The first speech was given in July 1924, and the second a year and a half later. They were published together as a pamphlet in the Soviet Union in 1926. The articles were translated and published in the United States in the Marxist magazine Fourth International during World War II. Later Merit, a predecessor of Pathfinder Press, published them in the pamphlet Europe and America: Two Speeches on Imperialism. The pamphlet is copyright by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.

July 28, 1924
America's full and complete entry into the path of active world imperialist policy does not date back to yesterday. If we try to fix the date, we might say that the decisive breaking point in the policy of the United States coincides approximately with the turn of the century. The Spanish American War occurred in 1898 when America seized Cuba, thereby assuring herself the key to Panama, and consequently entry to the Pacific Ocean, China and the continent of Asia. In 1900, the last year of the nineteenth century, the export of American manufactured goods for the first time in U. S. history exceeded the import of manufactured articles. This already made America, so to speak, bookkeepingly a country with an active world policy. In 1901 or 1902 America secured herself the province of Panama in the Republic of Colombia.

In these matters America has a policy of her own which was applied in the Hawaiian Islands, and I think in Samoa, but in any case, it was applied in Panama and is now being applied in Mexico. Whenever the trans-Atlantic republic finds it necessary to seize foreign territory, to subjugate it or to conclude some slave treaty, it stages a small native revolution and then appears on the scene in order to pacify and quell it-precisely in the manner in which General [Charles] Dawes has now appeared to tranquilize and pacify Europe which has been ruined by a war waged with the assistance of this very same America. In this manner the United States assured itself Panama in 1902 and proceeded to dig the canal. By 1914 they had it dug in the rough, while in 1920 the already fully completed Panama Canal opened up the greatest chapter, in the full sense of the word, in the history of America and the whole terrestrial globe....

These dates - 1898, 1900, 1914 and 1920 - are the dates marking the open entry of the United States into the highroad of world brigandage, i.e., the road of imperialism. The decisive signpost along this road was the war [World War I]. As you will recall, the United States intervened in the war toward the very end. For three years the United States did no fighting. More than that, two months before intervening in the war, [U.S. president Woodrow] Wilson announced that there could be no talk of American participation in the bloody dogfight among the madmen of Europe. Up to a certain moment the United States remained content with rationally coining into dollars the blood of European "madmen." But in that hour when fear arose lest the war conclude with victory for Germany, the most dangerous future rival, the United States intervened actively. This decided the outcome of the struggle.

And the noteworthy thing is this, that while America avariciously fed the war with her industry and avariciously intervened in order to help crush a likely and dangerous competitor, she has nevertheless retained a reputation for pacifism. This is one of the most interesting paradoxes, one of the most curious jokes of history-jokes from which we did not and do not derive much merriment. American imperialism is in essence ruthlessly rude, predatory, in the full sense of the word, and criminal.

But owing to the special conditions of American development it has the possibility of draping itself in the toga of pacifism....

The plan: to place Europe on rations
What does American capitalism want? What is it seeking? It is seeking, we are told, stability; it wants to restore the European market; it wants to make Europe solvent. How? By what measures? And to what extent? After all, American capitalism is compelled not to render Europe capable of competition; it cannot allow England, and all the more so Germany and France, particularly Germany, to regain their world markets inasmuch as American capitalism finds itself hemmed in, because it is now an exporting capitalism-exporting both commodities and capital. American capitalism is seeking the position of world domination; it wants to establish an American imperialist autocracy over our planet. This is what it wants.

What will it do with Europe? It must, they say, pacify Europe. How? Under its hegemony. And what does this mean? This means that Europe will be permitted to rise again, but within limits set in advance, with certain restricted sections of the world market allotted to it.

American capitalism is now issuing commands, giving instructions to its diplomats. In exactly the same way it is preparing and is ready to issue instructions to European banks and trusts, to the European bourgeoisie as a whole. . . . This is its aim. It will divide up the market into sectors; it will regulate the activity of the European financiers and industrialists. If we wish to give a clear and precise answer to the question of what American imperialism wants, we must say: It wants to put capitalist Europe on rations....

This American "pacifist" program of putting the whole world under her control is not at all a program of peace. On the contrary, it is pregnant with wars and the greatest revolutionary paroxysms. Not for nothing does America continue to expand her fleet. She is busily engaged in building light and fast cruisers. And when England protests in a whisper, America replies: You must bear in mind that I not only have a five to five relationship with you, but also a five to three relationship with Japan, and the latter possesses an inordinate number of light cruisers which makes it necessary for me to restore a balance.

America chooses the largest multiplicand and then multiplies it by her Washington coefficient. And the others cannot vie with her, because, as the Americans themselves say, they can turn out warships like so many pancakes.

The perspective this offers is one of preparation for the greatest international dogfight, with both the Atlantic and the Pacific as the arena, provided, of course, the bourgeoisie is able to retain its world rule for any considerable length of time. For it is hard to conceive that the bourgeoisie of all countries will docilely withdraw to the background, and become converted into America's vassals without putting up a fight; no, this is hardly likely. The contradictions are far too great; the appetites are far too insatiable; the urge to perpetuate ancient rule is far too potent; England's habits of world rule are far too ingrained. There will inevitably be military collisions. The era of "pacifist' Americanism that seems to be opening up at this time is only laying the groundwork for new wars on an unprecedented scale and of unimaginable monstrosity....

February 15, 1926
Has capitalism outlived itself?

In conclusion, let me pose a question which, it seems to me, flows from the very essence of my report. This question is: Has capitalism outlived itself? Or to put it differently: Is capitalism still capable of developing the productive forces on a world scale and of leading mankind forward?...

If today England rises a little, it is at the expense of Germany; tomorrow it will be Germany's turn to rise at the expense of, England. If you find a surplus in the trade balance of one country, you must seek for a corresponding deficit in the trade balance of another country. World development-principally the development of the United States-has driven Europe into this blind alley.

America is today the basic force of the capitalist world, and the character of that force automatically predetermines the inextricable position of Europe within the framework of the capitalist regime. European capitalism has become reactionary in the absolute sense of the term, that is, not only is it unable to lead the nations forward but also it is even incapable of maintaining for them living standards long ago attained. Precisely this constitutes the economic basis of the present revolutionary epoch. Political ebbs and flows unfold on this basis without in any way altering it.

But what about America? So far as America is concerned, the picture seems to be quite different. And Asia? After all, it is impossible to leave Asia out of the calculation. Asia and Africa represent 55 percent of the earth's surface and 60 percent of the world's population. They certainly merit a special and extended examination; but this lies outside the scope of the present report.

From everything that has been said, however, it is clear that the struggle between America and Europe is, above all, a struggle for Asia. How then do matters stand? Is capitalism still capable of fulfilling a progressive mission in America? Has it such a mission to perform in Asia and Africa?

In Asia, capitalist development has taken only its first major steps; while in Africa, the new relations penetrate the body of the Continent itself only from the periphery. Just what are the perspectives here? The conclusion seems to be the following: capitalism has outlived itself in Europe; in America it still advances the productive forces, while in Asia and Africa it has before it a vast virgin field of activity for many decades if not centuries. Is that really the case? Were it so, comrades, it would mean that capitalism has not yet exhausted its mission on a world scale.

Conditions of world economy
But we live under the conditions of world economy. And it is just this that determines the fate of capitalism - for all the continents. Capitalism cannot have an isolated development in Asia, independent of what takes place in Europe or in America. The time of provincial economic processes has passed beyond recall. American capitalism is far stronger and stabler than European capitalism; it can look to the future with far greater assurance. But American capitalism is no longer self-sufficing. It cannot maintain itself on an internal equilibrium.

Europe depends more and more on America, but this also means that America is becoming increasingly dependent upon Europe. Seven billion are accumulated annually in America. What to do with them? If simply put in a vault, they, as dead capital, would drag down the profit level in the country. All capital demands interest. Where could the available funds be placed? Within the country itself? But there is no need of them; they are superfluous; the internal market is supersaturated.

An outlet must be found abroad. One begins to lend to other countries, to invest in foreign industries. But what to do with the interest, which returns, after all, to America? It must either again be placed abroad, if it happens to be gold, or else European commodities must be imported. But these commodities will tend to undermine American industry whose enormous production already requires outlets abroad....

Already today, revolution in Europe means convulsions in Wall Street; tomorrow, when the investments of American capital in the European economy have increased, it will mean a profound upheaval.

And what of the national revolution in Asia? Here the same mutual dependence exists. The development of capitalism in Asia inevitably implies the growth of the national revolutionary movement, which comes into an ever more hostile clash with foreign capital, the bearer of imperialism. We observe how the development of capitalism in China which takes place with the assistance and under the pressure of imperialist colonizers leads to revolutionary struggle and upheavals.

I spoke previously of the power of the United States vis- á-vis weakened Europe and the economically backward colonial peoples. But precisely in this power of the United States is its Achilles' heel; in this power lies its growing dependence upon countries and continents economically and politically unstable. The United States is compelled to base its power on an unstable Europe, that is, on tomorrow's revolutions of Europe and on the national revolutionary movement of Asia and Africa. It is impermissible to look upon Europe as an independent entity. But America, too, is no longer a self-sufficing whole. In order to maintain its internal equilibrium, the United States requires a larger and larger outlet abroad; but its outlet abroad introduces into its economic order more and more elements of European and Asiatic disorder.

Under these conditions a victorious revolution in Europe and in Asia would inevitably inaugurate a revolutionary epoch in the United States. And we need not doubt that once the revolution in the United States has begun, it will develop with a truly American speed. That is what follows from an evaluation of the world situation as a whole.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home