Imperialism Caused World War One

[Apoi_Viitor]

Was Imperialism the underlying cause behind WW1? If so then, how?

If not, then what were the other factors that led to WW1?

[ContrarianLemming]

to be fair, imperialism causes almost every war, directly or not.

[Apoi_Viitor]

to be fair, imperialism causes almost every war, directly or not.

Not that I disagree....but proof?

[28350]

I read a really good essay on this, I'll try to find it for you.

[Widerstand]

What kind of proof do you expect?

[ContrarianLemming]

What kind of proof do you expect?

this, my proposition that the majority of wars are caused by imperialism is just a natural following of the class conception of history, that war is primarily an economic struggle between ruling classes using oppressed classes as tools, whether they are serfs or proles.

Sort of a priori

[Reznov]

I agree with the Imperialism having caused almost every war but, is there a way we can back this up, prove it?

[Ocean Seal]

Was Imperialism the underlying cause behind WW1? If so then, how?

If not, then what were the other factors that led to WW1?
I see imperialism as the most material cause. More so than nationalism, militarism, or entagling alliances. Every European nation wanted to tap the resources in Africa and Germany got there a bit late so they wanted the colonies belonging to England and France. Germany saw its expanding power as a way to get it which is why I see WWI as a war over colonies.

[Red Commissar]

World War I's causes was deeply rooted in Imperialism. When I was in school- and I believe it was the case for alot of other people going through American public education- most curriculum had four big causes: Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, and Imperialism.

You have to look at the preceding years leading up to World War I. There was a lot of rivalry between the major nations- France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire in particular.

Germany, after being completely unified in 1871, began to grow in power and stature in Europe. It overtook the traditional power on the continent- France- and was beginning to peak over the United Kingdom as the world entered the 20th century. Germany was coming into a position where it could supplant the United Kingdom as the power in Europe. To this end both the United Kingdom and France were competing in their industrial prowess and in their military, notably the German Empire attempting to make a navy to rival that of the British.

The main thing that prevented Germany from becoming even more powerful was its lack of overseas colonies. Germany had a handful of colonies in the Pacific, missions in China, and its holding in Africa (German South-West Africa). To this end the United Kingdom and France began to gravitate towards one another in their common goal of preventing Germany from getting more dangerous, and signed the Entente Cordiale between themselves to act as a check on German ambitions.

The Germans wanted to test the "alliance" between the two former enemies. This came to head twice in Morocco. The so-called "First Moroccan Crisis" that took place in 1905 and 1906 saw Kaiser Wilhelm visiting Morocco and declaring his support for their independence- basically insulting the French in the region trying to set it up as a protectorate. This increased tensions but the situation was resolved.

It came up again in the Agadir Crisis of 1911. During a French war in the region, the German destroyer Panther appeared at the naval port at Agadir, possibly to try and secure a port city for itself- but more importantly to prod French-British promises to one another. The situation was again resolved but it deepened divisions.

Simply put it was becoming to the point that the United Kingdom, France, and Germany did not see the current situation feasible. The French were angry at losing their position as the continent's chief power after the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. The British were fearing their economic dominance in the face of rising German economic strength. The Germans in turn wanted to ascend to what they saw as their rightful position in international affairs.

So they all started pulling other nations on the boat with them- notably three old empires that had seen better days. The French and British manuevered the Russia in to their sphere, an old empire desirous of re-establishing its hegemony in Eastern Europe, while the Germans brought Austria-Hungary into their fold, who also held similar aspirations in their dominance of the Balkans and Central Europe. Young nations like Italy wanting to achieve their own territorial gain, and moribund empires like the Ottomans hoping to stave off elimination from the French, British, and Russian probing in the Middle-East. All hoping to maitnain and expand their sphere of influences, which inevitably would conflict with aspirations of another power.

They were all trying to reach the position of supreme power. Capitalism would only allow for one. War was going to come, they all just needed a pretext to do so. That came in the form of the assassination of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand.

[Amphictyonis]

Whats even worse is what caused ww2 and the rise of Hitler. The allies blamed Germany for WW1 and intentionally impoverished the nation which made the German population, once rational and advanced for their time, desperate. Desperate enough to accept an idiot like Hitler. The allies from WW1 are responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews/Russians/Gypsies/military personnel/mentally ill/homosexuals. Nazi's obviously had something to do with it but the stage was set by the allies.

[Armchair War Criminal]

Whats even worse is what caused ww2 and the rise of Hitler. The allies blamed Germany for WW1 and intentionally impoverished the nation which made the German population, once rational and advanced for their time, desperate. Desperate enough to accept an idiot like Hitler. The allies from WW1 are responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews/Russians/Gypsies/military personnel/mentally ill/homosexuals. Nazi's obviously had something to do with it but the stage was set by the allies.
WWII was caused by imperialist rivalry as well (and was, in many ways, a simple continuation of WWI.) The Germans intended to colonize Eastern Europe and the Japanese East Asia; those stood to lose from this - both the more established imperialist powers and the would-be colonies - allied against them; the bid failed. Fascism itself should be understood as the sort of social organization necessary to making such massive land grabs in such a short time in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Adam Tooze has an excellent book on the German side of the equation, Wages of Destruction.

[KC]

That doesn't really make sense. To say that "imperialism caused" WW1 is strange because WW1 was a part of imperialism, i.e. was a development within a society that is based on imperialism. So it's wrong to say that imperialism caused WW1, as WW1 is bound up as imperialist itself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Was Imperialism the underlying cause behind WW1? If so then, how?

If not, then what were the other factors that led to WW1?

Nationalism, Militarism, Colonialism, and the alliance treaty system (obligating everyone else to join in) all caused WWI.

[Amphictyonis]

WWII was caused by imperialist rivalry as well (and was, in many ways, a simple continuation of WWI.) The Germans intended to colonize Eastern Europe and the Japanese East Asia; those stood to lose from this - both the more established imperialist powers and the would-be colonies - allied against them; the bid failed. Fascism itself should be understood as the sort of social organization necessary to making such massive land grabs in such a short time in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Adam Tooze has an excellent book on the German side of the equation, Wages of Destruction.

I wasn't so much talking about the root causes of ww2 I was more so speaking to the German peoples shift in social consciousness. A shift which allowed a man such as Hitler to be accepted (although he was not democratically elected). This mentality (of desperation) would not have existed if the allies didn't impoverish Germany after ww1.

[Rakhmetov]

Was Imperialism the underlying cause behind WW1? If so then, how?

If not, then what were the other factors that led to WW1?

http://wfps.k12.mt.us/teachers/carmichaelg/africa2.gif

By James E. Connor

Between 1900 and 1917, Lenin spent less than 2 years in Russia. The rest of the time he wandered restlessly through European exile, confronted by the same evidence of prosperity and lack of polarization that had earlier disturbed socialists in the West. Moreover, during the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, the European economy was not stagnant … and it was becoming increasingly obvious that polarization and impoverishment, the twin preludes to revolution, were not about to occur. With each passing year, therefore, revolutionary Marxism stood in need of revision. Without substantial alterations, the theory was in imminent danger of becoming an entirely irrelevant dogma.

War World I provided an impetus for revision. When hostilities commenced, workers all over Europe rallied to their respective flags, cheering the mobilizing armies and enthusiastically volunteering for military service. Almost to a man, socialist deputies in the parliaments of the belligerent countries voted for war credits. Yet Marx had asserted that workers had no country. The socialist movement, he claimed, was international in character because exploitation of the proletariat was an international phenomenon. Nationalism was merely a fig leaf by the bourgeoisie to cover the naked class bias of the state. Workers had no interest in wars between bourgeois nations, and they would not participate in them. But by 1914 participate they did----with a fervor that matched any class on the continent.

Why had Marx’s predictions failed? Why had a major war broken out? Why had the proletariat behaved so chauvinistically? If Marxism was to retain any pretensions to intellectual vitality, it had to offer serious answers to all of these questions.

Lenin perplexed by these issues went to work to find answers and presented his results in 1916 in a book entitled Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Lenin noted that the monopolistic practices that emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century had resulted in the creation of great industrial combinations which were strong enough to suppress competition and ensure stable profit levels regardless of market conditions. The process of monopolization was paralleled and greatly aided by the concentration of enormous amounts of capital in a few large banks. In order to operate efficiently, industrial monopolies required guaranteed reserves of raw materials, as well as markets for their products. Financial institutions, on the other hand, continually had to seek profitable outlets for their capital. Both groups solved their problems by turning to the undeveloped areas of third world. At first privately, and later through their respective governments (which they controlled) the industrial and financial monopolies began to dominate and exploit vast areas of Asia, Africa, and South America. The particular style of domination varied with the circumstances of the countries and the industries concerned. In some cases it took the form of out-
right colonization; in others of unequal agreements between powerful western nations and weak backward countries; and in still others of an informal agreement between great powers over spheres of influence. But no matter what the form, the results were the same: the monopolies extracted huge quantities of “super profits” from the colonies and employed these funds to counteract, at least temporarily, Marx’s law of falling profit in highly developed economies. The wealth that poured into the mother countries from the colonies was used to fatten the purses of the bourgeoisie and to bribe certain important segments of the working class. These super profits were the reason why Marx’s predictions of growing impoverishment and polarization had not been fulfilled in western Europe. The European proletariat had not been radicalized, Lenin argued, because for the last thirty years real exploitation had been taking place in the least, rather than in the most, advanced areas of the globe.

Thus colonial acquisition was the key to the survival of capitalism. Without the economic cushion of super profits, the
bourgeoisie could not hope to forestall social revolution. Yet not all of the powers were equally endowed with colonies. Britain and France, for example, acquired theirs at an early date, while Germany entered the colonial competition only after almost all of the worthwhile territory had been claimed. The tardy powers then had no choice but to press for a redivision of
the colonial status quo. It was this pressure for redivision that had brought on the World War and which would continue to bring on wars so long as the imperial order flourished, that is, so long as capitalism survived as a social system.

Using the concept of imperialism, Lenin had no difficulty in explaining the patriotic fervor of the European proletariat. Those workers who had been bribed by the colonial super profits
clearly had a stake in the process of redivision. They constituted a kind of labor aristocracy which, in typical “opportunistic” fashion, sought its own comfort at the expense of the world revolution. Their behavior, although scandalous, was not surprising in men who had supped on scraps from the capitalists’ tables.

Although imperialism had delayed the fulfillment of Marx’s predictions, it had not, Lenin argued, rendered them permanently invalid. As colonies matured economically, the profit rate would fall just as Marx had forecast. Even before that point was reached wars would debilitate, perhaps even destroy some of the present capitalist powers and reduce their holdings to semi-colonial status. In certain areas, successful anti-colonial revolution would cut off the flow of funds to the surviving powers. All of these factors would tend to bring about the end of the imperialist epoch. Lenin thus envisioned the Marxian struggle, with its implications of impoverishment and polarization, reproduced on a gigantic international scale. An increasing number of exploited proletariat nations would confront a handful of the richest and most powerful imperialist states. The result of this process would be analogous to that which Marx had predicted for individual capitalist countries: a proletariat revolution, now of worldwide dimensions, would overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish the classless society. Whereas Marx had forecast
the proletariat revolution would successfully supplant the bourgeois ruling classes in the advanced capitalist states, Lenin, on the other hand, observed that in the era of imperialism the energy for revolutionary uprising lay predominantly in the backward and exploited countries of the world. The flow of super profits from the backward countries had to be stopped (preferably by Third World revolutions) in order for the revolution to take place in the advanced capitalist countries.

There can be little doubt that Imperialism was Lenin’s most ambitious and impressive performance as a theorist. He incorporated the significant events of his age into a Marxian framework, while at the same time substantially altering and expanding that framework. By invoking the notion of proletariat and bourgeois nations, Lenin shifted the attention of Marxists away from Europe and focused it on these backward regions. Here, he implied was where the energy for social upheaval was stored;
here was the stage on which much of the great revolutionary drama would be played out.