The U.S., since the dissolution of the social-imperialist Soviet Union in 1991, has been the most powerful economic and military power globally with very little competition due to the destruction of its main contender, the aforementioned U.S.S.R. This led bourgeois journalists, think tanks, politicians, financiers and academia in their refusal to acknowledge imperialism and barbarism, to refer to the global relations situation and the supreme dominance of the U.S as one that was Unipolar. 

 

These same liberal bourgeois or modern day Kautskyites, are deducing that with the rise of contending economic powers (particularly China and Russia) we are on the road to a “Multipolar” world in which powerful states and their monopolies will keep each other in check. 

 

I would not bother myself writing an article against this modern day Kautskyism if it wasn’t for the influx of self-proclaimed “Marxist-Leninists” (particularly in the Anglosphere) that are picking this up as anti-Imperialist and genuine Marxist theory. 

 

Not only is this mischaracterisation erroneous and completely devoid of class analysis. The theory of Multipolarity is crippling if kept unchecked and is an exact reflection of the Ideology Lenin rallied against in “Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism”. This was the capitulatory ideology of the renegade Kautsky and of the German Social-Imperialists who acted as radical Liberals by throwing internationalism in the dumpster for war credits on the eve of the First World War and threw ‘Red’ Rosa Luxembourg into the River Spree on the eves of the German Revolution.  If we wish to avoid these mistakes as well as revisionism and dogmatism this necromancy and resurrection of dead and thereby useless theory must be thrown to the dustbin of history. Thrown in again I must add since our forbearers had already done our work for us. Alas, different times call for different struggles, usually with the same old revisionism.

 

Why is Multipolarity a problem in the International Communist Movement and how does it relate to Kautskyism?

 

To answer the question of what Multipolarity is and how it relates to Kautskyism, we must first make the statement and analysis clear, that both China and Russia are Imperialist Countries by Lenin’s definition.  This analysis has already been undertaken by those much more articulate and studied than I so I will leave some works for further reading on this below. Now that we have established as a starting point that Russia and China are in fact Imperialist and not bastions of the Proletarian Revolution like many delusional and/or disingenuous “Marxist-Leninists” erroneously are stating, we can address the question of Multipolarity and its relation to Kautskyism with much more ease and lucidity. 

 

With the revisionist and ahistorical theory building quite a large following, we can find some of the biggest praises of Multipolarity through Ben Norton, a journalist and self-described Marxist-Leninist, and through the American “Communist” Party, a Communist Party by name but in practice a multi-level marketing scheme/cult that does share some unintentionally humorous work when it isn’t being racist or homophobic. Along with Gabriel Rockhill, Radhika Desai and many other liberal democrats and Thinktanks posing as communists around the globe (again particularly the Anglosphere but also notably India and China). 

 

There has also been some influence in Australia with the Communist Party of Australia publishing an article by Jesus Rojas in 2021 titled “Venezuela, Russia and China: the route to a Multipolar world”, and its 14th Congress in 2022 passing a resolution which included: “Most countries support the trend towards a multi-polar world and against hegemony. China’s framework of win/win diplomacy and community for a shared future are much better suited for the increasingly multipolar world.’’

 

  

This large influence world-wide has led to many aspiring but uninspired Marxist-Leninists supporting Multipolarity as a genuine and viable solution to war and as a ‘Theory” for peace. This is ridiculous as military spending has only gone up since the rise of other imperialist states according to Al Jazeera “reaching all-time high of $2.24 trillion” (2). 

 

Aggression has also only gone up with war and genocide amping up in Palestine. A highly mechanized Genocide is continuing by the Fascist Israeli Government and Settlers; Ukraine is being invaded by Imperialist Russia and is being fuelled and fooled by the Imperialist super power the US; Myanmar, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Congo, Sudan, Burkina Faso and the Guyana-Venezuela territorial dispute are further examples. 

 

Russia and China have been sinking their Imperialist teeth into African and Asian veins with loans as harsh as what the International Monetary Fund is infamous for, with one resulting in Sri Lanka forfeiting “the port and over 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years” (3). 

 

It is clear the Imperialist and/or Capitalist countries will not “keep each other in check” but carry on as Imperialism and the Capitalist mode of production has scientifically destined it to carry on as, a blood-starved beast that will seek out Capital wherever it can, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences. Lenin taught us this already. But how does this relate to Kautskyism and Ultra-Imperialism? Let see. 

 

Kautsky presented his Ultra-Imperialism by saying “Cannot the present imperialist policy be supplanted by a new, ultra-imperialist policy, which will introduce the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capitals? Such a new phase of capitalism is at any rate conceivable.” (4). 

  

A new Ultra-Imperialist policy now emerges and presents imperialism as a desirable set of multiple poles (Multipolarity) with different aims but a common goal of achieving a peaceful environment for their ongoing exploitation and plunder.

 

Marx declared that ‘History repeats itself first, as tragedy, and second, as farce.’ And very farcical it is, watching the lows these subjective “MLs” but objective defenders of Capitalism and Imperialism will drop to in order to promote and defend their misguided analysis and warped ideology. 

 

It sounds just as ridiculous as the ultra-imperialism that Lenin opposed, writing: “From the purely economic point of view,” is “ultra-imperialism” possible, or is it ultra-nonsense?” (5) and going on further to say: 

 

“Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German “Marxist,” Kautsky, “inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist” alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within world economics and world politics. But in order to pacify the workers and reconcile them with the social-chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie, wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from another, separates the present peaceful (and ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-imperialist) alliance of all the powers for the “pacification” of China (remember the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion) from the non-peaceful conflict of tomorrow, which will prepare the ground for another “peaceful” general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day after tomorrow, etc., etc. Instead of showing the living connection between periods of imperialist peace and periods of imperialist war, Kautsky presents the workers with a lifeless abstraction in order to reconcile them to their lifeless leaders.” (6). 

 

With everything so far, it is very clear that Multipolarity only means inter-Imperialist rivalry and inter-Imperialist rivalry only means war. In a “Multipolar” world that will only means World War. Capitalist exploitation will never become a joint productive and co-operative endeavour between the most powerful of states. 

 

It is clear and obvious the appearance of Multipolarity is only a rebranded and reskinned Kautskyite Ultra-Imperialism just like Kautsky’s Ultra-Imperialism was a rebranding and reskinning of Hobson’s Super-Imperialism which proclaimed  “Christendom thus laid out in a few great federal empires, each with a retinue of uncivilised dependencies, seems to many the most legitimate development of present tendencies, and one which would offer the best hope of permanent peace on an assured basis of inter-imperialism.” (7).  

 

Understanding that Multipolarity is only modern day Kautskyism, we can throw this crippling and dulling theory to the dustbin of history and carry on in our revolutionary practical and theoretical work. Like Lenin said, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (8) it is clear that Multipolarity is no revolutionary theory.

 

Sources – 

(1.) - https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/russia-is-on-a-path-to-becoming-socialist-again-in-anticipation-of-this-we-must-unite-the-globes-anti-imperialist-forces-by-rainer-shea

(2.) - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/24/world-military-spending-reaches-all-time-high-of-2-24-trillion

(3) - How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port

(4.) Kautsky - Die Neue Zeit, April 30, 1915, S. 144.

(5.) Lenin – Imperialism the Highest stage of Capitalism (Chapter 7)

(6.) Lenin – Imperialism the Highest stage of Capitalism (Chapter9)

(7.) quoted in Lenin – Imperialism the Highest stage of Capitalism (Chapter 9)

(8.) Lenin – What is to be Done?

 

 

Resources on Chinese Imperialism – 

 

• China: Revolution and Restoration

• Explaining China: how a socialist country took the capitalist road to Social-Imperialism

• China, a new social-imperialist power

• Pao Yu-ching, From victory to defeat

• Pao-yu Ching, Revolution and counter-revolution

• Deng-yuan Hsu and Pao-yu Ching, Re-thinking socialism