Dependency: A
Formal Theory of Underdevelopment or a Methodology for the Analysis of Concrete Situations
of Underdevelopment?
Gabriel Palma*
Institute of Latin American Studies. University of
London
Para Magdalena
World Development, Vol. 6, pp. 881-924, Pergamon
Press Ltd., 1978 |
1. INTRODUCTION
May one talk of a 'theory of dependency'? If so, what general
implications does it have for contemporary development strategy? Do we find under the
'dependency' label theories of such a diverse nature that it would be more appropriate to
speak of a 'school of dependency'? Is it even correct to describe as theories the
different approaches within that school? And if so, what general implications might each
one have for contemporary development strategy?
Some writers within the dependency school argue that it is misleading to
look at dependency as a formal theory , and that no general implications for
development can be abstracted from its analyses. Some of those who argue that there is
such a theory flatly assert that it leads inescapably to the conclusion that development
is impossible within the world capitalist system, thus making development strategies
irrelevant,
at least within that system. Others, on the other hand, who speak in terms of a theory of
dependency, argue that it can be operationalized into a practical development
strategy for dependent countries.
If the problem of extracting direct lessons from the dependency analyses is a
dilficult one, it is no less difficult to survey what has been a diffuse and at times
contradictory movement, inextricably a part of the recent history of Latin America itself,
of individual nations, and
of the post-war development of international capitalism, and drawing its inspiration from
such diverse intellectual traditions as the long
and involved Marxist debate concerning the development of capitalism in backward nations,
881
|
and the post-1948 ECLA
critique of the conventional theory of international trade and economic development.
The complex roots of the dependency analyses and the variety of
intellectual traditions on which they draw make any attempt at a comprehensive survey
difficult. The difficulty is further compounded by the fact that in one way or another the
dependency perspective has so dominated work in the social sciences in Latin America and
elsewhere in recent years that it would be literally impossible to review the overwhelming
mass of writing that has appeared, aimed at either supporting or refuting--------------------------
*The initial stimulus for this paper came from a workshop on dependency organized in the
Latin American Centre, St. Antony's College, Oxford, by my colleagues Rosemary Thorp and
Sanjaya Lall, of the Institute of Economics and Statistics, and myself. I am extremely
indebted to them both, and to the participants in that workshop, and particularly to Paul
Cammack, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Ernesto Laclau and Philippe Reichstul for discussing
an earlier draft of the paper with me. I would also like to thank Alan Angell, Mariana
Chudnovsky, Rafael Echeverria, Maria Alicia Ferrera, Luis Ortega, Cristobal Palma, Hilda
Sabato, Elizabeth Spillius, Bob Sutcliffe and Margaret Weinmann for their help and
support, and the World University Service and the Institute of Latin American Studies of
London University for making it possible for me to devote myself fully to this research.
F'inally, I would like to express gratitude greater than words can adequately convey
to Paul Cammack, for transforming the original manuscript into polished English. for
clarifying my own ideas on a number of points in so doing, and for editing the essay down
to manageable proportions. despite my frequent protests. The responsibility for what is
left is of course my own. |
its major theses,or simply reflecting its
sudden ascendancy in academic and institutional circles hitherto relatively closed to
radical critiques of current orthodoxy. Added to this is the fact that in one way or
another those who have contributed to the dependency school have been directly and
actively involved in the major political struggles and controversies of post-war Latin
America. Not only has this left an indelible mark on their own work, but it has often led
their oppon~nts to cloud the issues by carrying the debate to purely ideological ter-
rain, thus adding to the confusion surrounding the dependency analysis itself by promoting
an increasingly sterile discussion with little thorough consideration of its theoretical
and historical roots.
I believe that previous surveys of dependency writings have in
particular failed to clarify sufficiently its roots in the tradition of Marxist thought on
the development of capitalism in backward nations, thus giving rise to a great deal of
misunderstanding. I have therefore attempted particularly to place it within this
tradition; Marxism is a highly complex subject, and its contribution to the analysis of
the development of capitalism in backward nations is no less so; an attempt to incorporate
it into the analysis here is however essential, in order to
(1) clarify the conceptual
issues around which the debate revolves,
(2) show how many of the debates among dependency writers echo similar
debates which took place earlier within the Marxist tradition, although in some cases
their relevance has not been duly appreciated, and
(3) show the problems involved in seeking 'implications for contemporary
development strategy' from the dependency writers.
I complement this analysis with a discussion of the other major source
of inspiration behind dependency, the ECLA {United Nations Eco- nomic Commission for Latin
America) school and the attempts to reformulate its thinking which followed the apparent
failure of ECLA- inspired policies of import-substituting industrialization.
I distinguish three approaches within the dependency school, and
conclude that the most successful analyses are those which resist the temptation to build
a formal theory, and focus on 'concrete situations of dependency'; in general terms I have
elected to stress that the cuntribution of dependency has been up to now more a critique
of development strategies in general than an attempt to make practical contributions to
them.
882 |
2.
SALIENT FEATURES OF THE MARXIST DEBATE ON CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT
IN BACKWARD NATIONS
The Marxist debate on capitalist development in backward nations is located in
the broader theoretical context of the debate on imperialism. At a first level of
approximation, close to its etymological meaning, imperialism denotes a particular
relationship, 'a relationship of a hegemonical state to people or nations under its
control' ( Lichtheim, 1971, p. 10). At this level the essence of imperialism is domination
and subordination, and the concrete ways in which the sovereignty of lesser political
bodies can be infringed may be manifested in very dissimilar manners, as direct and
visible as in colonialism, or as complex and diffuse as in a system of international
relations of dependency which distorts the economic development of nations.
From this point of view imperialism neither is nor has to be a
phenomenon exclusive to capitalism, for close and asymmetric relationships are not
peculiar to capitalism; what is peculiar to it is the form in which this type of
relationship is developed and made manifest. Even more, the concrete ways in which the
backward countries have furnished the needs of the advanced countries within the system
also vary, in accordance with the changing necessities of the latter in their different
stages of development. For this reason it is not very useful to remain at this first
level; we must progress further, and analyse the way in which these relations of
domination and subjection are situated in the context in which they develop; if not, we
shall find ourselves making only
general disquisitions on imperialism, which
ignore, or put into the background, the fundamental difference between
socio-economic systems, and which inevitably degenerate into the most vapid banality or
bragging, like the comparison: 'Greater Rome or Greater Britain' (Lenin, 1916, p. 97).
a. The Marxist concept
of imperialism(1)
The essential characteristic which distin- guishes the way in which
Marxism places this relationship of domination and subjection within the context in which
it develops (as it does in all other social activities and historical develop- ments) is
its basis in the material conditions of production; while non-Marxist interpretations may
be based equally, and at times jointly, on ideological, political, economic, social or
cultural factors. Nevertheless, the Marxist analysis |
and interpretation of imperialism does not
deny in any way the superstructural elements that may have been prcscnt in the different
stagcs of imperialism,(2) for the elements of the superstructure may and do assume an autonomy of their
own, which in turn reacts upon the material base; to deny the importance of the
superstructural elements is to fail to understand the important feedback of human
consciousness into the material world. What is peculiar to Marxist interpretations of
imperialism is the reference in the final analysis of these and other superstructural
elements to the material base in which they develop.(3)
Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to postulate that the elements of the
superstructure can be related in the final analysis to the material base in which they
develop; we also need to know the concrete forms in which the two are connected. This has
been one of the most controversial themes within Marxism, and Marx himself did not make
the task any easier, saying sometimes that the one 'determines' the other, sometimes
that it 'conditions' it, and sometimes that it 'corresponds' to it. There is at
least agreement among Marxists that changes in the base are necessary but not sufficient
for changes in the superstructure. That is to say, changes in the superstructure are
related to changes in the material base of society. but do not occur as a simple
mechanical reflex.(4)
If Marx uses different terms to refer to this relationship, there are
nevertheless passages in his works which offer the necessary elements for a clear
understanding of his position. In the preface to the second edition of The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte for example, written in 1869, he explains that conditioning
historical circumstances (that is, those external to the will of individuals) determine
only the possibilities in historical situations, not the details of their future
development. In the analyses which he made of the Russian situation in the last years of
his life (and to which I shall return later) he is very explicit in this respect. Lenin
for his part constantly debated with the Mensheviks their deterministic view of history:
The Mensheviks think that
history is the product of material forces acting through thc processes of evolution. I
think, with Marx, that man makes history, but within the conditions, and with the
materials, given by the corresponding period of civilization. And man can be a tremendous
social force (quoted in Horowitz, 1969. p. 10).
The importance of the material conditions of the process of production,
which leads Marx to make of this aspect of human activity the
883 |
corner-stone of social
activity and historical development (and hence of imperialism) relates back to the fact
that for him labour is the fundamental human activity. Through it man not only satisfies
the primordial need to subsist, but also develops his potential; this activity, which
consists of an interaction with nature and with one's fellow men, contributes an essential
element to Marx's understanding of man and his history, and it is this which leads Engels
to call this approach 'Historical Materialism'.
The essence of Marx's analysis of the process of labour is to be found in Capital
(1867, pp. 130-138); once he had demonstrated the impossibility of explaining the
process of extraction of surplus value at the level of the circulation of capital, he
decided to take the analysis to a deeper level, to that of production. Making this
transition, he develops the concept of labour first at an abstract level (that is,
independent of any historical process), and later in the particular forms in which it
develops in the capitalist mode of production:
Labour is a process in which both
man and nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates and
controls the material reactions between himself and nature... By thus acting on the
external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops
his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway (1867, p. 130).(5)
The clearest statement of the importance which Marx attached to the material
conditions of the productive process is found in the preface to A Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy ( 1859):
In the social production of their
life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their
will, relations of production which correspond to a definite state of development of their
material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the
economic structure of society, the real foundtion, on which rises a legal and political
superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of
production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process
in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the
contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
It is important to stress that from this method of historical analysis
it cannot be deducted that man is simply a product of material conditions; Marx criticizes
Feuerbach for adopting this vicw, which leaves out the subjective, creative side of man's
interaction with nature.(6) What Marx wishes to stress is that |
to understand man, we must begin with the
material conditions of the productive proccess; this does not imply economic determinism,
although Engels later recognized some responsibility for the diffusion of this view:
Marx and I are ourselves partly to
blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side
than is due to it. We had to emphasize the main principle vis-a-vis our adversaries, who
denied it, and we had not always the time, the place, or the opportunity to give their due
to other elements involved in the interaction (quoted in McLellan, 1975, p. 41)
As regards Marx's method of analysis, he emphasized that any science had
to penetrate from the apparent movement of things to their real underlying causes. This
involved a distinction between appearance and essence, going back a long way from Hegel
through Spinoza and Aristotle.(7) As regards economics, he conceives it as the core of any scientific view of
society, and criticizes those economists who
dealt only with the market system (appearance)
without considering the social foundation (essence) in which the market is based.
(McLellan, 1975, p 58).
The essential elements of Marx's view of the capitalist system are found
in Capital, but it is studied there only from the point of view of the mode of
production, without relating it to any social formation in which it develops. This part of
Marx's work was incomplete at his death. It is generally argued that the fundamental
elements of the methodology of Marx's economic doctrines are found in the general
introduction to his Grundrisse ( 1859, pp. 100-108), and in the preface to the
second edition of Capital (1867, pp. xvii-xxiv), and that the methodology relates
to Hegel, the economic analysis to Smith and Ricardo. Nevertheless, a recent study of
Marx's method of analysis in Capital has contributed new ideas to the debate (
Echeverria, forthcoming)
The fundamental theoretical nucleus of Marx's analysis is the labour
theory of value;(8) from this it follows that the capitalist mode of production is governed by the
drive to extract surplus value from a class of wage labourers, to realize this surplus
value by finding a market for the commodities in which it is embodied, and to turn this
surplus value into capital for investment in new means of production to maintain and
expand the process.
From the point of view of our analysis, the principal implications of
the labour theory of value for the long-term future of capitalisrn are that
884 |
(i) the rate of profits for capitalists would tend to
decrease, thus forcing them to engage in a continual struggle to avoid this fall, marked
among other things by the need for the geographic expansion of their economies;
(ii) the working class would be totally excluded from 'objective
wealth';(9)
(iii) the system as a whole would be shaken as a result of these and
other factors by a series of crises that would culminate in a transition to a higher
system.
The development of this system of production first in the United Kingdom
and later in other countries led them to develop between themselves and with the rest of
the world relationships different from those which had prevailed before, and dictated
primarily by their particular economic needs. These relationships in turn tend to evolve
in accordance with the transformation of the economies of these countries and of
those in the rest of the world. The relationships among the advanced countries in the
system, and those between the advanced countries and the backward countries (the forms in
which the latter furnish the needs of the former) are not static, but evolve through
history.
Within the Marxist tradition the term 'im- perialism' was initially
applied to the relations between advanced and backward countries within the capitalist
system, and later to the totality of a particular phase (the monopoly phase) in the
development of that system, characterized by a particular form of relationships among the
advanced countries, and between them and the backward countries. The fact that the concept
has been used to define both those aspects of capitalist development which have related
the fortunes of advanced and backward areas, and the monopoly phase of the
development of that system, has produccd a certain degree of confusion regarding the
provenance of the concept and its proper concerns.(10) This confusion is also related to the fact
that if one of the fundamental tenets of Marxism is that different aspects of the
theory of capitalist society and development are indivisible strictu sensu, it may
appear to be impossihle to speak of a Marxist theory of imperialism; we could only look at
it as an aspect of the theory of capitalism. In that case, imperialism could be referred
to as a theory only in Lenin's sense of the term -a stage in the development of
capitalism. Despite this, I believe that it is absolutely legitimate to use the concept of
imperialism to designate only those aspects of capitalist development which have |
related the fortunes of the advanced and backward areas within the world capitalist
system, and even to speak of a 'theory cf imperialism' in this sense, so long as we accept
that different theories can have different status.(11) In this case the theory of imperialism would
be part of a wider theoretical field, that of the Marxist theory of capitalism, and, in
the end, the problem would simply be one of specifying with clarity whether the term
'imperialism' is used and understood in its wider or more restricted sense, and whether it
is understood as a theory in both cases, or only in the first.
b. The field of study of the Marxist
theory of capitalism
For analytica[ purposes we may distinguish between three concerns
in the Marxist theory of capitalism; according to the form in which imperialism is
understood it will cover one or all of these concerns:(12)
(i) the development and the
economic and class structure of advanced capitalist societies (especially the factors
which drive them to geographical expansion of their economies), and the relations
between them ;
(ii) the economic and political relations between advanced nations and
backward or colonial nations within the world capitalist system;
(iii) the development and economic and class structure in the more backward
nations of the capitalist system (particularly the way in which their dynamic is
generated through their particular modes of articulation with the advanced countries).
The Marxist analysis of the capitalist system attempts to take these
three concerns together, and build with them a theory of its development. If one uses the
concept of imperialism in its widest sense, the theories of capitalism and imperialism
become identical; if one uses it in its more restricted sense, its analysis relates
primarily to the historical development of the second concern. From this last point of
view we can distinguish in the theory of imperialism, with Sutcliffe,
three quite distinct phases (defined
logically rather than temporally) in the relations between capitalism and the
peripheral countries and areas of the world. One (prominent in Marx's and Engels's
writings) involves plunder (of wealth and slaves) and exports of capitalist manufactures
to the peripheral countries. The second (uppermost in Lenin's writing) involves the export
of capital,
885 |
competition
for supplies of raw materials and the growth of monopoly. The third involves a more
complex, post-colonial dependency of the peripheral countries. in which foreign capital
(international corporations), profit repatriation, adverse changes in the terms of trade
(unequal exchange) all play a role in confining, distorting or halting economic
development and industrialization (1972a, p. 172). (The emphasis is mine.)
In each of these phases of imperialist relations the peripheral areas
would have furnished the needs, in different ways, of the advanced capitalist nations; in
the first, by assisting primary accumulation and allowing those nations to carve out their
essential initial markets; in the second, by playing a role in the partial 'escape'
of a more mature capitalism from the consequences of its contradictions (as analysed by
Luxemburg, 1913;.Bukharin, 1915; and Lenin, 1916 ); and in the third, the least
well-defined, advanced mature capitalism appears to attempt to secure itself against the
emergence of competition which could threaten its stability, organization and growth.
I shall attempt to demonstrate that to the analysis of each of these
three phases in the relationships between the advanced and peri- pheral countries in the
capitalist world postu- lated above there corresponds a particular analysis of the
development of capitalism in backward nations. The first, essentially that of Marx and
Engels, analyses capitalism as a historically progressive system, which will be
transmitted from the advanced countries (through colonialism, free trade, etc.) and which
will spread through the backward nations by a continual process of destruction and
replacement of pre-capitalist structures. As a result of this process a series of new
capitalist societies would arise, whose development would be similar, in the post-colonial
period, to that of the advanced countries themselves; this, then, would be followed
by the development of the series of contradictions inherent to the capitalist system,
which would tend to lead to a higher system of development.
The second approach to the development of capitalism in backward nations,
found primarily
in the writings of the so-called 'classics of imperialism', concerned itself first
with the peculiarities of the development of Russian capitalism, and afterwards with that
of other more backward areas of the world in the 'monopolistic' phase of the world
capitalist system. As regards the development of Russian capitalism, (as we shall see in
detail below) its historically progressive character is stressed, but this development is
no longer analysed simply |
as a process of destruction and replacement
or its pre-capitalist structures, but as a far more complex process of interplay between
its internal and external structures. These analyses stress the difficulties resulting
from 'late' industrialization, the ambiguous role of foreign capital (from Western
Europe), and the great capacity for survival of pre-capitalist structures. As
regards capitalist development in other more backward regions of the world, we may
distinguish two major historical stages in the analyses of the 'classics of imperialism'.
The first was characterized by its analysis (following Marx) of capitalist development in
the colonies as historically progressive, but (qualifying Marx's analysis) limited by the
new imperatives of the advanced economies in their monopoly phase. Faced with these
imperatives the advanced nations were, in the view of these writers, succeeding in
restricting modern industrialization in the colonies. Nevertheless, they stress that once
the colonial bonds are broken modern industrialization could eventually take place. Thus
the capitalist development of backward nations would take on a similar character to that
of the advanced nations. At the same time they insist that this process of post-colonial
industrialization would in no way be free from political and economic difficulties and
contradictions; on the contrary , the emerging national bourgeoisies would face the
difficult but by no means impossible political task of developing their own bourgeois
revolutions, and the no less difficult but equally possible task of 'late'
industrialization.
It was at the beginning of the 1920s that this approach was transformed
as emphasis was placed on a different set of difficulties (particularly of a political
nature) hindering the process of post-colonial industrialization.
The third approach was first developed in the 1950s, and 'took off' with the
publication in 1957 of Baran's The Political Economy of Growth; it is characterized
by the acceptance, almost as an axiomatic truth, of the argument that no Third World
country can now expect to break out of a state of economic dependency and advance to an
economic position beside the major capitalist industrial powers. This is a very important
proposition since it not only establishes the extent to which capitalism remains
historically progressive in the modern world, but also thereby defines the economic
background to political action. Yet, too often, the question is ill-defined; it is not
se/f-evident; its intellectual origins are obscure; and its actual foundations are in need
of a fuller analysis. It is in this third phase that the analyses of the
886 |
dependency school emerge,
although they are not confined to this phase, but relate to the forms of articulation of
the economies and politics of the Latin American nations with the advanced nations
throughout the whole period covered by the three phases I have enumerated,
The core of these analyses is the study of the dynamics of
individual Latin American societies through the concrete forms of articulation between
'external factors' (the general deter- minants of the capitalist system) and
'internal factors' (the specific determinants of each of these societies). They are
therefore a part of the theory of imperialism, if this is understood as the study of the
capitalist system as a whole, or complementary to it, if it is understood as concerning
itself with the political and economic relations between advanced and backward areas of
the capitalist world. In both cases it is intimately connected with the theory of
imperialism, and in no way intended as an alternative to it, as some of its critics
have wrongly argued.(13)
As the majority of dependency studies are intimately connected
with the development of Marxist thought in regard to the development of capitalism in
backward nations, and as these analyses refer to the development of Latin America
throughout the whole period covered by the three phases we have discussed, we shall begin
by examining the first two phases of discussion concerning capitalist development in
backward countries.
c. Marx and Engels on the development of
capitalism in backward nations .
It is not easy to analyse Marx's and Engels's approach to the
development of capitalism in the backward regions of the world, as their remarks on
the subject are scattered throughout their respective works, In Marx's case, although the
analysis of the capitalist mode of production in Capital is a work of profound and
systematic brilliance, his specific references to the concrete forms in which this mode of
production is developed in backward regions are not found there, but in various of
his other works, Of relevance among his political writings is the Communist Manifesto (
1848); among his theoretical writings, the preface to A Contribu- tion to the Critique
of Political Economy ( 1859); among his correspondence, that with his contacts among
the Russian left; and among his articles to newspapers, those in the New York Daily
Tribune between 1853 and 1859. Unfortunately, his concrete references are al- |
most all concerned with India and China,
with only superficial references made to Latin America. This is unfortunate not only
because we are ourselves interested in Latin America, but more significantly because the
sub-continent would have provided Marx with a backward region already developing in a way
which would be typical of post-colonial societies in later years, with the exception of
those of European settlement. While formally free, the countries of Latin America
were economically backward and dependent.
In a letter written in the closing years of his life, Marx stressed that
in Capital he had studied only the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe (Marx,
1877, p. 53). Nevertheless, it is from that same work that we can deduce with clarity his
analysis of the tendencies which would guide the expansion of the capitalist economies
towards the backward regions of the world. The most relevant chapters are those concerning
primary accumulation (1867, Ch. XXIV) and foreign trade (1894, Ch. XIV).
The central element behind the need of the advanced capitalist economies
to expand is the need to develop an effective means of countering the tendency for the
rate of profit to fall; such expansion makes it possible to expand the scale of
production, to lower the costs of raw materials and of the products needed to maintain and
reproduce the labour force at home (making it possible to keep salaries low), and thus to
increase the surplus by helping to preserve the low organic composition of capital.
Furthermore, for a period of time the capitalist in an advanced country can gain a higher
rate of profits by selling
in competition with commodity producers in other countries with
lessor facilitics for production...in the same way that a manufacturer exploits a new
invention before it has become general (1894, Section 5).(14)
Nevertheless, Marx did not confine himself to the analysis of the
driving forces which lead to the expansion of capitalism. In his analysis of the effect of
this upon the backward regions, following the Hegelian tradition, he
distinguishes between the subjective motivations for this expansion and its
objective historical results. On the one hand he condemns this expansion as the most
brutalizing and dehumanizing that history has ever known, but on the other he argues that
it is necessary if the backward societies are to develop. Only capitalism, he argues, can
provide thc necessary economic and technological infrastructure
887 |
which will enable society to
allow for the free development of every member according to his capacity; and capitalism
can only develop in them through its penetration and imposition from abroad. Only on the
basis of this dialectical understanding of capitalism can we understand the famous
affirmation in the preface to the first edition of Capital that
the backward country suffers nut only from
the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that
development (1867, p. xiv).
In general terms we may say that it is analytically convenient to
distinguish two intimately connected levels in Marx's analysis of the development of
capitalism in backward nations. One relates to the necessity (both political and
economic) of capitalism as an essential step towards higher forms of development of
productive forces, the other to the possibility and viability (both political and
economic) of its development. These two levels of analysis are present in the Marxist
tradition with differing degrees of emphasis. In Marx's writings on the subject the
central concern is with the necessity for capitalist development, with its feasibility
taken completely for granted. In the present day however the emphasis is placed more on
the second level of analysis, that of the feasibility of capitalist development in the
periphery.(15)
As regards the first aspect, the necessity of capitalist development,
Marx states very clearly, at least until the important change which comes towards the end
of his life, that socialism can only be attained through capitalist development, and that
this will not be produced in the backward regions of the world by the development of their
own productive forces, as was the case in Western Europe, but by the impact upon them of
thc capitalism of Western Europe itself.
Marx is overtly hostile to the modes of production in existence in
non-European socie- ties, chiefly on the grounds of their unchanging nature, which he saw
as a drag on the process of history, and thus a serious threat to socialism. This led him,
while condemning the brutality and hypocrisy of colonialism, to regard it as historically
neccessary .
Initially, in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels appear to
refer to the backward nations en masse as 'barbarians', 'semi-barbarians', 'nations
of peasants', and 'the East', in a manner which contrasts strikingly with their
meticulous study of European society and history, and is particularly unsatis- |
factory in a work which makes the strongest
possible claim to be based upon a universa11y applicable scientific interpretation of
history. However, 11 years later, in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy, Marx made a more serious attempt to relate the socio-economic
conditions of the non-European world to his general theory of history, but he did so
elliptica11y, and in a way that has bedevi1led Marxism ever since. Discus- sing the stages
of economic development, he strongly brings out the dialectica1 tensions inherent in every
period, saying, in a passage that has become classic:
no social order ever disappears
before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and
new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their
existence have matured in the womb of the old society (1859, p, 337),
Proceeding to analyse the four modes of production, Asiatic, Ancient, Feudal
and Capi- talist, he leaves the Asiatic mode in a form which is difficult to understand.
There is a clear perception of a kind of continuity (its movement produced by the
development of contradictions) between the Ancient, Feudal, Capitalist and Socialist modes
of production, but the Asiatic mode is left disconnected, as if it had neither past nor
future.(16)
If Marx never directly discusses this problem in his work he
does so indirectly, stressing time and again that it should not be forgotten that the
horizon of his work on the discussion of historical development is essentia1ly
European. In a letter written to a Russian Socialist journal in 1877, and already
mentioned on page 887, he warns his readers not to
metamorphose [his] historicaI
sketch of the genesis of capital in
Western Europe into a historical-philosophical theory of
the general path every people is fated to tread, whatever
the historical circumstances in which it find itself,
and goes on to criticize any approach which seeks to understand history
by using as one's masterkey a
general historical- philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists
in being supra- historical.
The problem of the Asiatic mode of production is not merely the academic
one of stablishing how far Marx's theory of history is consistent and universal; it
is that as it does not possess a dialectic of internal development it can only evolve
through the penetration of European capitalism. For this reason Marx analyses european
expansion in India as brutal, but 'a necessary step towards Socialism' ( 1853 ).
888 |
Such an expansion would have a
destabilizing and disintegrating effect on the Asiatic mode of production, re-stabilizing
and re-integrating such societies in a capitalist mode of development which would bring
with it the development of productive forces and generate an interna1 dynamic which would
lead such societies towards higher stages of development.
It is essential to note here that Marx makes no distinction between endogenous
capitalist development (such as occurred in Western Europe) and that which is introduced
from outside. Irrespective of its origins, capitalism once implanted in a society will
develop in a certain way. If one of the central characteristics is to develop both
objective wealth and poverty, this would exist within each society, rather than between
societies.
Only fleetingly in the case of China and with much greater clarity, towards
the end of his life, in the case of Russia, does Marx recognize the possibility that
different traditional structures could be capable of serving as a starting point for
movement towards more advanced stages of development; in the first case he speaks
ironically of the possibility of a bourgeois revolution, in the second of a socialist
revolution.
In February 1850 there was a wave of agrarian interest in China, and
Marx wrote:
when our european
reactionaries, on their next flight through Asia will have finally reached the Chinese
Wall, the gates that lead to the seat of primeva1 reaction and conservantism - who knows,
perhaps they will read the following inscription on the Wall: Republique Chinoise -
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! (quoted in Averini, 1976. p, 251).
Regarding the Russian case, in reply to a letter from the Russian
Marxist, Vera Sassoulitch, in February 1881 (to which we shall return later) Marx stresses
the possibility that the particular traditional agrarian structures of Russia, could
serve as a starting point for socialist development. He reaffirms this point of view
together with Engels, in the preface to a new Russian edition of the Communist
Manifesto in 1882. (17)
Passing now to the analysis of Marx's
attitude regarding the possibility of capitalist development in the non-European world, it
must be stated that Marx leaves no room for misinterpretation; the dynamism and capacity
for expansion of the youthful capitalism of his period would be reproduced in
any society which it penetrated; furthermore, he seemed to expect a proliferation of
autonomous capitalist societies, fundamentally similar to those in Western Europe. There
are three particular |
excerpts which have become obligatory
points of reference, and to which we need refer only briefly. In the Communist
Manifesto Marx and Engels argue that the development of capitalism in Western Europe
will
compel all nations, on pain
of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production,
and 5 years later, in his article on the Future Results of British Rule in India (1853),
Marx argues that English imperialism will not be able to avoid the industrialization of
India:
when you have once introduced
machinery into
the locomotion of a country which possesses iron and coals you are
unable to withhold it from its fabrication. (the emphasis is mine).
Finally, 14 years later, in the preface to the first edition of Capital we find his
famous statement:
the country that is more developed
industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
We may then conclude, with Kierman, that
So far as can be seen, what he
[Marx] had in mind was not a further spread of Western imperialism, but a proliferation of
autonomous capitalism, such as he expected in India and did witness in North America
(1967, p. 183).
Without doubt, the attitude of some dependency writers today that capitalist
industrialization in the periphery is no longer feasible goes against the spirit and
letter of Marx's writings. What is important, as Sutcliffe has argued, is to
ask whether the difference is one of circumstance or diagnosis ( 1972a, p. 180);
that is to say, whether capitalism has been transformed in such a way that the
industrialization of the periphery cannot take place within the capitalist system, or
whether it is that Marx's analysis is itself over-optimistic regarding the possibilities
of industrialisation in the backward areas of the world. We shall return to this point as
the analysis proceeds.
d. Discussions
on the development of capitalism in backward nations by the
'classic writers' on imperialism
If Hilferding (1910) had already provided an important Marxist study
of imperialism, it is in Luxemburg (1913), Bukharin (1915) and Lenin (1916) that we find
the most important contributions from the period in which capitalism was moving through
its monopoly phase. I shall refer only briefly to the works of Luxemburg and
Bukharin; as regards Lenin's work, I shall
889 |
concentrate on those aspects
which are most relevant to the issues under discussion.
Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital (1913) was the first
Marxist analysis of the world capitalist economy in tbe light of the three concerns
outlined earlier in this paper, and remains among the most complete; it is certainly the
only one of the classic writing on imperialism which sets out to provide a
systematic analysis of the effect which imperialism would have on the backward countries.
Unfortunately, the rigour, profundity and creativity of the analysis are limited by
the fact that, following the Marxist tradition of the period, she underestimates
both the increase in real wages which takes place as capitalism develops in the advanced
countries, and the internal inducement to invest provided by technological progress.
Consequently she overplays and misunderstands the role of the periphery in the process of
accumulation of capital in the developed countries, for these two factors have played a
vital role in rescuing capitalism from the difficulties and contradictions which it
creates for itself. Thus the periphery has played a role both qualitatively different and
quantitatively less important than that which her analysis depicts.(18)
Nikolai Ivanovitch Bukharin contributed to the analysis of imperialism
principally in his works of 1915 and 1926. In the first he analyses the two most important
tendencies in the world economy of the time, tendencies which were made manifest jointly
and in contradiction to each other. These were the rapid process of internationalization
of economic life (the integration of the different national economies into a
world economy) and the process of 'nationalization' of capital (the
withdrawing of the interests of the national bourgeoisies within their respective
frontiers). The most interesting feature of the second work is its polemic against
Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital. From the point of view of our interest, it
is unfortunate that although Bukharin stresses continually throughout the course of his
work that imperialism is a phenomenon which connects the advanced and the backward
economies, and criticizes Luxem- burg's views on the subject, in no part of his work does
he analyse in concrete terms the effect of imperialism upon the backward countries.(19)
When one is analysing Lenin's work it is particularly important to bear in
mind (as with the work of any political leader who is not writing for purely academic
reasons, but with specific and concrete political ends in view), the |
political context in which the works were
written. In fact it is necessary not only to consider the usual problems concerning the
separation of 'history' and 'concept', 'theory' and 'practice', and the 'role' of
ideology, but also to be aware that the relative emphases in these works are frequently
functions of tactical moves related to factional disputes.(20) Furthermore, in the case of
Lenin's Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) he himself was careful
to point out that he wrote it
with an eye to the Tsarist
censorship, ...with extreme caution, by hints, in an allegorical language(1916, p. I).
The political situation within which and as a contribution to which Lenin wrote his
analysis of imperialism was characterized by the outbreak of the First World War and the
subsequent collapse of the Second International.
Within a week of Austria's declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July 1914,
the whole of Europe was at war. Lenin himself arrived in Switzerland on 5 September after
a long odyssey, and set himself up in Berne. He was faced with a difficult double task -
firstly to explain to the international socialist movement the nature of the forces which
had unleashed the war, and secondly to account for the position adopted by the working
class parties of the advanced capitalist countries ( which had led to the collapse of the
Second International). If for the first of these tasks he could avail himself of the
analysis provided by Marx of the tendencies of capitalist development, and the later
contributions of Marxists such as Hilferding, for the second he could draw on no previous
analyses, and he was faced with a complex task. Traditional Marxist analysis could not be
applied simply and directly to explain why the proletariat of the advanced capitalist
countries in general, and the social-democratic parties of the left in particular, had
placed themselves alongside their respective bourgeoisies and against one another when the
war broke out.(21)
It was no easy task to explain the capacity, unforseen by Marx, of
capitalism to extend to important sectors of the working classes some of the benefits of
its development; nor was it simple to derive the relevant political conclusions. This
would in fact be the most important contribution of Imperialism, The Highest Stage of
Capitalism, and would make of it Lenin's most important theoretical work, just as the Development
of Capitalism in Russia ( 1899 ) is his most important study of the development of
capitalism in a backward nation, and is in my view the pioneering classic of dependency
studies.
890 |
To
prepare himself for his difficult task Lenin re-read Marx and Hege1 with great care, and
produced his Philosophical Notebook ( 1915) as a result. In it he stresses the
necessity to understand Hegel's logic (and to give due importance to the subjective
element of the dialectic) in order to understand the development of capitalism in advanced
countries. After this, now settled in Zurich, he wrote, between January and July 1916, his
own study of imperialism, emphasizing in the 1917 preface to the Russian edition and the
1920 prefaces to the French and German editions the dual political purpose I have
mentioned above. He thus makes it clear that his purpose in writing the work is different
to that of Bukharin or Luxemburg.(22)
For analytical purposes we may distinguish three major themes in
Lenin's work.(23)
The first is the description of the most important political and economic changes in the
advanced countries of the capitalist system, the second the analysis of the changes in
international relations which had resulted, and particularly the role played by
international capital, and the third the discussion of the future tendencies of the
capitalist system in its monopoly or imperialist phase, and above all the effect these
would have on its historical progressiveness. There is no systematic analysis of the
effect that this phase of the development of capitalism will have on the backward regions
of the world (the third concern to which I referred earlier). However, as we shall
see later, it is possible to deduce from the analysis of the development of capitalism in
the advanced countries in the system an implicit account of the effects it will tend to
have in those backward regions. Nevertheless, in order to understand this implicit account
it is necessary to go back 17 years to the Development of Capitalism in Russia,
which is intimately connected with the analysis in the later work.(24)
e. Lenin's 'Development of
Capitalism in Russia'
Within the Marxist tradition it is in Lenin's work that we find the
first systematic attempt to provide a concrete analysis of the development of capitalism
in a backward nation. In his analysis he
formulated with simplicity what would be the core of the dependency
analyses: the forms of articulation between the two parts of a single mode of production,
and the subordination of one mode of production to another (Cardoso, 1974a, p. 325). |
In this work then, we find a
detailed and profound study of the forms in which developing capitalism in Russia is
articulated both to the economics of Western Europe and to the other existing modes of
production in Russia itself. That is to say, the way in which Russia - its classes, state
and economy - is articulated to the corresponding elements in the countries of Western
Europe. The essay was written as part of a profound controversy in Russia itself regarding
the necessity and the feasibility of capitalist development there. Discussion of this
controversy is particularly relevant, as it was in the context of an identical controversy
in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s that the contribution of the dependency studies
was made.
Given that Russia was the first backward country in which Marxism developed,
it is not surprising that it should have been the setting for the first Marxist debates
regarding the feasibility of capitalist development, and as I have stated, Lenin's Development
of Capitalism in Russia was part of this debate and of his constant polemic with the
Narodniks.(25)
The central argument of the Narodniks was that capitalist development
was not necessary for the attainment of socialism in Russia, and that from an economic
point of view it was by no means clear that capitalism was a viable system for a backward
country such as Russia. They laid great stress upon the problems created by 'late' entry
into the process of capitalist industrialization.
Regarding the necessity for capitalist development in Russia, the
Narodniks were convinced that the Russian peasant commune(26) with its system of communal ownership was
essentially socialist, and capable of forming the basis of a future socialist order;
hence Russia might indeed lead the rest of Europe on the road to socialism.
From what Marx and Engels had written before they became interested in
the Russian case it is possible to deduce a priori their disagreement with the
Narodniks. It was a central point of their analysis that the peasantry, fundamentally on
account of its feudal origins, was a backward element in European society, in relation to
the capitalist bourgeoisie and, a fortiori, in relation to the proletariat.
Wherever capitalism was advanced, the peasantry was a decadent class.(27) On this account it is placed in
the Communist Manifesto alongside a number of petty bourgeois groups, as Marx and
Engels speak of
the small manufacturers, the
shopkeepers, the artisans and the peasant....
891 |
Only when the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat, together or apart, are incapable of carrying out the
bourgeois revolution and the overthrow of feudalism would it be permissible to
support the peasantry and its political organizations, let alone to fight for its interest
in individual ownership of the land.
At the end of the 1860s, attracted by the development of the left in
Russia, Marx and Engels learnt Russian and threw themselves into the current debates
there. In 1875 Engels was stressing the necessity for capitalist development, though less
as a necessity of an absolute nature than as a result of the fact that the Russian system
of communal property was already decadent. For this reason it was impossible to 'leap
over' the capitalist stage through the transformation of the communal institutions of the
feudal past into the fundamental bases of the socialist future. On the other hand, he
argued, the triumph of the socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries would
help Russia itself to advance rapidly towards socialism (see Carr, Vol. 2, 1966, p. 385 ).
Two years later Marx entered the debate with the letter I have already
discussed (page 887). In it he expresses a posilion similar to that of Engels, arguing
that the possibility that a different transition to socialism might take place in Russia
no longer appeared to exist:
If Russia continues on the path which she has been following since 1861
[the emancipation of the serfs] she will be deprived of the finest chance ever offered by
history to a nation of avoiding all the ups and downs of the capitalist order.
In the following year a group of young Narodniks led by Plekhanov broke with the rest and
headed for Switzerland; their differences were both political and theoretical, in that
they opposed the use of terrorism and embraced the spirit and letter of the Communist
Manifesto. Nevertheless, they came to adopt positions 'more Marxist than those of
Marx himself', and in 1881 Vera Sassoulitch wrote to Marx seeking a clarification
of his views regarding the peasant commune. After composing three long drafts which
are among his papers he contented himself with a brief response. His analysis of Capital
, he stated, was based upon conditions in Western Europe, where communal property had
long since disappeared; this analysis was by no means mechanically aplicable to Russia,
where such forms of property still survived in the peasant communes. Nevertheless, for
these to serve as a starting-point for a 'socialist regeneration of Russia' they would
require a series of conditions which allowed them to develop freely. Nowhere in his reply
does Marx express |
any doubt that capitalist development is
possible in Russia; his argument is that perhaps given the specificity of the Russian
situation the price of capitalist development in human terms would be too high for it to
be counted as progressive development.(28)
Regarding the other facet of the controversy with the Narodniks, that of
the possibility of capitalist development in Russia, it is in the writings of the
Narodniks that it is first suggested that capitalism may not be viable in a backward
nation. Thus the Narodnik writer Vorontsov argued that
the more belated is the
process of industrialization, the more difficult it is to carry it on along the capitalist
lines (quoted in Walicki, 1969, p. 121)
For the Narodniks, furthermore,
backwardness provided an
advantage in that the technological benefits of modern capitalism could
be used, while its structure rejected (Sutcliffe, 1974a, p. 182).
For these reasons then, for the Narodniks it was not unly possible but
economically imperative to escape from the capitalist stage and move directly towards
socialism. This same position will be found, as we shall see, in the 1960s in Latin
America in the writings of one group of dependency writers.
In the last decade of the 19th century, along with the first industrial
strikes in Russia, there appeared a number of Marxist groups, while the Narodniks, caught
in the blind alley of terrorism, were beginning to lose influence. One of these was the
'League of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class', which appeared in Petrograd
in 1895; among its members was a disciple of Plekhanov, who wrote successively under the
pseudonyms of 'Petrov', 'Frei' and 'Lenin', the latter after 1902. The young Lenin entered
vigorously into the debate with the Narodniks, writing his major contribution towards it,
the Development of Capitalism in Russia, between 1896 and 1899.
Lenin agreed with the Narodniks only in one respect: that
capitalism was a brutalizing and degrading economic system. Nevertheless, like Marx, he
distinguished clearly between this aspect of capitalism and the historical role which it
played in Russia:
Recognition of the
progressiveness of capitalism is quite cumpatible...with the full recognition of its
negative and dark sides..., with the full recognition of the profound and all around
social contradictions which are inevitably inherent in capitalism, and which reveal the
historically transient nature of this economic regime. It is the
892 |
Narodniks who exert every effort to show that an admission of the
historically progressive nature of capitalism means an apology for capitalism... The
progresssive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions:
increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialization of that labour
(1899, pp. 602-603). (The emphasis is mine)
Their differences were not only at the theoretical level however; for Lenin
the Narodniks were in error over basic matters of fact. Lenin shows, after a long and
detailed study of the labour market in Russia, that capitalism was already developing
rapidly, and that it should already be considered as essentially a capitalist country,
although
very backward as compared
with other capitalist countries in her economic development (1899, p. 507).
Furthermore, regarding the 'obstacles' to the development
of capitalism in Russia identified by the Narodniks, such as unemployment and
underemployment, he states that these are the characteristics of capitalist
development, and that the Narodniks are guilty of transforming
the the basic conditions for
the development of capitalism into proof that capitalism is impossible (1899, pp.589-590).
For Lenin what was indispensable was the profound study of why the
development of capitalism in Russia, while rapid in relation to development in the
pre-capitalist period, was slow in comparison to the development of other capitalist
nations. It is in his approach to this question that, in my opinion, we find his most
important contribution to the study of the development of capitalism in backward nations.
His analysis of the slowness of capitalist development in Russia ( which
some dependency writers would still insist on describing as 'the development of
Russian underdevelopment') has three interrelated themes:
(i) the weakness of the
Russian bourgeoisie as an agent for the furthering of capitalist development;
(ii) the effect of competition from Western Europe in slowing the growth
of modern industry in Russia; and
(iii) the great and unexpected capacity for survival of the traditional
structures of Russian society.
Regarding the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie, Lenin was
taking up a theme already discussed by the Russian left.(29) The interesting feature of his analysis is
that he relates this weakness to the ambiguous role |
played by foreign capital (from Western
Europe) in the development of Russian capitalism. On the one hand it accelerates the
process of industrialization, while on the other it lies behind the weak and dependent
nature of the small Russian bourgeoisie.
In what he says in relation to the second factor which explains
the slower pace of Russian capitalist development, Lenin stresses that as Russia was
industrializing 'late', the development of its modern industry had
to compete not only with the production of traditional artesanal industry (as
the first countries to industrialize had had to do) but also with the far more efficient
industrial production of advanced countries within the capitalist system.
Finally, Lenin places great emphasis and explanatory value upon
the great capacity for survival of traditional structures in Russia:
In no single capitalist
country has there been such an abundant survival of ancient institutions that are
incompatible with capitalism, producers who [quoting Marx] 'suffer not only from the
development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that
development' (1899, p. 607).
An important aspect of Lenin's analysis of the survival of
traditionai structures (and one that is particularly relevant to the present situation in
Latin America) is his treatment of the interconnections which develop between the
different modes of production which existed in Russia:
the facts utterly
refute the view widespread here in Russia that 'factory' and 'handicraft' industry are
isolated from one another. On the contrary, such a division is purely artificial (1899, p.
547).
Lenin's view of capitalist development in Russia can be summarized
as follows:
(i) in conformity with
the central tradition of classical Marxist analysis he sees it as politically necessary
and economically feasible;
(ii) through a concrete analysis he shows that its development is
fully underway;
(iii) the development of capitalism in backward nations is seen
for the first time not simply as a process of destruction and replacement of
pre-capitalist structures, but as a more complex process of interplay between internal and
external structures; in this interplay, the traditional structures play an important role,
and their replacement will be slower and more difficult than previously supposed; and
(iv) despite the complexity of Russian capi-
893 |
talist development, both it and the bourgeois revolution which would
accompany it would eventually develop and become relatively similar to that of
Western Europe. (The development of capitalism in Russia would therefore be a kind
of 'slow-motion replay' of the same development in Western Europe.)
I shall now go on to examine thc relationship between this analysis of Russian
capitalism and Lenin's theory of imperialism.
f. The later development of Lenin's
thought
regarding the development of capitalism in
backward nations
The two historical events which had a profound influence upon the future
development of Lenin's thought in all its aspects were the revolution of 1905 and the
collapse of the Second International. If the second of these showed that it was by no
means clear that the development of capitalism led necessarily and 'inevitably' to
socialism, the first had shown the concrete possibility of interrupting capitalist
development, avoiding its potential risks, and transferring to the proletariat the task of
completing the democratic-bourgeois revolution.
The collapse of the Second International showed that as it developed,
capitalism also created an unforeseen capacity to assimilate important sectors of the
proletariat, and that therefore the development of its internal contradictions would take
a more complex path than had hitherto been realized.
Marx had emphasized that capitalist development was condemned by its own
nature to resolve its difficulties and contradictions through transformations which would
necessarily lead to the creation of others even greater. Nevertheless, there seemed to be
one aspect of capitalist development which at least in the medium term was acting in the
opposite direction: rising real wages. These, essentially a result of the organization and
struggle of the working class, played a crucial role in the development of capitalism,
both from the point of view of its political stability, and of the increase in effective
demand, So essential for the realization of surplus value.
In explaining both this capacity of capitalism to increase real wages much
more than had been foreseen, and the political effect which it had upon the working class
in the advanced capitalist countries, Lenin placed great emphasis upon the 'superprofits
of im- |
imperialist exploitation' (1916, p.
9). Not long afterwards, Henry Ford, following the analysis already proposed by Hobson (
1902, 1911 ), stated:
If we can distribute high
wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and
distributors and manufacturers in other lines more prosperous and this prosperity will be
ref1ected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity (1922, p.
124).
Kalecki (1933, 1934, 1935) and Keynes ( 1936) would later incorporate
this insight into a new theoretical conceptualization of the development of capitalism; 2
years later, Harold Macmillan would refer as follows to the enormous political importance
of extending to the working class some of the material benefits of capitalist development:
Democracy can live only so
long as it is able to cope satisfactorily with the problems of social life. While it is
able to deal with these problems, and secure for its people the satisfaction of their
reasonable demands, it will retain the vigorous support sufficient for its defence (1938,
p. 375; quoted in Kay, 1975,p. 174).
In this context it is important to recall that although Marx's
expectations regarding the standard of living of the working class under capitalism are
not entirely clear (see note 9), it seems evident that he did not expect an increase of
the magnitude which eventually ocurred. It emerged later that capitalism was going to
provide rising real wages at a rate relatively similar to the rhythm of its
development but only after a considerable 'time-lag' (Sec Hicks, 1969, pp. 148-159). In
1923, in what would be his last article, Lenin wrote:
but the Western European
countries are not completing this development [towards socialism] as we previously
expected they would. They are completing it not through a steady 'maturing' of socialism,
but through the exploitation of some states by others (quoted in Foster-Carter, 1974, p.
67).
The train of history was not going to drop its passengers off at the
station of their choice, socialism, unless they took charge of it at an earlier stage. The
contribution of the events of 1905 in Russia was precisely that it showed that it was
possible, though by no means necessarily economically feasible.
From 1905 onwards, first in Trotsky and Parvus and latter in Lenin,
there began a change of position regarding the necessity of continuing with capitalist
development. As we saw earlier (pp. 887), Marx had stated that no social order would
disappear before having
894 |
developed all the
productive forces it could contain, and that higher relationships of production would not
appear until the old order had run its full course. The events of 1905 showed both the
limitations of the development of capitalism in Russia and the concrete possibility
of interrupting it, transferring to the proletariat the task of completing the
democratic-bourgeois revolution. Nevertheless, Engels had argued (see p. 891) that for
this to happen there would have to be a revolution in Western Europe. Russia could play
the role of the weakest link in the capitalist chain, and with the help of more
developed socialist societies could follow the path towards socialism more rapidly.
Therefore the socialist revolution could begin in a country such as Russia, but it could
not be completed there.(30)
However, the events of 1905 did not only show Lenin and the Bolsheviks
the path to follow; they also showed Nicolas II and his brilliant Minister, Stolypin, the
need to embark upon a rapid process of social, economic and political restructuring if
revolution was to be avoided. Of the transformations which they initiated Lenin
said:
our reactionaries are
distinguished by the extreme clarity of their class consciousness. They know very well
what they want, where they are going, and on what forces they can count (quoted in
Conquest, 1972, p. 61).
By this time Lenin's attitude towards the necessity for capitalist
development was different than it had been in 1899. Should the policies of Stolypin
succeed, and Russia enter definitively onto the capitalist path, the revolution would have
to be postponed for a long time. As early as 1908 Lenin saw the dangers of
Stolypin's policies:
the Stolypin constitution and
the Stolypin agrarian policy mark a new phase in the breakdown of the old
semi-patriarchal and semi-feudal system of Tsarism, a new movement towards its
transformation into a middle-class monarchy ...It would be empty and stupid democratic
(sic) phrase- mongering to say that the success of such a policy is 'impossible' in Russia
..It is possible! If Sto1ypin's policy continues. Russia's agrarian structure will
become completely bourgeois (quoted in Laclau, 1972, p. 69, my translation).
The events of the subsequent period, which ended with the assumption of
power by thc Bolsheviks in October 1917, are the subject of one of the great
controversies of modern history. On the one hand the policies initiated by Stolypin showed
clearly that Lenin's analysis of the potential of capitalist development was correct;
during that period Russia enjoyed |
a considerable industria1 boom; and by 1917
the peasants were owners of more than three-quarters of Russian farmland, Perhaps it was
factors such as these which led Lenin to conclude a lecture given in Zurich on 9 January
1917, only months before he was to come to power, with the words
we of the old generation will
perhaps not live to see the decisive battles of our own revolution (1917, p.158, my
translation).(31)
But on the other hand it was precisely that industrial boom which strengthened the left in
general and the Bolsheviks in particular. As the Mensheviks exercised political control
over the older proletariat, the Bolsheviks needed a new proletariat to strengthen them;
the industria1 boom supplied them with it.
This already lengthy analysis can be pursued no further here. I have tried to
extract from it its most important contributions to the debate which would later develop
concerning the development of capitalism in other backward nations,
Russia then had a series of characteristics in common with countries
which would later attempt capitalist development, such as those related to 'late'
industrialization, and to the leading role played by foreign capitalism and technology,
and those linked to the emergence of a socia1 class structure somewhat different from that
resulting from capitalist development in Western Europe, and more complex in its
composition, with a relatively weak and dependent bourgeoisie, a sma11 but strong
proletariat, and a relatively large 'sub-proletariat' which is its potential al1y.(32)
Equally however, there are also significant differences: Russia was never the
colony of a Western European power; late industrialization is not a1ways the same if it
occurs at differente stages of development of the world capitalist system; and as Lenin
demonstrates brilliantly for the Russian case, the particular features of the development
of capitalism in any backward region will depend significantly on the characteristics of
the pre-capitalist mode of production. In the case of Latin America for example, if there
were countries [such as Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina] which were attempting to
industrialize in the same period as industrialization was taking place in Russia, the
social formations of those countries, inherited from Portuguese and Spanish colonization,
were very different to those of Russia itself. In any case, if it is clear that the
analyses of Lenin and his contemporaries cannot be applied mechanically to the development
of capitalism in other
895 |
periods and in other backward
regions of the world, it remains true that in Lenin's analysis especially we find the
essential road to follow; this is the study of the concrete forms of articulation between
the capitalist sectors of the backward nations and the advanced nations in the system, and
of the concrete forms taken by the subordination of pre-capitalist forms of production to
the former, and to the rest of the system. It is essentially the study of the dynamic of
the backward nations as a synthesis of the general determinants of the capitalist system
(external factors) and the specific determinants of each (internal factors).
But if neither Lenin, Bukharin nor Luxemburg studied the concrete
development of capitalism in other backward regions of the world, it is possible to derive
from their analyses of imperialism the 'general determinants of the capitalist system' or
the 'external factors' as they are generally labelled, which those regions will confront
in their attempts to pursue capitalist development. These are essentially the driving
forces which impelled the advanced capitalist countries towards the domination and control
of the backward regions of the world; the specific determinants, or 'internal factors' as
they are generally called, will depend upon the characteristics of the particular backward
societies.
The driving forces behind the economic expansion of the advanced capitalist
countries are identified, with differences of emphasis in each analysis, in the financial
and in the productive spheres. The two are intimately connected, and are the result of a
single process of transformation in the advanced capitalist countries. The financial
driving forces are related to the need to find new opportunities for investment, due to
the fact that their own economies are incapable of generating them at the same rate as
they generate capital; those of the productive sphere are related to the necessity of
ensuring a supply of raw materials, and continued markets for manufactured products. Thus
it is that Bukharin and Preobrazhenzky define imperialism as:
the policy of conquest which
financial capital pursues in the struggle for markets, for the sources of raw material,
and for places in which capital can be invested (1919, p. 155).
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