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Title: Oppressor and Oppressed Nations Author: Gabriel Kuhn Date: June 15, 2017 Language: en Topics: imperialism Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-11 from https://blackrosefed.org/oppressor-oppressed-nations-kuhn/
With much of the left’s analysis of imperialism trending towards
simplistic binaries of imperialism and anti-imperialism, a deeper
analysis of the relationships between states created by modern
imperialism and colonialism are desperately needed. This thoughtful
essay by Sweden-based author Gabriel Kuhn provides attempts to outline
how we might form an alternate and more useful model of seeing states
and how they relate to each other in the global capitalist order. While
we may quibble with some of the conclusions offered, this piece is an
excellent start.
---
In recent years, the left has shown a renewed interest in
anti-imperialism. This is an encouraging development, since global
economic injustice remains one of the most glaring contradictions of the
capitalist order. After having been a central part of anti-capitalist
struggles in the 1970s, anti-imperialism largely vanished from left
radars. Among the reasons were the demise of socialist national
liberation movements as well as the often disappointing record of them
seizing power; the defeat of anti-imperialist armed groups in the
metropolis; the fall of the Soviet Union and its consequences; the
adaptation of anti-imperialist rhetoric by reactionary actors; the
uncanny relationship between anti-imperialism and anti-Semitism; and the
substitution of multitudes fighting various forms of oppression for a
much more straightforward good-vs.-bad script.
Among the reasons for the resurgence of anti-imperialism are the
limitations of a postmodern anti-oppression analysis unearthing so many
injustices that it can’t properly analyze and attack any of them; the
urgency of organizing effective left-wing resistance in the face of
neoliberal domination and the increasing threat of fascism; the
reemergence of internationalist perspectives through the support of
struggles in the periphery, especially in Kurdistan; and the ongoing –
and growing – disparities in the global distribution of wealth, not
least highlighted by authors hardly known as radicals such as Thomas
Pikkety (Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 2013) or Branko Milanovi
(Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, 2016).
English-language publications that have brought left-wing
anti-imperialism back to the fore are Zak Cope’s Divided World Divided
Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under
Capitalism (2012), Samir Amin’s The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism
(2013), Gabriel Kuhn’s Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story
of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers (2014), the 2015 Monthly Review
special issue on “The New Imperialism”, and John Smith’s Imperialism in
the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and
Capitalism’s Final Crisis (2016).
At the same time, the picture of what imperialism is and, perhaps more
importantly, what it looks like on the ground remains murky. Sometimes,
anti-imperialism is used as a synonym for anti-colonialism. Sometimes,
it is used whenever one nation attacks another. And in its crudest form,
it simply means anti-Americanism. This is no viable basis for effective
political resistance. If we want to combat imperialism – which is
necessary to combat capitalism – we need to have an understanding of
what it looks like, how it functions, and where we need to hit it.
This also requires translating some very abstract concepts into a
language that becomes relevant for activists. The abstract concepts and
related debates are important (unless they deteriorate into irrelevant
quibbles between big men, which, sadly, happens regularly), but they are
unlikely to generate much action if they stay in ivory towers. How do we
fight “generalized-monopoly capitalism,” “super-exploitation,” or
“unequal exchange”? Some concrete and tangible questions are: Who
benefits from imperialism? Are there centers of imperialist power? How
can imperialism be attacked?
In the 1970s, when the anti-imperialist movement was at its peak, the
world was divided into rather simple categories: First World nations
were the villains, Third World nations the victims, and – depending on
one’s ideological persuasion – Second World nations heroic allies to the
Third World, neutral, or an equally imperialist Soviet-led bloc. Today,
things have become messier; or, let’s say, the mess has become more
obvious.
Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, employing the categories of
core, semi-periphery, and periphery, is more sophisticated, but not
bereft of problems. It is strongly based on economic data, pays little
attention to differences within the three main categories, and has
difficulties accounting for the at times enormous contradictions within
single countries.
A proper taxonomy of imperialism needs to take into consideration not
only the relationship between economic systems, political formations,
and cultural hegemonies, but also the one between nations and classes.
I am not claiming to provide any answers in this sketch. I am trying to
help facilitate a discussion that will lead to a picture of the
imperialist world complex enough to function as a base for effective
anti-imperialist resistance.
Among the questions that motivated me to draw this sketch are the
following:
were colonies themselves?
financial centers or tax havens?
today’s global order?
cited BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)?
same nation state?
The sketch presented here is based on involvement in internationalist
and anti-imperialist projects, the study of relevant literature, and,
most importantly, the experiences of many years of traveling on all
continents, meeting with laborers and peasants as well as with
politicians and academics. While the paper will hopefully be relevant
for all readers with anti-imperialist leanings, the target audience of
the practical implications are anti-imperialist activists in the First
World such as myself. People in different positions will discuss the
forms their own resistance needs to take. The trick is to combine the
respective approaches into a common effective movement.
The question of whether a certain country, policy, or action is
imperialist, is, first and foremost, a matter of definition. Whether
China is an imperialist country or not, does, for example, not depend on
whether the essence of the nation of China contains an imperialist
element, but on whether the country’s role in the global economic and
political order fits our definition of what imperialism is. In other
words, we can’t talk about imperialism (or anti-imperialism) and hope to
clarify things without providing a definition of what we are talking
about.
Any discussion can come to an instant halt when passionately arguing
over the best definition of what is being discussed. There are certain
criteria that seem commonly accepted as qualities of a good definition
(it ought to be coherent and clear, neither too wide nor too small,
etc.), but there is no objective measure to identify the one that trumps
all others. In order to make sense of the following pages, I therefore
need to ask the reader to accept the working definition of imperialism
offered here – which, of course, does not mean that it can’t be
criticized.
I will not follow an exclusively Marxist take. In Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Lenin defined imperialism thus:
“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the
dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the
export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the
division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which
the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest
capitalist powers has been completed.” This economic approach is of
crucial importance, but there have been others within the left. In
Culture and Imperialism (1993), Edward Said defined imperialism as “the
practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan
center ruling a distant territory”. This, of course, is very brief. The
working definition I am suggesting is the following:
Imperialism is a system where a conglomerate of capitalists,
politicians, and security forces asserts control over a particular
territory and its population to increase its own wealth. In order to
establish its authority, it uses ideological means (racism), cultural
means (proselytism), political means (direct or indirect colonialism),
economic means (exploitation), and military means (the stationing of its
own security forces, the employment of mercenaries, or the creation of
dependent local police and military). A characteristic (albeit not
necessary) feature of imperialism is the conglomerate sharing a part of
the extracted wealth with the population in its home countries to secure
that population’s support for the imperialist project. Therefore, labor
aristocracies are an inherent feature of the imperialist order.
It is important to note that, according to this definition, imperialism
doesn’t simply mean that a certain population wants to extend the
territory it controls. Fights over territory have been part of humanity
since time eternal, caused by competition over natural resources and
other factors. This is not imperialism. Imperialism means to extend
one’s sphere of control in order to institutionalize the exploitation of
the (human and natural) resources of the territories brought under one’s
control. This is why any analysis of the former Soviet Union having been
an imperialist power must imply an understanding of the Soviet Union not
as a socialist country but a state capitalist country. In my
understanding, this analysis is correct and also applies to today’s
China (see “sub-imperialism” below).
The terminology commonly used in reference to imperialism has for a long
time rested on a strict dualism. (Mao’s Three Worlds Theory might count
as an exception but never had much resonance in anti-imperialist circles
– and, for that matter, not even in Maoist ones.) The world is divided
into two big camps. Lenin’s distinction between “oppressor nations” and
“oppressed nations” has been reproduced in numerous variations, whether
it was juxtaposing the “First World” to the “Third World,” the
“metropolis” to the “periphery,” or the “Global North” to the “Global
South.” Such a dualism can be useful for orientation, but,
unsurprisingly, things are more complicated when you look at the
details.
In their modern-day classic Empire (2000), Michael Hardt and Toni Negri
proclaimed that “imperialism is over”, citing the “declining sovereignty
of nation-states” and “their increasing inability to regulate economic
and cultural exchanges.” Hardt and Negri contended that “we continually
find the First World in the Third, the Third in the First, and the
Second almost nowhere at all.”
Well. First, imperialism is not dependent on the Three-World Model.
Second, to suggest that economic power no longer has a location and that
the oppressors and the oppressed randomly mingle across the globe is
false. No one who has ever been to both Paris and Niamey could seriously
make such a claim, extreme expressions of poverty in Paris and of
obscene wealth in Niamey notwithstanding. Third, nation states have lost
neither their meaning nor their power in a globalized world.
Neoliberalism might have pronounced the fact that nation states are not
isolated and certain multinational corporations may have a frightening
influence on international relations, but despite corporate power, free
trade agreements, and international political bodies, nation states
remain the key units of the global political order and the main actors
in the administration of capital. Perhaps most importantly, they are
central for the division of the world’s riches. Citizenship is the
single most important factor in deciding which share an individual can
expect in the distribution of wealth and related privilege. And while
the power of multinational corporations might extend to all corners of
the earth, these corporations have much tighter relationships and shared
interests with the ruling classes of certain nation states than with
those of others. It is therefore not only legitimate but necessary to
focus on nation states when sketching the imperialist order, and it is
also important to consider nations without their own state, from First
Nations on the American continent to Kurds and Basques. Nations are
defined as peoples with a collective identity based on traits such as
language, culture, and an intimate relationship to a certain territory.
Of course, the position of individuals within the imperialist order is
not exclusively determined by citizenship, national affiliation, or
place of residence. There are national bourgeoisies profiting from
imperialism even in the poorest of countries; there are expatriate
communities acting as agents of imperialism in oppressed nations; there
are undocumented migrants in imperialist nations who do not benefit from
the imperialist order; there is an urban-rural divide that needs to be
accounted for; and there are millions of women who constitute what Maria
Mies and others have called the “last colony” in an imperialist system
inseparable from patriarchal power. Any detailed study of imperialism’s
workings must consider this. Unfortunately, the task is beyond the scope
of this paper, but I will return to some of the mentioned aspects in the
concluding remarks on anti-imperialist practice.
In the following sketch of a taxonomy of imperialism, I will use three
main categories: imperialist nations, sub-imperialist nations, and
oppressed nations. Each group will be divided into several
subcategories. Certain nations straddle the boundaries of various
categories. This seems inevitable given the generalizations required in
a rough sketch such as this one.
I am not claiming that my categorizations of individual nations are
superior to others, let alone the only ones possible. It is not a
priority here to get every single categorization right. The goal is
rather to help outline a framework that allows for meaningful collective
categorization and, ultimately, well-informed anti-imperialist
resistance.
The imperialist core consists of those nations whose citizens profit
from the imperialist system. Each nation has a class that profits from
the imperialist system, but only the imperialist core nations can extend
this privilege to its entire population. Imperialist core nations also
run very little risk of being pushed to the margins of the imperialist
order. Power balances between them can shift, but each of them is firmly
entrenched in imperialist rule, due to a combination of economic,
political, and military reasons; key aspects (although not all of them
need to be present in each imperialist core nation) are strong
productive and finance capital, military prowess, racial privilege,
advantageous geographical location, and a world language, preferably
English, as the national language.
It is not necessary for imperialist core nations to have been colonial
powers. Colonialism is a part of the imperialist project, but it is not
a requirement for profiting from it. Imperialism is broader than
colonialism. In fact, several former colonies (most notably, the United
States of America) belong to the current imperialist core, while some
former colonial powers (for example, Spain and Portugal) belong to the
imperialist periphery.
It would also be a mistake to identify the imperialist core nations as
those invited to powerful summits such as the G20. Some G20 nations are
invited because they are important for the imperialist order (for
example, India and Indonesia), not because they belong to the
imperialist core.
Currently, the imperialist core consists of only one united bloc. In the
case of strong rivalry and a relative balance of power, the imperialist
core can split into different blocs. This was the case during the Cold
War, when the U.S.-led imperialism of the Triad (North America, Western
Europe, Japan) was challenged by the imperialism of the Soviet Union.
The imperialist core nations can be divided into four subcategories:
large territories under prolonged periods, thereby increasing their
wealth and global influence: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Japan, and the Netherlands. Present-day Austria is a special
case, still profiting from its former internal colonies, that is, the
non-German-speaking parts of the Austrian Empire.
overseas territories that mainly satisfied national prestige) but were
intrinsically linked to colonial exploitation through Eurocentric and
racist ideology, political alliance, and trade: Luxembourg, Norway,
Switzerland, Sweden, and European micro-states such as Andorra, Monaco,
and Liechtenstein.
and external colonies of their own and became an integral part of the
imperialist order of the Triad: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the
United States of America.
albeit not a white settler nation akin to the examples above. Israel is
also a sub-imperialist power (see below) when considering its role in
the Middle East. It is hugely dependent on the Triad for its survival,
which is a characteristic of the nations of the imperialist dependency
rather than the core. However, Israel’s geopolitical role for the Triad
is so important that its place in it seems firm and it can be considered
part of the imperialist core.
The imperialist periphery consists of nations whose citizens profit from
the imperialist order because of white supremacy, vicinity to core
nations, political ties, and trade relations. However, these nations are
exploited by the core nations and their standing within the imperialist
nations is fragile.
The nations of the imperialist periphery can be divided into two
subcategories:
republics (such as the Baltic states), former Warsaw Pact members (such
as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland), and former Yugoslav
republics (such as Croatia and Slovenia), as well as Greece, Iceland,
Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
self-identified nations) within the Triad, such as the Basque Country,
Catalonia, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Okinawa/Ryukyus, and Quebec.
Exploitation is relative in these cases (people in Catalonia are
economically better off than the people in most of Spain’s other
regions, etc.), and the strength of independence/secession movements
varies largely. But due to these nations’ lack of self-determination,
they cannot be considered imperialist core.
The imperialist dependency consists of nations that serve specific roles
in the imperialist system as cost-efficient production sites, suppliers
of rare raw materials, tax havens, exclusive holiday destinations, or
locations of military bases. They benefit from this, but their standing
within the imperialist order is entirely conditional.
The imperialist dependency can be divided into four subcategories:
Emirates.
Hong Kong is difficult to assess since the territory’s return to China
in 1997.) These nations could also count as imperialist periphery, but
their geographic isolation speaks against this.
the Pacific (such as Nauru), and the Indian Ocean (such as Mauritius and
the Seychelles).
territories (e.g. French-Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, New
Caledonia, and RĂ©union) and U.S. American overseas territories (e.g.
American Samoa, Guam, and Puerto Rico). It is important to note that the
indigenous peoples of these territories must be considered oppressed
nations (see below).
Sub-imperialist nations are nations outside of the imperialist core with
imperialist ambitions. They can act as regional imperialist powers
and/or aim to enter the imperialist core, either as allies of the
current bloc or as rivals. Sub-imperialist qualities also apply to
imperialist core nations that act as regional centers of power, for
example Australia in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sub-imperialist nations can be divided into five (quite distinct)
subcategories:
as an imperialist nation (see, for example, N.B. Turner’s Is China an
Imperialist Country?, 2015), while others would strongly reject the
characterization of China as imperialist in any form. In my
understanding, China has imperialist ambitions, but no matter how much
it aims to extend its reach (especially in Asia and Africa), the vast
majority of its population is still exploited by the Triad. In other
words, China is not (yet) a rival of the imperialist core nations.
the successor of powers with imperialist ambitions, that is, the Tsarist
Empire and the Soviet Union. This legacy remains, but Russia and its
current allies (predominantly former Soviet Republics, such as Belarus
and Kazakhstan) cannot compete with the Triad. Some former Soviet
Republics, most notably the Ukraine, are caught in a struggle between
forces remaining loyal to the Russian project on the one hand, and
forces who want to enter the Triad’s periphery on the other.
imperialist legacy that continue to act as sub-imperialist powers: Iran,
Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Due to both internal rivalries and the strong
efforts of the imperialist core to control the region, the reach of
these nations remains limited (although it can be felt in many ways,
especially in financial and military support for ideological allies).
There are also huge differences in how these nations relate to the
Triad: Iran is sub-imperialist in the purest sense, while Saudi Arabia
could count as part of the imperialist dependency, and Turkey as part of
the imperialist periphery.
and the oppression of indigenous nations, yet they have a high level of
industrialization, well-established middle and upper classes, and an
economic sway over South America, which renders them sub-imperialist.
(Arguably, Mexico plays a similar role in Central America but has less
economic strength and is overshadowed by its neighbor to the north, the
United States.)
to its role in (particularly southern) Africa. It is also the home of a
white settler community that can be considered part of the imperialist
core. At the same time, the majority of the country’s population lives
under Third World conditions. No other country (except Israel, perhaps)
straddles the boundaries of the categories used here in more ways.
Oppressed nations are nations whose citizens, by and large, are victims
of the imperialist order, notwithstanding national bourgeoisies and
privileged expatriate communities.
This category includes all nations in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin
America, and Oceania, except the ones listed in other categories above.
There are huge differences between these nations (Egypt is not Chad, and
Malaysia not the Solomon Islands), but they are all exploited and
oppressed by the imperialist nations and have little (or no) influence
on global power structures. The differences between these nations must
be analyzed on the basis of their respective histories, the colonial
(and neocolonial) regimes they were and are subjected to, their assets
in terms of raw materials and manpower, their landmass and location, and
their populations’ racial identification.
This category also includes nations that are not united in a nation
state, except for those belonging to the imperialist periphery (see
above). Concretely, this means the peoples of occupied territories such
as Palestine and the Western Sahara, nations divided into different
nation states such as the Kurds, First Nations in the Americas and in
Oceania, traveling people such as Roma and Sinti, and the indigenous
populations of French and American overseas territories. Members of
these nations have sometimes relatively privileged access to wealth and
opportunity because of their partial integration into and/or their
proximity to the imperialist core, but the nations themselves are denied
self-determination and remain oppressed.
If the outline sketched here has any validity, the following are, in my
eyes, the most important implications for anti-imperialist practice:
and progressive working-class and peasant movements in the Global South.
government repression, alliances with the progressive sectors of the
bourgeoisie are mandatory, no matter the dangers they entail.
alternatives to capitalism. These include cooperative farms,
worker-controlled factories, and exchange economies. Imperialism cannot
be separated from capitalism and to fight it means to establish a
different economic order.
They might pose a threat to the current imperialist core and can
possibly enforce a more balanced distribution of imperialist power and
wealth, but they are unable (and unwilling) to change the imperialist
system itself.
imperialist core nations. It is at both ends of the imperialist system
where it is most vulnerable. Struggles in the imperialist periphery and
dependency are important as possible instigators of struggles in the
core and in the oppressed nations, but they themselves have little
potential to threaten the imperialist order. Struggles in
sub-imperialist nations require specific analysis. Often, they are
similar to struggles in the imperialist periphery and dependency; in
certain cases, however, when they concern central links in the
imperialist order, their potential is significantly bigger. A current
example are workers’ struggles in China.
campaigns for global justice around issues that broad sections of the
population can relate to, for example Third World debt; the
redistribution of funds to progressive actors in the oppressed nations;
political alliances with migrants; linking anti-racist and
anti-patriarchal struggles to anti-imperialist struggles; and developing
forms of economic production, distribution, and consumption that
undermine capitalist demands of permanent growth and circulation.
---
Gabriel Kuhn is an Austrian-born author living in Sweden involved in
radical labor and migrant solidarity efforts. He is the author of
numerous books including Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety: Forging A
Militant Working-Class Culture and is a Central Committee member of the
syndicalist union, Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC).