Lenin's Economics

Research in Political Economy
Emerald Book Chapter: Lenin's Economics: A Marxian Critique

Seongjin Jeong
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To cite this document: Seongjin Jeong, (2011),"Lenin's Economics: A Marxian Critique", Paul Zarembka, Radhika Desai, in (ed.)
Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today's Capitalism (Research in Political Economy, Volume 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited,
pp. 223 - 254
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LENINS ECONOMICS: A MARXIAN
CRITIQUE
$
Seongjin Jeong
ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts an evaluation of Lenins economic thoughts from a
Marxian standpoint. This chapter argues that Lenins reading of Marxs
Capital in Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) was biased
toward Ricardian or logico-historicist interpretation of value, dispropor-
tionality theory of crisis as well as economic determinism, characteristic
of the Second International Marxism. While admitting that Lenin
overcame economic determinism and reformist politics of the Second
International Marxism in his Imperialism (1917), this chapter shows
that some essential elements, such as thesis of progressiveness of
capitalism, stagiest or typologist conceptions of capitalism, still persisted
within and after Imperialism. Moreover, this chapter argues that Lenins
Imperialism cannot be considered as a successful concretization of three
latter parts of Marxs plan of critique of political economy in Grundrisse
(1857), that is, State (Part 4), Foreign Trade (Part 5), and World
Market Crisis (Part 6). This chapter also argues that the ambivalence of
Lenins economic thoughts and incomplete break with the Second
International Marxism unexpectedly led to Stalinist thesis of state
$
This chapter is a revised version of Jeong (2004).
Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Todays Capitalism
Research in Political Economy, Volume 27, 223254
Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-7230(2011)0000027010
223
monopoly capitalism, market socialist ideas, and reformist conception of
varieties of capitalisms.
This chapter discusses Lenins contribution to the development of Marxist
economics, focusing on the evolution of his economic thoughts on Russian
capitalism, imperialism and socialism. This chapter highlights and demon-
strates the discontinuity and unevenness in the evolution of Lenins economic
thoughts, especially by comparing two representative economics works by
Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Lenin, 1899a) (henceforth
DCR) and Imperialism (Lenin, 1916). This chapter argues that DCRs
interpretation of Marxs Capital contains Ricardian or logico-historicist bias,
and nds Lenins contribution to the development of Marxian critique of
political economy in Imperialism and not in DCR. This chapter locates
Imperialisms break with mechanical materialism and economic determinism
of the Second International Marxism shared by DCR. This chapter also
interprets that the evolution of Lenins economic thoughts from DCR to
Imperialism, including theories of two paths, military-feudal imperial-
ism, and capitalist state, and so on, is the process of self-criticism of DCR,
pressured by the intensication of class struggle in Russia.
Contrary to Nove (1979), Warren (1980), and Desai (2002), who highly
esteem economic works of young Lenin, especially DCR, while discounting
Imperialism as a retreat from it,
1
this chapter argues that Imperialism
signicantly advances Marxian critique of political economy with its break
with the Second International Marxism. As some commentators noted, re-
reading Hegels Logic was crucial in Lenins break with the Second
International Marxism and return to classical Marxism.
2
Also, after the
break, the quintessence of Lenins thoughts, represented by April Thesis
(1917) and State and Revolution(1917), was crystallized in the midst of
revolutionary madness, as Z
iz ek (2002) indicated.
3
However, this chapter argues that Lenins break with the Second
International Marxism was not complete, and that some of its elements
persisted in Imperialism and even resurfaced during the period of New
Economic Policy (NEP) when the revolutionary utopian madness
receded. Finally, this chapter argues that remnants of the Second
International Marxism in Lenins economic thoughts have been used to
justify Stalinist stagism or social-reformist typology of capitalism, such as
opposition between Anglo-American capitalism vs. Rhein capitalism in
the Korean progressives.
4
SEONGJIN JEONG 224
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM
IN RUSSIA (1899)
Lenins DCR is a major work synthesizing young Lenins study on Marxs
Capital and his empirical research on contemporary Russian agrarian
history. After DCR, Lenin did not write a comparable economics work in
terms of length, depth and system until Imperialism. DCR is widely regarded
as one of the most important contributions to the development of Marxist
economics, especially in its model application of Marxs Capital in empirical
analysis.
5
Lenins purpose in DCR was to demonstrate the actuality of capitalist
development in Russia against Narodniks. Lenin wrote DCR largely to
contest Narodnik claims that capitalism could not develop in Russia. Lenin
proved the possibility of capitalist development in Russia through his theory
of market and evidenced the actuality through a painstaking plumbing of
Zemstvo statistics on peasant differentiation. In DCR, Lenin constructed a
model of three peasant classes rich, middle and poor peasants with the
eventual polarization of middle peasants into rich and poor peasants. For
Lenin differentiation of the peasantry y was intrinsic and central to the
development of capitalism and the class dynamics of its law of motion
theorized, with unique power, by Marx (Bernstein, 2009, p. 61).
However, DCR contains more than a few theoretical, empirical and
political problems that have seldom been discussed in the existing literature.
I think the difculty of DCR stems from the fact that it was based on Lenins
theory of market, originally formulated in his On the So-called Market
Question (1893). Even though Lenins theory of market was conceived
to provide a theoretical solution to the problem of market creation during
the transition from the pre-capitalist economy to the capitalist market
economy, DCR tried to apply it in explaining the actual development of the
Russian capitalism. As Howard and King indicated, Lenins mistakes were
more serious than those of Plekhanov since he identied capitalist
development with the development of the market (Howard & King,
1989: 178).
DCR views the relation between the capitalist and pre-capitalist relations
as antagonistic rather than interdependent. The remaining pre-capitalist
social relations in post-emancipation Russia, especially the labor-service
system and Tsar, were regarded to be hindrances to capitalist development
and were fated to go as the capitalist development took place. DCR regards
Tsar as the representative of the landlords based on the labor-service system,
Lenins Economics: A Marxian Critique 225
anti-democratic politically and anti-capitalist economically. DCR tends to
view the Russian capitalism as essentially homogeneous with the Western
capitalism, different from the latter only in the developmental level. DCR
also tends to view the capitalist development from the standpoint of a
closed system, that is, capitalism in one country, and explains the
specicity of the society mainly in terms of the extent that the capitalist
development expelled the pre-capitalist relations.
DCR assumed that the main contradiction of the post-emancipation
Russia lay between the social forces that pursued progress of political
democracy and capitalism (bourgeoisie peasants proletariat) and the
forces that hindered them (Tsar landlords) based on the labor-service
system (Ota, 1989). Lenins revolutionary strategies during the period of
DCR were basically to eliminate these hindrances to the capitalist
development. However, the landlord system in post-emancipation Russia
was intimately linked to the capitalist reproduction structure. Also, Tsar
promoted, rather than prevented, the capitalist development in Russia.
Lenin assumed that the democratic political institutions would develop
while the pre-capitalist relations would disappear with the capitalist
development. Lenin could not understand the specicity of the Russian
capitalism articulated with the despotic state and landlords.
Apart from the above methodological problems, DCR contains the following
limitations. DCR tells little about what existed in Russian country before
emancipation. FromDCR, it is difcult tograspwhat newdevelopment occurred
after emancipation. DCRalso analyzes little about the structure and dynamics of
the mir, Russian village communities, after the Emancipation in 1861. As White
states, from reading Lenins book one would never guess that most Russian
peasants continued to live in village communities (White, 2001, p. 43). Lenin
regarded the differentiation of peasants as the prima facie evidence of the
capitalist development, and argued that he evidenced it in Russia. However,
according to recent historical studies, many Russian village communities still
showed vitality without differentiating themselves into antagonistic classes
during the 1917 revolution, about 20 years after DCR was written. As Bernstein
indicated, Whether Lenin got the trend of peasant differentiation right fromthe
zemstvo statistics he drew on was, of course, contested by his Narodnik
opponents and by Chayanov yas well as questioned by later scholars (e.g.,
anddifferent positions, Banaji yKingston-MannyLehmanny) (Bernstein,
2009, p. 59). For example, as much as 43 percent of the total arable land was
under the control of village communities in 1892 (Zarembka, 2003, p. 285).
Howard and King also noted that both Lenins theoretical perspective and his
reconstruction of empirical data incorrectly specied at least part of the observed
SEONGJIN JEONG 226
inequalities in the village. The peasantry was more homogeneous than he
realized (Howard & King, 1989, p. 179).
Moreover, the problematique of DCR is excessively domestic, and is
limited to a single-country perspective. DCR exclusively focuses on the
domestic economic development, paying no attention to the issue of foreign
capitals. As White indicated, in the whole lengthy work only two sentences
refer to foreign capital (White, 2001, p. 43). As a result, DCR ignores one
of the main resources of the Russian capitalist development. It also means
that DCR underestimated the development of modern machinery industries,
for they are mostly built on foreign capital. In contrast to Lenin who tended
to overplay the development of the agrarian capitalism based on the peasant
differentiation while underestimating the industrial capitalism in urban
factories, Tugan-Baranovsky, whose theoretical position Lenin largely
shared with, explained the capitalist development mainly in terms of the
factory, industry and the state role in his Russian Factory in the Nineteenth
Century (1898).
6
Even Vasily Vorontsov, a Naronik economist, emphasized
the crucial role of foreign capital and the state in the capitalist development
in Russia in his The Destiny of Capitalism in Russia (1882). Trotskys
explanation of the capitalist development in Russia in terms of uneven and
combined development in his Results and Prospects (1905) is not so thick in
its empirics as DCR but is more pertinent in its methodology than
DCR. Trotsky emphasized the role of the state as well as the uneven and
combined characteristics of the capitalist development in Russia. Trotsky
argued that the state-led industrialization was characteristic of the
development of capitalism in Russia. Trotsky wrote that capitalism
seemed to be an offspring of the state (Trotsky, 1905, p. 41) in Russia.
While Lenin studied the development of capitalism in Russia from a closed
single-country perspective and focused on peasant differentiation and
agrarian capitalism, Trotsky viewed the Russian capitalism from an
internationalist perspective, emphasizing the roles of foreign capital and
state as well as urban industrial capitalism. Trotsky especially focused on
the concentration of the working class in urban areas and the combination
of weak domestic bourgeoisie, Tsar and foreign capitals in his pamphlet,
1905 (Trotsky, 1909, pp. 2023).
DCR also shows no understanding of the crucial roles played by the
Russian despotic power in the capitalist development since the Emancipa-
tion of 1861. The market theoretic forced Lenin to regard capitalism as
diametrically opposed to pre-capitalist relations, and led him to predict the
disappearance of pre-capitalist relations with the development of capitalism
in DCR.
Before the 1905 revolution, Lenins agrarian program was limited to the
restoration of cut-off lands from the landlords.
7
Lenins attack on the
landlord class was not offensive but defensive. In The Agarian Programme
of Russian Social Democracy, published in 1902, Lenin advocated for the
restitution of cut-off lands, arguing that they functioned as bases to sustain
the serfdom labor.
8
The reason why Lenin limited his attack on the landlord
class only to the cut-off lands was because he thought that the rest of the
lands except the cut-off lands were farmed in a bourgeois, not a feudal,
method. According to Lenin, the target of the coming revolution should be
the elimination of the hindrances to the capitalist development. So, the
attack on the bourgeoisie, including capitalist landlords, must be avoided.
Also, the conventional wisdom that Lenins DCR is the Marxist factual
critique of non-Marxist Narodnik analysis of the Russian economy should
be questioned. Indeed, unlike early Lenin, late Marx studied the Russian
village communities very seriously. Late Marx did not view the peasant
differentiation as the central index of the capitalist development. As is
shown in The Third Draft of the Letter to Vera Zasulich (Marx, 1881b),
late Marx was sympathetic with the Naroniks who projected a direct
transition to socialism based on the village communities.
LENINS PROBLEMATIC READING OF MARXS
CAPITAL IN DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM
IN RUSSIA
Many Marxists regard Lenins DCR as an epochal achievement not only in
the area of Marxist historiography but also in Marxist economics.
Especially, the theory of market and the law of uneven development of
the Department I are alleged to successfully resolve the contemporary
Marxist debates on the reproduction and crisis of capitalism. However, this
paper disagrees with this assessment. Apart from the aphorism-style remark
that a denite condition of consumption is one of the elements of
proportionality (Lenin, 1899b, pp. 5859),
9
it is hard to nd in DCR any
original contribution to the development of Marxs theory of reproduction
and crisis. There is no ground for Stalinist economists
10
to present Lenins
remarks above as a creative dialectical resolution of the opposition between
the underconsumptionism of Narodniks and the disproportionality of
Legal Marxists. Indeed, Lenins remark that a denite condition of
consumption is one of the elements of proportionality seems to confuse the
SEONGJIN JEONG 228
theory of reproduction with the theory of accumulation in Marx, for Marx
thought the contradiction between production and consumption was not
just one department of the whole of capitalist development, as
Lenin(1897, p. 168) argued but believed it to be an intrinsic feature of the
capitalist production as a whole.
When Lenin reduced the issue of crisis due to the realization problem to
the issue of disproportionality and substituted the theory of reproduction
scheme for the theory of crisis, he misunderstood Marxian system of critique
of political economy. As a result, Lenin accepted Otto Bauers critique of
Rosa Luxemburg and rejected her main theme in Accumulation of Capital.
11
Also, Lenins scheme of expanded reproduction with the rising organic
composition of capital, constructed for critiquing Rosa Luxemburg, gives
the wrong impression that the technical change can proceed harmoniously
in the capitalist economy.
Moreover, the alleged difference in the theory of realization between
Lenin and other Legal Marxists, such as Tugan-Baranovsky, Bulgakov,
Struve, and so on, is not so signicant (Zarembka, 2000, p. 204).
12
As
Rosdolsky indicated, (i)t is evident that Lenins postulate, according to
which the relation of production and consumption is to be subsumed under
the concept of proportionality, brings him uncomfortably close to
Bulgakovs and Tugans disproportionality theory of crises(Rosdolsky,
1977, p. 479).
Compared to Marxs Capital Volume 2, Lenin underplays the
signicance of Capital Volume 3, especially Part 3 on the tendency of
the rate of prot to fall.
13
Lenin only partially understood Marxs concept
of capital accumulation, in that it absolutized the aspect of productive
forces while minimizing the aspects of class and relations of production
(Zarembka, 2000, p. 185).
14
Even in 1915, Lenin still tended to conceive
capital accumulation as an expansion of production rather than as an
expansion of class relations.
15
Indeed, Lenin retreated to the Ricardian economics of production
when he asserted that expansion of capitalist production creates its own
market and that the demand for consumer goods is a derived demand, Lenin
is clearly highlighting the capitalist as organizer of production a` la Ricardo
(Zarembka, 2003, pp. 288289). While Marx did not attempt any systematic
critic of Sismondi in his Theories of Surplus Value, Lenin regarded and
denounced Sismondi as the originator of Narodnik economics. Indeed,
Lenin devoted a treatise of over 100 pages, A Characterization of
Economic Romanticism (1897), to criticize petit bourgeois economist
Sismondi. In contrast, Lenin hardly criticized Ricardo.
Lenin equated market or the commodity production in general with
capitalism and saw the rise of capitalism in the development of market
relation in his On the So-Called Market Question (1893). Moreover, Lenin
underplays the question of coercion in market creation, while highlighting
the possible role of technical change (Zarembka, 2003, p. 284). When
Lenin believed that the pre-capitalist economy could naturally transform
itself into capitalism through the operation of market forces, he echoed
Adam Smith rather than Marx who had emphasized the necessity of extra-
economic coercion during the process of primitive accumulation of capital.
Indeed, Lenin paid little attention to the coercion and forces accompanied
by the creation of the commodity production, and argued that (t)he
dimensions of the market are inseparably connected with the degree of
specialization of social labor ythis specialization, by its very nature is as
innite as technical developments (Lenin, 1893, p. 100).
Moreover, Lenin provided the orthodox ground to the logico-historicist
understanding of Marxs Capital commonly shared by the Second Interna-
tional Marxism and Stalinism. It is obvious that Lenin tended to the logico-
historicist understanding of Marxs Capital. For example, Lenin argued as
follows: An investigation into the relations of production in a given,
historically dened society, in their inception, development, and decline
such is the content of Marxs economic doctrine (Lenin, 1914b, p. 59).
The logico-historicism reduces Marxs law of value to law of exchange
that has functioned since the ancient times, which historically transformed
into the law of production prices with the rise of the capitalism. The logico-
historicism was originally formulated by Hilferding to resolve the so-called
internal contradiction between Marxs Capital Volume 1 and Volume 3
(transformation problem) by delimiting the historical spans of the law of
value and law of production prices to the simple commodity production and
capitalism respectively. However, the logico-historicism paradoxically led to
negate the crucial thesis of Marx, i.e., the actuality of the law of value in
capitalism, despite the intent to defend Marxs theory. Indeed, the logico-
historicism gave rise to Stalins economics, which schematically differentiate
the law of value, the law of surplus value, and the law of monopoly prots
and mechanically matches their spans of operation to the successive stages
of capitalist development, i.e., simple commodity production, competitive
capitalism, and monopoly capitalism.
16
The logico-historicism culminates in
Stalins assertion that the law of value operates even in the socialist
economy, for it is alleged to be not specic to capitalism. In short, the
logico-historicism serves to justify the existence of the commodity
production and law of value in Communist regimes in the name of Marx.
SEONGJIN JEONG 230
Lenin also had difculty in recognizing the signicances of the categories
of value-form or commodity fetishism. In this respect, Lenin belonged to the
most Marxist or Neo-Ricardian economists who could not understand the
organic unity of the quantitative and qualitative aspect of value. Like
Bernstein, Kautsky, Hilferding, or Luxemburg, Lenin did not view the
categories of value-form and commodity fetishism as central to the Marxian
theory of value.
Considering above evidences, it would not be an exaggeration to argue
that Lenins text [DCR], contrary to casual remarks that it represents an
application of the theory of Marxs Capital to Russian conditions, is in fact
a radically unorthodox work which abandons many of the supposed central
ideas of Marxism.yLenin does not use value categories in his account of
the development of capitalist relations in Russia (Hussain & Tribe, 1982,
pp. 202203).
It is true that Lenin secured the methodological basis to overcome the
logico-historicist and Neo-Ricardian economism during 19141915, as is
evidenced in his Philosophical Notebooks. Indeed, unlike the theory of
reection of Materialism and Empirico Criticism, Philosophical Notebooks
underlines the discrepancy between the essence and phenomenal form,
17
which shows that Lenin began to recognize the signicance of the categories
of value-form and commodity fetishism. Unfortunately, the occurrence of
the Russian revolution in 1917 deprived from Lenin the time to draw the full
implications of the insight and self-criticize his previous logico-historicist
and Neo-Ricardian approach to Marxian critique of political economy.
FROM TWO PATHS TO MILITARY-FEUDAL
IMPERIALISM AND BOURGEOIS STATE
Two Paths: 19051914
Lenin viewed the relation between the capitalist and pre-capitalist relations as
confrontational rather than codependent in DCR. Because of this, Lenin was
not able to grasp the explosiveness of peasant struggles against landlords
before the 1905 revolution. Indeed, Lenins program of restoration of cut-off
lands could not catch up the actual development of peasants uprisings during
the 1905 revolution. After witnessing that peasants took over not only the
cut-off lands but also landed property in toto during the revolution, Lenin
came to advocate conscation of all landed property instead of restoring just
the cut-off lands. During the rst Russian revolution of 19051907, Lenin
recognized the persistence of the landlord system despite the development of
capitalism. He also came to realize that the main subject of the capitalist
development was the Tsar, whom he had regarded only as a representative of
landlord classes. Using these insights, Lenin gave a higher assessment of the
peasants revolutionary capacity, while discounting that of the bourgeoisie in
his Two Tactics (1905). Now Lenin came to envisage the power for proletariat
and peasants from the standpoint of a class confrontation between
Tsar landlordbourgeoisie vs. proletariat peasants, instead of the
previous one between Tsar landlord vs. proletariat peasants
bourgeoisie, (Ota, 1989). Lenins new thinking came to be concretized as
the theory of Two Paths in his The Agrarian Programme of Social-
Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 19051907 (Lenin, 1907).
18
Lenins theory of Two Paths is a concrete analysis of the Russian social
structure as a whole, not a hypothetical simulation like his theory of
market. Lenin viewed the articulation of the landlords and Tsar with the
capitalist development in Russia as a Prussian path for bourgeois agrarian
evolution, while characterizing the conicting peasants development as an
American path for bourgeois agrarian evolution (Lenin, 1907, pp. 238
242). Lenin assumed that the Two Paths competed in the industry as well as
agriculture. He also thought that the essential confrontation in the
contemporary Russian society was between the Prussian path promoted
by Tsar landlord bourgeoisie and American path pursued by
proletariat peasants (Ota, 1989). Now the Tsar regime and landlords
were regarded as economically progressive despite their anti-democratic
attitudes, for they were the promoters of capitalist development. In other
words, the main struggle was nowviewed to reside between the two paths, and
not between promoters for progress and its antagonists.
Between the Two Paths, Lenin supported the American path as an
alternative to the Prussian path that Russia had followed, viewing the
former far more progressive solution for the agrarian question than the
latter.
19
Between the Two Paths, Lenin sided with the American path
and argued for the overthrow of the Prussian path. For Lenin, the
American path was, in every respect, preferable; and he hoped for a variant of
it in the pre-Revolution Russia in which, he argued, capitalism was
developing in the countryside (Byres, 1996, p. 30). To achieve this, Lenin
advocated land nationalization instead of restoration of cut-off lands.
Lenin viewed land nationalization and abolition of landlord system as
preconditions for the American path. Lenin regarded land nationalization
as a bourgeois agrarian program, which facilitated the capitalist development
SEONGJIN JEONG 232
by abolishing absolute rent.
20
For Lenin, land nationalization program was
never the maximum socialist program, but compatible with the rst-stage
revolution, the anti-feudal democratic revolution. In this respect, Lenins
theory of the Two Paths still corresponded to and supported the two-stage
revolutionary strategy.
However, the theory of Two Paths contains following weaknesses. It
exaggerates the contrast between two paths, while underplaying their
similarities.
21
Lenin sometimes idealizes the American path as the free
economy of the free farmer working on free land free fromall medieval fetters,
from serfdom and feudalism (Lenin, 1908a, p. 140), neglecting that it was
secured by the bloody expropriation of native Indians. Indeed, the existence of
the slavery in the American South shows that the American path was
inseparable from the Prussian path (Byres, 1996). Also, as Chang (2002)
indicated, the main promoter of capitalist development in the American
path was the American developmental state as well. In other words, Two
Paths, or capitalism from below and capitalism from above were his-
torically intermingled rather than diametrically counterposed. As a result, like
DCR, the theory of Two Paths could not conceptualize the specicity of the
Russian capitalist development, especially its specic reproduction structure,
including the Tsar and the landownership as its essential components. The
theory of Two Paths failed to overcome the limitation of DCR, which
regarded the existence of anti-democratic regime as an underdevelopment of
capitalism. In the theory of Two Paths, Lenin assumed that capitalism
developed hand in hand with democracy. Lenin could not imagine that the
despotic regime could promote the capitalist industrialization in late deve-
lopers. Therefore, the theory of Two Paths conceived the task for political
democracy as relevant only for the early period of capitalist development.
The theory of Two Paths also had difculty in explaining the rise of
militant labor movements, for it tried to nd the background of the
explosion of peasant struggles in the underdevelopment of capitalism in
Russia. In this respect, the theory of Two Paths conicts with the thesis of
revolutionary democratic dictatorship by proletariat and peasants
advocated by Lenin in the 1905 revolution.
Military-Feudal Imperialism: 19141917
After WWI began, Lenin argued that the military-feudal imperialism co-
existed with capitalist (bourgeois) imperialism in Russia. Lenin now came
to view the post-Emancipation Russia not as a pre-capitalist society but
capitalismwhere two roads to imperialism competed with each other. It was a
big change from the theory of Two Paths, which considered the peasant
movements as progressive forces for American path against the Prussian
path for capitalism that was intermingled with the Tsar and landowners.
Now, Tsarism and the landlord system were no longer viewed as obstacles to
the capitalist development but as an essential part of capitalism which had
already advanced to the stage of imperialism. Lenin also began to characterize
peasant movements against the Tsarism and landlords as bourgeois. Lenin
found main characteristics of post-WWI Russia in the coexistence of
military-feudal imperialism with capitalist (bourgeois) imperialism. For
example, Lenin wrote in The Collapse of the Second International as
follows: In Russia, as is common knowledge, capitalist imperialismis weaker
than military-feudal imperialism is (Lenin, 1915a, p. 228).
Lenins new thesis of military-feudal imperialism admitted that the
development of capitalism in Russia advanced to as far as capitalist
imperialism, monopoly capitalism, or state-monopoly capitalism, while
still containing substantial pre-modern backwardness compared to Western
imperialisms. In other words, Lenins thesis of military-feudal imperial-
ism overrode his previous thesis that viewed contemporary Russia basically
as a pre-capitalist society.
Unlike DCR, the Tsar and big landowners were no longer viewed as
hindrances to the capitalist development. Now, they were seen as coexisting
with capitalist imperialism, rather than obstructing and being crowded out
by capitalist development. Unlike the thesis of Two Paths that had dif-
culty in explaining the rising militant labor movements for it perceived the
contemporary Russia as basically a pre-capitalist society, Lenins new thesis
of military-feudal imperialism succeeded to nd grounds for conuence of
revolutionary peasant movements and labor movements in the coexistence
of two kinds of imperialisms: the old military-feudal imperialism with the
new capitalist imperialism or bourgeois imperialism.
22
However, the frame of Two Paths still persisted in the thesis of
military-feudal imperialism, for its strategic implication was to liberate
bourgeois Russia from military-feudal imperialism.
23
Moreover, the
thesis of military-feudal imperialism still described the Tsar and big
landowners as feudal, like DCR.
Bourgeois State: After 1917 Revolution
After 1917, Lenin dated the starting point of modern Russia back to the
Emancipation Reform of 1861 and characterized the post-Emancipation
SEONGJIN JEONG 234
Russian state explicitly as a bourgeois state. We know that prior to 1861
it was the feudal landowners who were the power that governed Russia. We
know that since then, generally speaking, the power that governed was the
bourgeoisie, those from the wealthy (Lenin, 1919, p. 393). Lenins new
thesis of Bourgeois State was exactly opposite his previous position that
viewed the post-Emancipation Russia as pre-modern. Now, Tsarism was
considered a type of bourgeois political power on par with the provisional
government: the economic substance of capitalist exploitation is in no wise
affected by the substitution of republican-democratic forms of government
for monarchist forms, and that, consequently, the reverse is also true only
the form of the struggle for the inviolability and sanctity of capitalist prots
need be changed in order to uphold them under a democratic republic as
effectively as under an absolute monarchy (Lenin, 1917b, p. 329). In other
words, Lenin now came to regard Tsarism as an essential part of capitalism
which required the landlord system for its reproduction. Now for Lenin, the
backwardness of Russia presented specicity of Russian modernity rather
than the evidence that Russia was in a pre-capitalist stage. In this respect,
Lenins following remark was a far cry from DCR, or thesis of Two
Paths, or military-feudal imperialism: It is clear that the bourgeoisie in
Russia have become very closely tied up with the landowners.y private
landownership in Russia cannot be abolished, and this without compensa-
tion, except by carrying through a gigantic economic revolution, by bringing
the banks under popular control, by nationalizing the syndicates and
adopting the most ruthless revolutionary measures against capital (Lenin,
1917a, pp. 197198, emphasis by Lenin). Lenin even considered both the
feudal landowners before the February revolution and capitalist land-
owners after it as belonging to the same social class. Lenin reconceptua-
lized the Tsarism as the hub of the Russian capitalist reproduction. Russian
despotic state was no longer reduced to the agents of landowners but viewed
to have some relative autonomy. In other words, Lenin now viewed the Tsar
as a promoter of capitalist development in Russia. Lenin even argued that
the Russian capitalism had already advanced to the stage of state-
monopoly capitalism even under Tsarism in his The Impending Catastrophe
and How to Combat It: That capitalism in Russia has also become
monopoly capitalism is sufciently attested by the examples of Produgol,
the Prodmet, the Sugar Syndicate, etc. This Sugar Syndicate is an object-
lesson in the way monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly
capitalism (Lenin, 1917b, p. 361).
Lenin now viewed the landlord system in Russia being so deeply
integrated with the capitalist reproduction that it rendered the abolition of
landed property impossible without adopting the most ruthless
revolutionary measures against capital. This understanding was not only
incompatible with his thesis of Two Paths, which assumed that the
abolition of landed property would facilitate the capitalist development, but
also was different from the thesis of military-feudal imperialism, which
advocated the liberation of bourgeois Russia from military-feudal
imperialism (Ota, 1989). After the February revolution of 1917, Lenin
came to think that the abolishment of the landowner system itself would
amount to a crushing blow against capitalism.
Lenins conception of the post-Emancipation Russian society evolved from
DCR, Two Paths, military-feudal imperialism to bourgeois state. Early
emphasis on the progressiveness of capitalism and the incompatibility of
capitalismwithpre-capitalist relations was gradually displacedbythe recognition
of the articulation of capitalism with pre-capitalist relations and the reactionary
character of developed capitalism. The evolution of Lenins conception of
Russian capitalism was pressured by intensication of class struggles. Consider-
ing that the thesis of Two Paths or military-feudal imperialism are far from
Lenins nal thoughts, but transitory and conjunctural projections eventually
suppressed by Lenin himself after the 1917 revolution, it is not warranted to
overplay it like Howard and King (1989).
24
BREAK WITH THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL
MARXISM
As the Second International turned to the position of national defencism
with the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Lenin declared the bankruptcy of the
Second International and advocated the building of a new International at
the Zimmerwald in 1915. Lenin asserted that the SPD leaders betrayal and
opportunism caused the bankruptcy. Against Kautsky who argued for the
ceasere and pacism, Lenin argued that the war should be exploited as a
chance for revolutionary take-off, for it was part of class struggles. Lenin
argued that the socialists should argue for the defeat of their own country
and transform the war into a civil war with a view to the socialist revolution.
Lenin also argued that the people of warring imperialist countries should
direct their gun to their own ruling class rather than to the people of other
warring imperialist countries. For Lenin, the defeat of the tsarist monarchy
and its army ywould be the lesser evil by far (Lenin, 1914a, p. 18), and
the touchstone to differentiate the real socialists is whether or not they
support revolutionary defeatism.
SEONGJIN JEONG 236
Lenin belonged to the Second International Marxism before 1914. Lenin
respected Kautsky as an orthodox Marxist before he attacked him as a
renegade. Before 1914, there was no essential difference between Lenin
and Kautsky. Indeed, Lenin drew from Kautsky the main theme of What Is
to Be Done (1902) that the socialist consciousness cannot be attained by the
workers themselves and should be introduced from the outside. Lenin
shared Kautskys left-of-centre position and regarded himself as a pupil of
Plekhanov, a Russian Kautsky. Lenins early work, What the Friends of
the People Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats (1894) clearly
shows the inuences of Plekhanov. Before 1914, Lenin seldom took side
with the left of German SPD, like Rosa Luxemburg. For example, in 1908
Lenin argued as follows: Kautsky was right when he said of Herve s idea:
The idea of a military strike sprang from good motives, it is noble and full
of heroism, but it is heroic folly (Lenin, 1908b, p. 196). Regarding this,
Harding also commented that he (Lenin) occupied a comparatively
moderate left-of-centre position that differed little from the stance of his
mentor Karl Kautsky (Harding, 1996, p. 72).
25
The fact that Lenin was
greatly surprised when he heard that the German SPD voted for the war
debt in 4 August 1914 revealed how deeply Lenin had been incorporated in
the problematique of the Second International Marxism.
Before 1914, Lenin thought that bourgeois revolution and full develop-
ment of capitalism were the rst tasks that the Russian left had to
accomplish. He also differed from the Menshevik and other Second
International Marxists not about the two-stage revolutionary strategy,
which he accepted, but about which class would lead the coming bourgeois
revolution. Lenin even argued that seeking salvage for the Russian working
class through a route other than capitalist development would be
reactionary, for the coming Russian revolution would be a bourgeois
revolution. It is obvious that Lenin in this period was affected by the
mechanical materialist or economic determinist ideas that the object
determines the subject and the economy determines the consciousness, the
heart of the Second International Marxism (Lo wy, 1982).
However, around 19141915 after the outbreak of WWI, a big
transformation, a sort of an epistemological break took place in Lenins
thoughts. Of course, the impact of WWI, especially experiencing betrayal of
the Second International was behind this break. As Harding noted,
Unambiguously, it was the war that led Lenin to Leninism (Harding,
1996: 78). After he disowned the bankrupt Second International Marxism,
which he had embraced before 1914, Lenin began the project of nding new
methodological basis by rereading Hegels Logic. Appropriating Hegels
Logic was instrumental for Lenin to break with pre-dialectical mechanical
materialism of the Second International Marxism, including its thesis that
the material objective conditions of Russia was not ripe enough for
accomplishing the socialist revolution. As Lo wy (1982) noted, Lenins
rediscovery of Hegels dialectic during 191415 was a crucial moment when
he received Trotskys strategy of permanent revolution, which he had
hitherto tried to refute, and led to his April Thesis, All Power to Soviets in
1917.
26
Pressures from class struggles after the 1905 revolution were also
important for Lenins break. However, Lenins break was not complete;
some elements of the Second International Marxism were still present in
Lenins thoughts even after the break in 19141915.
CONTRIBUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF
IMPERIALISM
Imperialism is the most important economics work of Lenin after DCR. It
has provided the fundamental basis of the main stream Marxist analysis of
modern capitalism since the 20th century. Lenin argued in Imperialism that
capitalism, which was established in England after the Industrial Revolu-
tion, had moved to a new stage of development around late 19th or early
20th century. Lenin characterized this new stage of the capitalist
development as imperialism and summarized its place in history as
monopoly capitalism, parasitic or decaying capitalism, and capitalism
in transition, or moribund capitalism (Lenin, 1916, pp. 298304).
I think the rational kernel of Lenins Imperialism resides in the theori-
zation of the intensication of the economic competition between national
capitals and geo-political competition between nation states consequent
upon the uneven development of capitalism, that is, Lenin-Bukharin
synthesis according to Callinicos (2009),
27
as well as the emergence of the
revolutionary conjunctures at the weakest link on a global scale. Lenin
wrote Imperialism to debunk the opportunistic and chauvinistic essence of
the Second International Marxism, especially Karl Kautskys ultra-
imperialism and demonstrate the necessity of inter-imperialist war and
the strategy of revolutionary defeatism. In this regard, what Lenin
enumerated as basic features of imperialism, that is, (1) monopoly; (2)
nance capital; (3) export of capital; (4) international monopolistic capital;
(5) territorial division of the world among the biggest capitalist powers
should be understood as a dialectical totality (Lenin, 1916, p. 266). What
SEONGJIN JEONG 238
Lenin emphasized in Imperialism and Buharin elaborated more in his
Imperialism and World Economy (1915) is the necessity of economic
competition between many capitals to intensify beyond national frontier
and culminate in the geo-political competition on a global scale. Con-
sidering Lenins basic motive and the main theme of Imperialism, it is not
warranted to reduce or truncate it as a stagiest theory of monopoly
capitalism or a radical economics of monopoly, as has been done in the
main stream Marxist analysis of modern capitalism, especially Stalinist
economics.
In the evolution of Lenins thoughts, Imperialism overcomes the
limitations of the method of DCR that reduces the specicity of each social
formation to the level of the capitalist development. In Imperialism, Lenin
characterized the capitalist world system as a hierarchical structure
composed of powers that economically and politically oppress other nations
and the oppressed colonial and dependent countries. Lenin also tried to
explain the coalescence of a highly developed capitalism and the political and
social retrogressiveness in terms of the transformation of free competition
into monopoly in Imperialism. This was a far cry from DCR that viewed the
capitalist development as historical progress. One of Imperialisms theses that
the transition from free competition to monopoly facilitates the transforma-
tion of political system from democracy to reactionary regimes seems to
overcome the economic determinism of DCR, which tries to relate the lack of
democracy with underdevelopment of capitalism.
In Imperialism, Lenin accomplished many important contributions to
the development of Marxian critique of political economy, including the
theorization of the hierarchical structure of uneven development in the
capitalist world system, emphasizing the reactionary aspects of advanced
capitalism, and overcoming the economic determinism. For these reasons,
one cannot argue that Lenins Imperialism contributed nothing creative to
the development of Marxist economics.
28
However, it is also true that Lenins Imperialism contains nontrivial aws.
These aws are closely related with the problematique of the Second
International Marxism that still remained in Imperialism even after Lenin
broke with it. Indeed, main concepts of Hilferdings Finance Capital (1910),
such as stock company, development of cartel and trust, socialization of
production, and so on, compose the same central concepts of Lenins
Imperialism. Above all, Lenins Imperialism adopted and systemized
Hilferdings monopoly stage thesis.
29
Indeed, Lenin himself provided the
ground for truncated reduction of Imperialism to the monopoly stagiest
economics by later Stalinist economists, when he asserted that (i)f it
were necessary to give the briefest possible denition of imperialism we
should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism
(Lenin, 1916, p. 266). Moreover, Lenin heavily drew from an English
reformist work, J. A. Hobsons Imperialism: A Study (1902). They show that
Second International Marxism persisted in Lenin even after the break of
19141915.
However, it should be noted that it is hard to derive the stageist theory of
monopoly from Marxs plan of the critique of political economy. Unlike
Lenin, Marx understood monopoly or imperialism as the specic intensied
form of competition rather than the limitation of competition.
30
The stageist
theory of monopoly capitalism does not t with the development of
capitalism after 20th century, characterized by the intensication of com-
petition on a global scale. Hilferdings concept of nancial capital, which
plays a central role in Lenins Imperialism and prioritized and generalized
the experiences of the contemporary German capitalism, especially the
coalescence of the industrial capital and bank capital, cannot easily explain
todays nancial globalization, characterized by separation of the industrial
capital from bank capital.
Lenin followed Hilferdings absolutization of the 19th centurys
capitalism, which allegedly materializes the normal functioning of the law
of motion of capitalism (Ota, 1989). As Lenin failed to theorize the relation
between monopoly and super-prot or wage in terms of Marxian value
theory, his theory of labor aristocracy as well as his critique of reformism
contains substantial theoretical difculties. Indeed, depending on J. A.
Hobsons Imperialism: A Study (1902), Lenin regarded the rise of oppor-
tunism or reformism in the labor movement as a result of sell-out of the part
of the working class by the super-prot of monopoly capital.
31
Moreover,
Lenins Imperialism tended to underplay the dynamic potential of
capitalism, even its apocalyptic prospect. However, the actual capitalism
witnessed so far not stagnation but an ever-growing of productive forces.
While Lenins Imperialism contains triple contradictory connections,
that is, Hobson-Lenin connection, Hilferding-Lenin connection and
Bukharin-Lenin connection, only the last one, immune from the Second
International Marxism, suggests the right path for Marxian theorization
of imperialism. Moreover, Bukharin-Lenin connection in Imperialism
still suffers from the failure of beneting from Rosa Luxemburgs The
Accumulation of Capital (1913).
32
That is the reason why this chapter does not
consider Lenins Imperialism as a successful concretization of three latter
parts of Marxs plan of critique of political economy in Grundrisse (1857), that
is, State (Part 4), Foreign Trade (Part 5), and World Market Crisis (Part 6).
SEONGJIN JEONG 240
However, Warren went too far when he argued that the general thrust of
his (Lenins) argument that monopoly capitalism was parasitic, decadent,
and stagnant compared with competitive capitalism was bound to give the
impression that the relationship between imperialist countries and colonies
and semi-colonies was one of simple robbery (booty) rather than a
dynamic process of two-sided capitalist development, the typical combina-
tion of exploitation and expansion of the productive forces (Warren, 1980,
p. 82). Or, Lenins essay reversed Marxist doctrine on the progressive
character of imperialist expansion and, by an irresistible ideological process,
erased from Marxism any trace of the view that capitalism could henceforth
represent an instrument of social or economic advance, even in pre-capitalist
societies (Warren, 1980, p. 47). After Lenin, Imperialism came increas-
ingly to be regarded as the major obstacle to industrialization in the Third
World. Capitalism was thus declared to be devoid of positive social
functions anywhere. These conclusions were implicit in Lenins Imperialism,
but they were not to be fully and explicitly drawn until the 1928 Congress of
the Communist International (Warren, 1980, p. 83). Desai also repeated
Warrens theme when he asserted that (a)lthough it is powerfully written,
Imperialism detracts from Marxian economic rigour. Indeed, Lenins
debates with the Narodniks show a much greater level of rigour than his
Imperialism.y I want to contrast the very positive way in which Lenin
treats capitalism both before the war, in his debates with the Narodniks,
and his days as a practical policymaker after the Revolution with his very
negative and dark view of capitalism in Imperialism (Desai, 2002,
pp. 134, 136).
Above all, Warren and Desai were excessively biased when they assumed
that Marx admitted the progressiveness of imperialism. In fact, Marx also
grasped bloody process of imperialist expansion when he mentioned the
progressive aspect of capitalist expansion. As is well known, late Marx
tended to view the capitalist expansion in terms of exploitation rather than
developmentalism. For example, Marx wrote to Nikolai Danielson, dated
1881, as follows: What the English take from them annually in the form of
rent, dividends for railways useless to the Hindus; pensions for military and
civil servicemen, for Afghanistan and other wars, etc., etc. what they take
from them without any equivalent and quite apart from what they
appropriate to themselves annually within India y it amounts to more
than the total sum of income of the 60 millions of agricultural and industrial
labourers of India! (Marx, 1881a, p. 63, emphasis by Marx). Marx also
wrote in same year in his The Third Draft of the Letter to Vera Zasulich
(1881) as follows: With respect to India, suppression of communal land
ownership was nothing but an act of English vandalism which drove the
indigenous population backward rather than forward (Marx, 1881b, p.
365). Late Marx conceived the effects of the Western modernity on non-
Western worlds from the angle of vandalism rather than moderniza-
tion. Admitting that early Marx assumed the effects of capitalism on its
peripheries largely as progressive, late Marx certainly viewed them as
retrogressive. In this respect, Lenins Imperialism, which developed the
thesis of retrogressiveness of imperialism, could be situated in the con-
tinuation of late Marxs thoughts.
LATE LENIN: RETREAT TO ECONOMISM?
Lenins thoughts after War Communism and the period of NEP showed a
retreat from the revolutionary madness that had exploded in 1917. This
retreat persisted until the period of nal struggles at his death bed.
Indeed, Lenin not only retained the undemocratic measures, which had been
forced by the emergency situation of War Communism, but also tried to
justify extension of the market after the transition to NEP in terms of
market socialist theoretics.
Late Lenins thoughts were quite different from those in State and
Revolution of 1917, where everything was transparent.
33
State and
Revolution stated that the common people should always be able to access
and exercise state power. Above all, State and Revolution viewed procedural
democracy as an essential component of socialism, and asserted that
government ofcials should be paid the average workers wage and be
elected and recalled at any time.
34
However, principles of democracy,
central to State and Revolution, rapidly receded with the War Communism
and NEP. On the contrary, the mechanical materialism or the economic
determinism, that is, main characteristics of the Second International
Marxism, began to revive again.
35
Indeed, some of the symptoms appeared
right after the October revolution, before the transition to War Commun-
ism. For example, Lenin equated the soviet with the dictatorship of
proletariat in his The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, written in
April 1918, Soviet power is nothing but an organizational form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat (Lenin, 1918, p. 265), which is absent in
State and Revolution. Indeed, after 1920 Lenin no longer talked about the
commune state or soviet democracy, and insisted on the building of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin argued that (h)enceforth, less politics
will be the best politics (Lenin, 1920b, p. 514), and hoped that very happy
SEONGJIN JEONG 242
time when politics will recede into the background, when politics will be
discussed less often and at shorter length, and engineers and agronomists
will do most of the talking(Lenin, 1920b, pp. 513514). At the 10th Party
Congress of 1921, Lenin declared that I think the Party Congress will have
to draw the conclusion that the oppositions time has run out and that the
lids on it. We want no more oppositions! (Lenin, 1921a, p. 200).
Lenin tried to introduce Taylorism in the Russian economy after the
October revolution.
36
Lenin supported the one-man management as well as
the discipline and hierarchical control in the labor processes. Lenin
infamously argued for electrication as the basis of Communism after
the Civil War of 1920.
37
After 1921, Lenin began to regard the Partys main
task as economic and administrative rather than political. For example, the
recreation of the working class, which had disintegrated during the Civil
War,
38
was set as the most important task of the Party rather than its self-
emancipation, and NEP was introduced to achieve this task. Lenin
emphasized that NEP would be executed in earnest and for a long time
at the 10th All-Russia Conference of the Party in May 1921 (Lenin, 1921b,
p. 436). During the period of NEP Lenin tended to assume that socialism
can be realized not by the abolition of but through the market relations.
Lenins new concept of socialism was to be formulated as the thesis of
market socialism afterwards. When Lenin argued that the development of
market relations could cure the bureaucratism in Russia in his The Tax in
Kind (1921), it resonated with todays neoliberal eulogy of market.
39
It is
unfortunate that the economic determinism and the thesis of progressiveness
of capitalism, intrinsic to the Second International Marxism and shared by
early Lenins DCR, but suppressed during the period of Imperialism, seemed
to revive in late Lenins thoughts. For late Lenins concept of socialism,
concretized in NEP, not only contradict with Marxian socialism but also
with Lenins own vision crystallized in his State and Revolution.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Lenins contributions to the development of Marxian critique of political
economy could be assessed in terms of the relation with the Second
International Marxism. Lenin could contribute to the development of
Marxian critique of political economy only by breaking with the Second
International Marxism. Likewise, a large part of the difference between
Lenins economics and Marxian critique of political economy stems from
the incompleteness of Lenins break with the Second International Marxism.
Consequently, there were signicant remnants of the Second International
Marxism in Lenins economics even after Lenin declared the bankruptcy of
the Second International in 1914. Lenin had believed the progressiveness of
capitalism and tried to explain the social structure of Russia from the
standpoint of economic determinism, the main traits of the Second
International Marxism, in his DCR, before renouncing it, though
incompletely, in his Imperialism. Generally speaking, except Imperialism,
Lenin contributed little to the development of Marxian critique of political
economy. Indeed, the essential problematique of the Second International
Marxism had not only dominated the economic thoughts of young Lenin
but remained in mature Lenin, including his Imperialism, and even revived
in late Lenin, especially in his market socialist justication of NEP.
In retrospect, Korean progressives have tended to idolize Lenin, rather
than critically developing the rational kernel of Lenins thoughts, that is,
the endeavor to break with the Second International Marxism. Korean
progressives have also tended to identify some elements of the Second
International Marxism as the essence of Lenins economic thoughts. Indeed,
Korean progressives have tended to incorporate DCR without criticism,
especially the theories of Two Paths, as well as reducing Imperialism to
the stagist theory of monopoly capitalism. Absolutizing the theories of
Two Paths has led to serious theoretical and political problems for the
Korean progressives. Lenins theories of peasant differentiation and Two
Paths had a crucial inuence on the Korean historiography by way of
Japanese historian Otsuka Hisao. Otsuka famously schematized two paths
of capitalist development as the paths of revolutionary or normal way
of capitalist development by petty producers and conservative or
crippled way of capitalist development promoted by landlords and
merchants, based on Lenins theories of market and peasant differentiation
in DCR (Otsuka, 1973). During 1960s and 1970s in Korea, one of the
popular theories for the Korean progressives was the theory of national
economy, which sought to characterize the Korean capitalism as
comprador bureaucratic or crippled, drawing on the Stalinist economic
history, including Otsukas theory. It was unfortunate that the Korean
progressives could not recognize the fact that Lenins theory of peasant
differentiation as well as Otsukas theory of transition to capitalism, which
was drawn from the former, are nothing but the theory of capitalism in one
country that tend to abolutize the path of petty-producers that is, the
rise of capitalism based on the economic process of primitive accumulation
of capital (differentiation of petty-producers by the working of law of value)
as the classical ideal-types of capitalist development, while downplaying
SEONGJIN JEONG 244
the violent nature of the rise of historical capitalism and the extra-economic
process of the primitive accumulation of capital, or accumulation by
dispossession (Harvey, 2003). Moreover, Lenins theory of Two Paths
not only provided the historic-theoretical justication for the path of
nationalist capitalism (path for petty-producers or American Path) and
Stalinist two-stage strategies of revolution but also idealized the path for the
classical development of capitalism, eventually succumbing to the ideology
of progressiveness of capitalism. Since the collapse of the Communist
regimes, Lenins theory of Two Paths has functioned to provide a left fac-
ade to the reformists, who after surrendering to the ideology of TINA
tend to contrast the type of Rhein capitalism (good capitalism) to the
type of Anglo-American capitalism (bad capitalism) and support the
former. If Lenins theory of Two Paths had served to justify Stalinist two-
stage strategies of revolution in the past, it has currently been incorporated
to Keynesian reformist dichotomy of good capitalism and bad
capitalism.
Considering the limitations and internal inconsistencies of Lenins
thoughts, idolizing Lenins thoughts would be harmful to the project of
rekindling the tradition of the classical Marxism. In fact, the economic
thoughts of young Lenin represent mechanical applications of the Sec-
ond International Marxism, opposite to Marxian critique of political
economy. However, it will be equally foolish to discard Lenins Marxism in
toto. Indeed, the essence of Lenins Marxism does not lie in his economic
theories but in the conjunctural or strategic analysis of the age of
war and revolution, represented by works like Imperialism, April Thesis,
and State and Revolution, after he broke with the Second International
Marxism.
40
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Author is thankful for valuable comments and suggestions by Radhika
Desai, Paul Zarembka and anonymous referees.
NOTES
1. For example, Alec Nove argued that as an economic theorist, Lenin
contributed little after 1899. It cannot be said that his book on imperialism was
particularly original y (Nove, 1979, p. 80).
2. Lenins Philosophical Notebooks, written in 19141915, was a crucial moment in
the break. For discussions about the epistemological break between Materialism
and Empirico-Criticism and Philosophical Notebooks, refer to Lo wy (1982), Anderson
(1995, 2007), and Kouvelakis (2007). However, it should be noted that there are also
some continuing themes in other areas of Lenins thoughts and politics, especially
around the party building. Refer to Rees (1998) and Lih (2007).
3. Z
iz ek argued that, (w)hat we should stick to is the madness (in the strict
Kierkegaardian sense) of the Leninist utopia and, if anything, Stalinism stands for
a return to the realistic common sense. yNowhere is this greatness more evident
than in Lenins writings which cover the time span from February 1917, when the
rst revolution abolished tsarism and installed a democratic regime, to the second
revolution in October. (Z
iz ek, 2002, pp. 56, emphasis by Z
iz ek).
4. For this chapter, Ota (1989), Howard and King (1989), Zarembka (2000, 2003)
provide important references. However this chapter differs from above references in
following points: Ota (1989) did not make it clear that the break with the Second
International Marxism was behind the leap from DCR to Imperialism; Howard and
King (1989) is biased to Ricardian economics; Zarembka (2000, 2003) does not give
any credit to Lenin in developing Marxian critique of political economy.
5. Althusser famously argued the existence of so-called epistemological break
between early Marx and mature Marx. However, he did not admit such break in
Lenin. Indeed, Althusser highly appreciated the signicance of early works of Lenin,
especially DCR: Lenins The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899: Lenin was
twenty-nine years old). The only work of scientic sociology in the world, which all
sociologists should study with care. y This work summarizes the essentials of the
numerous studies that Lenin devoted to the basic theses of Capital Volume Two in
texts of a gripping clarity and rigour, between 1894 and 1899, in his critique of the
Populist and romantic economists. y French specialists in agrarian questions
have every interest in reading this very actual text closely, and learning from it how
ofcial statistics should be handled (Althusser, 2001, p. 69). Harding also
evaluated DCR highly: The Development of Capitalism in Russia remains the fullest,
best documented and best-argued examination of the crucial period of the evolution
of capitalism out of feudalism in the literature of Marxism (Harding, 1977, p. 107).
6. For more discussion of Tugan-Baranovskys view on the Russian capitalism,
refer to Howard and King (1989, pp. 173176).
7. According to the Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia, large parts of
common land were passed to the major land-owners as otrezki (cut-off lands),
making many forests, roads and rivers only accessible for a fee.
8. We maintain ythat the demand for the restitution of cut-off lands is the
maximum that we can at present advance in our agrarian programme. ybecause y
typical cut-off lands retard the development of capitalism, and their restitution will
stimulate this development (Lenin, 1902: 116, 131). In 1903, Lenin still conned his
agrarian programme to the restitution of cut-off lands: The whole essence of our
agrarian programme is that the rural proletariat must ght together with the rich
peasantry for the abolition of the remnants of serfdom, for the cut-off lands. y
Because together with the rich peasantry the proletariat will be unable to go, and must
not go, beyond the abolition of serfdom, beyond restitution of the cut-off lands, etc.
(Lenin, 1903, p. 442, emphasis by Lenin).
SEONGJIN JEONG 246
9. While criticizing Tugan-Baranovsky, Lenin argued as follows: The consumer
power of society and the proportional relation of the various branches of
production these are not conditions that are isolated, independent of, and
unconnected with, each other. On the contrary, a denite condition of consumption
is one of the elements of proportionality (Lenin, 1899b, pp. 5859).
10. By Stalinist economists, I mean the economists who regard the ofcial
textbooks on political economy published in Communist regimes, which are
fundamentally modeled on Stalins Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.
(1952), as the most orthodox development of Marxian economics.
11. According to Rosdolsky, the reason why Lenin exaggerated the importance of
Part 3 of Volume 2 of Capital was because Marxs Theories of Surplus Value or
Grundrisse were not available when he wrote DCR (Rosdolsky, 1977, p. 482). When
the young Lenin wrote his treatise on the realization problem neither Marxs Theories
nor the Grundrisse were known to him: he could have only a less than adequate insight
into the methodologically very complex structure of Marxs economic work. Lenin
rather exaggerated the theoretical validity and relevance of the analysis in Part 3 of
Volume 2 of Capital, and tended to regard it as Marxs last word on the theory of
realization. ythe schemes of reproduction and the analysis of Volume 2 can in no
way, on their own, offer the complete explanation of the realization problem, but can
only do this in connection with Marxs theory of crisis and breakdown. And it seems to
us that the great deciency in Lenins theory of realization is that he overlooked this
fundamental fact (Rosdolsky, 1977, pp. 482483).
12. Lenin argued in Once More on the Theory of Realization (1899) as follows:
Struves statement that the Russian agricultural peasantry, by the differentiation
within it, creates a market for our capitalism is perfectly correct (Lenin, 1899c, p. 90).
13. Henryk Grossmann seemed to recognize the problems of Lenins under-
standing of Marxs Capital, when he argued that Lenin was right in saying that
highly developed capitalism is characterized by an inherent tendency to stagnation
and decay. But Lenin linked this tendency to the growth of monopolies. That there
is such a connection is indisputable, but a mere statement is not enough. y The
growth of monopoly is a means of enhancing protability by raising prices and, in
this sense, it is only a surface appearance whose inner structure is insufcient
valorisation linked to capital accumulation (Grossmann, 1929, p. 122).
14. Marx sometimes commented positively on Sismondi, who admitted the possibility
of overproduction crisis against Ricardo: Sismondi is profoundly conscious of the
contradictions in capitalist productiony He is perfectly aware of the fundamental
contradictions: on the one hand, unrestricted development of the productive forces and
increase of wealth which, at the same time, consists of commodities and must be turned
into cash; on the other hand, the system is based on the fact that the mass of producers is
restricted to the necessaries. Hence, according to Sismondi, crises are not accidental, as
Ricardo maintains, but essential outbreaks occurring on a large scale and at denite
periods of the immanent contradictions (Marx, 1971, pp. 5556).
15. In 1897, Lenin wrote as follows when he criticized Sismondi: Accumulation is
indeed the excess of production over revenue (articles of consumption). To expand
production (to accumulate in the categorical meaning of the term) it is rst of all
necessary to produce means of productiony (Lenin, 1897, p. 155). In 1914, Lenin
still argued as follows: New and important in the highest degree is Marxs analysis
of the accumulation of capital, i.e., the transformation of a part of surplus value into
capital, and its use, not for satisfying the personal needs or whims of the capitalist,
but for new production(Lenin, 1914b, p. 63, emphasis by Lenin).
16. In Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (1952), which provided the
foundation for all the subsequent ofcial textbooks on political economy in the
Communist regimes, Stalin argued as follows: It is sometimes asked whether the law
of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system. Yes, it does
exist and does operate. y Is the law of value the basic economic law of capitalism?
No. The law of value is primarily a law of commodity production. It existed before
capitalism, and, like commodity production, will continue to exist after the
overthrow of capitalism, as it does, for instance, in our country, y It is said that
the law of the average rate of prot is the basic economic law of modern capitalism.
That is not true. y It is not the average prot, but the maximum prot that modern
monopoly capitalism demands, y the law of surplus value is too general a law;
it does not cover the problem of the highest rate of prot, the securing of which
is a condition for the development of monopoly capitalism (Stalin, 1952, pp. 458,
473474).
17. Lenin famously wrote as follows in his Philosophical Notebooks: It is
impossible completely to understand Marxs Capital, and especially its rst chapter,
without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegels Logic.
Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx (Lenin,
1915c, p. 180, emphasis by Lenin). Above remarks should be read as Lenins self-
criticism, confessing that his understanding of Marxs Capital in DCR without
reading Hegels Logic has serious defects. Therefore, Lenin himself is included in
the Marxists who could not understand Marx cited in above remarks, contrary to
the assertion of Althusser (2001, p. 73). After a thorough study of Hegels Logic,
Lenin came to understand the signicance of theories of value-form and commodity
fetishism of Chapter 1 of Marxs Capital, Volume 1. For example, refer to following
remarks of Lenin, which argues that the phenomenon form is never insignicant or
unrealistic, emphasizing the relation between the essence and the phenomenon form:
i.e., the unessential, seeming, supercial, vanishes more often, does not hold so
tightly, does not sit so rmly as Essence. Etwa: the movement of a river the
foam above and the deep currents below. But even the foam is an expression of
essence! (Lenin, 1915c, p. 130, emphasis by Lenin).
18. Lenin succinctly summarized the essence of the theory of Two Paths in the
Preface for the 2nd Edition of DCR, written in 1907: With the present economic
basis of the Russian Revolution, two main lines of its development and outcome are
objectively possible: Either the old landlord economy, bound as it is by thousands of
threads to serfdom, is retained and turns slowly into purely capitalist, Junker
economy. The basis of the nal transition from labor-service to capitalism is the
internal metamorphosis of feudalist landlord economy. The entire agrarian system of
the state becomes capitalist, and for a long time retains feudal features. Or the old
landlord economy is broken up by revolution, which destroys all the relics of
serfdom, and large landownership in the rst place. The basis of the nal transition
from labor-service to capitalism is the free development of small peasant farming,
which has received a tremendous impetus as a result of the expropriation of the
landlords estates in the interests of the peasantry. The entire agrarian system
SEONGJIN JEONG 248
becomes capitalist, for the more completely the vestiges serfdom destroyed the more
rapidly does the differentiation of the peasantry proceed (Lenin, 1899a, pp. 3233).
19. It is paradoxical that the most of todays progressives embrace Rhein
capitalism, that is, the present form of Prussian path against the Anglo-
American capitalism.
20. Thus, the question of the nationalization of the land in capitalist society falls
into two essentially distinct parts: the question of differential rent, and that of
absolute rent. Nationalisation changes the owner of the former, and undermines the
very existence of the latter. Hence, on the one hand, nationalization is a partial
reform within the limits of capitalism (a change of owners of a part of surplus value),
and on the other hand, it abolishes the monopoly which hinders the development of
capitalism as a whole. y The free, wide, and rapid development of capitalism,
complete freedom for the class struggle, ythat is what nationalization of the land
implies under the capitalist system of production (Lenin, 1906, pp. 181, 183).
21. Howard and King also indicated this problem in Lenin: while it is sensible to
see Stolypin and Lenin as competitors, there was also an element of shared interest.
To achieve his own objectives, Lenin required that Stolypin achieve his on a
signicant scale, so that the ties of the obshchina were thoroughly broken and the
peasant bourgeoisie more securely established. Lenins Marxism, therefore, required
the partial success of the Prussian path (Howard & King, 1989, p. 215).
22. Incidentally, Lenins concept of military-feudal imperialism with his
concept of X imperialism in Notebooks on Imperialism (1916) seems to suggest a
clue for a Marxian theorization of the sub-imperialist phenomena in some of newly
industrializing countries, such as Brazil, South Africa, Korea, etc.
23. The proletariat are ghting, and will ght valiantly, to win power, for a
republic, for the conscation of the land, i.e., to win over the peasantry, make full use
of their revolutionary powers, and get the non-proletarian masses of the people to
take part in liberating bourgeois Russia from military -feudal imperialism (tsarism)
(Lenin, 1915b, p. 420, emphasis by Lenin).
24. Howard and King argued as follows: Lenins theorising between 1905 and
1914 did represent a genuine advance in Russian Marxismy In this period Lenin
provided a political economy intimately connected with the revolutionary problem, a
quality which had hitherto been absent from social democracy in RussiayBy
providing a newperspective which distinguished between different types of capitalism,
Lenin closed this gap. He linked the forms of capitalist development with varieties of
bourgeois-democratic revolution, and correctly charged Plekhanov with having only
an abstract conception of the Russian revolution. (Howard & King, 1989, p. 211)
25. Lenin also gave a following big praise to Kautskys The Agrarian Question
(1899): Kautskys book is the most important event in present-day economic
literature since the third volume of Capital. Until now Marxism has lacked a
systematic study of capitalism in agriculture. Kautsky has lled this gapy (Lenin,
1899d: 94). Indeed, as Service noted, After Engelss death in 1895, Ulyanov
[Lenin]s hero in the German Social-Democratic Party was the theorist Karl
Kautsky (Service, 2000, p. 123).
26. Harding located the birth of authentic Lenin with April Thesis in 1917: The
period from April to October 1917 was, clearly, of critical importance in the
development of Leninism. yTo pretend that the demarcating features of Leninism
as a distinctive ideology and mental map of the contemporary world were
articulated and well known before April 1917, is to y in the face of all the
evidence. It was only then that Leninism emerged as a rounded, more or less
coherent, and more or less comprehensive ideology of the modern world
(Harding, 1996, pp. 106, 268).
27. For recent elaboration of this point that is, the importance of dialectics of
economic competition between many capitals and geo-political competition
between many nation states in theorizing Marxian concept of imperialism refer
to Callinicos (2009) and Desai (2009).
28. For example Tony Cliff argued as follows: in terms of the actual description
of modern capitalism Lenin is not original at all, and borrows practically everything
from Bukharin (Cliff, 1979, p. 61).
29. While Lenin criticized Hilferdings concept of nance capital and opportu-
nistic politics, he nevertheless acknowledged his indebtedness to Hilferdings Finance
Capital in Imperialism: In spite of the mistake the author [Hilferding] makes on the
theory of money, and in spite of a certain inclination on his part to reconcile
Marxism with opportunism, this work [Finance Capital] gives a very valuable
theoretical analysis of the latest phase of capitalist development, as the subtitle
runs. ythroughout the whole of his work [Finance Capital], and particularly in the
two chapters preceding the one from which this denition is taken, Hilferding
stresses the part played by capitalist monopolies. y Finance capital does not want
liberty, it wants domination, as Hilferding very truly says. y Hilferding rightly
notes the connection between imperialism and the intensication of national
oppression (Lenin, 1916, pp. 195, 226, 262, 297, emphasis by Lenin). It is also
interesting to note that Hilferding also shared Lenin and Tugan-Baranovskis thesis
of disproportionality in his Finance Capital.
30. Marx used the concept of monopoly to indicate the monopoly of the means of
production by the capitalist class or the specic form of competition. Hilferdings
Finance Capital was the rst attempt to dene the monopoly capital as the fraction of
capital, characterized by the combination of the industrial capital and bank capital.
Later, it was appropriated by Lenins Imperialism, and succeeded to Stalinist theory
of state monopoly capitalism after being supplemented by neoclassical economics
concept of monopoly power. However, according to Marx, monopoly prot cannot
be the predominant characteristic of the capitalist mode of production. ywhile
monopoly pertains, according to Maxs theoretical system, to the category of
individual capital denoting an enterprise which on account of its peculiar position
in the capitalist production process earns higher-than-average prot free
competition relates exclusively to the category of social capital and is the pre-
eminent condition for integration of all individual capitals into social capital
(Milios & Sotiropoulos, 2009, pp. 119120).
31. Cliff rightly criticized Lenins thesis of labor aristocracy, when he argued that
economic roots of reformism is capitalist prosperity resulted from permanent
war economy, and its solidity, its spread throughout the working class, frustrating
largely isolating all revolutionary minorities, make it abundantly clear that the
economic and social roots of reformism are not in an innitesimal minority of the
proletariat and the working masses as Lenin argues (Cliff, 1957, p. 178).
32. Indeed, in Imperialism, Lenin never mentioned or quoted Rosa Luxemburg.
SEONGJIN JEONG 250
33. However, Chattopadhyay (2010) argues that Lenins concept of socialism in
State and Revolution is substantially different from Marx. According to Chatto-
padhyay (2010), Lenins crucial term in State and Revolution, commune-state,
cannot be found in Marxs text on Paris Commune.
34. Therefore, the common critique that Lenin abused procedural democracy and
lacked the concept of legality is questionable. Lenin always pursued his ideas
through collective discussion and majority rule at various levels of party meetings,
such as Central Committee, Conference, and Congress, etc. During Lenins time,
Party Congress was held every year. The Bolshevik who started to trample the
principle of procedural democracy was Stalin, not Lenin. For example, Stalin held
the Party Congress only three times during the entire period of his rule, from 1927 to
1952. During this rule, policies of enormous importance such as collectivization or
heavy industrialization were not even raised as an agenda item for Party Congress.
35. Desai also interpreted Lenins turn to NEP as the revival of the thesis of
progressiveness of capitalism, which were suppressed in Imperialism: (A)fter the
October revolution, when it came to the problem of running the Russian economy,
Lenin could be said to have abandoned the vision of Imperialism at least as far as the
domestic economy was concerned. Imperialism became a basic text for the Third
Internationals revolutionary strategies for the advanced capitalist countries but at the
same time Lenin followed his earlier viewof capitalist development in economic policy
making (Desai, 1989, p. 20). After the Revolution, yonce the initial euphoria died
down after Brest-Litovsk, Lenin extolled the merits of state capitalism the system
that he had read about as war socialism in Germany. This was not socialism, but it
was better than private capitalism. The aim was to speed up accumulation in Russia,
and the way to do this was through good accounting, hierarchical management,
and workers discipline. Trade unions had to be subordinated to the need for
accumulation. Thus, Lenin comes back to a classical Marxist perspective that
capitalism had to develop before the possibilities of socialism can be realized (Desai,
2002, p. 134). Above argument is valid, if the word, classical Marxist, is corrected as
the Second International Marxism or DCR.
36. Lenin argued as follows: We must raise the question of piece-work and apply
and test it in practice; we must raise the question of applying much of what is
scientic and progressive in the Taylor system; we must make wages correspond to
the total amount of goods turned out y (Lenin, 1918, p. 258).
37. You know that electricity is that basis, and that only after electrication of
the entire country, of all branches of industry and agriculture, only when you have
achieved this aim, will you be able to build for yourselves the communist society
which the older generation will not be able to build. (Lenin, 1920a, p. 289).
38. (A)n industrial proletariat, yin our country, owing to the war and to the
desperate poverty and ruin, has become declassed, i.e., dislodged from its class
groove, and has ceased to exist as a proletariatythe proletariat has disappeared.
(Lenin, 1921d, p. 65)
39. The alternative (and this in the only sensible and the last possible policy) is
not to try to prohibit or put the lock on the development of capitalism, but to
channel it into state capitalism. y In our country bureaucratic practices have
different economic roots, namely, the atomized and scattered state of the small
producer with his poverty, illiteracy, lack of culture, the absence of roads and
exchange between agriculture and industry, the absence of connection and
interaction between themyExchange is freedom of trade; it is capitalism. It is
useful to us inasmuch as it will help us overcome the dispersal of the small producer,
and to a certain degree combat the evils of bureaucracy y. (Lenin, 1921c, pp. 344
345, 351, 364, emphasis by Lenin)
40. Also refer to Balibar (2007) and Callinicos (2007).
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