Ellen Brun

Faux Internationalism and Really Existing Imperialism

If truth is the first casualty of war, military intervention in the name of humanitarian ideals should likewise be the subject of skepticism. Such an approach is called for as the discourse of the Responsibility to Protect civilian populations is becoming a doctrinal principle in the West’s foreign policy toolbox. The notion that these big powers have the right to intervene in other (weak) countries’ internal affairs threatens to transform the foundation, if not the praxis, of international law.… Simultaneously, the ideology of “humanitarian interventionism,” which stands almost uncontested, can be interpreted as legitimizing a hidden political agenda. It has the potential of blurring existing ideological and political differences between neoconservatives, liberal internationalists in the United States and Europe, and a large section of left-wing forces around the world. All these currents have found common grounds in vindicating NATO’s military violations of the principle of national sovereignty. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Paradoxes in the political economy of détente

One of the most influential world developments since the establishment of the USSR is taking place relatively unnoticed. To understand the significance of the current transformation in East-West relations it is necessary to analyze its effect on the stability of various parts of the world as well as the contradictions and conflicts it engenders. The following is an attempt to approach this problem from the standpoint of the world market.

North Korea: A Case of Real Development

While Chinas economic accomplishments have been recognized by many specialists, arguments have been raised against considering it as a valid model for other countries to study. Chinas size, population, natural resources, and political system, it is said, are so particularly Chinese that it cannot be taken into account when discussing general problems of economic development. In this light, one can only deplore that another, much smaller Asian country, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), with characteristics similar to those of many other countries around the world, has until recently been relatively ignored.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Internationalisation of Capital and the USSR

The tendency to consider the relationship of the Soviet Union to the third world as ‘globally positive’ by a section of socialist opinion is often related to the Leninist understanding of imperialism as being basically linked to the export of capital. As the USSR is considered to be a non-capital exporter, the argumentation follows that there is little call for viewing Soviet-third-world relations with suspicion.

Marxism, the Third World and the Soviet Perspective

The aim of this chapter is to trace the evolution of European socialist thought and Soviet practice on the colonial question. We have several reasons for this approach: first of all, the fact that Soviet theory and practice often tend to diverge does not mean that the Marxist legacy — or at least its Soviet interpretation — has not in a number of ways influenced the Soviet view of the world. Soviet relations with the third world have been officially portrayed as the concrete application of Marxism — Leninism, the latter serving as both internal and external policy legitimation. Moreover, in their capacity as leaders of the ‘first socialist state’, the Soviet leadership has tended to monopolise the ‘correct’ interpretation of Marxism. This claim has strongly influenced supporters as well as opponents of Soviet policies, not to speak of the understanding of socialism. Finally, the allusion to a not unequivocal Marxist heritage has tended to obscure the nature of Soviet relations to the rest of the world.

The Evolution of Soviet-Third World Relations

Soviet policies often reflect a tendency to adjust to whatever opportunities may turn up. This means that the Soviet involvement in the capitalist periphery can only be understood in the larger context of contradictions and development in the capitalist world as a whole. At the same time Soviet practice, of course, continues to reflect the specific nature and ideology of the Soviet state.

World Market Discussion

One of the outstanding characteristics of the Soviet experience has been its particular process of accumulation which took place relatively independently of the international division of labour. This corresponded to one of the original objectives of Marxist revolutionaries. In contrast to certain trends within the Second International, colonial exploitation was considered out of the question, their aim being the replacement of capitalism on a world scale by an alternative economic order. Political events in Europe during the first decades of this century re-inforced this way of thinking. Competition among leading capitalist states for privileges in the world system, culminating in the First World War, had been a major cause of the internal crisis in Russia. Although an imperialist country itself, Tsarist Russia was not among the leading capitalist nations. In fact the opposite was the case. The Bolshevik Revolution thus took place, as Lenin said, in the ‘weakest link of the imperialist chain’.

The Collision with Third-World Demands

It is not surprising that, just as conflicts of interest could arise between countries adhering to the same socioeconomic system, contradictions between third-world countries and the Soviet Union were bound to surface even if anti-imperialism for long remained the proclaimed concern of all parties involves. The political independence of most former colonies, although weakening to a certain extent the world capitalist system, also put the external relations of the USSR to the test. And for good reasons. As long as the struggle had revolved around the question of national liberation, Soviet support could allow itself to be principally political, occasionally combined with some form of military assistance. With the shift in the locus of the emancipation movement from the realm of politics to that of economics, however, Soviet-third-world relations became increasingly ambivalent.

Arms Trade and Military Aid

In its endeavour to win influence in the periphery, the Soviet polity has tended to shift emphasis over the years, according to circumstances. Around 1970, at the latest, it seems to have been realised that military assistance can be a low-cost vehicle for projecting Soviet interests in the world. Apart from the geopolitics involved, this form of relations has the advantage of being well suited to the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union.

Introduction: The Gradual Realignment of Global Forces

Historically the Soviet emergences as an actor in third-world developments is a recent phenomenon. As long as most of the periphery was still under colonial or semi-colonial domination, contacts with these countries were few. Moreover, the post-Second World War situation characterised by Western embargo policies and the Cold War limited not only East-West relations. As Gunnar Adler-Karlsson has shown, obstruction to the development of economic ties between the USSR and the third world had been the conscious aim of the core nations (1976, p.94).