Introduction to the second edition of “War and Lenin in the 21st Century” by Gary Wilson.

Over a century has passed since Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, wrote “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.” This work defined the politics of the last century. That’s in part because Lenin was the leader of the first socialist revolution as well as the de facto leader of the Third (Communist) International. Even if Lenin had not led a socialist revolution, his pamphlet likely would have been influential, though maybe not as much as it has been.

To fully understand the importance of Lenin’s pamphlet, you need to know the circumstances in which it was written and why Lenin wrote it. Lenin always had a specific political purpose for his major writings. 

Lenin wrote “Imperialism” while European capitalism was tearing itself apart in the upheaval of the First World War.

Leaders of the Second International — an international organization that was established in 1889 to unite socialists worldwide — had recognized the growing likelihood of a major conflict among the European powers. While Lenin expected the war, the disintegration of the Second International caught him off guard. As the war unfolded in Europe in the summer of 1914, most of the Second International’s branches caved in. They sided with their own countries against the other countries, effectively ending the Second International.

Before the war, the socialist parties of Germany, France, and other European countries had been agitating widely against war. Workers staged mass anti-war rallies in most capital cities, pledging solidarity with workers of all countries against the bosses. At that time, the anti-war struggle was considered an inseparable part of the working-class struggle against capitalism.

Based on the sizable anti-war movement before the war and the anti-war conferences held by the parties of the Second International from all countries, the outbreak of the war was expected to put the overthrow of capitalism at the top of the Second International’s agenda. The workers of all these countries were united to defend their own interests against the capitalists and their war.

Workers were expected to unite to overthrow their rulers, who were forcing them to take arms against fellow workers in other countries.

Competitive capitalism had transformed into monopoly capitalism. Monopoly capitalism meant imperialism and the competition for colonial domination and for world markets.

As Lenin points out in “Imperialism,” it wasn’t just about colonizing other countries. In the drive for capitalist profits through the exploitation of labor, a small group of powerful capitalist countries maintain dominance through monopoly control of finance and industry. This exploitation took many forms, such as extracting resources, controlling markets, or dominating trade.

Imperialism (monopoly capitalism) was the root cause of the war; therefore, overturning capitalism would end it. That’s what the Second International had vowed before the war. However, too many of the Second International parties in the imperialist countries ended up supporting their own imperialists in the war.

Lenin’s writings in those years were linked to the Second International’s collapse and the efforts to establish a new Third International. From Lenin’s perspective, the new International would be based on the lessons learned from the Second International’s failure. 

The meaning of imperialism 

Today’s socialists face the questions that confronted earlier generations of socialists, both in the U.S. and worldwide, especially the question of imperialism and imperialist war. What is the meaning of the word imperialism? 

What position should you take on the wars now raging in Palestine, Yemen, and Syria and the threatening spread of a U.S. war on Iran? What about the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine? Or U.S. AFRICOM’s operations in Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Niger? Or Washington’s threats targeting Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea? Or the war buildup against China?

The struggle for socialism in 1914 and now

Struggles against imperialism are often fought with socialist goals, such as the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Socialists today support and defend Cuba and the Cuban Communist Party.

However, anti-imperialist struggles are not always led by and for the workers. Sometimes, as we have seen, resistance to imperialism is led by reformist political forces that are pro-capitalist, even reactionary (racist and xenophobic), the opposite of all that socialists believe in. What stand should we take when Biden mobilizes the U.S. Army and Navy, the Air Force and Marines, and NATO, then sends billions in weapons and ammunition to Ukraine for war on Russia to enforce, in his words, a civilizing “rules-based [Western] international order” against the “evil” Putin?

Before World War One, socialists in the Second International opposed the imperialist war against the reactionary monarchy of China as a colonialist war of aggression. But the right wing of the Second International began to argue that imperialism had a civilizing mission. They claimed that Western capitalism was bringing “Western civilization” to the “uncivilized nations” (forgetting that the brutality of Western capitalism, colonization, enslavement, and exploitation is the most uncivilized force ever seen in history). They said those countries must go through a stage of capitalism and become “Western civilized.”

A majority of the leaders of the Second International rejected this. However, the openly pro-imperialist, pro-colonial, racist right-wing Social Democrats who supported the “civilizing mission” of imperialism were tolerated as a legitimate current within the Second International.

Later, the whole Second International was ripped apart as various sections of the International supported their own imperialist governments against other imperialist governments. After this occurred, Lenin and his supporters concluded that the Third International they were trying to build would have to exclude such racist, pro-imperialist, pro-colonial forces.

Uniting two revolutionary currents

Lenin’s pamphlet on imperialism connects two revolutionary currents: the proletarian revolution in imperialist countries and the anti-imperialist liberation struggles in colonized nations. 

Rather than being separate, unequal events, Lenin shows they are interdependent; they are linked.  

Imperialism is global, making the world revolutionary process also global. Lenin’s analysis extended Marxism from being a theory of the proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries to a theory of world revolution. 

Lenin wrote in another document that the Communist International’s entire policy should rest primarily on a closer union of the proletarians in the imperialist countries and the oppressed masses of all countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landowners and the ruling class. (Thus, the slogan “Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!”) That unity alone can guarantee victory over capitalism. 

Socialism is now the goal of all revolutions, no matter where they occur. As for why the Second International collapsed, Lenin answered based on an earlier suggestion by Frederick Engels that a “labor aristocracy” had risen in the imperialist countries that were “bribed” from imperialist super-profits. 

At that time, the U.S. was an emerging imperialist power. As a settler state, its colonies were internal, starting with the brutal subjugation and genocide of the Indigenous population and the enslaved African American colony. 

Following enslavement, African Americans were forced to sell their labor power at a considerably cheaper price than the white workers and, therefore, perform extra unpaid labor compared to white workers. This extra unpaid labor created a profit above and beyond the average rate of profit, the super-profit that was partially shared with a privileged, segregated labor aristocracy, particularly the labor leaders and politicians.

This is the material basis for the widespread racism among white workers that has so weakened the U.S. working class and the labor unions. The U.S. has also attracted many immigrants from countries around the world who are also super-exploited. Among the most super-exploited were the immigrants from China starting in the late 1800s. The various immigrant communities, in some cases, have served as what amounted to “internal colonies” that produced extra surplus value.

That’s why the fight against racism, against national oppression, for Black and Brown liberation, for gender liberation, and for international working-class solidarity is paramount in the struggle for socialism.

War and Lenin in the 21st century

• Introduction: Imperialism and the road to socialist revolution
• Part 1: U.S. funds war, takes over Ukraine assets
• Part 2: Five key features of imperialism
• Part 3: NATO, the imperialist war machine
• Part 4: Imperialism and the new Cold War
• Part 5: Low-wage workers of the world, unite!
• Epilogue: U.S. complicity in Gaza genocide and military profiteering
• Appendix: Is Russia imperialist?

July 7 — Hundreds marched in the streets of Washington, D.C., under the banner of the Resist NATO Coalition, initiated by the International League of Peoples Struggle U.S. Chapter.

A few days later, the 75th anniversary NATO war summit was to be held on July 11 and 12. The key agenda items were the continuing U.S. proxy war against Russia and war maneuvers against China. 

Activists gathered at Washington’s McPherson Square and marched to the White House and Lafayette Park, where they joined additional protesters from the “No to NATO, Yes to Peace” rally. Ann Wright, an ex-U.S. Army colonel who resigned in opposition to the Iraq war, declared, “NATO represents U.S. militarism. To end war, we need to end capitalism and imperialism.”  

Marchers continued to Farragut Park, chanting, “No bombs in the air, no boots on the ground” for an ending rally.  Protesters carried Palestinian flags along with giant banners.

The previous day, the coalition held a “People’s Summit” prior to street marches. Keynote speakers Nicaraguan Ambassador Lautaro Sandino and Ali Barghouti of the Palestinian Youth Movement spoke to an overflow crowd at the New York Ave Presbyterian Church.

Most participants came from Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. Erica Caines from Black Alliance for Peace and Andre Powell from Peoples Power Assembly, both from Baltimore, explained the connection between NATO and Cop City. Powell proclaimed, “There is a connection between Baltimore — our suffering, our unemployment, our low wages with NATO and the U.S. war machine.  

“The trillions and I say trillions spent on the U.S. state apparatus which includes not only NATO, U.S. military bases, AFRICOM, the CIA, the FBI, and every rotten fascist cop in every city and rural area — could provide for our people!”

Filipino diaspora organizers denounced U.S. imperialists’ role in building an Asian NATO. BAYAN USA chairperson Adrian Bonifacio declared, “In the Philippines, more than a dozen youth were recently killed by the fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines, who are backed by the U.S. These are youth who dedicated their lives to the cause of national democratic revolution, who, when faced with the convergence of NATO in Asia Pacific, including the Philippines, and the guns of the U.S. military — they did not back down, and they pointed their guns back!.”

A representative of the Palestinian Youth Movement outlined that NATO is “the armed wing of U.S.-led imperialism suppressing liberation movements, led by ‘Genocide Joe’ and ‘Bloody Blinken.’” 

U.S. forming Asian NATO

On June 30, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) blasted the joint military exercises conducted by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in the region, labeling them as “reckless and provocative.” The DPRK pointed out that the military “war games” disrupt peace on the Korean peninsula and the broader region.

The hostile military drills expose the formation of an “Asian version of NATO” led by the U.S., declared a statement by the DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 30.

The three-day military operation known as “Freedom Edge” took place from June 26 to 29, involving South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. The “Edge” featured all three militaries, including the U.S.’s Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, headed by a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier, Japanese Defense Force naval carriers and destroyers, and Republic of Korea F-16 Falcon fighter jets.

Freedom Edge targeted not only North Korea but also China.

The exercise draws its name from other U.S. military operations with Japan (Keen Edge) and South Korea (Freedom Shield). The annual Freedom Shield and Keen Edge exercises aim to demonstrate military capabilities near China’s borders. 

South Korea submits to imperialist Japan

These maneuvers are part of a broader network of Indo-Pacific alliances led by the U.S. to encircle and confront China. The Freedom Edge war maneuvers came out of an agreement between the U.S., Japan, and the Republic of Korea at Camp David last August. That agreement was historic because never before had the Republic of Korea submitted to such an agreement with imperialist Japan, which had occupied and colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945 (when the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army ousted them and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was formed).  

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Camp David agreement with Japan has been denounced throughout the Republic of Korea. Some have called it the country’s “biggest humiliation.” Yonhap News Agency reported on May 31 that President Yoon’s approval rating has fallen to 21%. 

The DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the U.S., Japan, and South Korea for their continuous provocative military actions against the DPRK and other independent states in the region. 

“Lurking behind the recent drill is the strategic design of the U.S. to escalate regional military tensions, exert pressure upon the Far East of Russia, and lay siege to China,” the Ministry statement said.

In recent years, the U.S. has intensified military exercises surrounding China and Korea, forming new military partnerships like the AUKUS and QUAD. 

U.S. President “Genocide Joe” Biden has invited Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to Washinton in July for more “trilateral talks” as well as participation in the NATO war summit taking place on July 9-11. 

NATO targets China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, on May 27 that one of the “main topics at the Washington Summit will be global partnerships, and in particular, our Asia Pacific partners – Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.”

The U.S.-commanded military alliance called NATO includes the armed forces of the U.S. and all other countries in the alliance, including Britain, Germany, and France.  

NATO has undertaken eight military actions, all since 1990. The alliance did not undertake any military operations during the Cold War. Since 1990, NATO has engaged in two actions related to the first Gulf War, two in the former Yugoslavia, and military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Libya.

Stoltenberg said that NATO’s primary focus now is targeting China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. He called them threats to NATO’s dominance. He didn’t talk about the war threats that have come from NATO and the “Asian version of NATO.”

With his stilted bureaucratese, Stoltenberg did add, “NATO will remain Europe and North America, but to work with our partners in the Asia Pacific and therefore welcome that the leaders of the Asia Pacific will be at, we have invited them to attend, the summit in Washington.” 

[ChatGPT translation: While NATO’s focus remains on Europe and North America, we recognize the importance of collaboration with our Asia-Pacific partners. Therefore, we’re pleased to welcome leaders from the Asia-Pacific region to the upcoming summit in Washington — the Asian NATO.]

The specter of war will loom large over the NATO summit in Washington.

It was a clear and sunny Sunday afternoon on the beaches of Sevastopol on June 23. Dogs ran along the shore. People swam. Children played. Suddenly, the scene turned from picturesque to grotesque. 

Turns out, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a series of missiles armed with cluster munition warheads at the Sevastopol shore, with no apparent military target. While Russian drones intercepted most of the missiles, one detonated within striking distance of the beachgoers. One woman who was swimming died instantly. Four others were eventually pronounced dead at the scene, including three children. 

Over 120 people were wounded in this brazen Ukrainian fascist act of terror against the Russian people. However, it was the U.S. imperialists who were ultimately responsible for this horror. The U.S. produced and supplied the advanced rocket missile technology and the cluster munition warhead. The blood of those three children and all those killed or wounded in the attack is firmly on the hands of the U.S. 

This is not the first time that the U.S. has enabled Ukraine to strike at Russian civilian populations. For almost a decade, the Ukrainian Armed Forces waged a bloody terror campaign against the Donbas, resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 civilians. 

As the NATO war against Russia flounders and the Ukraine forces retreat across the lines, the fascist forces have resorted to the escalation of terrorist attacks on the Russian civilian population. 

NATO is simply the international military arm of the U.S. ruling class. Every bomb dropped on  Russia is dropped by the U.S. as much as it is by Ukraine. 

No NATO war on Russia! Disband NATO! Solidarity against fascism! 

Say no to war, free Palestine!

The People’s Summit & Mobilization by the Resist NATO Coalition provides a strong response to the NATO 75th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C., on July 10-11.

The summit in defense of world peace will draw people from every continent around the globe demanding “No to NATO, No to War, Free Palestine!”

The only way to end the carnage and wars threatening to engulf the world is to say “no more” to the domination of the U.S. military-industrial complex and Wall Street.  

When it created NATO in 1949, the United States had two purposes. The first was to threaten the Soviet Union and its new Eastern European allies and, if necessary, put down revolutionary movements in Western Europe. The communist parties in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal were widely popular for fighting against the capitalist governments responsible for the Second World War.

NATO is a military arm of the U.S. world empire. The domestic economies of all its member countries, including the U.S., bear the heavy cost of funding NATO. Being a NATO partner means funding U.S. military expansion. The U.S. is in the business of war. 

Dwight Eisenhower, the first supreme commander of NATO, said in 1954, “We do not keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life.” That way of life is the increasing market concentration and the accumulation of wealth and economic power in the hands of a relatively small number of transnational corporations and ultra-rich individuals; monopoly capitalism, also called imperialism.

From its start, NATO adopted a strategic doctrine of “Massive Retaliation” – the threat of a total nuclear war against the Soviet Union. NATO’s actions have drawn massive opposition to nuclear weapons and peace demonstrations throughout northern Europe.

An international peace seminar held on May 4 in Guantánamo, Cuba — near the illegal U.S. occupation of the Guantánamo Naval Base — brought together delegates from 30 countries demanding a world free of U.S. imperialist intervention and military bases. 

The anti-imperialist meeting echoed the international repudiation of NATO’s war operations under the direction and auspices of the U.S.

Iraklis Tsavdaridis, executive secretary of the World Council for Peace (CMP), noted that the U.S. imperialist military presence and NATO are not only the source of the Russia-Ukraine war but also support Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

Venezuelan researcher Gabriel Aguirre, representing World Beyond War, pointed out that according to public information, “there are 6 or more military bases with nuclear weapons in Italy, Belgium, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey and it is very likely that there are others whose information is not in the public domain.”

He added that “there are more than 900 U.S. military bases in 90 countries which of course turn this imperialist force into the main promoter of wars all over the world.” More than 1.3 million military personnel are at these bases, the largest number of soldiers and bases stationed outside the country’s national territory since the Vietnam War.

Global Times editorial

Recently, senior U.S. politician and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham unabashedly stated in a media interview that Ukraine holds business value for the U.S. He claimed that there are “10 to 12 trillion dollars of critical minerals” in Ukraine, and the primary reason for supporting Ukraine is to seize these critical minerals by defeating Russia on the battlefield. Furthermore, he advocated for seizing and using frozen Russian assets in Europe and the U.S..

These remarks reveal the true intentions behind the U.S. political elites’ current policy toward the Ukraine crisis. As foreign netizens bluntly stated on social media, “Now you know why the West won’t allow peace talks.”

As a Senate “hawk,” Graham often garners attention with his extreme rhetoric. For example, he once claimed that parts of Iran must be “blew off the map,” and he touted U.S. military aid to Ukraine as “the best money we’ve ever spent,” hence he was added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” compiled by Russia’s state financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring. He has also repeatedly stirred up tensions over the Taiwan question, threatening “sanctions from hell” against China.

Many of Graham’s radical ideas can only remain at the level of bluster, but his latest remarks on camera have sparked significant outrage for two reasons: First, because he “accidentally” exposed the true nature of U.S. diplomacy, making it clearer to the world what lies behind the facade of the U.S.’ claim that it wants to “maintain peace”; and second, because of the speeches and actions of the U.S. political elites he represents, which constantly fuel the Ukraine crisis, starkly contrast with the international community’s consensus on de-escalating tensions, and creating conditions for a cease-fire and an end to the war.

Graham views the Ukraine crisis as a business deal, a perspective that is somewhat representative among the U.S. political elites. Many of them talk about peace, but their real concern is not Ukraine, nor European stability. On the contrary, they are keen on Ukraine’s abundant resources and how to exploit Europe’s prolonged and profound crisis to continuously consolidate U.S.’ absolute power and dominance in European security affairs.

Turning the Ukraine crisis into a global conflict is the main policy trend of the U.S. in handling the crisis. Washington intends to turn this crisis into a key propeller for its own geopolitical competition around the world. Such policy goals are quite dangerous. Dialogue and negotiation are the only feasible way to resolve the crisis. This is the common voice of any responsible person in the international community.

However, in the past two years or so, the U.S. and certain NATO countries have continued to undermine the opportunities and efforts of Russia and Ukraine to resume direct dialogue, and even attempted to maximize the use of the crisis for their own gains, creating pressure in Europe and even the world under which people must choose sides and highlight camp confrontation.

The extreme measures advocated by Graham once again show that the U.S. policy elites are taking a big gamble. The lack of historical reflection is the main reason why the U.S. frequently makes mistakes in major decisions. At present, the U.S. should best learn from the idea of building a “peace without victory” put forward during WWI by Woodrow Wilson, the architect of U.S. diplomacy, and use the idea of ensuring cooperation among major powers and not engaging in camp confrontation to deal with thorny diplomatic issues such as the Ukraine crisis. Regrettably, the current U.S. decision-making elites have both ignored the painful lessons learned from the wars of the 20th century and trampled on the warnings of their predecessors. This is a tragedy of U.S. diplomacy.

The crisis in Ukraine has entered its third year of overall escalation. The war is still ongoing, the impact continues to spill over, and the conflict is in danger of further escalation. If we want to achieve an early ceasefire and end the war, we cannot allow the Graham-style bellicose thinking to spread. U.S. elites often flaunt themselves with terms such as “democracy” and “rules” and deliberately exaggerate that they are “top students” in international relations. Graham has already told the truth about U.S. diplomacy. The U.S. is the one that ignores rules, stubbornly interferes in other countries’ internal affairs, and creates chaos within other countries and in the international community.

Graham’s remarks that Ukrainian resources cannot be given to Russia and China have fully demonstrated the narrow-mindedness of the U.S. in the Ukraine crisis.

The U.S.-NATO powers are exploiting the 80th anniversary of D-Day to justify an imperialist agenda, including escalating their war against Russia and arming the genocide in Gaza. This commemoration, while claiming to honor the sacrifice of soldiers, is an outright promotion of NATO’s expansionism and war.

The policies and objectives of NATO today are alarmingly similar to those of the Nazi regime, with parallels in their aggression towards Russia and military armaments to support the apartheid Zionist settler state. The exclusion of Russia from the D-Day memorial and the elevation of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine further highlight the imperialist purpose of the ceremonies.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to withdraw Russia’s invitation to the D-Day memorial was meant to erase the Soviet Union’s incredible defeat of the Third Reich in May 1945. 

The U.S. created NATO in 1949 to threaten the Soviet Union and its new Eastern European allies and to stop the spread of socialism across Europe.

After the USSR was destroyed in 1992, the U.S. began taking the Soviet Union’s former Eastern European allies and some former Soviet Republics into NATO. The only former Soviet or Soviet-allied countries in Europe that are not now part of NATO are Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Even though Russia is now capitalist and thus represents no socialist threat to any existing capitalist nation, the U.S. has been tightening its encirclement of Russia through NATO. The goal is to transform Russia, with its vast natural wealth, into a semi-colony of the U.S.

The U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine is about the drive of U.S. imperialism to bring Russia’s and Ukraine’s colossal wealth in natural resources under its control. Both countries are rich in farmland and raw materials such as ores. Already, much of Ukraine’s has been taken over by U.S. finance capital. Russian capitalists are fighting to maintain control of their own natural resources.

Macron has said that NATO ground troops should be deployed in Ukraine, expanding the conflict into an open NATO war on Russia.

Biden has already authorized Ukraine to attack Russian territory with U.S.-supplied missiles, an open escalation of U.S.-NATO operations.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed Israeli Occupation Forces continue the genocide in Gaza, mirroring the brutal tactics of Nazi Germany, including mass bombings and starvation of civilians. More bombs have been dropped on Gaza than were on London, Hamburg, and Dresden during World War II.

The official D-Day gathering of imperialist leaders will be followed by a NATO meeting in Washington, D.C., where plans to expand the war against Russia and future operations against China will be discussed. 

A Resist NATO Counter-Summit has been called for July 6 in Washington, followed by a rally on July 7.