1. The purpose of writing
On December 26, 2023, "Nanshuixi" published an article by the author "Nanshui" "Criticize Marx with Marx, Save Marx with Marx - Commemorating the 130th Anniversary of Mao Zedong's Birth", just like the title declares, "Nanshui" really began to publicly revise Marx's doctrine, although he was doing similar things in the past, but he did not directly promote it in the title of the article.
This compelled me to write an article defending the doctrines of Marx and Lenin or Marxism-Leninism, and criticizing Nan Shui's Leiren's views in the article "Using Marx to Criticize Marx", and the views stated in the title of this article are one of them. Even if the texts in Marxist-Leninist works are only carried over as they are, they can effectively refute Nanshui's "criticism" or "rescue" of Marxism-Leninism, not to mention that there are still a large number of vivid facts and arguments in reality!
We should pay attention to the fact that in the current historical stage, the propagation of Marx's theory must inevitably be accompanied by the propagation of Lenin's theory, otherwise the best situation will be the rise of revisionist thought. If the purpose is the opposite of this, the role of Leninism will be more prominent. Some, including Nanshui, actually want to revise Marxism to something acceptable to the bourgeoisie, and they will see Leninism as a natural obstacle.
But Lenin's doctrine is profound and concrete, and it can also give people a sense of complexity and even triviality. To refute Leninism is an extremely complicated and difficult thing to do, and how revisionism responds to this situation, Nanshui's approach is an excellent example. In the title, he does not mention "Lenin", but when it comes to the criticism of specific views, he first focuses on Lenin's doctrine, which is also something that everyone needs to pay attention to.
2. "Last" or "Maximum"?
Lenin's doctrine or Leninism is undoubtedly a formidable obstacle to those who attempt to turn Marxism into revisionism. Such a person did not even carry Lenin's original text and began to criticize Lenin, and Nanshui's summary of Lenin's thought was very inaccurate from the beginning: in his article "Criticism of Marx with Marx", he said: "Lenin, for example, believed that imperialism was the final stage of capitalism. I really don't know what he based on this view.
Probably based on Lenin's famous "On Imperialism"! However, whether it is the second edition of "Lenin's Selected Works" compiled by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin's Compilation Bureau and published in October 1972, or the "Lenin's Selected Works" (four-volume collection), an electronic document in chm format compiled by the China Historical Literature Network on August 17, 2006 based on the "Selected Works" of the same name and published in June 1995, is still an anonymous basis. The PDF file "Lenin's Complete Works (2nd Edition) Volume 27" compiled by the "Second Edition of Lenin's Complete Works" compiled by the "Second Edition" compiled by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's Marx and Engels Lenin and Stalin's Works Compilation Bureau, or the "Complete Works of Lenin (Text Web Version)" compiled by the "Chinese Marxist Library", this relatively complete title is "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism", and the text of each edition is exactly the same.
(With the addition of "popular discourse," the text of the title is truly complete, and there is no difference between the versions, except for the use of punctuation.) In fact, the differences between the versions are small, in order to facilitate everyone to check the source of the citation, the following article will be based on the materials on the website of the Chinese Marxist Library, if the text of the web page is not too big, the other versions mentioned in the previous paragraph only serve as a reference. ）
In order to summarize Lenin's views on imperialism, even if he was just a porter, shouldn't he also write "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism"? Isn't this more accurate or even more convenient? Judging from the discussion later in the article "Using Marx to Criticize Marx," the author Nanshui even knows how to "distinguish between ownership and ownership." In the past, we can also see from his WeChat circle of friends that this person has studied legal evidence quite a bit, and he is by no means a rough one. He understands that it is necessary to pay attention to the difference between "ownership" and "ownership", but does he not understand that there is a clear difference between the meanings of "supreme" and "final"? Why should he replace "the highest stage of capitalism" with "the last stage of capitalism"?
Whether he was careless or deliberately changed Lenin's doctrine that "Lenin at that time considered imperialism to be the final stage of capitalism" is highly inaccurate. Considering that he also said that "it is not to be simply said that Lenin's point of view is wrong", I also "cannot simply say that the point of view of "Nanshui" is wrong": after all, I also found out that Lenin did write the relevant text with the phrase "final stage".
The "Report on the International Situation and the Basic Tasks of the Communist International" published on July 19, 1920, in Volume 39 of the Complete Works of Lenin on the website of the Chinese Marxist Library, contains the "Report on the International Situation and the Basic Tasks of the Communist International" published on July 19, 1920, which states that "the basis of the present entire international situation is imperialist economic relations. This new, highest and final stage of capitalism was fully formed by the 20th century. Such a text, a one-sided understanding, can say that "Lenin considered imperialism to be the last stage of capitalism at that time", but here the "highest" still ranks ahead of the "last".
Even on the basis of this report alone, it should at least be said that "imperialism is the highest and final stage of capitalism", and it is not certain whether Nanshui read this report, so I really don't know how he wrote "Lenin considered imperialism to be the last stage of capitalism at that time". Readers should wonder, does it make sense for you to spend so much effort researching the provenance of the "highest" and "last"?
Among the many views of Nanshui, I can barely find a weak basis for such a deliberate change in Lenin's doctrine, and as for other changes, it is really a tampering, and I cannot understand it at all.
3. How did Lenin define and describe imperialism?
For example, immediately after the "final stage", he said: "The fact is that more than 100 years have passed, capitalism has developed in a new way. At this time, he also insisted that imperialism as defined by Lenin as the final stage of capitalism is directly inconsistent with history", how did Lenin "define imperialism" It is clearly written in the famous article "On Imperialism", that is, "Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Popular Discourse)", and the text on the website of the Chinese Marxist Library is as follows: "If imperialism must be defined as briefly as possible, it should be said that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. ”
If there are some common points between "supreme" and "final", the definition of "monopoly stage of capitalism" and "final stage of capitalism" is completely different, and it is obviously impossible for "final" to reflect the essential characteristics of imperialism under the premise of capitalism like "monopoly", and to understand the definition of imperialism as Nanshui does is to confuse the phenomenon and the essence, and it is impossible not to make mistakes.
I really don't know on what basis Nanshui has the courage to say that "later historical development is completely different from what Lenin judged", and is it true that the world is not in the "monopoly stage of capitalism" now? I don't think he dared to say that the world today is no longer the era of imperialism, and in fact he did not argue that capitalism has reached a new stage of development that is different from imperialism or monopoly capitalism.
"Imperialism is a stage of capitalism in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has been established, the export of capital has taken preminence, the international trusts have begun to divide up the world, and some of the largest capitalist countries have carved up the entire territory of the world." ”
The most obvious thing is that the vast majority of the world's colonies have achieved political independence, and the imperialist countries' efforts to carve up the world's territory have been completely bankrupt, but can it really be said that it is "completely different from what Lenin judged"?
Or are there other circumstances that are more pronounced than in Lenin's time? "The domination of monopolies and finance capital has been established" for more than a century, and it is more appropriate to replace "already" with "already"; "the export of capital is of outstanding significance", and "the international trust has begun to divide the world", and the inappropriateness of the expression "beginning" is not due to the "division of the world" It has not yet begun or has ended, but because the struggle between the international trusts is so fierce and complex that there have been many cases of repartitioning after the partition has been completed.
It is true that it can be said that Lenin did not understand the situation in some places, but to think that "it is not at all the same thing as Lenin's judgment" is tantamount to spreading a rumor: neither briefly nor in detail, Lenin did not say that "imperialism is the final stage of capitalism", as Nanshui did. I even think that the essential characteristics of today's imperialism are "completely different from what Lenin judged" and "are not at all the same thing" as Nanshui's judgment, and that he himself did not specifically talk about "the later historical development" by quoting Lenin's works and "it is not at all the same thing as Lenin's judgment."
The article "Criticizing Marx with Marx" is full of such problems, and the conclusions of such articles are completely unreliable if they only express opinions without providing the process of argumentation. Revisionists can only treat the Marxist-Leninist doctrine to be amended in this way, and if they really cite relevant works concretely, then they cannot revise or spread rumors at all.
Perhaps Lenin's definition of imperialism is rather abstract, and even the detailed definition is relatively brief and does not represent his complete views or specific judgments. In order to understand this, we may wish to first look at the table of contents of "On Imperialism", and then look at the specific content under the subheadings, which can be found in "Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Popular Discourse)" compiled by the Chinese Marxist Library.
"1. Concentration of production and monopoly" is not it now? "2. The new role of banks and banks" is not a new role, but an old role that has existed more than 100 years ago. "Three financial capital and financial oligarchs" are not there now? "Four capital exports" do not need to be changed. "5. Capitalists divide up the world", and it is more accurate to add "alliance" after "capitalists". The current "division of the world" by the "six great powers" often does not include territory, and there is no change in the nature of other aspects. "8. The parasitic and decadent nature of capitalism" has not even changed at all! Even if we only look at the table of contents, can we say that "the later historical development is not at all the same thing as what Lenin judged"?
Didn't Nanshui even read the table of contents of "On Imperialism"? Can you still make irresponsible remarks about Lenin's judgment? You are still called "Master Xiao", so let's read the table of contents of "Lenin's Selected Works" before expressing your opinion!
Consider the first paragraph of "1. Concentration of Production and Monopoly": "One of the most characteristic features of capitalism is that industry flourishes, and the process of concentration of production in larger and larger enterprises proceeds very quickly. Modern industrial surveys provide the most complete and accurate information on this process. For those traditional imperialist countries, it is not in line with the reality to speak of "industrial boom" now, and the advanced capitalist countries have even experienced industrial decline, but can they really be said to be "completely different from what Lenin judged"?
4. The development and changes of today's imperialist countries
The essential feature of capitalist development is that "the process of concentration of production in larger and larger enterprises proceeds very rapidly", and this has not changed at all, and has become even more pronounced in recent years. Just look at the pages of the Fortune Chinese Network announcing the top 500 in the United States in recent years, and in some years, you can even just look at the subtitle:
"The 2017 Fortune 500 list was released! These 500 large American companies together have revenues equivalent to 65% of the U.S. GDP. ”；
"The 2018 Fortune 500 list was released! These 500 large American companies together have revenues equivalent to 65% of U.S. GDP. ”；
The "2019 Fortune 500 America" list "All 500 companies on the list have a total revenue of $13.72 trillion, an increase of more than 7% from last year and more than two-thirds of the U.S. GDP that year." ”；
The total revenue of all 500 companies on the 2020 Fortune 500 list reached $14.2 trillion, an increase of more than 3.5% from last year, equivalent to two-thirds of the GDP of the United States that year. ”；
The total revenue of all 500 companies on the "2021 Fortune 500 list" also fell slightly to about $13.8 trillion, a decrease of 3.15% from last year. The total revenue of the companies on this list is equivalent to two-thirds of the GDP of the United States that year. ”；
The total revenue of all 500 companies on the 2022 Fortune 500 list rose from $13.8 trillion last year to $16.1 trillion, up about 16.9% from last year and the largest increase since 1975. The total revenue of the companies on the list is equivalent to 70% of the GDP of the United States that year, which is close to China's GDP in 2021. ”；
"2023 Fortune US 500 List" "The total revenue of the companies on the list is equivalent to 71% of the GDP of the United States that year, which is higher than China's GDP in 2022." ”。
According to the data given by Fortune Chinese Network from 2017 to 2023, the top 500 companies in the United States are a type of super large companies with an average annual income of up to two or three billion US dollars, which alone is enough to explain the problem; Fortune magazine lists these 500 largest companies in the United States separately It is very necessary to count, their position in the US economy is very important, the income is very high and is still growing significantly.
What's even more noteworthy is that their total income as a percentage of US GDP is very significant, almost two-thirds seven or eight years ago, and their share has continued to grow despite small fluctuations. Large companies are still getting bigger and bigger relative to the overall level of economic development.
The process of "concentration and monopoly of production" is still going on! Isn't it still "the process of concentrating production in larger and larger enterprises going very quickly"? How accurately Lenin summed it up! I wonder on what basis Nanshui said that "later historical development is completely different from what Lenin judged."
"On Imperialism" was written in January-June 1916, Lenin died in January 1924, and I quote material published by Fortune Chinese in 2017-2023. Fortune magazine publishes data on the top 500 companies in the middle of the year, which reflect the previous year: 2017 reflects 2016, a hundred years after Imperialism was written, and 2023 reflects 2022, almost 100 years after Lenin's death.
That is to say, more than 100 years after the writing of On Imperialism, and even more than 90 years and almost 100 years after the death of the author himself, the development of capitalism or imperialism is still exactly as Lenin himself judged: "the process of concentration of production in the ever-larger enterprises proceeds very rapidly". The public information available on well-known websites is enough to show that, at least until the last few years, in the typical imperialist country, the United States, this process was proceeding rapidly. Could it be that Nanshui lacks economic common sense to the point where it completely ignores the basic situation of the Fortune 500 in the United States? If not, it is good not to draw conclusions.
Of course, this is not to say that the development of capitalist or imperialist production and operation is exactly the same as predicted by Lenin in On Imperialism. The "concentration and monopoly of production" mentioned in this famous article mainly occurs in "modern industry", which can refer to the "industry in the narrow sense" in the "American statistics", or it can refer to "the so-called industry in Germany in a broad sense (including commerce and transportation), etc.", and the description that follows should also include the "concentration and monopoly" of the banking or financial industry, but some other industries that are even indispensable are mentioned relatively rarely, but in recent years, the "concentration and monopoly" of these industries has also become a trend that cannot be ignored.
Needless to say, there are a number of agricultural companies in the world's top 500 companies with annual revenues of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars, and the famous ABCD of the world's four major grain merchants are all super large enterprises with tens of thousands of employees, and these are monopolies.
Can it be said that Lenin's judgment is "no" and "completely" in place, or that the current situation is consistent with his judgment of "no" and "completely," but to say that "it is not the same thing at all" is almost a rumor. In On Imperialism, Lenin also made the following judgment: "The development of capitalism at the highest stage has a very important characteristic, that is, the so-called joint system, that is, the union of different branches of industry in a single enterprise, which either processes raw materials in turn (e.g. smelting ore into pig iron, pig iron into steel, and possibly steel for various finished products), or one department plays an auxiliary role in the other (e.g. processing scraps or by-products, producing packaging supplies, etc.)." Isn't the current way of operation of large agricultural companies a similar "joint system"?
This process is no less complex than industrial production, and it is necessary to "unite all the primary, secondary and tertiary industries" of agriculture and industry, and even the primary, secondary and tertiary industries that can be said to be related to them in one enterprise, "or to process the raw materials in turn": starting with breeding, through the mechanization of farming and animal husbandry, to the processing of agricultural products into finished products such as food or beverages, including sales, even to consumers; or one sector acting as a complement to another." For example, the straw is processed into cattle feed and cow manure into fertilizer in the way of big industry, "and so on". I'm going to imitate Lenin even with the ending words!
A long time has passed, but the same basic features described by Lenin appear in the industries that are not the focus of the Imperialism Treatise, especially in capitalist agricultural production: "the process of concentration of production in larger and larger enterprises proceeds very rapidly", "concentration and monopoly of production", "joint system", "etc.". Straddling history and industry, the reality remains fully in line with Lenin's judgment.
His assertion about the development of capitalist or imperialist relations of production has been completely correct, at least so far, from the time it was proposed. This is the point of grasping the profound essence of things: no matter how the history of society develops and changes, there is still something that will not change at all, at least the invariants of capitalism or imperialism that Lenin has long grasped. It's called "not the same thing at all"?
Fifth, the complete agreement in "not at all".
However, it is true that there is something "completely different from what Lenin judged", that is, "some of the largest capitalist countries have divided up the whole territory of the world", as mentioned earlier. The colonial system has long since collapsed in the world, the vast majority of colonial and semi-colonial countries have won political independence, and the imperialist countries almost no longer plunder the world by dividing up territory. However, can it really be said that those former colonial and semi-colonial countries that have gained political independence are "completely different from what Lenin judged later"? Look at India and China, two typical former colonial and semi-colonial powers?
In both countries, is it not "the process of concentration of production in larger and larger enterprises proceeding very quickly"? I do not have accurate statistical data on the various industries in India, but I have a "concentration and monopoly of production" in Indian social capitalism I have heard of the situation: In this country with a population of more than one billion, the number of land and enterprises controlled by only a few hundred big families is astonishingly high; India's level of economic development is still relatively low, but India's rich people rank quite high in various rich lists, and the concentration of wealth certainly reflects the concentration and monopoly of production and operation.
Lenin's judgment, applied to the development of capitalism in India, was at least generally correct. What about China, which was once a semi-colonial country that is markedly different from India? Is it "not the same thing at all"? The situation in China today is based on complete statistical materials, and the data can be searched on the official website of the National Bureau of Statistics, and it is impossible to tolerate anyone's nonsense, even in my own opinion.
Even if we were in the era of socialism, we could not stop the rapid development of capitalism, and this was the major premise of Chinese society; under this premise, to what extent did the concentration of production and monopoly develop? Has this large country, which has been fully industrialized, developed imperialist characteristics? Even if it is based on Lenin's "On Imperialism," different people's judgments may be completely opposite.
Even in terms of "concentration of production and monopoly" alone, there is a wide variation in views. In July 2018, Jinggangshan Guardian concluded in "Whether China is an Imperialist Country from the Perspective of the 'Theory of Imperialism'" that "the monopoly level of 2.54% of the number of industrial enterprises in China is lower than the 1.1% of the number of industrial enterprises in the United States a hundred years ago, and far lower than the 0.9% of German industrial enterprises"; In terms of the overall level of monopoly, China has not yet reached the threshold of an imperialist state in the Lenin era." Later, on July 16, 2018, Pacific Wind published "Is the current degree of monopoly of Chinese industry lower than that of the United States in Lenin's era?" on the WeChat public account "Proletarian Commentary", arguing that "the assertion that 'in terms of the overall monopoly level, China has not reached the threshold of the imperialist countries of the Lenin era' based on incomplete data has no factual basis."
The lower limit of the estimated proportion of wind in the Pacific Ocean came to the conclusion that "the largest 1.1% of industrial enterprises had a total revenue of 49,227.613 billion yuan." The 49,227.613 billion yuan is 43.25% of the main business income of all enterprises, which is almost the same as the output value of the top 1.1% of the enterprises in the United States (43.8%)." This is "not at all the same thing as Lenin's judgment"? Even the proportion of revenue is basically equal, which is clearly the same thing, but it is really not the same thing as Nanshui's view!
In July 2018, they clearly admitted in their article "Why Should We Study Lenin's 'Theory of Imperialism' - Also Answering the Question of Comrade 'The Wind in the Pacific'" published on the Red China Network: "We have checked the data and data sources given by the 'Wind in the Pacific' and confirmed that Comrade 'Wind in the Pacific' is correct in his calculations, and the criticism put forward by Comrade 'Wind in the Pacific' is also correct. "What do you think about this?
In that article, the wind in the Pacific further came to the conclusion that "according to the economic census data of the Bureau of Statistics, we believe that in terms of the overall level of monopoly, it is clear that China has not only crossed the threshold of the imperialist countries of the Lenin era, but has reached or even surpassed the level of the United States, the most industrially developed imperialist country at that time." In China, a former semi-colonial country, the trend of "concentration and monopoly of production" is even more pronounced than in the United States in Lenin's time.
But can we really assert as thoughtlessly as Nanshui that "later historical development is not at all the same thing as what Lenin judged"? Look at "later historical development"! The wind in the Pacific Ocean is based on the "China Economic Census Yearbook-2013", which was relatively new in 2018, when the controversy took place, but the "China Economic Census Yearbook-2018" can be found on the Internet a few years ago. Is the process of concentrating production on larger and larger enterprises going very quickly"?
The "Theory of Imperialism" on the website of the Chinese Marxist Library contains accurate data on the degree of concentration and monopoly of industrial production in the United States: "In 1904, there were 1,900 largest enterprises with an output value of $1 million or more (0.9% of the total number of enterprises of 216,180), they had 1.4 million workers (25.6% of the total number of workers of 5.5 million), and the output value was $5.6 billion (38% of the total output of $14.8 billion). Five years later, in 1909, the corresponding figures were as follows: 3,060 enterprises (1.1 per cent of the total 268491 enterprises), 2 million workers (30.5 per cent of the total 6.6 million workers), and an output of $9 billion (43.8 per cent of the total output of $20.7 billion). "More than 100 years have passed, what is the situation of Chinese industry?
The results of the third economic census are the results of the third economic census in the China Economic Census Yearbook-2013, which can be found in 1-A-1 "Main Economic Indicators of All Industrial Enterprises" and 1-A-2 "Main Economic Indicators of Industrial Enterprises above Designated Size Grouped by Registration Type". Based on these statistical materials, I calculated the lower limit of the output value in strict accordance with the proportion of the number of enterprises in the "Theory of Imperialism", using the same method as the wind in the Pacific, and the difference between the calculated results and the wind in the Pacific Ocean is smaller, and the lower limit of the output value of large enterprises in China's industry in 2013 is even closer to the proportion of the output value of large enterprises in the United States. And what about the future?
The results of the Fourth Economic Census have been recorded in the China Economic Census Yearbook-2018, which can be found by clicking on "Census Data" on the homepage of the official website of the National Bureau of Statistics. In the article "The current degree of monopoly in China's industry is higher than that of the United States in Lenin's era!", which was completed on June 22, 2023, I used the data from 1-A-1 "Main Economic Indicators of All Industrial Enterprises" and 1-A-5 "Main Economic Indicators of Industrial Enterprises above Designated Size by Registration Type" to conclude that "large enterprises, which account for 0.93% of the total number of industrial enterprises, account for more than 50.29% of their operating income".
Using the data from 1-A-1 and 1-A-2 "Main Economic Indicators of All Large Industrial Enterprises" and 1-A-3 "Main Economic Indicators of All Medium-sized Industrial Enterprises", a similar conclusion can be obtained: large enterprises accounting for less than 0.94% of all industrial enterprises account for more than 50.44% of their operating income. The situation of American industry in 1909 was enough to make Lenin lament: "Almost half of the total output value of all enterprises in the United States is in the hands of enterprises that account for only one percent of the total number of enterprises!" and in recent years the concentration of Chinese industry has been even higher.
In the article written in June 2023, I once summed it up like this: "The number of large enterprises considered accounts for less than 1%, not so much 1.0% as about 0.9%, accounting for more than half of the operating income!"
In 2013, it was obvious that it had not reached that level, and after only five years, the level of concentration and monopoly of production had risen to a new level; has it not been "very rapid in the process of concentrating production in larger and larger enterprises" in China recently? Even the degree of concentration has exceeded Lenin's prediction, and perhaps he did not estimate it properly, but his judgment on the development trend of the productive forces and production relations is completely correct.
Even in places where "later historical development and Lenin's judgment were not at all the same thing", at least the development of the capitalist tendency of "concentration and monopoly of production" was much the same as Lenin's, and his judgment was made almost 100 years before the emergence of this trend in China when he wrote "On Imperialism": where this trend is not at all the same thing, there is a tendency that is completely the same thing, and how wonderful is the dialectical movement!
Author: Zhuang Zhuang, Time: April 1-15, 2024. This article represents the author's own views and is welcome to discuss.