The concept of 'anti-imperialism' is rooted in nationalism, since it assumes that there is something unnatural about one 'country' exploiting the resources of another 'country'. All nations were created through an imperialist process that involved the homogenisation of an area under a particular local elite, and that involved the explotation of wage differences creaming off of surplus. Look at how industrial Italy dominated south, agrarian Italy.
Was the struggle by the US southern states anti-imperialist? Would the southern USA workers and slaves have been better off exploited by their local ruling class?
An anti-imperial analysis seems to get in the way of a class analysis too much -- especially since a useful class analysis should be rooted in immediate experience and struggle, not worked out using an economist's slide-rule.
'Anti-Imperialism' is anti-socialist because it leads us to support smaller controlling elites, or ignore the damage they do, in favour of just concentrating on the USA or European powers, etc.
The concept of 'anti-imperialism' comes from Lenin's immediate political needs during the USSR's war against France and Britain in 1918-24, during which any defeat for the imperial powers was good for the USSR -- and thus the working class, of course -- and so the Bolsheviks championed nationalists in Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Similarly, later during the Cold War the USSR supported local nationalisms in order to oppose US hegemony.
Was the struggle by the US southern states anti-imperialist? Would the southern USA workers and slaves have been better off exploited by their local ruling class?
An anti-imperial analysis seems to get in the way of a class analysis too much -- especially since a useful class analysis should be rooted in immediate experience and struggle, not worked out using an economist's slide-rule.
'Anti-Imperialism' is anti-socialist because it leads us to support smaller controlling elites, or ignore the damage they do, in favour of just concentrating on the USA or European powers, etc.
The concept of 'anti-imperialism' comes from Lenin's immediate political needs during the USSR's war against France and Britain in 1918-24, during which any defeat for the imperial powers was good for the USSR -- and thus the working class, of course -- and so the Bolsheviks championed nationalists in Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Similarly, later during the Cold War the USSR supported local nationalisms in order to oppose US hegemony.
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