of the French peasants now had plots of land less than a hectare. The consequence of the parceling of land was the retarded growth of the population of France. In order not to split up the land during inheritance, the French peasant preferred not to have many children. And if in the first half of the XIX century. France, in terms of population, was the largest country in Europe, then by the end of this century it was inferior to Germany and England in this respect.
Just as for England, for France of that time, the export of capital played a huge role: 75% of the capital accumulated in France was exported from the country and only 25% was invested in the economy of France. The income from the export of capital, like England, was greater than the income from its industry.
France exported capital mainly in the usurious form of credit: it gave loans to other states.
Thus, the usurious nature of the French economy was preserved, lagging behind in the development of industry. France leads in the concentration of banks, in the development of financial capital.
France at that time seized large colonial possessions, the territory of its colonies was 20 times the territory of France itself. But the colonies did not play a significant role for the French economy.
German imperialism.
It is customary to call German imperialism "Junker-bourgeois" because in Germany strong positions were occupied by Junker landowners. They retained their dominant position in agriculture, actively participated in the industrial and banking, in their hands remained the army. As a traditional military, they were interested in militarization, the growth of military appropriations, military preparations. But the German bourgeoisie was also interested in military preparations: they were deprived of their share in the division of the colonies and they sought to redistribute them in their favor.
Industrial production in Germany for the period from 1870 to 1913. developed at a faster pace, German industry overtook British and French and by the beginning of the century came out on top in Europe and second in the world.
At the same time, heavy industry was ahead. German metallurgy and the German chemical industry took the first place in the world. Germany produced half of the world's electrical goods, and from here dynamos, trams, and electric lamps were exported to other countries.
Since the enterprises of heavy industry, especially of the new industries that were predominantly developed in Germany, could not be small, Germany comes out on top in Europe in terms of concentration of production. High concentration facilitated the formation of monopolies, and at the beginning of the 20th century. Germany is becoming a classic country of monopolies.
Among the German monopolies, the military concern Krupp occupied a special place. Created with the participation of the state and acting on state program he became a state within a state. The concern included not only military enterprises, but also mines, metallurgical and machine-building plants. Since artillery factories were built at a time when other industries were not yet sufficiently developed, they were built according to the feudal principle of "self-service".
As in other countries, monopolization has made its greatest strides in new industries.
Imperialism of Japan.
Japan entered the path of development of capitalism when it passed into the stage of imperialism. The reforms that established the capitalist order were carried out in Japan only in the 70s of the XIX century.
The entire population of Japan was divided into 4 classes: samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants, and the transition from one class to another was strictly prohibited. The seclusion of the estates, characteristic of feudalism in general, was brought here to the limit. Laws even determined the food, clothing and life of each class. So, the peasants were forbidden to eat rice, and they could only wear linen or cotton clothes. Silk could only be worn by samurai. All classes were powerless before the samurai. A samurai would kill a commoner only to "test a new weapon" or for simple impoliteness.
Moreover, the classes of artisans and merchants officially occupied a lower position than the peasants. Trade and craft were considered humiliating occupations.
But samurai also fell into bondage to usurers. The in-kind form of their salary inevitably led to this: to satisfy their needs, the samurai needed money, and not just rice. Money could be obtained from moneylenders. In the XVIII century. a special guild of usurers appeared, who were engaged in buying receipts for rations from samurai.
The result of economic isolation was the economic stagnation of Japan from the end of the 17th century. until the bourgeois revolution of 1868. For more than a century and a half, the cultivated area, the annual production of rice, and even the population remained at the same level.
Agrarian reform 1872-1873 eliminated state property to the ground. The peasants were now declared the owners of the land.
Thus, the landowners became the legal owners of a third of the arable land. In the new order, the peasants had to pay taxes to the state in money. Technics Agriculture remained at a primitive level. The land was cultivated mainly by hand, with a hoe. The beginning of the industrial revolution and industrialization of Japan should be considered the 70s of the 19th century, when the state created a factory industry.
For the first decades after the revolution, private capital did not go into industry. Conditions for private entrepreneurship are only gradually emerging, and in the 1980s, state-owned enterprises are transferred to private hands.
Thus, Japan embarked on the path of capitalism at a time when the world was already moving towards imperialism. Therefore, Japanese capitalism was born immediately in an imperialist form, acquiring the features of imperialism. Imperialism arose here before the completion of the industrial revolution, while retaining many vestiges of the Asiatic mode of production. Therefore, Japanese imperialism is usually attributed to the military-feudal type for the following reasons.
The point is in a special form of monopolies - they were not quite monopolies, because they arose not in the course of competition during the concentration of production, but during the transfer state enterprises into private hands. Well-connected people could take over a whole group of enterprises. Such a group of enterprises in the same hands was called zaibatsu. Zaibatsu aren't really monopolies because they haven't monopolized anything. These were mostly conglomerates consisting of industry enterprises.
Capitalism, like any social system, is not something dead and ossified. It moves, improves, passing through different stages of its development. Its initial stages - formation and strengthening were studied by the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind K. Marx and F. Engels. But they could not explore the final stage of the development of capitalism - capitalism passed to this stage later, after their death. Their student V.I. Lenin, who analyzed capitalism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, discovered that it had significantly changed its character, turning from a progressive social system into a reactionary one. Capitalism has acquired new features that were not previously observed in it, and many of its laws began to operate in a completely different way. This new, last stage of capitalism was called by him "imperialism", and V.I. Lenin's work "Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism" is fundamental on the issue of imperialism.
So what is imperialism? How does it differ from ordinary capitalism, and what features is it characterized by?
Imperialism- this is the aggressive or predatory policy of finance capital in its struggle for markets for goods, for markets for raw materials and fuel, for the most advantageous premises capital in other countries and for the acquisition of cheaper labor in them, by subjugating these countries and their peoples and thereby creating huge world states, empires. Imperialism thus grows out of finance capital and is closely linked with it.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote that "Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat" this is the last stage of capitalism, i.e. capitalism is dying, decaying. It will inevitably be replaced by a new social system - communism.
Example: The capitalism of modern Russia is also in the stage of dying capitalism, i.e. imperialism (see) Moreover, Russian capitalism also contains all the signs of state-monopoly capitalism, which is a more developed form of monopoly capitalism, when the power of capitalist monopolies is closely connected with the power of the state for the purposes of preservation and strengthening of the capitalist system.
When did imperialism emerge?
It appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. “Private property based on the labor of the small proprietor, free competition, democracy—all these slogans with which the capitalists and their press deceive the workers and peasants are far behind us. Capitalism has grown into a worldwide system of colonial oppression and financial suffocation by a handful of "advanced" countries of the gigantic majority of the world's population. And the division of this “booty” takes place between 2-3 world-powerful predators, armed from head to toe, who draw the whole earth into their war because of the division of their booty., - wrote V.I. Lenin
Imperialism has 5 characteristics:
1. concentration of production and the formation of monopolies,
2. financial capital (i.e., the merger of banking capital with industrial capital) and financial oligarchy,
3. the export of capital prevails over the export of goods,
4. the formation of international monopoly unions of capitalists who divided the world among themselves,
5. completed the territorial division of the world between the major capitalist powers.
The most important sign of imperialism is education monopolies and financial capital who in this era subordinate everything and everyone to their influence.
The first sign of imperialism is monopoly:
Monopolies is the unification of individual capitalist enterprises, often even from different branches of industry or the economy, into one whole, into a single huge enterprise.
The word "monopoly" has 2 meanings:
1. Monopolies are called several major players dominating the market, emerging as a result of competition.
2. The policy of these associations of capitalists is also called a monopoly. For example, "monopoly prices",
Recall how monopolies are formed (we already talked about it in the last lesson): “Concentration, at a certain stage of its development, by itself brings close to monopoly. For it is easy for several dozen gigantic enterprises to come to an agreement among themselves, and on the other hand, the difficulty of competition, the tendency to monopoly, is generated precisely by the large size of the enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of major events- if not the most important - in the economy of modern capitalism"(Lenin).
The formation of monopolies is general and basic law of modern capitalism
Example: The development of monopolies began with the unification of metallurgical plants and hard coal mines, where coal was mined, without which metal smelting is impossible. Then these associations also included mining enterprises that were engaged in the extraction of metal ores.
An example from the realities of modern Russia- Deripaska recently announced the purchase of a thermal power plant located next to the Bogoslovsky aluminum smelter. Recall that the production of aluminum is a very energy-intensive industry. Now Deripaska will have his own electricity generation.
What is it for? What are the benefits of such associations?
They give a higher and more sustainable return on investment.
firstly, trade disappears within the united enterprises and other production costs are reduced; - in fact, a plan is being introduced inside the monopolies (!!!),
secondly, in times of competition and crises, the unification of enterprises allows all of them to stand on their own feet more firmly than in the case of fragmentation in the form of individual enterprises,
thirdly, it is possible to carry out a better division of labor and introduce various technical improvements.
Forms of association of enterprises can be different - it can only be an agreement on joint activities or even their complete merger by acquisition or merger. This is the way to form monopolies.
Depending on the type of association, different types of monopolies are also distinguished - cartels, syndicates, trusts, joint-stock companies, transnational corporations.
Example: The process of formation of monopolies in bourgeois Russia took place in the previous two decades right before our eyes. Many people remember that not so long ago, in the 90s. in most industries of the Russian Federation and the national economy, there were many enterprises, from small to large. In the same oil industry, where colossal money is spinning, there was a sea of all sorts of intermediaries trading in various volumes of oil products - from a tank to hundreds of trains. All of them were destroyed by competition. Good example- the Yukos case. Now there are only a few companies left in the oil industry, including the trade in raw materials and oil products. They can be counted on the fingers - Rosneft, Lukoil, TNK-BP and several others. These are the monopolies that completely determine the Russian oil market.
Similarly, the gas market of the Russian Federation, where the semi-state Gazprom reigns supreme.
Another example is the sale of consumer goods. A bunch of outlets- from kiosks to large stores in the 90s and early 2000s, everyone remembers. Now, instead of thousands of small traders, the consumer goods market has clearly taken control of retail chains, and a significant number of them are foreign - Auchan, Okay, Lenta, Ikea, Mega, Magnit, Pyaterochka, Monetka, etc.
With the advent of monopolies, the character of capitalism fundamentally changes - from progressive it becomes regressive, reactionary. The monopolies are complete masters of the market and have the widest opportunity to impose their prices on the buyers. Competition disappears - it is replaced by a special kind of policy, when dominance in the market by some requires subordination from others (monopoly policy, or monopoly).
"The relationship of domination and the violence associated with it - this is what is typical of the "recent phase in the development of capitalism", this is what inevitably had to result and did result from the formation of omnipotent economic monopolies.- Lenin wrote
Monopoly, by killing competition, also destroys that powerful driving force which compelled the capitalists, under the fear of ruining their enterprises and in the interests of defeating their rival rivals, to constantly develop technology, display ingenuity and enterprise, and raise the productive forces.
Under conditions of monopoly, the capitalists achieve their main goal - increasing profits and enrichment - not by improving technology, but by raising the prices of their goods, lowering wages for workers and intensifying the exploitation of backward countries - raw material colonies. The consequence of such a policy is inevitably a delay and stagnation in the development of the productive forces. The uneven development of the branches of the capitalist economy is increasing, leading to an imbalance in the entire economy of the country and the world.
Monopolies not only impose their prices, they create demand in the market - forcing you to buy unnecessary, or buy more often than was previously required. The quality of goods falls sharply, goods with a low service life flood all markets. In crises of overproduction, prices do not fall, as before, but remain at the same level - excess goods are destroyed.
Lenin says: “The elimination of crises by monopolies is a fairy tale of bourgeois economists who embellish capitalism at all costs. On the contrary, the monopoly that is created in certain branches of industry intensifies and sharpens the chaotic nature of all capitalist production as a whole. The discrepancy between the development of agriculture and industry, which is characteristic of capitalism in general, is becoming even greater. The privileged position in which the most monopolized heavy industry finds itself leads in other industries "to an even more acute lack of planning" ... and consequently, to unprecedented crises, "And crises - of all kinds, economic most often, but not only economic ones - in their queues in enormous proportions intensify the tendency towards concentration and towards monopoly.
It turns out a vicious circle from which there is no way out. Capitalism is becoming more and more barbaric and insane every day.
From this it becomes clear all the futility of attempts to curb monopolies - to create some kind of antimonopoly committees and similar structures that are supposedly designed to limit the undivided kingdom of monopolies in a particular market. In the very essence of the capitalist system, which is in the stage of imperialism, it is impossible to do this without destroying capitalism. Therefore, all these and similar antimonopoly services are nothing more than a fiction, an appearance for naive fellow citizens who, not understanding how the laws of a market economy operate, believe in the objectivity and justice of the bourgeois state. In fact, the task of all these antimonopoly structures is fundamentally the opposite - using the power of the bourgeois state, to defend the interests of the largest monopolies, those that are closely connected with the state, destroying and oppressing the smaller ones to please them, squeezing the latter out of the market.
Here is what Lenin writes about this: “... although commodity production still “reigns” and is considered the basis of the entire economy, in fact it has already been undermined, and the main profits go to the “geniuses” of financial tricks. The basis of these tricks and frauds is the socialization of production, but the gigantic progress of mankind, which has worked out to this socialization, is to the benefit of ... speculators.
This whole picture of the separation of financial capital from production is unfolding in the most obvious way right now before our eyes. The modern bourgeoisie has even coined the term "real production" to show that we are talking really about production, not about financial speculation. By doing so, it recognized that all these financial games of the world bourgeoisie are financial markets, financial instruments sucked from the finger mortgage papers etc. have nothing to do with real economics. But it is precisely due to this virtual industry that the GDP of all developed countries of the world is now growing! Bourgeois and oligarchs of all stripes no longer want to produce anything, they don’t even want to manage their property - plants, factories, corporations, etc. They often hire top management to manage their property, actually eliminating themselves from the production process and thereby becoming an extra link in economics.
All this brings the productive forces close to the new social order, which with all inevitability must change the capitalist world order.
Here is what Lenin says about it: “This is no longer the same as the old free competition of fragmented and unaware of each other's owners, producing for sale in an unknown market. The concentration has reached such a point that it is possible to make an approximate account of all sources of raw materials in a given country and even throughout the world. Such accounting is not only carried out, but these sources are seized in one hand by gigantic monopoly unions. An approximate account is made of the size of the market, which these unions “divide” among themselves, by contractual agreement. Trained labor forces are monopolized, the best engineers are hired, and ways and means of communication are seized. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production, it drags, so to speak, the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some kind of new social order, transitional from complete freedom of competition to complete socialization.
Imperialism increases the division of labor in an unprecedented way, i.e. makes labor SOCIAL, when the product of production is created not by one, but by thousands and millions of workers.
Example: In production cell phones and computers, workers from almost 50 countries of the world participate! The joint work of millions of people creates what we are used to using today, without thinking about how and by whom it is all produced.
But the whole problem is that, as before, as 100 and even 200 years ago, all manufactured products belong to units - the owners of the means of production - factories, factories, mining mines, etc.
Arises the contradiction between the social nature of labor and the private form of appropriation, which can be eliminated only by a revolution whose task is to destroy the obsolete old capitalist relations and replace them with new production relations that correspond to the existing level of the productive forces of society - socialist relations.
The second important feature of imperialism is finance capital., which was mentioned above.
financial capital called the merger of banking capital with industrial capital. Banks, humble intermediaries whose task was only to settle accounts between industrial enterprises, to manage their accounting affairs, suddenly turn into the main link of the entire capitalist world system, dictating their will to all its other participants. This is one of the main processes that characterize the development of capitalism into imperialism.
Here is how this process takes place. “Large enterprises, banks in particular, not only directly absorb small ones, but also “attach” them to themselves, subordinate them, include them in “their” group, in their “concern” - as the technical term says - by means of “participation” in their capital, through the purchase or exchange of shares, a system of debt relations, etc.”(Lenin).
“... with the concentration of capital and the growth of banks' turnover, their significance changes radically. Scattered capitalists form one collective capitalist. By keeping a current account for several capitalists, the bank seems to be performing a purely technical, purely auxiliary operation. And when this operation grows to gigantic proportions, it turns out that a handful of monopolists subjugate the commercial and industrial operations of the entire capitalist society, gaining the opportunity - through banking connections, through current accounts and other financial transactions - first to find out exactly the state of affairs from individual capitalists, then control them, influence them by expanding or contracting, facilitating or hindering credit, and finally completely determine their fate, determine their profitability, deprive them of capital or enable them to increase their capital quickly and on an enormous scale, etc.” Lenin explains.
In the activities of banks, one can see the germ of the process of universal accounting and distribution of the means of production, a kind of social planning, which Marx wrote about in Capital: "Banks create on a social scale a form, but precisely only a form, of a general accounting and a general distribution of the means of production." Banks carry out "general accounting" of the entire class of capitalists, and not even only of the capitalists, for the banks collect, at least for a time, money income from small proprietors, and employees, and even the lowest paid workers. They do not disdain any crumbs, receiving huge millions and billions from kopecks, with the help of which they make even more capital for themselves. Bank payroll cards, to which, as we remember, absolutely everyone was forcibly transferred not so long ago in Russia, is a perfect example of this.
And again, if in form the accounting and distribution of the means of production becomes general, then in its content this distribution of the means of production is not at all “general”, but private, reflecting the interests of big monopoly capital, “ operating in such conditions when the mass of the population lives from hand to mouth, when the entire development of agriculture hopelessly lags behind the development of industry, and in industry "heavy industry" takes tribute from all its other branches.(Lenin).
In parallel, a close alliance of banks with the largest enterprises of industry and trade is taking shape, the merger of both through mutual ownership of shares, through the entry of bank directors into members of the supervisory boards (or boards) of commercial and industrial enterprises, etc. This union is even more closely fused with the government, resulting in - OLIGARCHY.
“Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and enjoying a virtual monopoly, takes an enormous and ever-increasing profit from the foundation, from the issuance stock securities, from government loans etc., consolidating the dominance of the financial oligarchy, imposing tribute on the whole of society to the monopolists.- Lenin writes quite rightly, and concludes: “Capitalism, which began its development with small usurious capital, ends its development with gigantic usurious capital.”
Monopoly, once it has already taken shape, with absolute inevitability permeates all aspects of the social life of a capitalist country, regardless of its political structure. The nature of the monopoly is such that the boundaries of its own country rather quickly become cramped for it, and it, with its economic interests, enters the international arena. In this, the monopoly is actively assisted by its own state, whose foreign policy becomes just a reflection of its economic interests.
“Capitalism in general is characterized by the separation of ownership of capital from the application of capital to production, the separation of money capital from industrial or productive capital, the separation of the rentier, who lives only on income from money capital, from the entrepreneur and all persons directly participating in the disposal of capital. Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism when this separation reaches enormous proportions. The predominance of finance capital over all other forms of capital signifies the dominance of rentiers and financial oligarchy, signifies the separation of the few states with financial "power" from all the rest.(Lenin).
But it cannot go on like this indefinitely. US default is inevitable and most likely it will happen before our eyes (some economists suggest that the next 2 years). For the world economy, this will mean a global economic and financial crisis of such magnitude that it will be quite capable of turning into a series of social revolutions in many countries of the world. Given the extreme weakness Russian economy, its high dependence on primary industries, this crisis can hit Russia the most. This means that all conditions may arise for the development of a revolutionary situation in our country. And we Communists must be prepared for such a development of events.
The third sign of imperialism is the export of capital
What does "export of capital" mean? How does this phenomenon manifest itself and how does it arise?
The growing financial capital no longer has enough exploitation and robbery within its own state. He accumulates such huge wealth that there is nowhere to put it in his own country, in the sense that finance capital does not see ways to obtain profits worthy of its attention inside the country. And, of course, he is not going to spend the accumulated funds on the population, on the working people, on improving their financial situation. This happens not only at the level of individual companies, but also of entire countries. The monopoly position of the few richest countries, as a rule, those in which capitalism appeared earlier than others and managed to achieve a higher level of development, allows them to accumulate capital on a gigantic scale. They have a huge "surplus of capital" - both in the form of goods and in the form of money. And this capital begins to be exported to other countries.
1) Finance capital needs external markets for the sale of an ever-increasing number of different commodities. Export of goods (export) becomes an urgent necessity for highly developed capitalism.
2) As production grows, capitalism begins to lack raw materials and fuel in its own country, and it is forced to look for it in other countries, especially in backward countries (in the colonies), where natural resources are not small, but poorly used, i.e. the pursuit of markets not only for sales, but also for raw materials is developing.
3) In the period of finance capital there is a surplus not only in commodities, but also in capitals. Wealthy capitalist states are not in a position to use within themselves the huge capitals that are in the hands of a small number of capitalists, and therefore the pursuit and struggle begins for other countries, where they can take their excess capitals, where they can invest them in plants, factories, etc. In the backward and poor countries the capitalist receives a greater return on invested capital than in countries with developed industry. This is explained by the fact that in the backward countries (colonies) there are many natural resources, cheap raw materials are at hand, and, most importantly, there is an abundance of cheap labor power, which creates surplus value for the capitalists.
Here is what V.I. Lenin writes about this: “Of course, if capitalism could develop agriculture, which is now everywhere terribly behind industry, if it could raise the standard of living of the masses of the population, who everywhere remain, despite dizzying technical progress, half-starved and beggarly, then there could be no excess of capital be out of the question. And such an "argument" is often put forward by the petty-bourgeois critics of capitalism. But then capitalism would not be capitalism, for both the uneven development and the semi-starvation standard of living of the masses are fundamental, inevitable conditions and prerequisites for this mode of production. As long as capitalism remains capitalism, the surplus of capital is used not to raise the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for that would be a decrease in the profits of the capitalists, but to raise profits by exporting capital abroad, to backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, because capital is scarce, the price of land is comparatively low, wages are low, and raw materials are cheap. The possibility of exporting capital is created by the fact that a number of backward countries have already been drawn into the circulation of world capitalism, the main lines of railways have been built or begun, the elementary conditions for the development of industry have been provided, etc. The need for the export of capital is created by the fact that in a few countries capitalism and capital lacks (given the underdevelopment of agriculture and the poverty of the masses) the field of "profitable" premises.
Example: We can see the process of capital outflow most clearly in the example of China and the countries of Southeast Asia. World capital is racing to invest in these countries and main reason this is a huge amount of cheap labor, billions of people who can be exploited mercilessly. The wages of workers in Southeast Asian countries are about 35-50 dollars a month! Compare it with the average salary of a European worker of 2000-3000 euros. The difference is hundreds of times! That is why production in Europe and the USA is declining, millions of European workers are driven out into the streets, and real industrialization is taking place in the countries of Southeast Asia.
4) In backward countries, the labor force is not capricious, it has no experience of class struggle - there are no workers' organizations or they are very weak. And therefore, you can cash in on it as much as you like, predatory squeezing all the juice out of it. In addition, deindustrialization and the transfer of production to other countries is also a good bridle for their own workers, who become more submissive with rising unemployment.
Example: The last point perfectly explains the roots of labor migration in Russia. Its main reason is the appalling unemployment in the Central Asian republics and the pursuit of profit by the Russian bourgeoisie. There will be no Central Asians, they will bring Chinese or even Negroes (there are already similar examples in Russia - a recent case in the Urals, which our media wrote about, when local entrepreneurs brought Africans). And enterprises in Russia are closed because it is more profitable for our businessmen to have such enterprises in Southeast Asian countries than in Russia, where you simply cannot survive on too low a salary - it's cold.
The financial capital of the developed capitalist countries spreads its nets to all countries of the world. The banks and their branches, which are established in the colonies, play an important role in this, gradually subordinating the entire economy of the colonies to themselves. In the colonies, capitalism begins to develop sharply, but its character is already different, not at all the same as that of the capitalism of the metropolises (countries of the capitalist center) at the initial stage of its development. There is no free market, no competition - they are replaced by "connections" and agreements with the local government. Imperialism sets its own laws here too. Often, the condition for obtaining a loan for colonial countries is to spend part of it on the purchase of goods produced by the creditor country. "The export of capital abroad becomes a means of encouraging the export of goods abroad."(Lenin)
With the growth of the power of finance capital, the world is divided among the countries exporting capital.
The fourth sign of imperialism is the formation of international monopoly unions of capitalists that divide the world among themselves.
Monopolies, arising, divide the domestic market among themselves, capturing the production of a given country in their more or less complete possession. They operate in the same way in the foreign market - in the colonial countries, thus forming a world market. And as the export of capital grew, and foreign and colonial ties and the "spheres of influence" of the largest monopoly unions expanded, things "naturally" approached a worldwide agreement between them, to the formation of international monopolies. This is a new stage in the worldwide concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher than the previous ones - supermonopoly.
There is an internationalization of capital, i.e. supermonopoly includes enterprises and financial institutions different countries, and it is no longer possible to link this supermonopoly with any one country in the world. The world economy is beginning to be controlled not so much by developed capitalist countries as by supermonopolies, and the governments of various countries merely reflect the economic interests of these supermonopolies.
The result of the policy of supermonopolies is the constant rise in prices for all monopoly goods and the complete dependence of all countries of the world on these "kings of the economy." Thanks to the supermonopolies, social production is now being socialized on a world scale, and the very process of production within the supermonopolies is becoming not chaotic, but orderly, practically planned. But the appropriation of the produced product, as before, still remains private. The contradiction between the social nature of labor and the private form of appropriation is aggravated to the limit, and now within the framework of the whole world.
And if there is no question of competition within supermonopolies, then between supermonopolies it only intensifies, going beyond the boundaries of individual states to the world level. Global TNCs are fighting furiously among themselves in the foreign market. They divide the world "according to strength", i.e. in proportion to their capital.
Example: If 100 years ago, when the work “Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism” was written, this phenomenon - supermonopoly only manifested itself in the world economy and politics, now supermonopolies determine everything and everything in the world economy. TNCs (trans-national corporations) are there are the very supermonopolies that Lenin wrote about. Now they have completely divided the world market among themselves, in which almost all countries of the world are now involved. The policy of "globalism", which our media talks about so much today, is nothing but the policy of TNCs in the world market, which they have completely subordinated to their laws.
“TNCs provide more than 50% of world industrial production. TNCs account for more than 70% of world trade. Very large TNCs have a budget that exceeds the budget of some countries. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are multinational corporations, the rest are states. They have great influence in the regions, as they have extensive financial resources, public relations, political lobbies, control over industry.” (Wikipedia)
Prepared by the DRC "Working Way", 2013
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