[lit-ideas] Re: Empire definitions, British and Russian
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 07:01:02 -0700 (PDT)
Actually I wanted to post in this thread:
The term "imperialism" came into common usage in England in the 1890s as a
development of the older term "empire" by the advocates of a major effort to
extend the British Empire in opposition to the policy of concentrating on
national economic development, the supporters of which the advocates of
imperialism dismissed as "Little Englanders". The term was rapidly taken into
other languages to describe the contest between rival European states to secure
colonies and spheres of influence in Africa and Asia, a contest that dominated
international politics from the mid-1880s to 1914, and caused this period to be
named the "age of imperialism".
The first systematic critique of imperialism was made by the English bourgeois
social-reformist economist John Atkinson Hobson (1858-1940) in his 1902 book
Imperialism: A Study, which, as Lenin observes at the beginning of his own book
on the subject, "gives a very good and comprehensive description of the
principal specific economic and political features of imperialism" (see below,
p. 33).
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (with introduction by Doug
Lorimer) | DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (with in...
Introduction by Doug Lorimer © Resistance Books 1999 Published by Resistance
Books, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale 2008, Australia www.re...
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On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 3:16 PM, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
an old figure of these lands, claims that the imperialist came
1st with a priest
2nd with a trader
3rd with the soldiers
each wave killed one way or another those who did not resist
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997, Piers Brenden on page
xviii and xix writes, “The British Empire had a small human and geographical
base, remote from its overseas possessions. In the late eighteenth century it
gained fortuitous industrial, commercial and naval advantages that rivals were
bound to erode. Having such a limited capacity to coerce, it sought accord and
found local collaborators. But imperial domination, by its very nature, sapped
their loyalty. . . The history of empires,’ he wrote, ‘is the history of human
misery.’ This is because the initial subjugation is invariably savage and the
subsequent occupation is usually repressive. Imperial powers lack legitimacy
and govern irresponsibly, relying on arms, diplomacy and propaganda. But no
vindication can eradicate the instinctive hostility to alien control. Gibbon,
himself wedded to liberty, went to the heart of the matter: ‘A more unjust and
absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which condemns the natives of
a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers.’
Resistance to such dominion provoked vicious reprisals, such as the British
inflicted after the Indian Mutiny, thus embedding ineradicable antagonism. Yet
Britain’s Empire, much better than any other, as even George Orwell
acknowledged, was a liberal empire. Its functionaries claimed that a
commitment to freedom was fundamental to their civilizing mission. In this
respect, Lloyd George told the Imperial Conference in 1921, their Empire was
unique: ‘Liberty is its binding principle,’ To people under the imperial yoke
such affirmations must have seemed brazen instances of British hypocrisy. . .
And in the twentieth century, facing adverse circumstances almost everywhere,
the British grudgingly put their principles into practice. They fulfilled
their duty as trustees, giving their
brown and black colonies the independence (mostly within the Commonwealth)
long enjoyed by the white dominions. The British Empire thus realized its
long-cherished ideal of becoming what The Times called in 1942 ‘a
self-liquidating concern.’”
>
>Observations: While the above isn’t precisely a definition, we who have not
>been influenced by Lenin, will understand what Gibbons means when he uses the
>word “empire.” Rome and Britain subjugated a long list of cities and tribes.
>After that it occupied them and made them colonies. Britain because of
>influence of the Enlightenment and Humanism perhaps could not feel good about
>all aspects of their empire building – at least not ultimately. That did not
>seem to be true of the Russian empires.
>
>In Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present,
>ed by Norris and Sunderland, we read on page 251, “In the last years,
>enfeebled by strokes, Stalin was arguably the most powerful man in the world.
>Not only did he control the USSR and much of Eastern Europe, but the communist
>leaders of China, North Korea, and Vietnam deferred to him. In 1950 he agreed
>that Korean leader Kim Il Sung could invade South Koreas, thus opening the way
>to the Korean War. . .”
>
>“Like his predecessors Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the
>Great, Stalin was both a state builder and an empire builder. Historically
>Russia’s ‘national’ identity was an imperial one – nation, absolute state, and
>empire intimately intertwined – and Stalin contributed to that tradition in an
>exceptionally brutal manner. His legacy was a hypercentralized state, a
>crudely industrialized economy, a country in which millions died to build his
>idea of socialism, and other millions to defend their country against the
>enemies of Communism.”
>Lawrence
>
--
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