Imperialism
Note: This is a collection of the most important contributions on imperialism available on the Marxists Internet Archive. In addition to them, other works on this issue can also be found in our archive.
Imperialism, Encyclopedia of Marxism entry
Classical imperialism (1870-1945)
John A. Hobson
Socialistic Imperialism, 1901
The Scientific Basis of Imperialism, 1902
Imperialism, A Study, 1902 Significant work
Rudolf Hilferding Finance Capital, 1910 Significant work
Rosa Luxemburg
The Accumulation of Capital, 1913 Significant work
The Accumulation of Capital: An Anti-Critique, 1915
Karl Kautsky
Germany, England and the World-Policy , 1900
Socialism and Colonial Policy, 1907
Finance-Capital and Crises, 1911
Ultra-Imperialism, 1914 (alternate translation) Significant work
Nikolai Bukharin
Toward a Theory of the Imperialist State, 1915
Imperialism and World Economy, 1917 Significant work
Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital, 1924
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Notebooks on Imperialism, 1912-1916
Rosa Luxemburg's Unsuccessful Addition to Marx's Theory, 1913
Imperialism and Socialism in Italy, 1915
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism , 1916 Significant work
Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, 1916
Defence of Imperialism Cloaked with Deceptive Phrases, 1917
Leon Trotsky
The Peculiarities of Russian Historical Development from Results and Prospects, 1906/1930
The Peculiarities of Russian Historical Development from The History of the Russian Revolution, 1930
The Decline of British Imperialism, 1908-1926
Democracy, Pacifism and Imperialism, 1917
Pacifism As The Servant of Imperialism, 1917
Fight Imperialism to Fight Fascism, 1938
A Fresh Lesson: On the Character of the Coming War, 1938
Lenin on Imperialism, 1939
E. Belfort Bax
Imperialism v. Socialism, 1885
Imperial Extensions and Socialist Intentions, 1899
The International Congress and Colonial Policy, 1907
Imperial Extension and Colonial Enterprise from Essays in Socialism, 1907
James Connolly Imperialism and Socialism, 1899
Wilhelm Liebknecht Beware of Imperialism and Militarism, 1900
Hugo Haase Imperialism and Arbitration, 1914
Herman Gorter Imperialism, the World War and Social Democracy, 1914
Gregory Zinoviev What is Imperialism?, 1916
S. J. Rutgers
Imperialism, 1916
Economic Causes of Imperialism, 1916
Imperialism and the New Middle Class, 1917
Louis C. Fraina
Revolutionary Socialism, 1918
Monopoly Capitalism and Imperialism from The Decline of American Capitalism, 1934
Articles from The Call
J. T. Walton Newbold Capitalism and Imperialism, 1917
Theo Rothstein Cotton, Iron and Imperialism, 1917
Richard Clements The Triumph of Imperialism, 1919
Dora Montefiore The Crimes of Imperialism, 1919
Dora Montefiore British Imperialism and Persia, 1920
T. A. Jackson The British Empire, 1922
Eugen Varga Economic Basis of Imperialism in the U.S. of North America, 1921
Scott Nearing
The American Empire, 1921 [off-site link]
Oil and the Germs of War, 1923
Israel Amter The Black Victims of Imperialism, 1923
Alfred Rosmer British Imperialism and French Imperialism After The London Conference, 1924
MN Roy New Economic Policy of British Imperialism, 1925
Jay Lovestone
American Imperialism, 1925
Imperialism and the American Working Class, 1926
The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism, 1927
America's Fight for World Hegemony and the War Danger, 1928
Ralph Fox
Fascist Imperialism, 1926
The Colonial Policy of British Imperialism, 1933
Arne Swabeck
Imperialist Development and Its Inevitable Doom, 1930
American Imperialism at Home and Abroad, 1946
George Padmore
“Left” Imperialism and the Negro Toilers, 1932
The British Empire Is Worst Racket Yet Invented By Man, 1939
British Imperialists Treat the Negro Masses Like Nazis Treat the Jews, 1941
Imperialism: The Basis of Labour Party Crisis, 1944
Carl Cowl Imperialism from ABC of Marxism, 1939
T.N. Vance Features of U.S. Imperialism, 1941
CLR James
Imperialism in Africa, 1941
Price of Imperialism to the People, 1949
Stanley Plastrik Imperialism – How Does This Term Apply to the War?, 1942
Imperialism by Any Other Name: The “Good Neighbor” Is Off To Arabia, The New International, 1944
N. Marc French Imperialism and World War II, 1945
Raya Dunayevskaya Luxemburg’s Theory of Accumulation, 1946
Additional reading:
Richard B. Day and Daniel Gaido (eds.) Discovering Imperialism: Social Democracy to World War I, 2016
Cold War imperialism (1945-1991)
Albert Glotzer Stalinist Imperialism at Work: Russia and Iranian Oil, 1944
Jean van Heijenoort The Eruption of Bureaucratic Imperialism, 1945
Irving Howe Imperialism – New Style, 1946
Max Shachtman
The New Russian Imperialism, 1946
The Roots of Stalinist Imperialism, 1951
Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. Political Economy, 1954
Ernest Mandel
The Marxist Theory of Imperialism and its Critics, 1955
After Imperialism?, 1964
The Economic Roots of American Imperialism, 1970
Imperialism and National Bourgeoisie in Latin America, 1971
The Driving Forces of Imperialism, 1972
The Imperialist Defeat in Vietnam, 1975
Ted Grant
Suez—the Crisis of Western Imperialism, 1956
Common Market—impasse of British imperialism, 1967
Marxism and the Struggle Against Imperialism: Third World in Crisis, 1998
Che Guevara On Growth and Imperialism, 1961
Michael Kidron
After the end of Empire, 1960
Imperialism – Highest Stage but One, 1962
International Capitalism, 1965
Kwame Nkrumah Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism, 1965
Walter Rodney The Imperialist Partition of Africa, 1970
Richard Kuper Magdoff on Imperialism, 1970
David Yaffe
Review Article: Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital, 1972
Imperialism, National Oppression and the New Petit Bourgeoisie, 1979
Sam Marcy Imperialism and the Crisis in the Socialist Camp, 1979
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Anti-revisionism
Mao Tse-tung
U.S. Imperialism Is A Paper Tiger, 1956
On The Question Of Whether Imperialism And All Reactionaries Are Real Tigers, 1958
U.S. Imperialism Is The Most Ferocious Enemy Of The World’s People, 1964
Imperialism and All Reactionaries are Paper Tigers from Quotations from Mao Tse Tung, 1966
The Counter Offensive of U.S. Imperialism, Marxist-Leninist Quarterly, 1963
Leninism or Social-Imperialism?, 1970
Imperialism Today: An Economic Analysis, The New Voice, 1973
Communist Unity Association (Marxist-Leninist) Imperialism and the Struggle for a Revolutionary Party, 1974
Ugly Features of Soviet Social-Imperialism, 1976
I Wor Kuen Soviet Social Imperialism and the International Situation Today, 1976
Enver Hoxha Imperialism and the Revolution, 1978
Paul Costello World Imperialism and Marxist Theory, 1979
Imperialism after the Cold War (1991- )
Against the Current: Collection of articles on imperialism, 1983-2017
Including
Whither Capitalist Militarism? by Ellen Meiksins Wood
The Not-So-New Imperialism by Harry Magdoff
A Critical Look at Empire by Charlie Post
Capitalist Empire and the Nation State by Ellen Meiksins Wood
Understanding Imperialism: Old and New Dominion by David McNally
Chris Harman
Imperialism: East and West, 1980
Masters of war?, 1993
Imperialism, war and resistance (with Robin Blackburn),1999
Why the US wants to run the world, 2003
Analysing Imperialism, 2003
Imperialism’s new façade, 2005
The state of imperialism, 2008
Alex Callinicos
Marxism and imperialism today, 1991
The grand strategy of the American empire, 2002
Imperialism and global political economy, 2005
Making sense of imperialism, 2006
Imperial Delusions, 2014
The multiple crises of imperialism, 2014
Fighting the Last War, 2015
Duncan Blackie The United Nations and the politics of imperialism, 1994
Sam Ashman India: Imperialism, Partition and Resistance, 1997
John Baxter Is the UN an alternative to ‘humanitarian imperialism’?, 1999
Ken Coates Benign imperialism versus United Nations, 1999
Lance Selfa
U.S. Imperialism: A Century of Slaughter, 1999
A new colonial “age of empire”?, 2002
John Rees Imperialism: globalisation, the state and war, 2001
Paul D’Amato Imperialism and the State: Why McDonald’s Needs McDonnell Douglas, 2001
Ahmed Shawki
The rehabilitation of colonialism, 2002
Bush Doctrine: Turning point for U.S. Imperialism, 2002
David Harvey The New Imperialism and the Global Economy of Disposession (interview), 2003
Peter Gowan Europe and the new imperialism, 2003
Judy Cox Imperialism: just a phase we’re going through?, 2004
Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin ‘Imperialism and global political economy’: A reply to Alex Callinicos, 2006
Alexander Anievas, Adam Fabry & Robert Knox Back to “normality”? US foreign policy under Obama, 2012
Adrian Budd
Characterising the period or caricaturing capitalism?, 2013
Debating imperialism, 2014
Rob Ferguson Ukraine: imperialism, war and the left, 2014
John Molyneux
Imperialism and Russia, 2018
Imperialism and War, 2022