The article you are about to read take a close look at the nature of Capitalism, and its highest manifestation – Imperialism.

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In 1952, Iosif Stalin warned:

The principle of equality of people and nations has been trampled on, it has been replaced by the principle of the full rights of the exploiting minority and the disenfranchisement of the exploited majority of citizens.

Yet mere 40 years later the Soviet Union was dismembered both through internal betrayal and through external manipulations.

The era of Capitalism began in Russia, and, as it often happens with Russia, she dived into this social experiment to the full.

The Capitalism of the «Wild ‘90s» was of the most predatory kind, with a few individuals gaining all control over the finances and means of production in the country. The Oligarchy, created in the image of the American one, but without the deceptive façade of the corporations hiding behind the brands. Controlling every aspect of the political life. Capitalism in its essence.

In Russia, the state is gradually taking back some of the control and responsibilities, thus giving capitalism ‘a human face’ and making it appear as if it is not all that bad.
Anyway, the future is open, and the Russian peoples have now a good foundation for choosing the just and collective direction.

Elsewhere in the world, the corporations that hide behind the brands are themselves being devoured by the even bigger entities that by all means fight to stay out of sight:

“Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism”

Lenin wrote the book in 1916 amid the carnage of WWI.

It presents a careful analytic study of the development of Capitalism from relatively free competition to the stage of the crushing rule of monopolies.

Imperialism:
1. The financial sector has won control over industrial production.

2. The same financial capital, through the state, seeks to acquire raw materials, markets and spheres of interest, both economically and militarily. 

While Lenin showed the emperial straitjacket that the monopolies and finance capital impose on the exploited countries and peoples of the world, he also explains in the foreword the historically progressive potential of the same development:

“The enormous expansion and concentration of production, that imperialism as a historical stage therefore “…is the forecourt of the socialist revolution”

Content:
I. The concentration of production and the monopolies
II. The banks and their new role
III. Finance capital and financial oligarchy
IV. The capital export
V. The division of the world between capitalist associations
VI. The division of the world between the great powers
VII. Imperialism as a special stage of Capitalism
VIII. The parasitism and decay of Capitalism
IX. Criticism of Imperialism
X. The historical location of Imperialism

The inevitable trajectory of Capitalism into Imperialism is way more advanced today than it was a hundred years ago,
and, working at a global level as described by S. Bolsen in “Navigating Empires”:

“There are spheres of influence that operate like soft empires. Blackrock and Vanguard are imperial structures. These new sort of opaque versions of empire can all occupy the same geographical territories at the same time.

States within their realm are reduced to a servant’ function:

“The governments of those territories are comparatively minor or subordinate. Subordinate management structures in their own lands.

Fascism:
Amalgamation of state structures and big capital.
 
The imperialists have always had a far better understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat than many alleged marxists. They understand that the weakening of the authority and power of the working class in a society is only going to fuel the rise of counter revolutionary tendencies. This is why the US imperialists promoted every crook and traitor from the USSR as a “prisoner of conscience” and demanded constantly that the USSR allow these wretches more freedom to operate.

If you read the Albert Szymanski book entitled ‘Human Rights In The USSR’ he reflects a certain truth here that the ‘dissidents’ were not popular within the USSR. They were tiny minorities and whereas workers had disputes and grievances with the party and the state they were not inclined to support anti-state reactionaries as late as the early 1980s. The imperialists understood very well that in order to be able to get a counter revolution carried through then the working class needed to be decisively pushed out of power once and for all and the remaining elements of the dictatorship of the proletariat needed to be removed. This is why they kept applauding every time Gorbachev embraced the wretched Sakharov or some other intellectual who was only really dedicated to stuffing his own wallet but dressed this up with loud proclamations of liberalism.

The case of Yugoslavia is particularly useful to look at here as Parenti outlines it very clearly in his work. The authority fo the league of communists had already been damaged and far too many concessions had already been made to the petit bourgeois nationalists in the Tito period. Added to that were economic problems caused by the “market socialism” practised there and indebtedness caused by taking loans from the IMF (as did Poland, Hungary and other Peoples Democracies) which caused increasing problems in the 1980s especially. The Yugoslav Federal Government did not deal effectively with any of this and the imperialists were careful to keep the pressure on what were weak leaders whose connections with the masses were tenuous at best. In the 1980s the great bulk of the Yugoslav people didn’t want their nation breaking up but these people were unorganised and had no leaders anymore given that the League of Communists kept surrendering to the imperialists and pet reactionaries at every single turn. It is not that no one wanted to fight to preserve Yugoslavia but without organisation you can be defeated by much smaller forces who are both organised and well funded by their US and German backers.

The insistence of the US imperialists that the Yugoslav government allow country wide elections and unrestricted aid to flow into the various fascist organisations was the final nail in the coffin. The point is that even in a state like Yugoslavia which had been compromising with the imperialists for decades and had long since abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat the US still insisted that the remnants of proletarian rule by completely extirpated. Why? Because only once their fascist agents could have free reign to terrorise could proletarian power by completely destroyed. To attain the victory they did in 1989-1991 it took the domestic traitors in the USSR and Yugoslavia voluntarily liquidating the power of the party and the state.