chapter 10
Theoretical Sources of Kautsky’s and Lenin’s
Studies on Imperialism
Lenin formulated his conception of imperialism as a specific stage of capitalism
for the first time in The War and Russian Social-Democracy of 1914.1 Before this,
at the end of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, Lenin had already studied the concentration of capital and the production
and influence of monopolies in capitalism. The problem of transformation of
crisis development was also the subject of study in these writings. According
to Lenin, it is continuously claimed that monopolies can change the develop-
ment of crises, but it is forgotten that they cannot totally eliminate them. The
same question figures in many of Lenin’s later writings. He also published art-
icles on finance capital, worldwide syndicates and the mutual links between
monopolies and state.2
In 1915, Lenin published Socialism and War, which already included a formu-
lation of all the basic characteristics of imperialism mentioned in Imperialism
as the Highest Stage of Capitalism: imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism,
which became the dominating form of capitalism at the end of the last century;
the concentration of capital led to the increasing power of syndicates and car-
tels in various fields of industry; organised capitalists divided almost the entire
globe among themselves and subsumed it under finance control and exploita-
tion; free trade and competition were transformed into a monopoly; the export
of capital became important in international trade; from a former liberator of
nations, capitalism was transformed into their oppressor.3 In writing his work
on imperialism, Lenin set out to reveal the ‘economic essence’ of imperialism –
and this economic essence was shown to be the monopoly.
Lenin’s study of imperialism was a part of a large and wide interest in
the emerging new phenomena of capitalism studied and analysed by Marx-
ist and non-Marxist scholars and theoreticians. There are, however, four works
on imperialism which influenced Lenin’s own conception more than others:
Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital, Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of
1 Lenin 1967c, pp. 657–63; see also Valisyevskii 1969, p. 89.
2 Leontev 1969.
3 Lenin 1963–74b, p. 301; see also Rozental 1973, pp. 141–3.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004306653_012
theoretical sources of kautsky’s and lenin’s studies 135
Capital, Karl Kautsky’s National State, Imperialist State and Confederation (and
other writings by Kautsky, for example, Imperialism), and J. Hobson’s Imper-
ialism. These studies influenced Lenin’s theoretical conceptions more or less
directly.4 The idea of the importance of the export of capital and of rentier
states stems from Hobson. Luxemburg and Kautsky figured more as negative
examples for Lenin, to be criticised for their mistakes. Lenin’s relation with
them was highly polemical. Luxemburg’s analysis of imperialism, which was
well-known among Marxists in the beginning of the twentieth century, was not
referred to in Lenin’s study, but it is known from other sources (such as his note-
books on imperialism) that Lenin regarded Luxemburg’s theory as false and
that he planned to write a separate analysis to prove it.5
The importance of capital export exceeded the importance of the export of
commodities in both Lenin’s and Kautsky’s respective analyses of imperialism.
To Lenin, the role of capital export was even more important than it was to
Kautsky; the fact that capitalist states become rentier states and live on the
rents received from profitable investments in colonies is one of the main char-
acteristics of imperialism. As already pointed out, Lenin relied heavily on Hil-
ferding’s Finance Capital in his analysis of imperialism; Hilferding excessively
discussed both the problem of foreign markets and export of capital. However,
he paid more attention than Lenin to the emergence of new protectionism in
international economic relations.6 Lenin’s idea of the rentier state stemmed –
as readily acknowledged by him – from another main work on imperialism of
the time, namely, Hobson’s Imperialism, published for the first time in 1902.7 It
is not known whether Kautsky was acquainted with Hobson’s theory, but his
emphasis on the role of capital export in imperialist relations is an indicator of
the fact that the main ideas of imperialism were shared by many of the theoreti-
4 In the beginning of Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin referred to Hobson
and Hilferding as the main inspirations for his theory of imperialism (see Lenin 1967a, p. 684).
5 Leontev 1969, p. 87.
6 Hilferding 1981, pp. 301–10; see also Hilferding 1902–3.
7 Hobson 1948. The factors mentioned by Lenin leading to the increase and necessity of export
of capital are, in fact, a combination of both Hobson’s and Kautsky’s theories of imperialism.
Despite his critique of Kautsky’s analysis of the relation between the industrial and agrarian
areas and production, Lenin, in fact, mentioned the slow increase of agrarian production as
one of the factors leading to imperialism via overproduction: ‘if capitalism could develop
agriculture, which today is everywhere lagging terribly behind industry, if it could raise the
living standards of the masses, who in spite of the amazing technical progress are everywhere
still half-starved and poverty-stricken, there could be no question of a surplus of capital’
(Lenin 1967d, p. 723).
