Lenin's Perception of Imperialist War

Sankha Subhra Biswas

The theoretical construction and empirical use of imperialist war in the Marxist tradition are best articulated in the writings and revolutionary work of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. While the horrors of World War I—a war that claimed over 16 million lives—were unfolding, Lenin knew that the war was not an anomaly but a natural evolution of capitalist development at its height and the only progressive response must be revolutionary action. This essay examines Lenin's critique of imperialist war, the breakdown of the Second International and tactical strategies against the backdrop of thought from Marxist historians and intellectuals, including Isaac Deutscher, E.H. Carr, Eric Hobsbawm and Domenico Losurdo.

I. Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism

In "Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916), Lenin methodically demonstrated how the fundamental contradictions of capitalism—between the socialization of production and private appropriation—had developed into worldwide antagonisms. He contended: The most defining feature of modern-day capitalism is the dominance of monopolistic alliances among large employers. They have split the whole world in the economic sector. The propensity of capital to overaccumulate and find external outlets of investment was not a matter of chance but of structure. Lenin suggested that banking conglomerates, and financial capital in general, controlled industry, and looked for greater profits in colonies and semi-colonies. The export of capital—not commodities—therefore became the hallmark of late capitalism.

Eric Hobsbawm, in his work "The Age of Empire", endorses Lenin's perspective: "The pressure for colonial expansion in the late 19th century can only be explained as the product of economic interests growing more closely integrated with state power—a fact Lenin understood with more clarity than most". (Hobsbawm, 1987)

For Lenin, imperialist wars such as World War I were not caused by nationalist sentiment or dynastic rivalry but by this economic necessity of territorial division and re-division.

II. The Second International's Collapse: From Marxism to Social-Chauvinism

One of the greatest surprises faced by revolutions in 1914 was the virtual breakdown of the Second International. The overwhelming majority of the big socialist parties supported the military moves of their respective governments, thus violating the tenets of internationalism. Lenin perceived this as neither a failure of leaders nor a personal one but as the political manifestation of a "labor aristocracy"—a bribed privileged stratum by imperial superprofits. He asserted in "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism" (1916): "From the material point of view, the opportunists are a sector of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class which has been economically stimulated by imperialism… they constitute the actual social foundation of opportunism."

E.H. Carr, in his book "The Bolshevik Revolution", stressed that Lenin's moral outrage was based firmly in a rigorous material analysis: "Lenin saw the Second International's betrayal not as a simple moral failure, but as a reflection of an inbuilt structural contradiction: socialism mixed with imperialist benefits". (Carr, Vol. 1)

This betrayal made political as well as organizational dissociation imperative, thereby paving the way for the establishment of the Third International (Comintern) in 1919.

III. Revolutionary Defeatism & Class War

One of the most controversial elements of Lenin's doctrine was his revolutionary defeatism. Trotsky, referring to this strategy in his work "History of the Russian Revolution", said: "Lenin's temerity was in asserting that the sole exit from the war for the proletariat was not peace on the terms of capitalism, but revolution against capitalism". Linked to defeatism, in his book, "The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War" (1914), Lenin stated: "The proletariat should employ the struggle to accelerate the downfall of the capitalist class". The Russian Bolsheviks applied this principle by launching the October Revolution. 

IV. The National and Colonial Question: A Revolutionary Alliance

Lenin's imperialism theory carried over into his ideas on colonialism. In contrast to Second International leaders, who tended to ignore colonial matters, Lenin placed anti-colonialism at the heart of revolutionary policy. In his book, "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (1914), Lenin argued: "It is crucial that socialists continue to champion the right of nations to split and create independent states. Additionally, the struggle against imperialist rule should include the right of oppressed nations to self-determination". At the Second Congress of the Communist International of 1920, Lenin's theses on colonial and national issues promoted the idea of the communists forming strategic alliances with national movements of liberation. "Communists should not only support any national liberation movement but also connect this movement with the revolutionary struggle against capitalism". This position placed Lenin well ahead of his contemporaries. 

Decades later, the Trotskyist historian Tony Cliff, in his essay "Lenin's Fight Against Imperialism and National Oppression", spoke of the great clarity of Lenin's internationalism: "The defining feature of Lenin's position was not so much his anti-imperialism as his insistence that the success of socialism in Europe depended on solidarity with colonial revolutions. He firmly broke with the Eurocentrism typical of the Second International" (Cliff, International Socialism Journal, 1968). Cliff indicates that Lenin's anti-imperialism was not an additional element of his policy but a required one—uniting the struggle of the European proletariat with the aspirations of the colonized masses.

V. The Labor Aristocracy and the Need for a Revolutionary International Organization

Lenin's discussion of the Second International led him to develop his conception of a new Communist International based on revolutionary principles. In his letter dated 1919 to the workers of America and Europe, Lenin declared: "The Second International no longer exists. It has fallen. The Third International has been born to bring together the proletarians of all nations for the struggle against imperialism". 

In his book "Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical History", Domenico Losurdo says: "Lenin universalized the Marxist heritage by combining the internationalism of the working class and the internationalism of the colonized masses into one. It was a historical synthesis of class struggle and anti-imperialism." (Losurdo, 2016)

VI. The Period Marked by Wars and Revolts

Lenin was convinced that imperialist war marked a new era of capitalist decline: one of successive wars, revolutions, and crises. In Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), he reminded revolutionaries that: "The time that marks the final collapse of capitalism has begun. We are currently living in an era marked by struggles and revolutions." This revolutionary turn necessitated not abstract radicalism, but practical strategy. Lenin cautioned against leftist sectarianism and called on revolutionaries to enter bourgeois institutions like the parliament. "One has to learn to work legally wherever the masses are. To refuse this is to yield to sterile dogmatism". (Left-Wing Communism)

Isaac Deutscher noted: "Lenin's genius was not merely theoretical but strategic. He conceived of revolution not as a festival but as a process—long drawn, untidy, dialectical". (Deutscher, Vol. 2)

VII. Significance to Modern Imperialism

Despite being penned more than a century ago, Lenin's analyses are disturbingly accurate. The world today is controlled by money capital, multilateral imperialist organizations such as NATO and the IMF, and neocolonial control over the Global South. From Iraq to Libya, Syria to Ukraine, imperialist war goes on—though increasingly fought in the guise of "humanitarian intervention," "standing up for democracy" etc. National chauvinism, particularly in the guise of the Left, must be opposed. Revolutionary solidarity must include anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial struggles around the globe. As Lenin instructed, absent a party, the working class cannot progress from trade unionism to the seizure of power. A new, entirely revolutionary international, unencumbered by reformist compromise and opportunism, must be built to organize world resistance to imperialism.

[The views discussed by the author are his sole responsibility.]

Picture Courtesy: Craiyon AI