Imperialism: What other theories?

[Dear Leader]

Well, I have read Lenin, but I don't think I fully understand it. I was wondering if there were any other theories on Imperialism worth looking into. Thanks! :)

[Grenzer]

There are many other theories.

Nikolai Bukharin notably published his theory of imperialism in 1917 just before Lenin. You can read it here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/).

Imperialism as a theory had first been formulated in detail by the theorists of the SPD, but to my knowledge none of these are available online. The CPGB recently published a translation of Karl Kautsky's 1898 three part article on imperialism called On Colonialism. Another source worth checking out is Discovering Imperialism in the Historical Materialism book series. It contains a compilations of articles by various Marxist theories from several different parties from 1898 to 1914.

They provide valuable material for understanding the historical and theoretical evolution of Marxist political organizations, but their worth for contemporary application is much more questionable.

[Dear Leader]

There are many other theories.

Nikolai Bukharin notably published his theory of imperialism in 1917 just before Lenin. You can read it here.

Imperialism as a theory had first been formulated in detail by the theorists of the SPD, but to my knowledge none of these are available online. The CPGB recently published a translation of Karl Kautsky's 1898 three part article on imperialism called On Colonialism. Another source worth checking out is Discovering Imperialism in the Historical Materialism book series. It contains a compilations of articles by various Marxist theories from several different parties from 1898 to 1914.

They provide valuable material for understanding the historical and theoretical evolution of Marxist political organizations, but their worth for contemporary application is much more questionable.
I have heard good and bad things about Karl Kautsky, good before 1914, and a lot of bad after he supported the world war. Isn't the CPGB a Marxist-Leninist party? I thought they didn't like Kautsky?

[Comrade #138672]

I have heard good and bad things about Karl Kautsky, good before 1914, and a lot of bad after he supported the world war. Isn't the CPGB a Marxist-Leninist party? I thought they didn't like Kautsky?Lenin criticized Kautsky a lot in his book on imperialism.

[G-Dogg]

I doubt what Lenin wrote on imperialism has any validity today. He predicted that inter-imperialist wars were inevitable and we haven't seen any in 70 years. And if capitalism has been "in decay" for over 100 years, well, the word has lost its meaning.

[Rurkel]

Isn't the CPGB a Marxist-Leninist party? I thought they didn't like Kautsky?
I believe CPB is a continuation of "official" pro-Soviet party, CPGB is sort of "Neo-Kautskyite" in that it seeks to revive the 'scientific socialism' theory and mass labour party building of pre-1914 Kautsky. On RevLeft, this current is represented by the "Orthodox Marxist" tendency.

[Blake's Baby]

There are three 'Communist Parties' in the UK.

CPB (Communist Party of Britain, formed in 1991 I think) is pretty much Stalinist, and publishes the Morning Star. It considers itself the continuation of the 'Official' CPGB from the 1920s-1980s. It still follows, I think, 'The British Road to Socialism' from 1951.

CPGB-PCC (Communist Party of Great Britain - Provisional Central Committee) is the party Rurkel refers to, founded around 1993 if I have my dates right. They're 'Neo-Kautskyite', if that's a real thing. They publish Weekly Worker, and originally came out of a Turkish group that was connected to the official CPGB.

CPGB-ML (Communist Party of Great Britain-Marxist-Leninist) is a 'Marxist-Leninist' (Maoist?) party founded around 2005 by Harpal Brar of the Indian Workers Association and the Stalin Society. Don't know what their paper is called. I don't think they have any specific connection with the old CPGB.

[Emmeka]

Well, I have read Lenin, but I don't think I fully understand it. I was wondering if there were any other theories on Imperialism worth looking into. Thanks! :)

Yeah, Lenin's Imperialism is a bit difficult to follow unless you have a pretty firm grasp on the contemporary debates and personalities that Lenin's referring to.

As for differing theories, there are quite a few. Others have already mentioned Kautsky. Another worth mentioning is Mao's theory of "social-imperialism" and "three worlds". Go check out On Krushchev's Phoney Communism and its Historical Lessons for the World [Mao 1964] for the former, and Deng Xiaoping's Speech By Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, Teng Hsiao-Ping, At the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly [1974] as well as Hoxha's Imperialism and the Revolution [1978].