The Lowest Stage of Socialism

Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the partition of all the territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed. --V.I. Lenin.

JUST RECENTLY, The New York Times reported that authorities in Czechoslavakia have removed the remains of Jan Palach from an unmarked grave in a Prague cemetary and transferred them to an unknown location.

Still, Czech citizens continue to appear day after day at Palach's former gravesite to mourn the young man who became a symbol of Czech resistance to Soviet imperialism. They have not forgotten the reform era of the "Prague Spring" when Alexander Dubcek and the other liberal leaders tried to humanize the face of Czech socialism; they have not forgotten the Russian tanks that rumbled into their country in August, 1968; they have not forgotten the martyr, Palach, who immolated himself in a central square of Prague in 1969 to protest the Soviet decision to deprive Czechoslavakia of self-determination.

How did the government which rose from the ashes of the old Tsarist empire, whose first leader was an anti-imperialist theoretician, and whose ostensible goal was the liberation of the whole world, come in the year 1968 to be a symbol of ruthless repression and flagrant imperialism?

Part of the answer is embedded in the history of Russia and its empire before the October 1917 revolution which brought the Bolsheviks to power. The story of Russia since 1600, like that of the United States, has been one of immense and nearly continual expansion. As the Tartar empire in central Asia began to crumble, Russia expanded eastward, pushing to the Pacific in search of natural resources and territory. In the era of high imperialism, when the other European powers were carving up Africa, America and Asia, the Russians established an empire stretching from Poland and Finland to Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands in the Pacific.

LIKE OTHER imperial powers, Tsarist Russia was motivated by several factors as it expanded. Originally landlocked, Russia sought year-round ports with open access to trade routes. Mindful of the dangers of massive invasion after the Napoleonic conquest of Moscow, the Russians sought buffer states to protect their frontiers. They looked for foreign markets and economic spheres of interest in central Asia and Manchuria. Generally, their imperialism developed on the lines established by the other imperial powers of the era.

When Lenin and the other Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, rather unexpectedly, in 1917, they renounced the imperialism which had marked the Tsarist regime. Viewing the war then raging as an imperialist conflict, they also renounced the preceding Provisional Government's participation in the war, a decision which cost them dearly when the treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended Russia's role in World War I. Lenin was a committed Marxist and he viewed backward Russia initially as only the first stepping stone in a march to world socialism which he expected would emerge quickly in the advanced countries of Europe.

The expected revolutions either did not happen, or, as in Hungary and Bavaria, they failed. Lenin found himself in a position which neither he nor Marx had foreseen, a position as leader of the only socialist state in the world. He turned to the task of building a strong Russia, hoping to make it a citadel against the imperial capitalist countries and a base for later revolutions. Gradually, the struggle to maintain a socialist state in a hostile world came to dominate much of Soviet policy. After Stalin ascended to the chairmanship of the Soviet Communist Party, he moved forcefully to obliterate the contradiction between an anti-imperialist socialist state's principles and the Soviet commitment to Russian interests. While still paying lip-service to anti-imperialist sentiments, he became head of a sprawling empire.

In many ways, the same impulses which directed Tsarist imperialism moved the Soviets. Their ideology precluded the trade with the West which they could not have enjoyed anyway because of their isolation in the world community. Nothing, however, precluded trade with other socialist countries which might fall under the economic domination of the Soviet Union. The old Russian desire to have year-round ice-free ports persisted. In particular, the Soviets wanted access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Most significantly, the Soviet military, which grew in influence as the Soviet's defensiveness increased, wanted protection for the frontiers and foreign military bases in strategic locations.

ONE OF the first examples of the development of Soviet imperialism was the experience of the Soviet Moslems of central Asia. In Tsarist times, though dominated politically by the Russians, the Moslems retained a measure of tribal self-rule, cultural independence and local economic sovereignty. After the revolution, Soviet domination of the Asian areas north of Iran was tenuous, and to curry favor the Bolsheviks allowed the Moslems to continue the privileged status they had enjoyed under the Tsar.

When Stalin took over, the policy changed to one of tighter control, including reins on the practice of religion, on intellectual freedom and on economic organization. Once the borders in the area were solidified to Moscow's satisfaction, the Moslems' claims to self-determination took a backseat of the goal of strengthening the country's unity. After the Moslem areas were occupied by the Nazis in the Second World War, as many as a million Moslems were transported to settlements in Siberia as the Soviets adopted the ultimate imperialist weapon, genocide.

Near the end of the war, the Soviet aim of reuniting the old Tsarist empire accomplished, Stalin looked further afield. One by one, countries in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and choice areas of Asia (including parts of Mongolia, Manchuria and Japan) fell under Soviet domination. In some of these countries, genuine socialist revolutions may have taken place, albeit with the assistance of the powerful Soviet military machine. The eventual result, however, was the establishment, by 1948, of a far-flung Soviet sphere of influence which would have dazzled the Tsars.

In a world already strongly dominated by imperial powers, the Soviets have reached out to make a new partition. They have abandoned their role as the champions of anti-imperialism in their rush for territory, hegemony, unequal trade agreements and strategic defense. Eastern Europe provides not only a wall of buffer states against the armies of Europe (one of which devastated Russia in 1940), but a trading area the Soviets can milk for specialized products and skills. The Soviets have steadfastly refused to negotiate a permanent border with the People's Republic, and have fought several minor border wars in an effort to continue the steady encroachment on Chinese territory begun by the Tsars several centuries ago. Even now, the Soviet buildup in the Middle East seems directed neither at socialist revolution nor at the acquisition of oil (the Soviets have plenty) but at denying oil to the other imperial powers and at the establishment of military bases and naval access in the Mediterranean area.

In 1968, a crisis arose in the Soviet empire. The Czechs began a program of reforming their political and economic institutions and loosening the constraints upon the Czech people's rights. No specific reform move seems to have provoked the Soviets to act; nearly all the reforms have been tried in other Eastern European states without Soviet intervention. But, the Czechs showed a dangerous tendency to want to run their own affairs--without regard for Soviet wishes. The Soviets paid a high price for the subsequent brutal repression. They stood exposed before the world as imperialist aggressors. But they paid the price gladly to keep their valuable empire intact. Jan Palach could not forget. The Czech people cannot forget. Those who oppose imperialism should not forget.