On the Actuality of V. I. Lenin: Politics, the National State, and the Theory of Imperialism

A careful reading of Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, as well as of his other works of the period, reveals the presence of methodological warnings against an exclusive focus on the economic level of analysis. After dwelling on the political factors Lenin's theory involves, this article focuses on Lenin's critique of Kautsky—a critique that underlines Kautsky's failure to comprehend the dialectical interdependence of politics and economics in the imperialist era. The conclusion interrogates the implications of the curtailment of inter-imperialist conflict after 1945. Rather than vindicating Kautsky's theory of "ultra-imperialism," the contemporary moment reveals the acumen of Lenin's insistence on the inevitably contradictory nature of imperialism: the supposed supersession of national sovereignty by the global structure of finance capitalism is essentially an ideological illusion, partly sustained by Western allies who have effectively ceded their sovereignty to the American imperialist hegemon and partly by that hegemon itself. Both the United States itself and many states in the non-Western world continue to ground foreign policy on the pursuit, predominantly, of the economic interests that exert hegemony over the national state. In the case of the United States, finance capitalist interests predominate; in the case of its non-Western adversaries, social welfare and security are paramount.