At a November 1967 Marxist Symposium in London.
Transcribed by Duncan Chapel.
Published at the Red Mile Substack
Copied with thanks.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
In the last decade, we have witnessed the explosion on a world scale of the supreme and powerful role of American imperialism against revolutionary forces of the most different and variegated types. We know the political reason for this collision. American imperialism is by far the strongest imperialist power today in the world, and as such, it takes upon itself the responsibility to maintain, or if it thinks this possible, to restore capitalist order wherever this is threatened or overthrown by revolutionary forces the world over.
I think too little attention has been paid to the more specific economic roots of this world role of American imperialism. We must start from two basic facts of the American economy which have profoundly changed the place of the United States of America inside the world capitalist economy as a whole since the end of the Second World War.
Till the beginning of the year 1968, export of private capital by American corporations had multiplied nearly by ten. This is a tremendous explosion; this is a tremendous penetration of private American capital investment into every corner of what they call the free world, which is to say the world that is free to be exploited by American corporations. This explosion of capital export by American imperialism has intertwined much more directly and much more immediately the destiny of the capitalist mode of production in all the countries of the world with the immediate economic interests of the United States[’] [bourgeois] class.
The other factor we must take into consideration is a more technical element in the development of the American economy, a technical element which in the long run will play a growing role in explaining the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world. As a result of the new development of productive forces which American capitalism has known during the Second World War and in the post-war boom, essentially determined by armament production and by what is called the new industrial revolution, with a big stepped-up rate of technological innovation, the basic self-sufficiency of the American economy with regard to dependence on foreign raw material has been more or less definitely abolished. In the historical period from the American Civil War till the Second World War, which witnessed the growing competition between imperialist powers on a world scale, self-sufficiency was the decisive trump card American capitalism had against its competitors. Whereas Britain, Germany, France, [and] Japan, not to speak about the lesser powers, were dependent, and very strictly dependent, on imports of decisive raw materials like oil, iron ore, aluminum, and so on, the American capitalist economy was nearly self-sufficient, and only marginal raw materials had to be imported. As a result of the big upsurge of productive forces in the last 25 years, and also of the depletion of certain national resources inside the United States, this situation is now reversed. For a series of key raw materials, especially oil, iron ore, and certain non-ferrous metals, the United States depends today, in a growing way, on imports from semi-colonial countries in the world.
This is one of the two keys which explain the growing immediate involvement of the American political and military establishment with what is going on in the semi-colonial countries. It is not only a question, like it is obviously in Vietnam, of maintaining or restoring the capitalist order as the head of the world capitalist system. It is also in many places, especially in certain countries of Latin America and West Africa, an immediate vital problem for the United States economy to maintain control over key raw materials, without which the strategic position of the United States would be jeopardized.
So, if we look at these two factors – the big development of the export of private capital from the United States and its growing dependence on raw material imports – we understand that this counter-revolutionary role of American imperialism is not only determined by political [and] military [factors].
There is the possibility of a socialist answer to the threat of
American [capitalism]. If the European working-class movement would
accept the dilemma of either abandoning class struggle or being
colonized by American capitalism, it would fall into a terrible trap,
the price of which would be a tremendous defeat.
You must in a concrete world situation see where momentarily the main weight of the struggle [is], where the forces of imperialism are most immediately threatened. In the long run, it is true that decisive struggles will be in the imperialist countries. There is not the slightest doubt about this. But I say imperialism can be weakened much more quickly and much more decisively by a spread of victorious socialist revolutions in the backward countries than by defensive struggles in the imperialist countries, on which, for the time being, we don’t know when and at what moment they will win.
There is a big historical origin to this discussion. The first to use this kind of argument were the Mensheviks in Russia. They said, “Don’t concentrate on struggle in Russia, because in Russia you can’t build socialism; it’s too backward.” And the Bolsheviks answered, “We do not make revolution in Russia in order to build socialism here, we make revolution in Russia in order to weaken world capitalism, and because we think that as a result of this weakening, revolution will be more quickly and more easily [achieved] in the imperialist countries.”
Now, if you ask yourself one question, look at the most powerful imperialist country in the world, the key country in the world, the United States of America. Could you honestly say that the American working class in the last three years has made the same contribution to the weakening of American imperialism as the Vietnamese revolution? Could anybody say that today? So I say you have the same historical confluence as in 1917. Thanks to the struggle of the Vietnamese, to the struggle of the Cubans, and tomorrow, we hope to a more generalized revolution in Latin America and in Asia, American imperialism is decisively weakened, which will then help the American working class to start the struggle for power in the United States. I don’t see what in this argumentation is unorthodox or different from the argumentation as it was made by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917.
From a general theoretical point of view, it is completely correct [to say that decisive struggles will be in imperialist countries]. But the immediate consequence, once you state that, is then to put the question: Are there pre-revolutionary conditions existing in the imperialist countries of Western Europe which enable us to make a revolution in six months or in one year in order to help our Vietnamese comrades? Comrade [Livio] Maitan indicated how real is the existence of these pre-revolutionary conditions in many semi-colonial countries in the world. But nobody in his right mind can say that today the struggle for the conquest of power, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and the establishment of victorious socialist revolution in Britain, in Italy, in Western Germany, or in the United States of America, is on the agenda in the next six months. There is no pre-revolutionary situation in any of these countries. This seems absolutely obvious for anybody who examines the question objectively.
To put the question in this general, abstract way, by saying the only efficient way to help the colonial revolution, the Vietnamese revolution in our western countries, in the imperialist countries, is to make a revolution here, is to transform a concrete, immediate task of action into a general programmatic proclamation. That proclamation is, of course, true, but it is true today, as it was true 30 years ago, and as it will be in 20 years if the conditions have not changed. In other words, it is an escapist answer, and it leads concretely to abstentionism. It leads to the concrete conclusion that we cannot do anything efficiently here to help our comrades in Vietnam, who in such a heroic way are today all alone carrying the burden of concentrated counter-revolutionary action by American imperialism.
The other proposal, or the other strategic line, which is developed by certain tendencies in relation with this problem of solidarity with the Vietnam revolution is, in my opinion, also escapist. It is an attempt to escape towards what certain comrades have called guerrilla [action], the equivalent of guerrilla actions inside the imperialist countries. I understand completely, and I sympathize and I support any attempt by groups of people. There are absolutely no objective conditions present in these countries for such kinds of developments.
If you had an immediate struggle for power in Western Europe, the
problem would not be posed because you do not have that. Because you
do not have revolutionary mass consciousness amongst the Western
European working class, you have this temporary divorce of the two
tasks. You have the attempts of revolutionists to fight for both, to
look towards the future, blending of both, whenever this is possible,
but not to forget or to subordinate one to the other.
I think there is at the basis of the argumentation of the comrades who have explained to us that the main struggle is against automation, unemployment, and incomes policy, an inaccuracy from a theoretical point of view and an inaccuracy from a political point of view. Theoretically, they confuse a struggle which is still and is still in risk to remain for a certain period essentially an economic struggle for the immediate defense of the material interests of the working class with a revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and take power. That is a very, very important difference. If we would have today immediately before us the choice between taking power in Britain or taking power in Vietnam, of course, no socialist in his right mind would say, we prefer to struggle for [taking] power in Vietnam rather than take power in Britain. But that’s not the concrete way the problem is posed today. You have a revolutionary situation in Vietnam, and you have a revolution which goes on, and you have here for the time being only the possibility of economic struggles. To explain that it is more revolutionary to concentrate on immediate economic struggles of the working class than to help a revolution to take power seems to me really to put the things upside down from a revolutionary Marxist point of view.
Secondly, and this links that with the same thing, I think the
comrade made a big mistake, a theoretical mistake, a political
mistake, when he says that imperialism is more threatened by
automation, or capitalism is more threatened by automation, the
incomes policy, and so on, than by the war in Vietnam. That’s
not true. You mix things up. Automation is an offensive of
imperialism. Incomes policy is an offensive of imperialism.
[You have a quarter of a] million university students. In Japan, you have more than 4 million university students. In the United States of America, you have more than half a million university students. In Italy, in France, in Western Germany, [you have] students which in the past were a very small minority of society, exclusively or nearly exclusively coming from the upper classes. [They] are today a much broader and much more variegated social layer. They have their own needs which collide with the needs of society and of the capitalist state. The objective roots of this worldwide student revolt must be looked for in such kind of a sociological analysis, which I cannot go into in the framework of this small intervention here.
This being said, it is clear that, by the very nature of students, at least a question mark must be placed on the future of this student revolt if, at some stage of the evolution of this revolt, reintegration with radical tendencies of the working-class movement, and more concretely, reintegration, reunification with radical parts of the working class, does not succeed. A question mark must be posed for a very evident reason: because you do not remain a student all your life, although you remain a worker all your life, or at least the biggest part of your life in capitalist society. You are a student only for a certain limited number of years.
The perspective today, as capitalism is developing in the third industrial revolution, is that the majority, I do not say all, but the majority of the revolting students of today will be tomorrow reintegrated, but not reintegrated into the working-class movement, reintegrated into [bourgeois] society. They will be reintegrated into bourgeois society because they will get very good jobs, very high pay. The struggle between the material pull which comes from this integration and the idealistic and conscious attempt to defend one’s convictions is a struggle which is a very hard one. On this, the whole past of the labor movement and the socialist movement can give testimony, and only a small minority will end in such a struggle by keeping the level of consciousness of this period of revolt.
So the big, concrete problem is the problem of integrating at
least the significant parts of these revolting students with the
working class in order to prevent the reabsorption by bourgeois
society at a later stage. Is this possible? I think it is possible,
and I think we have at least a certain number of marginal examples.
We must be very cautious yet, because we are at the beginning of a
phenomenon, but we have a certain number of marginal examples,
especially in Germany and in France. I know much less about the
situation in Italy and in Britain regarding how this could be done.
Automation and the tremendous transformations automation operates inside the composition of the working class have effects on working-class militants. There are many reasons for the upsurge of the American Negro movement. There are many reasons for the militancy and the radicalism of the Negro youth today in the United States. But we would not be Marxists, we would not be materialists, if we would not understand that one, at least one of these reasons, is the very fact that amongst unskilled or semi-skilled youth today in the United States, you have a degree of unemployment which is comparable to that of the big depression. You have amongst the Negro youth of the United States an unemployed percentage which is around 20%, somewhere between 18% and 25%, according to the year. This means an extremely high percentage, comparable in reality to the percentage of a real deep depression period.
The causes of this are, of course, on the one hand, automation, and on the other hand, the whole rotten system of racial discrimination in education, which keeps the mass of the American Negro youth in these jobs of complete lack of skill, or very low level of skill. But this means that the economic process which has reduced the number of jobs for unskilled labor in the United States in the last 15 years from 13 million to three and a half million.
Well, first, I’d like to say a few words on Spain and Greece. I, of course, agree with the comment who raised the question that Spain and Greece are today amongst the weakest links in the capitalist part of Europe. Especially for the time being, Spain shows the promising development of the beginning of a mass movement to overthrow the Franco regime and to question the capitalist regime in Spain as well, amongst the workers as amongst the students. In Greece, the question is that the movement has suffered a defeat. I mean, there are certain comrades who think that it is un-revolutionary to recognize the facts. I say that when the working class, which a few years ago marched by hundreds of thousands in the street and afterwards without reaction, allows a reactionary, semi-fascist military dictatorship to be established and all its freedoms to be suppressed, this is a defeat for the working class. At the same time, the establishment of the incomes policy without strong reaction, organized industrial action in any capitalist country, is a defeat. You must recognize the facts for what they are.
I am really astonished at the kind of arguments the comrades put up. They explain ... what you explain is the reasons for the defeat. You do not explain away the defeat by saying that the workers had illusions in social democracy. Of course they have. They had delusions that Egbert and Noske were establishing a socialist republic in Germany in 1918. Does that reduce the scope of the defeat? They had the illusion that Léon Blum was establishing a socialist government in France in 1936. Does it reduce the amount of the defeat? The illusions of the workers explain why they do not react quickly enough against the betrayals of the Social Democrats, but they can’t explain ... in the way that the objective results of it [can].
I ask you a very concrete question. You have two possibilities. What will replace the Wilson government? If you say the Wilson government ... the workers in England are on the offensive, and will replace the Wilson government by an extreme left workers[’] government in Britain, okay, I will say I agree with you, we have a working-class offensive. Or will the Wilson government be replaced by a Tory government, or by national coalition government, which will lead very quickly to a Tory government? To pose the question is to answer it. Could you say it was a big victory for the working class? What happened in 1931? I mean the fact that illusions are lost, the fact that you have a process of consciousness which develops, okay, you have to integrate it into a general analysis. But the objective result in the class struggle is, unfortunately, in the immediate future, decisive. And I say in the immediate period, the immediate balance sheet of the Labour Government has been a weakening of the working class, not a strengthening. I see this is obvious. All the employers recognize it. Everybody recognizes it.
Well, I think the argument by comrade Knight was not a very ... was not an argument in good faith. I think if you listened to my report here, far from being pessimistic, I ended by enumerating all the reasons why in the objective conditions of the metropolitan countries, contradictions of a social, economic and political nature make the struggle for socialist evolution in these countries possible. To say that that is pessimistic is really bad faith and [a] falsification. The only point I made, and on that point, comrade Knight, you can talk for a thousand hours, you will not bring anybody who is in good faith away from it: that today you have no revolutionary fight in Britain. You know very well today you have no revolutionary situation. And to say today you have no revolutionary situation, and to say that in order to create a future revolutionary situation, on which everybody agrees – there is no disagreement on that – to say that in order to create a future revolutionary situation, you should go away, shy away from the specific task of defending the revolution which goes on. That is what I called before, escapism. That’s the position of the Russian Mensheviks who were speaking about Revolution in England. They were speaking about Revolution in England and the August Revolution in Germany, they were speaking ... if you did not say that, if you did not say that, then you must admit that the task of defending the Vietnamese revolution is a specific task for the British workers today, separate from the fight against the incomes policy. Okay, they are separated. In fact, they are separated. If you don’t, if you don’t understand that, that [is problematic].
Last updated on 16 June 2025