Tahir Wood wrote:
> I disagree with the Leninist position, because it posits imperialism as a stage of capitalism,
Not true. You are reacting to the title of a hastily written pamphlet rather than a complex tradition. Most "leninists" I know see imperialism as a mode of existence of advanced capitalism, flowing from one of the fundamental features of capitalism, its inability _not_ to grow.
Carrol
Your "hastily written pamphlet" was arguably one of the most influential texts of the twentieth century. From its argument flows the whole underdevelopment/dependency/monopoly capital school, quite consciously as you would know, not to mention the edifice of Maoism. Lenin's various writings on the subject gave birth to the notion of the national democratic revolution as a revolution against imperialism, and only very indirectly as a revolution against capital. In fact most of the proponents of this tradition have argued for the development of some sort of 'delinked' capitalism. This opened the gap for all sorts of accommodations to nationalism, sometimes of very reactionary varieties, in the hope that these would be allies in the 'national democratic revolution'. As I have pointed out the Leninist-inspired movements often preferred these 'allies' to rival communist movements, a tendency that can be traced right back to 1917. You know that I think these were mostly regrettabl! e ! developments and that they caused lasting harm to the communist project. I am not really interested in defences of the Leninist tradition that are not willing to grapple with the history of these ideas and their consequences. Because without that willingness all you are promising is more of the same old same old, and no-ones's really going to buy that. Tahir