Imperialism and The State and Revolution

Durinc the last ten or fifteen years, especially since the Span. ish-American War (1898) and the Anglo-Boer War (1899 1902), the economic and political literature of the two hemispheres has studied more and more often the notion of imperialism as a characteristic feature of our era. In 1902 a book by the English economist, J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, was published in London and New York. This author, who adopts the point of view of social reform and pacifism, identical in the end with the present-day point of view of K. Kautsky, gives an excellent description of the chief economic and political characteristics of imperialism.

In 1910, there appeared at Vienna the work of the Austrian Marxist, Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital. In spite of a mistake on the part of the author in the theory of money, and in spite of his tendency to conciliate Marxism and opportunism, this work is a very valuable attempt at a theoretical analysis, as its sub-title tells us, of “the latest phase of capitalist development.” Indeed, what has been said of imperialism during the last few years, especially in a great many newspaper and review articles, what was said about it in the resolutions of the Socialist Congresses at Chemnitz and Basle (Autumn, 1912), has scarcely gone beyond the ideas put forward, or, more exactly, summed up by the two writers mentioned above.